The first week of NaNoWriMo this year might be the best I’ve ever had. For all the enthusiasm I feel for the start of NaNo, the first day is always a struggle for me. Going from nothing to something is the biggest step, in my opinion. It’s just a shame that it happens to be the first step.

This year I got over the fear of starting relatively quickly. I didn’t achieve astronomical word counts on the first day, or any other day in week 1 for that matter, but I had a decent stretch of consistently good days until Monday.

On Monday I struggled. It was the first day this month I didn’t feel particularly well and my word count reflected it. I wrote less than 1,000 words that day and I’m still trying to make up for the deficit. There’s plenty of time left in the month and I’m behind by just a bit so one really good day should get me back on track.

I’ve been posting completed scenes of my NaNoWriMo project to my Patreon after running them through spellcheck. Some days I’ve skipped and combined with other days because posting something I haven’t polished can make me incredibly anxious. Most days it’s a blast to show off my progress, but I’ve given myself permission to hold off if I’m not feel great about it when the time comes to post. The last draft of The Dreams had some diehard fans and I’m excited to know what they think of this new and improved version.

Looking forward to the second week, I’m hoping to catch up and keep pace with the target word count. Week two is usually pretty rough for me. Doubt starts to creep in and things I neglected in favor of writing during the first week start to become more urgent. I’m trying to keep on top of everything this month, so hopefully, that won’t happen. Only time will tell if I manage to make week two work!

How was the first week of NaNoWriMo for you? Are you ahead? Behind? How are you feeling now that we’re entering the second week of NaNo?