NaNoWriMo Update

This is just a quick update. I'm currently at 22,156 words. And, though that rocks, it also means I probably won't be "winning" NaNoWriMo this year (weeps).

I'm still going to try and be writing a bunch every day to make it as close to the 50,000 word goal as possible. After all, every word helps.

I just set a real life goal for myself to finish my big rewrite by the end of the year. That means I'll have written what I'm hoping will be 65,000-70,000 new words in two months.

I know there are lots of people who can crank out 70,000 words in a few weeks. I, however, am not one of them. I'm a terribly slow writer. In fact, doing NaNo, has helped me realize how slow I am.

I don't really do a true first draft. I just can't type words on a page and keep going. I have to go back over them and polish as I write. My first drafts tend to come out pretty heavily edited. This is mostly because I have a hard time moving forward with something unless I'm happy about what I've already written.

For example, I have written 22,156 words in the month of November. But, my manuscript is only 14,919 words long so far. That means I have edited out or changed 7,237 words! I'm still counting them towards my writing goal (since I did write them), but in the end, they just aren't going to be part of my manuscript.

That's crazy, right? Does anyone else work this way? Do you go through and polish and edit as you write or do you just crank out an initial draft and then go back in afterwards? I feel like I'm doing it wrong, but on the plus side, it does save me time later when I'm in the editing phase.

Thoughts?

-- Lisa