25,866 words

Tonight I wrote 1,926 words, bumping my total word count up to 25,866. Although I ran out of steam early (i.e. just shy of my goal of 2,000), I'm quite pleased with the progress of the novel. Although I hadn't outlined more than a handful of chapters (and those very roughly), the story is beginning to take on a definite shape now - I know not only how it will end, but much more of how it will get there. And I'll only have to go back and make one major plot change when the writing stage is all over.

I'm already somewhat dreading the editing stage. Although I wrote three novels in high school, my reluctance to edit (combined with the fact that I didn't have much encouragement to pursue it as a career) is partly to blame for the fact that I never published any of those. Although I have gotten much better at editing my own work in recent years, the thought of editing an entire novel is still a bit unnerving. Still, though, I hope to push my way through it, much the way I have pushed my way through NaNoWriMo, so that I can work on publishing my novel.

At which point I will have to deal with a whole new set of tasks that I dread...