It is November 15th, and although I usually would be doing a My Bookish Rambles post today because it’s Sunday, I didn’t really have any topics that I wanted to write about, I’m doing something else. That something else, as you probably guessed from the title of the post, is an update on how my nanowrimo project is going! It’s exactly halfway through the month, and I’ve done a lot on the novel, so it felt like a good time. So here is how my writing is going!

My novel’s plot: have I stuck to that?

Short answer: no.

My original idea for the novel was to write a young adult contemporary novel about a teenage girl named Seph that took place starting before the covid pandemic, and ending in fall of 2020.

Right now, I’m writing a middle grade fantasy called The Whisperers. Here’s the synopsis thingy that I wrote:

The Whisperers whisper stories into the ears of writers, the stories of worlds away from ours, and Finlay is the newest among their ranks.

On his first job, however, he makes a mistake and his identity is revealed to the writer he was sent to Whisper to.

Penelope’s been trying to write, and has had some ideas, but she’s stuck, not sure where even to begin with her book.

Seph, her younger sister, was just reading outside in her yard, that’s all, so when she saw the boy falling through the sky above her, she was shocked. More surprising was when he vanished in mid-air, leaving nothing behind.

Somehow, they all ended up in Penelope’s bedroom on a cold winter evening. And that’s when they all realized that a world was in danger, and that’s when the sisters learned that the world in trouble wasn’t even their own.

So yeah. I don’t know how well that explains where I’m going, but I hope it gave you a bit more of an idea of the plot!

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The characters and perspective:

I said before that my main character was going to be a girl named Seph, and she is still a character, but here is what happened:

I was writing in 3rd person from Seph’s perspective, and and it was kind of boring, and she was kind of annoying to write about. By then I’d written a bunch of the book with her sister, and her sister Penelope is really great, so I decided to write a few chapters from Pen’s perspective, and it was more fun, and then I decided to try a little bit in 1st person from Pen’s perspective and that’s how I ended up writing the last few thousand words in Penelope’s 1st person perspective.

Seph is still a big character, however I think that I’m going to cut out the character who hadn’t appeared when I decided to switch up the plot. I might, however, put Clo (that’s her name) in there somewhere, if it makes sense in the book.

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How I’m doing on my goals I set before nanowrimo:

In my post announcing my project for November, I very sensibly set a goal of 30 thousand words, because I thought that was something that I could do.

On October 31st, I was thinking to myself, but what if I just went for the whole 50 thousand? So I did. And I am VERY behind. But I still think that I’ll be able to reach my goal by the end of the month, because I got off to a slow start at the beginning of the month, but the past few days I’ve been able to get some more done.

My second goal was to finish the first draft, to actually write an ending. I think that I’m headed towards doing that, although I know that I will need to really work on moving the plot forwards, and not getting stuck on more boring little things.

And my last goal was to write every day. So far, I’ve done that. There have been some days where I have written not that much, but for the most part I’ve gotten a little bit done each day, which is what I wanted.

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Wrapping up:

I kind of completely threw my plot out the window, I’m switching up perspectives, and I have a goal that, considering school and everything happening, is pretty crazy. But I’m happy with my project, and with how this month has gone so far, so I’m just going to keep writing, and hope to finish a first draft of my novel by the end of the month!

Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year? Have you done it in the past? Chat with me in the comments below!