I did, however, make 13k yesterday, putting me well ahead of the official Day 4 goal (6,668). I hit 5k on Day 1, and have been trying to build on that momentum ever since. I am not going to peter out like I did last year.
I've joined a couple of NaNoWriMo Discord groups, and while they don't exactly fill the massive void left by M, they help. It's better than doing it alone, and having everything virtual again this year also helps a lot -- then I don't have to leave the house after a long workday for a write-in; I can just pop in for a sprint here and there while chatting with my husband in between.
I've also been keeping track of my progress in my bullet journal. I made a graph just like the ones they used to have on the old NaNoWriMo site back in the good old days, and I've been colouring in progress bars every day and noting both my total word count and my daily word count. All the stats I ever cared about are all in one place again.
The story is actually moving fairly slowly, which, if I remember correctly, is a good sign. I think most of my better novels felt slow to start (but read back at a good pace later). At least I should have enough plot to make 50k without having to filibuster too much. Right now the hitman is harbouring an eight-year-old girl in his shed, trying to figure out how to get her to safety, and the police detective (the one who just lost her brother) has just decided to go back to her precinct and demand to work again (they told her to take two weeks' bereavement leave but she is having none of it). I haven't even mentioned the villain yet but I've got two central conflicts in motion.
Today is a slower writing day so far though. I haven't done less than 2500 words in a day yet this month, but I was writing mostly in the mornings before work (800-900 words) and on my lunch break (300-400). This morning, my alarm didn't go off so I slept in and didn't get that writing time in so I started the day some 800 words behind and I'm still trying to catch up. I haven't even written a thousand words yet today.
I've never gotten up early to write before. This is the first time I've done NaNoWriMo with an honest-to-goodness job that didn't have a writer-friendly commute built in. I wake up about an hour before work anyway, just so I have time to dress and put my hair up (I work in food service) and eat breakfast. I figured I could write a bit while eating breakfast and man has that ever paid off. I think the reason I can manage 800 words in roughly half an hour (if that) is because my inner editor is still sleeping and therefore my imagination gets away with a lot more than usual. Also, nobody else is up and distracting me/demanding I give them attention. I'm not going to do this on my days off, but it's a good way to get your quota when you work eight hours a day at a job that is not conducive to writing at work.
I'm actually kind of enjoying myself this time around. M still permeates this event for me, and I'm glad in a way. I don't want her spirit to ever leave my mind during NaNoWriMo. As much as it hurts to write alone, and as sad as it makes me, at least I still get to kind of spend time with her ghost every November. I wish more than almost anything that my dream from yesterday would become real and that she would come back and we could write more novels together and dance together more, and I'll probably never stop hoping that, not even when I'm ninety.
But at least this time her memory and the pain of missing her is a help to noveling, and not a hinderance like it was for 2018 and 2019. I'm enjoying the process of writing this time, for the first time since I wrote Kyrie. Maybe writing half-asleep in the morning is helping me get out of my own head and to trick myself into writing without criticising it for not being the next Kyrie. This story has promise, definitely, but it needs to be able to breathe first before I can force anything on it.
UPDATE: Just did a ten-minute sprint, and now I'm at 14,079. Hoping to break 15k by bedtime.
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