Day Two Total: 13,736 words

A good writing day. My best day two ever, as you can just see on this graph.Did two twenty minute sprints just before lunch and managed to knock out a couple thousand words (plus the ones in between to connect them). But I'm feeling strangely out of sorts. I don't know what I'm doing and am suffering from the guilt of knowing that I should be doing something else instead.

I did take the time to watch the race that stops a nation. I used Write or Die for a while in the afternoon.

And then even though I started to feel ridiculously sleepy at nine o'clock, watched my tv, then wrote for about an hour at 10:40pm. I'm really tired now, sort of headachey and I know I should go to bed but I'm really looking forward to writing my next scene. I can't wait.

Day One Total: 6,988 words

So, in three, approximately one hour long sessions I've got almost seven thousand words. I'm pretty happy about that and how the story's going so far.

I've already gone the Write or Die route, and spent practically all day on Twitter watching as timezone after timezone of people got to start NaNoWriMo. I also spammed a fair few randoms, but that's the way I make all of my Twitter friends.

I did, however, end up skipping an entire scene in my story. I just had the last line in the first scene, leading to the first line of the third so well that I couldn't be bothered to take the detour. I wasn't entirely sure why I'd wanted that scene in the first place so I just left it out. It was pretty great.

I almost feel sad that I didn't actually reach 7000 words today, but I finished the 'fourth' (actually third since I missed one) block so neatly that I had to stop there. There was no way I was going to not do it.

I'm pretty tired now, as a result of too many nights up past midnight in the last week, so I'm going to count myself awesome and go to bed now.

Day Six Total: 24,377 words so far

Pretty much everything I've written today (barring a few ends of scenes, and other linking bits) has been written in ten minute increments. I've realised that I can actually hold my attention that long and it makes me more productive overall... I think my average words per minute has improved, which is how I've decided to rate productivity.

I used Write or Die to help with my ten minute increments, but even when I just tell myself to write for ten minutes it works. I don't need that extra push. It's just easier to keep track of time that way.

I don't know why I pay attention to this stuff, but so much of NaNoWriMo for me is looking at graphs and statistics. It's how I get more written this month than in any other.

I've learnt so much about my average speed now, that I think I could be one of those crazy people who writes fifty thousand words in a day. It would only take me eighteen hours if I was completely focused... of course, I'm not the sort of person whose attention can be held for eighteen straight hours. Not to mention I really would have had to have planned out my story for that to work.

Day Five Total: 20,236 words so far

I'm tired, but I had a nap earlier today. So I'm not really as tired as I have been. Because of NaNoWriMo I think I've been up until almost two in the morning every day this month. It's kind of crazy and throwing my sleep patterns out of whack.

I have a pretty amazing writing day today, buoyed by Write or Die, and the fact that I seem to have better writing days on odd days. I say better in that it doesn't feel like it's taking as long to get places. I don't suspect that my writing is actually better, and there isn't that much difference in my word counts, really. I mean, to get 20k on day five means that I'm averaging 4k a day. That's pretty decent (and twice what I intended to accomplish).

I'm really pushing myself this first week, though, I'm feeling very afraid of falling behind in word count. I don't really know why. Clearly I'm more than twice as far as the minimum at this point. For some reason I'm slightly terrified of getting to day 15 and not being 30k through. I feel like I have to be more than halfway through by the halfway mark.

I wrote and did not die

I don't know if I bothered to mention last year, but I did end up using @DrWicked's "Write or Die" (http://writeordie.drwicked.com/).

It's just about the best thing in the entire world for making you focus your attention on just getting words out. I managed to get 1,441 words in 30 minutes (which is an average of 48 words per minute), which really makes me feel a lot better about myself. Actually, I might use Write or Die again tonight and try to get another 2000 words in an hour, and maybe even try for 20k tonight.

I was actually only trying to get 500 words in those 30 minutes. That seemed like a much more easily achievable goal.

On second thoughts, nah. I will set today's word goal to 18k. At the moment I have 17,047 words. Unofficially I think I'll try for 20k. Might as well.

At the moment I'm resting my fingers. They feel strange and tingly. I think it's the weather, and not so much that I haven't typed this much in a while. My recent writing before the month of November has been of the pen on paper variety. I haven't yet transferred it from paper to hard drive.

...and I just read through this post before posting and found myself adding extra words. That's NaNoWriMo for you!