Targets.

At the start of January, when I started work on Sibylline Nights again, I set myself the target of reaching 16, 000 words by the end of the month.

Apparently I'm an over-achiever. In the space of twelve days, including three of which I did no writing, I've amassed 24, 531 words.

I suppose it helps that I'm going it NaNo style, and not going back to re-write or edit anything.

We'll see if that comes back to bite me in the arse when I get to re-drafting. 

I feel it's going well though. Yeah, there are some bumpy bits, and bits where I need to tighten things up, but I'm progressing. I building up to the climax, and I feel I'll have a solid story to work with once I come to re-drafting.

I feel that's quite an achievement to be proud of, especially considering the only other complete novel length stories I've written have been fanfiction.

And you know what? It's still filling me with excitement. Having a break for two months did me the world of good apparently, because I'm eager to get this finished, in stead of feeling like it's a chore.

I just hope I can rekindle this momentum when I start re-drafting.

Editing will be a new process for me, and one I'm actually quite scared of. 

For the time being, I'm not worrying about spellings and grammar. I will go through and check all that, as well as looking into employing an editor, once I have a second draft I'm happy with.

But, after my first draft is complete, I am planning on sharing it with my husband, and we're going to go through it together for inconsistencies, parts that didn't work, filler, plot holes, bad characterisation, etc. 

It's something I've never done at great length before, and I'm not quite sure how I feel about that?

How will I know what to cut? How will I keep my word count at a reasonable length if I'm adding new scenes for more depth?

It's a path I've not taken before, and I'm both scared and excited by the prospects. If it makes my story better in the end though, it will be all worth it.