As always, I’d like to begin this week’s progress report by thanking all of you awesome people who’ve followed, liked and/or commented on my blog!

Here are this week’s stats:

Last NaNo Prep Task Completed: Chapter Completion Outline

Next Prep Task on the List: Last-Minute Stuff/Relax & Mentally Prepare

Days til NaNoWriMo: 6

Thoughts?

So, yeah, totally finished my Chapter Completion Outline on Monday. Like I said last week, I knew sitting down to write the outline would be what revved my writing engine for this book, just like it did for my first book.

One thing I will say, going about planning this book/prepping for NaNoWriMo methodically has made it seem way easier than planning/outlining my first book. When I decided to write my first book, a lot of it was already written in the form of a half-hearted fan fiction. When I finally got serious, I wrote the outline in my first writer’s notebook…which was a mess. And because pieces of the book were already written, changing things and moving them around made it harder to follow a cohesive storyline (though I think I did pretty well, all those things considered). This time around, everything is digital (and backed up), which makes it so much easier to organize and navigate.

All that said and done, I feel ready to write this new book. My only hope is that it will be as relatively simple as it was to lay the foundation. I know it won’t go perfectly and my first draft will inevitably need lots of work. But all signs point to a smooth ride next month.

Another point I want to mention, I don’t believe I will be able to finish this book in November. As I’ve stated before, the first draft of my first book came in at over 80,000 words. I really like the size I ended up with after all editing and revision for that book (right around 67,000) and would like to aim for a similar size. I fully intend to write the first 50,000 during NaNo, but I plan to finish the final 30,000 or so in the month of December.

As for my other goals, I’ve surpassed my reading goals from last week, having finished:

• A Dying Machine by Mark Tremonti and John Shirley
• The Gentleman’s Guide to Getting Lucky by Mackenzi Lee
• Soaring Past Death by Morticia Knight
• M/M Romance Tropes: What They Are and How to Use Them to Plan, Plot, and Market Your Book by Lyss Em

This brings my reading progress up to 46 books read since last Christmas, which not only surpasses my pre-NaNo goal of 45 but also makes me feel extremely confident in achieving 50 books read this year.

Goals for the Coming Days Leading up to November 1st

For these last few days before NaNo begins, I’d really like to just take it easy. I don’t plan on writing anything or working anymore on my NaNo prep. What I would like to do is finish Save the Cat! Writes a Novel: The Last Book on Novel Writing You’ll Ever Need by Jessica Brody and possibly an ARC I was given yesterday, A Kiss Before Christmas by A.E. Ryecart. The ARC review isn’t due until 11/15, but that’s square in the middle of NaNoWriMo and I don’t want any distractions during that time.

Note To Self

Try to relax for the next six days, breathe, enjoy yourself. Book 2 will be all the better for it!