NaNoWriMo Update

As of this morning, I'm halfway towards my writing goals. This last few thousand have been tough to write, just because it's at the point in the novel where I'm not sure where everything's going. But I do have some ideas. I've been participating in NaNoWriMo for five years (And won the four previous years). I heard about a year before my year, in the middle of November, so I couldn't join that year. Since then I've written three YA novels (one verse novel about a girl in college during her first year, one fantasy novel about a girl fighting for control over her kingdom, and one Christmas romance about a girl who's family owns a tree farm) and one cozy mystery about a travel writer who's writing about her best friend's inn opening and there's a murder at the party. The 5th year, I'm writing a sequel to the cozy mystery called Killing Mr. Darcy where the main character and her best friend head to the Jane Austen festival in Bath, where an actor who played Mr. Darcy on stage, is murdered. 


Here are some tips I have about completing NaNoWriMo, which is great in motivating me to write.

1. Get a notebook and in October start plotting by chapter - write down something that will happen at each chapter so you have something to write about
2. Plot at least halfway through the novel - I like the to stop there, because I don't always know where I'm going and I like my characters to lead me there.
3. Stop writing for the day in the middle of a scene or when you know what's going to happen next. it makes it so much easier to start the next day. 
4. I try for a word count for 2000 daily because I know there are going to be days when I just don't have time to write. It's nice to have a little cushion.

Are you writing this year? Good luck if you are!