Week 4

I'm fully on track now, as far as sheer word count goes. I should be hitting the 40,000 word mark tomorrow. It's rather breathtaking, in a way. I find it hard to believe I've been doing this for four weeks now. It doesn't even feel like it's been two weeks.

When I started doing this, I said to myself that 50,000 words isn't a whole lot, as far as novels go. It's not even 200 pages. I could read a 200 page novel in three days, and that's just in my leisure time. And yet, at the same time, when I realize that I've written almost 40,000 words in less than a month, it shocks me to the core. I always wanted to be a novelist, but I never before now considered the size of a project like that. Even in my previous attempts to hammer out a novel, I always looked at it more as discrete parts that fit together, rather than a cohesive whole.

Of course, that's the way to tackle a big project. Don't look at it as one huge thing, or you'll get overwhelmed. That's how I'm approaching this novel, too. I think what's really surprising me is how the ideas are just flowing out. I thought the time constraint might strangle me after a while, but I've been going strong. Every day now since November 1st, I've sat in front of this computer and refused to let myself budge until I'd written something. It's a good feeling, to know that this is something I can do, if I put my mind to it.

Well, there's only one more week to go. And unless I get a major case of writer's block, I don't see anything that can stop me.

-E. Maxfield Moen