Well, I’m a bit behind on this, as expected.

No, I did not expect to write a novel during November. However, I did use the National Novel Writing Month period to try to get as many words down as possible while I was working on Cold Hillside. I never managed more than about 10,000 – and I’d end up editing at least a third of those out later – but it provided some external discipline around the process.  As someone who doesn’t work out unless she’s in a class, I am well aware of my requirement for external motivation.

This year’s attempt has been hampered by my ongoing cold (excuses, excuses) but I am getting a bit done.  I hope that I’ll end up somewhere around 4,000 words, which I suppose it not bad considered that a) I really have no plot for this novel worked out yet and b) the dreaded “constriction” of my writing voice has returned. After feeling relatively expansive and confident during my “250 words a day” project in June, I once again feel like I’m shoving words through a tunnel much too small for them and as a consequence write no more than the minimum required to keep the scene moving along.  Perhaps given my tendency to write pretty adjectives and compound sentences, this is not entirely a bad thing. One must hope for the best.

How off to stop procrastinating and write something.