I was going to write 2,000 words as practice for next month (my new goal for every day in October is a practice run of 2k) but I got sidetracked entering my story info into a program I downloaded to help with keeping track of things as I write. Yes, I made up index cards, but this will be great if I take my computer somewhere to write, so I won’t have to bring the cards as well.

Having to type in all the info makes me wonder if I have too many characters to handle. So I am thinking of sending one off at some point so I won’t have to focus on him anymore. In fact, I may drop him from the story completely. I dunno, I’ve never written a novel before, so we’ll see how it goes.

On a side note, it’s good to be using a program that asks specific things about my characters that I haven’t thought about, like motivations and past traumas. Fleshing out my not-so-main characters, even if I change the details later, is helping me see where the storyline will need to go. It also helps me see where part of the storyline I have in mind will make no sense, and I have to either change or explain something [if character A has a boyfriend, why does she need to be saved in the final act by character B who she is just meeting? shouldn’t her boyfriend be able to save her from herself long before that? why can’t he?].

After I finish inputting my character data (I stopped about halfway through to take a break) I will get away from the computer for a bit, then come back and write 2,000 words… Must come up with idea for a story to write in October so that I don’t accidentally start writing things related to my novel. Perhaps something crazy from the Dares post in the NaNoWriMo forums?

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Just put this up as an away message:

My NaNoWriMo goal is 60k, even though officially the goal is 50k. The 50k goal is 1667 words per day, or about 4 1/4 pages. For 60k it’s 2000 words per day, which is 5 pages. So my total will be about 150 pages… and the longest thing I’ve EVER written was my 20 page paper for Freshman English. (But to put things in perspective, I did most of those 20 pages in one night. So I’m thinking positively.)