NaNoWriMo: What's up with Week One

Throughout the month of November, I will be blogging on my progress, both as a motivation to stick with it and as a way for those unfamiliar with the event to get an idea of what the experience can be like.  Also: writing craziness, random daydreams, tips, cheats, and caffeine abuse.
 

Today is November 8th, which means the first week of NaNoWriMo is complete.

I started today finding myself in the unpalatable position of being several thousand words behind the threshold wordcount and with several characters without actual names.

My manuscript has a lot of wildcards in it.  If I have a character who is a doctor and needs a name, her name is written as "*Doctor" whenever she shows up or talks:  *Doctor slipped into her office and quietly shut the door before breaking down into tears.  It's not the most elegant of solutions.

I also use wildcards to act as placeholders when my vocabulary decides to go on vacation.  "*Doctor looked down her nose at the salesman with as much *disdain *hauteur *something like that as she could muster."  It's not a pretty sight, but it sure is good for shamelessly bloating your word count.   

I was trying to write by hand and then type up my progress in one chunk, but it turns out I can type so much faster than I can hand-write that the pen-and-paper might only be an option for days when I have tons of time.  This sort of sucks because I love physically writing on paper, but only sort of like typing.  However, I REALLY love watching my word count climb.  Advantage:  Typing.

For those who are curious, in order to write the recommended 1667 words per day, I have to sit at a desk or with my laptop for anywhere from 60 minutes to 3 hours, depending on how self-disciplined I am and how awful at typing my hands become.  Some days I'm a typing ninja,  some days (like today), I have to correct almost every single word I type.

This is glorious Week One, in which I still rather like my plot and my characters and nothing has really derailed yet.  That's coming in Weeks Two and Three. And probably Four.

Vague Description of Plot Progress:  After escaping a near-death situation, my characters were sent to get help but find themselves stymied by petty people and their politics.  They haven't admitted defeat though, and they're about to meet another feisty character whose friendship will affect their lives (whose name is currently going to be "*Duelist" until I can come up with a better one).  My protagonist hasn't really shown herself as anything incredibly special yet, but her moment will come when the sh*t hits the fan in about one chapter.

NaNo Memories:  Three years ago, I was typing up my story on my laptop when my husband offered me Irish coffee to help with my "flow."  It might have worked but for the part where I immediately poured the boozy coffee onto my keyboard and fried it.  Fortunately I was able to use USB drive to retrieve my novel-in-progress and through the miracle of Amazon Prime was able to get a replacement computer within three business days.  I never drink anything more complex than plain water near my computer now.

Current word count: 11835 out of the recommended 13333.

Pointless Goal for the Week:  Use the word "bloviate" correctly in a sentence.