November 7, Part 2

I was blocked today because:

1. My main character is an 11/12-year-old, and I'm not around anyone of that age on a regular basis, so I couldn't remember how they talked, which led to
2. Writing all my dialogue as if my characters were less intelligent and more nice than adults, and

3. Writing with an idea of a climax, but no idea how to get there.

Since I don't have time to go out and volunteer at a tween center to observe this age group in their natural habitat, I was looking online. But you know, it's really hard to find blogs or forums for tweens. Try it! Put in some search terms and see what you get. It makes sense that this stuff wouldn’t be imminently googleable, with all the creeps out there, but it makes research hard for mild-mannered writers like me.

Then it dawned on me that NaNoWriMo has whole threads on their forums for the Young Writers Program participants. And while I didn't get any juicy, spilling-of-guts kind of material, I did realize that young people are just as smart and witty as adults, maybe more so.

And these kids can write! Especially the ones who regularly write fan fiction as a hobby, some of these kids are up to 30,000 or 40,000 words already. And that's with them doing it all on evenings and weekends, and parents limiting computer time. Plus some have written 200+ articulate posts on the forum. I must say, I am impressed and inspired.

I skipped ahead and wrote the first part of the climax. It was fun, much more fun than all this boring, endless exposition has been.

Updated stats for today:
Today's word count: 2,758/2,000
Total word count: 16,865/50,000