It is confusing how participating in NaNoWriMo can be so deceptively easy and so gut wrenchingly hard at the same time. I’ve worked out a schedule based on the actual hours I have available this month, and getting to 50,000 words by the end of November means I’ll have to pound out 600 words each and every one of those hours.

The easy part: I’ve just done my first evenings quota, and producing the 1,200 words required of me today took me a little under 56 minutes. At this rate, I could write a whole 100,000 word novel in a month.

The hard part: One of the “rules” of the game is that I can only write during November. I cannot go back and read, and certainly not edit anything I’ve produced. I’m all with the NaNoWriMo masterminds that this is a good rule to promote rapid production, but I can’t believe how hard this part is.
Usually, I’m a constant tinkerer. I like to go back, re-read what I’ve written, re-write, edit, and otherwise modify on the fly. I do this so much, in fact, that it’s fair to say I’ve never produced a complete first draft. By the time I’m through with a first version, I’ve already tinkered it into second or third draft status 😀
But now I have to forego the tinkering and stick with the key-pounding. I think it will take me the first weeks to get used to the idea of writing a truly crappy first draft – if I ever do get used to it.

But apart from all this Angst, I’m very excited to have embarked upon this completely unreasonable experiment. It may turn out to be a terrible first draft of an illegible novel, but at least, I’m fairly confident now, I’ll have written the damn thing by the 30th!