Ouch. This is getting harder. Everything was flowing for a while there. For the first 15,000 words or so, the novel was practically writing itself. Plot arcs were fleshing themselves out even as I wrote them drawing inexorably to their conclusions, side-tracking just enough to put the brakes on things when it felt like I was moving ahead too quickly. Then pow, I find my protagonist acting uncharacteristically, the supporting cast and antagonists stilted and forced and contrived, and the pace just plain feeling wrong.

My National Novel Writing Month effort has gone from freely traipsing along, piling ideas and details into a fun little mixed salad into a strained effort to pitch more manure onto a steaming compost heap. I’m 17 days in to the challenge — write a 50,000 word novel starting November 1st and ending by December 1st — and I’m in serious need of a second wind. Going by a strict average-per-day word count, I’m 4,500 words in back at the moment, a staggering deficit at my recent rate of output.

So where does this leave me? Wait for lightning to strike? Trudge onward at whatever pace I can muster? I’m not ready to call it quits, but I’m certainly developing a greater appreciation for some of my favorite fiction writers.

A week ago, I joined thousands of other amateurs in writing one novel in one month. This is part of National Novel Writing Month, with the challenge being to write a 50,000-word work of fiction starting November 1st and finishing by the end of November 30th.

In some ways, it’s been a breeze. I chose a simple concept that I’m tremendously comfortable with, a knight-in-shining-armor version of my son that I use as a bedtime story. As a long-time D&D player and DM, and a part-time fan of fantasy fiction like the Shannara series, Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time, Conan, and a variety of lesser series and one-shots, I have a pretty broad set of plot hooks at my disposal to send my brave knight off on a variety of adventures.

The main problem so far has been structure and pacing. For the first sub-arc of the story, I just wasn’t sure when to make my transitions. Had the social obstacle in the village posed enough of a challenge? Had the protagonist spent enough time and effort on overcoming it? Too much? If too much, am I really going to go back and tighten it up now, what with the 1,667/words-per-day pace necessary to complete the challenge? Should I spend a couple of pages on building up a little sympathy for the bad-guy, or leave this one cut and dry? Had I sprinkled clichés on liberally enough to suit the simple, light-hearten tone I’m shooting for?

So far, so good, I suppose. I certainly have no intention at this point of showing my work to anybody before at least a first-pass edit. I’m taking the advice of veteran NaNoWriMo participants and resisting the urge to double-back and edit. November is for writing.