The Halfway Point

Every day I sit down to write, think about where I am in my story, and go "I can't do this." Then I put my fingers on the keyboard and crank out a one or two thousand words. Sunday afternoon I knew I was behind and that I had a couple of hours and that I really needed to get to work, and I ended up writing almost 2,500 words.

Today is the 15th, which means I'm halfway through the month of November. Usually by now I'm cruising along, far ahead of the 25K point where I need to be. Usually my story is popping along by now. But there's not much that's usual about this year.

This year I feel like I'm doing well to hit my this-is-where-I-need-to-be-if-I'm-averaging-1700-words-a-day mark each day and playing catch-up on the days I don't make it. The story is still moving along, although I'm afraid to read through it for fear of discovering what a mess it is and not having the will to go on from there. In all likelihood, when I do sit down to read it from beginning to end, I'll discover it isn't as bad as I thought. But that's for December. For now, I'm just taking it one day at a time and trying not to worry about how quickly November 30 approaches.

I'm on target to hit 50,000 words by the end of the month.

I am following my usual pattern of charting out a summary of what will happen in the first half of the novel, writing that first half, and then needing to lay out the remainder of the story as I head into the second half.

And most important, every day I ignore that voice that say "I can't do this," put my fingers on the keyboard, and begin to type.