At the start of the first week of NanoWriMo, my YA Contemporary novel was sitting at about 19,000 words. Now at the end of the week, my manuscript has 25,000 words. I’m 2,000 words shy of where I wanted to be by now, but I’m happy with the progress I have made. I’m in the second act of the story, which some writers also call “The Dreaded Middle,” and I have some crucial scenes that require a bit of research to get the plot moving forward. So, it’s taking me a little longer to write those scenes out than some of the other ones, but I’m enjoying the process.

Something that’s been motivating me even when I’ve had a long day and am not thrilled to be writing yet again (my day job involves me writing extensively), I pop on a writing sprint livestream on YouTube. The Courtney Project‘s live streams in particular are what I found myself going back to throughout the entire first week of Nano.

I’m over a third of the way through my manuscript, which is incredible. Like I said in my last blog post, I want the manuscript to be completed at about 65,000 words.

My goal for the second week of Nano is to finish the next two crucial plot points of my story.

Let me know how you’re feeling so far this NanoWriMo in the comments below!

-Jas