Once, not long ago, there were 100 days before NaNoWriMo started. Silly me, I thought, sure, I can double what I’m currently writing and crank out two novels before November, and then write this idea that is simply burning inside.

[Burning means all my “spare” notes and words are spent flopping around in this idea but I haven’t made much progress understanding it yet. It simply takes over my brain with SHINY when I am not concentrating elsewhere.]

There are 36 writing days remaining. I wrote the second book to be 65k words, and I am about 21k into the third book. If I estimated it right and I don’t quit writing, I ought to make the goal. Scary, but possible.

However, I don’t feel like the words are flowing for book 3. Book 2 dumped out in nearly the same fashion as book 1 did last November. But I am always reading things about how to improve, and I tried writing this thing backward. I had the end from last November anyway, 892 words of it, and I wrote what came before that, and what came before that, and then I wrote what came in the middle, then I tried to write what came before.

I’m still trying. It’s difficult to envision where this thing is going when I feel like I’m doing it wrong. I know it isn’t wrong, but it feels off. Sometimes I feel like the whole book is right there, but because of how I chose to write this one, it’s all wonky. Today I ended up writing what came after what I wrote yesterday, because I wasn’t sure how that would fit if I didn’t put that scene in. And tomorrow’s writing might come after today’s. Which means I’m writing forward again instead of backward.

I keep wondering that If it feels so wrong, I ought to change it up, find the beginning, and start from there – except for one thing: I’ve never been good at finding the exact beginning of the story. I write backstory, then cut it off and find where the ‘real’ beginning is in almost every novel I’ve ever written. So I’m sticking with this method for now.

What do you do when the words aren’t flowing? When you feel a bit lost within the overall structure of your novel? Do you always use the same method to attack each novel you undertake? How do you write?