Day 24 stats:
Min. Daily Average Word Count: 1,667
Word Count Goal: 2,500
Actual Word Count: 1,969
Daily Word Count Score (words in excess of min daily average): +302
Total Word Count Score: 36,210
Chapters complete: 16
Sensing the wrap up of act two, as I now have all three main characters together and working towards a common goal (though perhaps with different intentions and agendas). I have come to terms with the fact that the first draft will be ugly, sloppy, messy, contradictory, uneven, unfocused, rambling, and all but useless as anything other than a collection of ideas for forging something that actually does resemble a novel.
And it’s clear that while at the beginning I worried about how to fill 50,000 words, I now realize that my “simple” plot is much more than that. In fact, the plot expanded considerably during the writing, meaning that if I were to try and complete the plot that has unfolded during the first draft, it would likely be well in excess of 100,000. Funny how that happened without me even trying…
But perhaps that is the purpose of the first draft, after all? It’s a way to explore and uncover the set of ideas you will ultimately place in the final draft, not generate a coherent story, per se.