Hello, dreamers. We’re now entering the home stretch of NaNoWriMo ‘25. Generally, this is the break point: the time within the month where you know whether or not you’ll make you’ll make your goal.

For me, and my fellow NaNos, it’s crunch time. So with that said, here’s where things stand as of now:

Week 3 of OctoWIP

So far, I’ve written a little over 41,000 words on this story. As the original goal for NaNoWriMo was around 50k, it looks like I’ll make it. However, there are some hefty caveats.

As I’ve said before, because of the nature of novel writing and differences in genres, I can meet my goal for the month and still not have a finished novel. Or even be particularly close to that. And that looks to be where I am now.

With that in mind, at this point I’m already thinking well beyond NaNoWriMo, into the month, months, and (likely) year ahead. First and foremost is the reality that if I’m looking to keep this book at around 100k words—relatively modest for the genre—then I should be approaching the climax. Which…I am not.

So either this book is going to be noticeably longer than I’d planned, or I need to start trimming. For now, however, my plan is to forge ahead. I’m going to continue working through the week, holiday included, even if I cross the 50k threshold. I will take a pause at the weekend, then early next week I’ll conduct a full assessment to see where I am, where the story is going, and what lies ahead.

As I often say, writing a book isn’t a sprint; it’s a marathon. More than likely, this novel will be my primary project for at least the next year. But so far, NaNoWriMo has been what it should always be: a way to make a good start. After about two years spinning my wheels on this project while juggling many others, I finally feel this story coming into its own. And so far, this has been the best NaNo for me since the one in ‘18, where I wrote most of the first draft of what would become Seven Days on Samarkand. Looks like I’m at it again. —MK