Camp NaNoWriMo Update: Week One

Target word count by the end of week one: 11290
My current word count: 6089
Currently writing Chapter 5 (started writing from halfway through chapter 4)

I like to think I have good excuses for being behind: I spent most of my weekend working and on Friday had to have a pet put down. Also, I'm trying to learn driving theory, and occasionally do some actual driving.

It has taken me a while to feel like I'm writing a novel; previous NaNoWriMos have felt full of excitement, and I have basically spent my month thinking of nothing but my novel. This time around, writing feels pretty slow (except for at almost-midnight - because it seems that I'm finding writing easiest when I'd really like to go to bed) and I'm not really feeling the NaNoWriMo atmosphere.

I think a possible explanation for this is that I'm following my plan; in the NaNoWriMo that I completed in 2010, I didn't outline my novel and instead went by the vague idea of what was going to happen that I had in my head, and in the Camp NaNoWriMo that I completed in 2011, I threw the vague idea that I formulated on the day I started writing completely out of the window. The inspiration for this novel came to me while I was planning, and jotting down random bits and pieces, but that same inspiration and motivation isn't here now that I'm actually writing. I feel a little like I'm just going through the motions to get from A to B and from chapter to chapter.

However, I have only properly planned up to partway through Chapter 7, which includes an important plot point, but it's a plot point that I can't work out how to go through with - I have my start point, I know vaguely what the situation is, and I know what the outcome needs to be for the story to move forward, but I'm not sure how to make the situation cause the outcome - so it is at this point that I will be able to start just writing to see where it takes me. The further we go along my storyline, the sketchier and more vague the plot becomes, so in theory, writing should get easier as I go.

Anyway, not counting the 164 words I wrote after midnight before I went to bed, I haven't written anything yet today. Therefore: onwards we go!