It’s been about three weeks since the last time I talked shop, so hey, what’s up, the bookstore romance just hit 30k.

I was hoping that when I first posted about the bookstore boys, it would be after I posted about my adventures with Toad Hall in Rockport, but alas, that has not come to the end yet, so you’ll have to wait for that story.  But I’ve still been writing, albeit not a lot since the beginning of November, but the last we chatted, this novel was a little under 20k, somewhere around 17k, I think?  I don’t know, I didn’t give an exact number, so I’m kind of guessing based on when the documents were created in my computer.  And now it’s November, and I posted on Instagram that I was actually doing NaNoWriMo this year, and I was so gung-ho, I wrote a whole 1,911 words on November first, and then nothing.  I literally didn’t write for a week.

But let’s back it up a bit.  Remember last year, when I was still pretentious, and I was like I don’t do NaNo because deadlines and I don’t get along.  Well, Mary, adults need to work with deadlines, so get your head out of your ass and start figuring it out.  Okay, really, looking back at that blog, I blamed my anxiety for why I wasn’t doing NaNo, and that’s just not a valid excuse, so here I am, trying to do NaNo.  Also:

If I did, I’d immediately start making up charts with how many words I had to write a day, staying up late just to achieve that word goal, panicking on days when I couldn’t manage it, abandoning even the mere idea of reading, feeling like an utter failure when the words I forced myself to write weren’t great, and then scrapping all of it at the end of the month if I even managed to make it throughout all of November with 50,000 words.

So that was my prediction for what NaNo would look like for me if I ever tried it.  So much of that turned out not to be true, and to be fair, I’m only one week in, but so far I have:

1. Okay, fine, whatever, I did make a chart.  I have to write around 1,650 words each day to achieve 50k.
2. But I’ve also not ^^^ worried about that chart.
3. I wrote 1,911 words on 11/1, and then did literally nothing but read for the next six days.  ZEBULON WHAT’S GOOOOOOD
4. I’m somewhere around 4k behind right now, and I just literally do not care.

PSA: I’m not saying having anxiety is not a valid excuse.  I’m just saying that I was covering up the real reasons for not wanting to do NaNo by saying I had anxiety about it, which wasn’t true, and I freaking knew that, but I didn’t want to admit it out loud.  People grow and change.  I’ve come a long way since November 2017, and I can finally say that I didn’t do it because I didn’t feel like challenging myself and I thought it was dumb.

Do I still think it’s dumb now?  A tiny bit, but mostly it just seems like an interesting challenge.

So, hi, I’m doing NaNo this year, and I’m currently at 10,238 words, which is exactly 4,612 words behind, but I’m pretty confident I’ll make that up somewhere down the line, particularly because:

Guys, for real, I have the best friends ever.  I love so much that Jen was just like “OMG WHICH BOYS?!” because I do this all the time.  Flashback to when I texted her “you’re gonna laugh so hard” and her IMMEDIATE RESPONSE was “I told you Landon was gay.”  Also, I’m dead, “I say this with the utmost respect,” girl I for real thought you were going to call me predictable (WHICH IS TRUE).

I’ve been trying to rewrite the plot for acts two & three in my head while I’ve been writing act one, and it’s just not been happening.  Pretty early on, I decided I wanted the story to be even less complex, and so there was an added romance in there that I axed (the character is still there, he’s just doing different things now), but I couldn’t figure out what to replace it with cos it took up a good chunk of the plot, and NOW.  Now I’ve got plans.  This accidental kissing (that I haven’t written yet) has totally changed the path of the novel, and I’m really excited about it.  I can’t wait to see what happens now.

But this is like a real thing now!  It’s 30k words long!  It has characters with depth!  Substance in the plot!  A tangible setting!  Lots of words!  It’s such a soft little thing, and I get to listen to the sweetest music while I write it, and these boys are just UGH.  Will is so sad, and Emilien is SO IN LOVE, and together they’re just this unstoppable force of cute boys who read books and bake cookies and would literally kill for each other.  Not die, this isn’t Romeo & Juliet.

Speaking of music, though!  I’ve been listening to some awesome stuff, most notably the soundtracks for:

1. Atonement
2. Never Let Me Go
3. Jane Eyre
4. The Light Between Oceans
5. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
6. Bright Star
7. Cloud Atlas

That kind of gives you the vibe I’m going for, right?  Good.  This is where you, dear Reader, comes in.  Please, please, please leave your recommendations for good literary fiction in the comments.  Those are all Will’s favorites, plus anything by Rilke, and every time I go into a bookstore, I go to the YA section and forget to go anywhere else, so I need some help finding books similar to the above to keep myself in his mindset.

I’ve also been listening to some Joshua Radin, SYML, Mumford & Sons, Lord Huron, Sleeping at Last, and the man himself, Sanders Bohlke:

Guys, okay, Will waxes poetic about Sanders Bohlke in the very first scene we meet him in, and he hasn’t since then, but I promise that’s going to change in the next chapter or two because this song.  This song is Will.

So that’s things lately.  I have been writing, though I took a six-day break to read a crappy book and then start flailing my whole self about Zebulon Finch.  (Okay, I finally started reading volume two, and I’m almost halfway done, so yes, it’ll be in the November wrap-up, BUT GUYS IT’S SO GOOD.)  I got back to writing this week, and I’ve knocked a chapter out per day the last three days.  I’m hoping to start chapter eleven today, but Zebulon just got introduced to NASA, and if that isn’t both of my dearest dreams colliding, I don’t know what is.  I’ve got yoga tonight, tires for my car tomorrow, and then hopefully a quiet mid-morning at Jolie Tea on Sunday because ya girl hasn’t got any plans, and I’m going to hide from everyone.

Happy writing, fellow crazy NaNoers!