#NaNoWriMo

I had a plan. I'd even made a cute little inspiration board for the book I was going to write for National Novel Writing Month, better known as #NaNoWriMo. I'd been planning the book for months.

But last Friday, when I sat down to plot, much later than I intended, I was stuck. My outline sat blank before me. I wrote out a few ideas that I didn't love, and chocked up my lack of creativity to the migraine that was plaguing me. After sitting before my computer, wracking my brain for hours, I decided to take a nap. 

When I woke up, I had an entirely different story in my head, mapped out from start to finish with the main plot. I sat down and started putting it into words. There's still a lot about this book I don't know, but I have the basics, which is where I usually start. It combined so many aspects of a certain editor's #MSWL, I might as well be playing Bingo with it. It's a modern take on Sense and Sensibility, and loosely follows that plot. I plan to have the three siblings, but it's two sisters and a brother this time. Two of the siblings are LGBTQ+. It's set at Christmas in a tiny seaside fictional town in Maryland (all of my books are set in Maryland so far). Oh, and I'm planning to weave a bit of Love, Actually into the story as well as all three siblings will have their own romance.

By the time I had finished writing out a short plot summary, I was in love with the story. Truthfully, I had planned to write a modern take on Sense and Sensibility at some point, but for whatever reason, last week the characters demanded their story be told NOW. The original plan for NaNoWriMo will keep until next year, and maybe by then, I'll be able to come up with a compelling plot. For now, I'm enjoying diving in to this new idea.

Unfortunately, this year's first day of the month coincided with a migraine, but I did manage to get a little writing done. Yesterday, I was able to write more, though still not up to the 1667 words we're supposed to hit daily. That said, I knew I wasn't going to hit that goal daily, and plan to play catch up on words over the weekends and holidays. I work a 9.5 hour schedule, and have every other Friday off. I made sure my Fridays coincided with Veteran's day and Thanksgiving to give me more consecutive days to write. Hopefully, through those days, I can catch up on my weekly goals and hit the 50k by month's end. My books trend around 80k words, so I'll still be writing in December, but I love that Nano helps me push myself and jumpstarts the writing of a new book!

What are your goals for NaNoWriMo? Does it motivate you to write or do you find the deadline daunting?