Nanowrimo 2021 wrap up and novel status

For Nanowrimo (national novel writing month) 2021 I continued my novel from last year. To remind anyone who hasn’t followed my sparse updates on the novel, the novel is a speculative fiction set after a global zombie and human conflict where the two (let’s call them) species coexist in a tense harmony. For Nanowrimo this year, I set myself two targets:

• 500 words a day, which is not so ambitious, but was realistic when balanced with work commitments etc.
• Finish the first draft of the novel.

The word count I met, not every day, but overall, I wrote just over 14,000 words in November 2021, which averages 750 a day. Congrats to me 👏.

Regarding my second target, did I manage that? Well, no. But I did accomplish some related tasks that make me feel much better about how I will finish the first draft. I entered Nanowrimo 2021 with two main reservations. While I liked the idea and the world, I found the characters somewhat dull and boring. Similarly, while I know the event that signals the end of the book, I was unsure how to get there and found myself wallowing around in meandering chapters that were getting the plot nowhere fast.

Around 2/3rds through the month, I heard an episode of the Scrivener podcast featuring Christian Cantrell, where he mentioned something to the effect of “Few writers write in chronological order”. This was a revelation to me, and I realised I could write the end, and then fill in the gaps once I knew what I was aiming…