Nanowrimo: Fourth Week & Final Update

HOLIDAZE
As predicted, the holiday weekend threw my writing game for a loop. I somehow managed to hammer out a few thousand words before descending into the madness of Thanksgiving weekend and the Oregon coast--at least enough to tide (get it) me over until I could sneak away for a few hours and hammer out some quality literature.  

And then we hosted Thanksgiving on Thursday, did a little holiday shopping on Friday, packed up our car, and drove to our timeshare with my immediate family and "the Grandmas." Which means our one bedroom condo was brimming with five people and not exactly the alchemic conditions for writing magic to occur. 

LATE AFTERNOON FLOW
And still, and yet--I managed to sink into the writing flow on Saturday right after our brisk, brief, and VERY WET walk on Rockaway beach, while everyone was recovering near the heater and playing cards or doodling on paper towels. I wedged myself into a spot on the couch and hauled out my laptop. 

THE TRUTH IS: I didn't exactly write so much as copy and paste a scene that I'd previously written into the exact place it needed to be. I then wrote around that scene to a somewhat satisfying conclusion--except I sort of hate what happened and what it has turned into and I'm just not really feeling the heavy-handed romantical intrigue that had been buzzing around in my brain for these two characters. It's not quite ripe yet, so the likelihood of me slashing and burning most of their interactions and completely rewriting them in the next draft is pretty damn high. 

TO CHAPTER SIX, AND BEYOND
Six chapters in, and not gonna lie--this last chapter felt the best. I think I've figured out where I want to place the emphasis and it's not really on the romance, as I thought it might be in early chapters and in daydreaming about the characters and the plot in the last year. Romance adds some fun zest to a plot, but it's not a plot in and of itself. 

However--pages and pages of interactions between these characters have given me loads more insight into who they are, and I'm feeling more confident about where they're headed. 

So much so, that I'm planning to continue my "1k words a day" goal through the end of January 2022. I have my day job, the winter holidays, and editing side gigs to keep me busy, but I think there's been some validity in trying to carve out time to write every day, even when I really don't want to. And/or realizing that some days it's just not going to happen, and being okay with that. It's about embracing the days where the muse really takes me and I truly have enough time to "flow." And then some days just putting my fingers on the keys and barfing something out as a placeholder for something better.

I plan to keep on writing Rosita Ruins the Heist until the entire first draft is finished, and my guess is it will log in around 90k words or so. Between 18-20 chapters feels about right.

As of right now: I've logged 30,280 words--ACHIEVING MY REVISED GOAL. WOO HOO!! I've also got concrete plans to continue on this path through the next few months until the manuscript is complete.