Another week gone by...

And I'm busy, busy, busy!

I've been writing on my NaNoWriMo novel for just over a week now. I've written 22,415 words so far, which puts me well ahead of schedule. Tomorrow (Day 9) I should reach the halfway point of 25,000 words. At that rate, I'll be done by the 18th.

I'm very pleased by this. I started NaNoWriMo with much fear and trepidation. I have no difficulty with short stories. I can write them without much fear, but the idea of tackling a novel was quite alarming. This past week has put to rest a lot of my fears in that regard. I am quite certain now that I can sustain the effort of writing a single story for 50,000 words or more.

It isn't the story I started out to tell. I swapped out my hero and heroine on day two. It's morphed from science fiction into fantasy, and the events of the story from day to day are as much as surprise to me as they would be to any reader. Which just proves that I'm a seat-of-the-pants writer, I guess. I've tried plotting before writing and it really just never seems to work.

But that's okay. Lots of successful writers write with little or no idea of where the story will go when they start, or maybe with an end point in mind, but no roadmap for the journey. If it works for you, that's all that matters.

In other news, my second published story will be available from Cobblestone Press this Friday (November 13), AND I sold a third one this past week. It will probably be published sometime in January if the timing from sale to publication on the first two are anything to go by. I'll certainly tell you more as it moves through the pipeline.