Day 1. Zero words. There’s a blank page in front of me. I watch the blinking cursor with growing anxiety, realizing I need to write 1,667 words by the end of the day.

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) begins Nov. 1 and ends Nov. 30. During this time, emerging authors race to complete 50,000 words. Or, basically another form of torture from hell.

Three books from my favorite series, “The Lunar Chronicles”, were written during NaNoWriMo. The first book, “Cinder”, went on to become a #1 NYT best seller: a dream for many authors.

I wanted to follow in the footsteps of Marissa Meyer, the series author, and write a book worthy of its words, but I needed to prepare.  I mapped out the plot, characters, and all of their conflicting behaviors.

On Day 1, my words fill the page in a beautiful mess.

Do they make sense?

Maybe.

Does it feel good?

Yes.

The word count rises and I reach 1,667 words by the end of the day. This will be easy, I tell myself. I’ll reach 50,000 words in no time.

Day 5. This is not easy. Juggling school with the constant pressure of word counts has kept me up later than I’m willing to admit. I’m at 8,378. Only 41,622 words to go.

I create a vital character to the story that evaded my original plotting phase. At this point, I’m defining “vital” as anyone who can take at least 1,000 words. Beyond that, I don’t know what he’s doing. His name is Matt. One of my sentences is, “Matt was sleeping on the mat adjacent to him.” Thank God he doesn’t sleep too much because I need him talking.

Also sentences are starting to… not make sense? I used the same word in a sentence three separate times. Words like “very”, “really”, and “that” are taking up a hefty chunk of the words.

Day 10.  According to my friends, I’m home sick. That’s half true, though, it’s mostly my need to write. They don’t need to know that. I am losing my mind.

Day 11. What is even happening? These characters are tormenting me. They have a mind of their own. Curse you Marissa Meyer for inspiring me to write. The word count is going up but the characters will not stay put. Their motives keep changing. It’s driving me crazy.

Day 13. I want to rewrite everything. It reads like crap. The characters are running away from me. I molded an entire subplot around a character because of their enormous ego. Why don’t they listen to me?  I give them nice things. I didn’t mean for that character to die, but here we are.

Day 15. The sentences are stumbling and tripping. There’s a difference between intent and execution. Intent being what I want and execution being what I don’t want. Do I really need all of these excess scenes? I’ll rewrite it later.

I still have half a month to go. I can do this. I will mold the characters into my image. At this point, I do not know what the word count is and I’m in a state of denial about it. I’m straggling behind, hoping to reach the greatness of Marissa Meyer and finish this damn book. By Nov. 30, I will have 50,000 words and it will be crap. But I am OK with that.