NaNoWriMo: Day 10

I didn't have particularly high hopes for NaNoWriMo this year. I knew I'd never get to the 50,000-word goal, since I'm only writing on the train to and from work, and would be losing two workdays due to family medical needs, giving me only eighteen writing days for the month. More importantly, I had only a vague idea where the hell my story would lead. Beyond the protagonist's name (Elmer Glaciers Wheatyard) and general situation (eccentric, unpublished and possibly brilliant writer living in a farm town in Central Illinois), I didn't have much of anything. No major plot ideas, no overriding theme, no other characters, nothing.

So I just started writing, and voila: as of this morning I'm already up to 10,434 words, with hundreds surging out of me every day. Right now it's all very episodic (or, to use my favorite newly discovered word, picaresque), which I suppose is inevitable if you're writing on the fly, with no clear plot direction in mind. I'm just kind of writing scenes as they occur to me; I guess I'll get them all written down first, and then edit them into a more coherent form later. But so far I'm pretty pleased with my progress. Hopefully I can sustain the early momentum.

You can read excerpts from The Wheatyard Chronicles here (click on "See NaNo Stats & Read Excerpt"). I rather like the nifty Flash-based profile viewer they've added this year. It's cool to see the story excerpt in pseudo-book form.