I’ve cranked out 2, 470 words today, and my overall word count is now 45, 596 words. But having said that, I have learned at least one lesson about writing and story planning during this experience…and that lesson is, to have an outline before starting a project, especially one of this magnitude.

At this juncture, I believe I’ll actually write over 50, 000 words–especially seeing as I haven’t fit everything into it that I wanted to, and I still have quite a bit of this story to tell. I know that, seeing as I didn’t take the time to write an outline for this story before this year’s National Novel Writing Month started, this version of my story is going to be a huge mess. But I’ve come across some unexpected pleasant surprises while writing this story as well, so I guess it isn’t all bad.

November is over half over, and I’m still working on not being so hard on myself over this project. I may not have been fully prepared for this experience, but, regardless of what happens with this story, I’m determined to see it through.