This is going to be part of a series over the month of November.

November, for those who don't know, is National Novel Writing Month. During this month, writers from all over the world try to write 50,000 words. While they're allowed to plan things like character names and the plot, they cannot actually begin to write until November 1. It's something I've done twice before but haven't been able to do in the past five years or so because I've been so busy during the month of November. This year, however, I decided that since...you know...I'm at college studying how to write better, I should try to do NaNoWriMo. So, about three weeks ahead of time, a name and plot idea came to me and I was sold.

Day 1 was easy. I wrote almost 2,000 words--the recommended daily count is 1,600-something--and it went really well! I did it within a few different sittings and even though I didn't have much of an idea of where this was going besides the fact that I knew my main character's name (Valeria Gonzales Rojas). I felt really good about this year's NaNo.

Day 2 was even better! I wrote over 1000 words within 45 minutes and then later that night in another 30 minute sitting I wrote another 1000 or so. The way I have this novel set up is that I need to write one "day" a day during this month; I started writing "Day 3" during the middle of actual Day 2 of NaNo!

Day 3 became rough. I worked at one job from 6 a.m. to 12 p.m., had to go to a panel for school, and then worked at another job from 3 p.m. until 7 p.m. I was exhausted by the time I got home and just wanted to eat dinner and watch Gilmore Girls. By the time it was 10 p.m. I realized that I hadn't even written one single word for this novel, or a single word in general (so I started writing this Odyssey article instead to get me in the writing mood!). I didn't end up writing at all this night.

On Day 4, I woke up extra early to write. About 400 words in I realized that I have a short story due to my fiction writing class in ten days. This story needs to be a complete story and between 10-15 pages. I also had no plot idea at all since I was putting everything into this new project for NaNo. I decided that I would write at least 1000 words for NaNo until I started to work on that project. I got in my minimum 1,600 words until I had to stop writing for the day.

Day 5 was impossible. I had plans to go bargain shopping and Christmas shopping with one of my roommates in the early morning, and then I had a mini-conference with RHA in the afternoon. Originally I was supposed to travel to South Carolina after, but my plans got cancelled so I ended up driving home for a quick weekend! I met with my amazing co-editor and had a wonderful dinner with my family. I was asleep by 9:30 p.m. because I was exhausted. I didn't write at all. By this point, I was over 3,000 words behind schedule.

Day 6; my day of playing catch up. I logged onto the website this morning and saw that I was supposed to be at 10,000 words today. I started out with a little over 6,500, and it's safe to say that I was nervous about whether or not I'd be able to finish my NaNo project already. I still had my story page that I needed to write for class, a book proposal project, and a Spanish exam in a few days, all of which I needed to work on. I also had to make the two-hour drive back to campus before a club meeting. Nonetheless, I finished catching up and hit over 10,000 words around 11 p.m.!

Now that the first week is over with, I can tell you what it's about! Pretty much, this girl named Valerie Gonzales Rojas is twenty years old and checked herself into a mental hospital after having a breakdown (again). Each chapter is one day, and it starts out with a diary entry from her and then goes into normal book mode. Here's the first two paragraphs!

Day 1
I’m supposed to write down how this all began. Apparently it’s going to make me realize deep down how I’m truly feeling and what not. Well, I think it began when I was around thirteen? That was the first time I ever remember feeling depressed, at least. Of course back then I didn’t know what depression was; I thought I was just sad for some weird reason. I don’t think I realized what depression was until I was about fourteen when we talked about it in health class. I didn’t think I had it for a while after that but then it all made sense.

Signs of depression: sleeping a lot, lack of eating or eating too much, socially withdrawing, headaches, feeling empty and worthless, and difficulty concentrating. I’ve had all of these symptoms for so long. I don’t remember what it was like before they started.

I hope this place can help me.