Okay, so I haven’t had much luck with the exercising (aside from Taekwon-do today, but that barely counts since I always do that) but I have done well with my writing. I’m up to 4192 words so far and I’m excited about it.

The only other novel-ly type thing I have written was for last year’s NaNoWriMo and I only got 18,000* words into that. I usually write short stories, and I try to be snappy. I try to go for short, clear little pieces of prose with each word carrying just the right amount of weight.

This writing is more drawn out, almost like filling in the frame of a puzzle before you get to the picture. There’s time to fully explain things, to really colour everything in, I don’t just have to sketch and hope I have enough of the picture for everything to make sense.

I’m not used to it. I’m working hard not to write the main story quickly, not to reveal too much at once, and I don’t know if I’m making my characters seem to know things too soon.

But I guess that’s the beauty of NaNoWriMo. I don’t have to know anything about what I’m doing, I “just” have to get to the finish line. There’s time for editing and smoothing later.

I don’t think I could do this sort of writing for the first time without that combination of deadline pressure and the removal of the need for perfection. It will be fun to see how this all plays out.

*Only is an odd word to use there but my point is that I didn’t finish the project. This year feels different.