Nanowrimo: Week 1, Scrivener and 23k

Day 1 of NanoWriMo is upon us and I'm 23k words in.

No, I didn't write them today. I wrote those words nearly 6 months ago. I'm doing NanoWrimo with a project that has already been started. I used to feel like this was cheating. NanoWriMo is about beginning and finishing an MS in 30 days. But it dawned on me this year (my fourth year trying to do it), that finishing a story isn't the only way to win. Reaching 50k is the easiest and perhaps most popular way of doing it.

Besides, 50k might not even be a whole story for genre writers like myself. My current WIP is Sci-Fi (/ ugh, dystopian, maybe?) and I think it will run about 70-80k. So this headstart will help me reach 2 ways of winning, reaching 50k and actually completing the story I want to tell.

I've never won NanoWriMo before but I really intend to this year. I feel like I've been able to address my common problems so that while writing a novel (especially one that involves world building) can often be like this:

I'm hoping this year, I'll have an experience more like this:

Writing like a Got-Damn Disney Princess

1. World Building
1. Only this past year have I successfully created a well developed world and characters for a story to grow. This took me 5 months for a High Fantasy story--Like I said, I'm not really a high fantasy writer. I found it much easier to create a sci-fi environment
2. Outlining/Plot
1. I can't talk about Scrivener enough. Without it, I wouldn't have been able to write my novel. I wrote 113k words in 5 months. I'm sure I can do 50k in thirty days as long as I have my precious, precious software. I've never been good at outlining but Scrivener makes it incredibly easy.
3. Pacing/Momentum
1. I'm usually very enthusiastic about things from day 1 to like day 14. But the middle of the novel is hard and worse than hard, its daunting. It's the point where you feel like you don't want to keep writing. Like your story is shit. Like the world might as well just end now cus you're an idiot who never should've picked up a pen (or downloaded Scrivener). However, I just read Stephen King's "On Writing" and I've also learned so much about perserverance throughout the past couple of years. I'll probably do another blog post on this but basically "You can always edit if you have something written. But if you don't write, you can't edit." So breeze through the middle--fuck it, put in shit you know you won't ever keep. Whatever gets you to the next scene. Just keep putting one word after another.
4. Dependence
1. Writing, "they" say, is a solitary art. But I'm a social person. Hearing other people's ideas or even the sound of them typing, turns me on (in a way. No lawsuits please). In the past, I've never gone to the write-ins or bothered with writing buddies. But this year I'm going to go the extra mile to really experience this amazing event. I've already completely filled out my profile, complete with picture and even an excerpt.

So those are my four issues and what I am hoping are their solutions. I feel good. But then again, it IS only week one.