Veterans Day 11 of National Novel Writing Month 2018

One hundred years ago today, the Armistice that drew the Great War to a close was signed. After the Second World War, the United States renamed it to Veterans Day. So to my fellow veterans past and present, thank you for your service to our Armed Forces.

I thought I’d also combine this with my Day 10 goal for NaNoWriMo (efficient, not lazy). I’ve just edged past 25,000 words and well onto halfway through a skeletal draft of War of Avalon. I’m certain I’m sorting out the issues in this book that will work backwards into Matrix Trigger, which should come back from the editor soon. This is the final book of the series and I hope it resolves well. I also don’t expect this to be a fast novel to write because I want it to resolve well.

As my novels flesh out to about 120,000 words, 50,000 doesn’t seem like a lot, but if you’ve never done it before, it’s hard to find the stitching to put a story together. Even a skeleton of a story takes work to hammer out ideas and if you haven’t worked that creative muscle often, it takes longer to get into the flow. The first few years it routinely took me over 1,000 words to get into the flow. Now it’s probably around 500 hundred or fewer as I think out the scene and jump into the story. It’s work, and it’s difficult, but I’m halfway to that theoretical 1 million words where you find your voice. So maybe another three books. Maybe ten. Who knows?

How’s your NaNoWriMo going? Or not going?