That’s a perfect summary of my third NaNo week.

After lots of caffeine and many many hours of typing, it’s time to look back at another week before starting a new one.

On the positive side, my characters finally started to turn into real people. I was especially worried about Will, the lead character and focalizer of the novel, who seemed just too well adjusted to have any kind of real personality. Luckily, my other main character saw it pretty much the same way and made it his personal mission to cause character development. And boy oh boy, was Will developing.

But it was not just him, but also the rest of the cast. They said things I never expected them to say, did things I didn’t plan for them to do, and put their feet down several times to let me know this was how they wanted things to go.

As E.L. Doctorow said, “Writing is a socially accepted form of schizophrenia.” It’s one I fully embrace though, for it means my characters finally started to have voices and talk to me :)

(Yes, you have to be a writer to fully understand this ;) )

On the negative side though, my inner editor came back this week, just to remind me that this sucks!!! and to question how on earth that story was ever going to make sense (I can see the HUGE logic gaps from over here!). As predicted by the end of week two, the real battle was week three. And the battle is still ongoing.

Although… I’m currently two days ahead of the schedule, at 40 000 words. I’m so close to the finish line, and every word is another step towards it. I’m not going to give up now.

And to all my fellow writers: We are almost there! I’ll meet you at the finish line. And I’m going to bring cookies!

(c) by Pusheen the Cat