a third done

I'm closing in on 39,000 words written. Toward the end of next week, I will hopefully have reached the NaNoWriMo official goal of 50,000 words. However, I've still got a ways to go to get to my personal goal of 90,000 words by the end of the month.

Week 2 was a slog, as predicted. Right-side neck and shoulder pain plagued me all week, which made it painful to type for long periods of time, let alone do much cello practice with the bow. I managed some word sprints with breaks in between, which seemed to help. I had some acupuncture last week, which also helped, and I'm getting a massage tomorrow. I've been using heating pads and ice packs and all that, too.

In addition, week 2 writing resulted in things starting to make themselves plain to me the more I wrote.

Thing 1: my main and impact characters are switching places. This is not a calamity, merely unexpected. And interesting. And worth pursuing. Writing is like that.

Thing 2: At least two characters, possibly three, will need to be re-named, since two sets of characters each have names that begin with the same letter, and sometimes I'm mixing them up. What was I thinking doing that, especially when these sets of characters are often in scenes together? And I need to come up with names for two other minor characters that showed up - I can't keep referring to them as "so-and-so's relative" - it's getting annoying having to type that over and over again. I do a lot of research to come up with character names, and yet I also tend to change them despite the research. As you do.

Thing 3: Two major scenes at the beginning will be switched. Because it will flow better that way. That is all the reasoning I have for the switch.

I still like the story. I like how it's progressing. I'm nearing a plot point where things seem to be going well, but they soon won't, and conflict is always so much more interesting to write anyway. I'm focusing much more on action and dialogue than on description, but I can add more atmosphere when I revise.

Back to it.