NaNoWriMo Day 6: 16468 words . . .

I don't think I am done for today, either. I really want to get Selah back from his trip around New York and Connecticut with Mr. Peet (which he really did take), because tomorrow I think I'd better finish his part of the book. It's going to take me a few hours to go through all my stuff on George and map out that part of the book, and I have a lot more things happening next week than I did this week, so it will be more challenging.

Also, the last week, Marshall's week, I will have almost nothing to go on compared to what I had for Selah and George. No letters, no journals, and the research I did years ago turned up very little. So I will have to invent an awful lot of stuff! I look at everything I have for Selah so far and think, wow, so much of that originated in things I got from Selah and his family, even if I changed things around to fill in gaps. I have only family stories and guess-work to go on for Marshall. So that third week will really be hard.

I think it's not so much that the second week is the hardest, as the NaNo site says. It's that when you get to about 12,000 words you bog down. At least, that's what's happened to me. So I need to finish up Selah and then move along to George.

Hm. Maybe I will just put in a place-holder saying "Here's where I will eventually write about Selah's travels around the state" and go on to the last part of that chapter, the way I had to when I got to the part about him learning articulation, since I have not yet been able to find out how it is/was taught, and don't want to spend the time digging right now.

See? This blog is useful just for thinking out loud! Thanks for being there.

My nephew C called last night - he is doing NaNo, too, and writing historical fiction about one of his ancestors about whom he's done a lot of research - someone who fought in the Battle of Hastings! He was feeling discouraged, I think, because of my word count vs. his. But I have the unfair advantage of having so many historical resources to draw upon (letters and journals). Even though I haven't been transcribing much of what I have, just having them for information is awfully helpful background. He's had to make up a lot more than I have. I told him to wait till I get to Marshall and Jimmy!

Then you'll hear me moan.

~Cheers