Well, if the word count widget on the sidebar were working, it would show 13,173, over a quarter of the way to the 50,000 word goal of NaNoWriMo. The downside is, my story is nowhere near a quarter of the way done.

To be honest, I don’t really consider that a downside. I’m writing an epic fantasy, after all, and 50,000 words would be pretty short for this genre. Will I finish the whole story by the end of the month? I don’t know, but overall I’m very pleased with my progress.

My third evening of writing was bogged down with what I’m going to start calling the “Chapter 2 Blues.” I’ve encountered this on almost every multi-chapter story I’ve ever written. I write a really strong, cool intro, and then when it’s time for Chapter 2, I hit a serious case of writer’s block, like I just can’t figure out how to progress from the exciting intro of Chapter 1 into the more serious plot-advancing work of Chapter 2. Not that Chapter 1 doesn’t advance the plot; it certainly does, but since it’s the beginning, you naturally have a lot of freedom in deciding where and how you want to start. Chapter 2, on the other hand, you pretty much have to pick up where Chapter 1 left off. For some reason that’s always been difficult for me.

Nevertheless, on Day 3 I managed to power through the Chapter 2 Blues (although to make my word count goal, I had to switch to writing a separate scene that I had originally planned to leave out). On Day 4, the writing flowed much better, and I hit my word count goal in about three hours, rather than the five that Day 3 took me. (It didn’t help that on Day 3 I was also distracted by election news coverage.)

So four days gone, over a quarter of the way toward the 50,000 word goal, and well into Chapter 3. Things are definitely looking good.

Oh, and have a Happy Guy Fawkes Night. Remember, remember, the Fifth of November…