Camp NaNo 2015 Week 2 Update

So week two of NaNo is complete. It was a harder week. My dad was off of work last week, which meant we were hanging drywall in the basement, which meant I didn't have as much time to write. But I wrote nearly 2,000 words on Monday, so that was awesome. I'm 658 words behind, which isn't as bad as I thought, and it's still quite doable to catch up. Especially since I'm about to start hurtling towards the climax. I anticipate the writing getting faster then. And I'm really excited. This climax is going to be interesting. I'm pretty confident I can finish this book by around the end of the month. It'll be really cool, since this story has been demanding to be told since August 10, 2013, and I'm only this year getting to focus on it. It might be a little sad that it'll be over, but it's the first of a planned trilogy, so I won't have to say goodbye!

Here's the updated chart for this week:

The shallow climb is kind of sad, but that jump just makes up for it.

For an excerpt this week, I wanted to share something that was particularly interesting to write.

As the prayer concluded, another sound began, a sound of which Luke had never heard the like before. It was not a sound of words, but of wordless pitches that flowed gently and naturally one from another. One of the young women raised her oblong piece of wood to her shoulder and drew a stick of sorts across the strings that were stretched across it, creating a smoother transition of pitches than he had previously heard.

Everyone stood, and so Cassie and Luke did the same. Words appeared on the screen at the front. Then a strange phenomenon happened. Everyone began speaking the words with one voice, yet it was not like speaking. Their tones followed the ever changing pitches, holding out certain syllables for periods of time, keeping the words in a sort of rhythm.

This is just one of the reasons I love writing this book. I love describing ordinary things we take for granted from the point of view of someone who has never encountered anything like it before. I hadn't gotten to do this a lot in the last few weeks on this project, but I had this opportunity last week. And it was amazing. I'm starting to see things in a new light, the same way I started really appreciating color on the way home from seeing The Giver last year.

Next week I might be at the climax! I'm looking forward to this next week of writing and what it will bring.