WIP update!

It's November 14, which means that NaNoWriMo is just about halfway over. Is anyone at 25,000 words yet?

As for me, I've written less than usual for the past couple of weeks while I've been making the adjustment to working five days a week (something I've never done before, ever). But despite being pretty tired, I'm happy with the progress I've made on my WIP, and I'm confident that I will have my zero draft finished before the end of the month. I only have two chapters to finish, and I'm about halfway through each one.

Someone (I can't remember who it was) posted a quote on Twitter recently that said something to the effect of, "Your first draft is for finding out what your book is about." I think that's very true. When I started writing this novel, I only had a vague sense of who my characters were and how they were going to reach their goal (finding their missing brother/friend and rescuing him from an evil magician). Now that I am at the end, I feel I know my characters—their personalities, their quirks, their fears, and their journey—so much better. Which means a lot of revising and rewriting is in store for the first half of the book. But very soon, for the first time, I will have something resembling a novel to edit, rather than just another unfinished manuscript. And I'm excited about that.