Two weeks (and change) ago I started writing a March version of NaNoWriMo ((Yes, it’s not really national, but it is a novel writing month, so I guess just NoWriMo?)), written long hand in a notebook rather than typed. I thought I’d just give a quick status update for that, since I haven’t actually been posting it daily this time around.

So far, I’ve kept up my (slightly lowered) target pace of 1,500 words / 6 hand written pages per day on every day except for one. I even had a few days where I wrote more, up to 2,000 words / 8 pages. I have just under 25,000 words spread over 6 chapters and just about 100 pages, so I’m well on target to finish the 50,000 per month. ((Yay extra day!)) I’m going to have to get another notebook or two before this is done. 😄

It’s a very interesting experience to say the least. Writing by hand forces me to slow down and actually consider what I’m writing ((I can type much faster than I can write)). But on the flip side, there’s not nearly so much possibility for distraction, so I actually tend to take about the same amount of time as I did back when I was typing. And since I’m writing in pen and not leaving extra lines, there’s really no way to go back and make any sort of major changes once something is written.

One advantage that I haven’t actually taken advantage of yet is that I’m going to have to transcribe this to my computer at some point. That may not seem like a good thing, except it will force me to make at least one editing pass. There are a fair few things in the early chapters that I want to tweak to match how the story is progressing and typing it in will be the perfect time to do it. Since I have yet to edit any of my previous works to any great extent ((I really should get on that at some point…)), this should be quite the boon.

I see no reason why I won’t hit the 50,000 words for the month, nor why I should stop there. For once, I have a fairly solid idea in my head exactly where this story is going (although the route that it’s taking to get there has already surprised me a few times). I’m not sure how long it will be though. Probably on the same order as my previous works–100,000 to 150,000 words. We’ll see when all is said and done.