I’m sure you have seen my enthusiastic posts across all of my social media. I have reached the 50K word count goal. I have also buckled down and finished the first draft of the novel I’d chosen to complete this November. That doesn’t mean I am done writing! Since I was able to get so much done and accomplish the first draft in just 16 days I figured I’d go for broke and double the fun. So starting Day 17 I will start the next novel in the series I’d planned. Wish me luck as I attempt to complete another 50K word first draft in the last weeks of NaNoWriMo!
Huzzah! I’ve done it! I reached my 50K goal and finished the first draft of my NaNoNovel. So what’s next for Stella Williams’ great masterpiece? A crap load of editing! I know you were hoping I’d say a brilliant new release but I’m going to take some time and let this one sit for awhile. Besides I still have tons of red carpet to roll out for my the last novel in my Maura’s Men Series. I, of course, can’t leave you hanging with no new information about my NaNoNovel so I will at least tell you the official title is now Ferocious. I know that have anything to do with the working title of BGM or perhaps it does…
While you anxiously await more info about Ferocious, there is plenty of time for you to get acquainted with Maura’s Men.
I’m getting a little sloppy in my writing habit. While I am still sitting down to write every day, I feel safe in saying my binge mode is on hiatus. I managed to get a couple hundred words out before my brain decided to call it quits today. I’ll probably need to go back and tweak my outline to get my mind back on track to finish these last couple thousand words. Either way, I have plenty of time to reach the 50K goal for the month. Anyone else hitting a mid-WriMo slump?
It’s been two weeks of NaNoWriMo, and I wrote so furiously I didn’t realize my new found finger strength and broke my glasses. Holy Peer Pressure! I am a binge writer. If you’ve followed my blog posts about NaNo from the beginning you know I’ve put up some impressive numbers in the last 11 days. However, if you are not like me and actually have a life, you may not have broken 15K at this point. I’m here to say that it’s completely okay. NaNoWriMo shouldn’t be about competing with other Authors. (Unless you thrive on competition with others) It’s about competing with yourself. Pushing your limits and seeing just how much you can accomplish in such a short period of time.
I’ve tried not to compare myself to others, but I will admit, every morning I check the NaNoWriMo website to see what numbers my WriMo Buddies have put up overnight. I find the highest number and do my best to best that word count by the end of the day. It has obviously been a winning strategy for me so far. Honestly, this being my first year I thought I would be more stressed out about my word counts and struggling to get to the 50K by the end of the month. Maybe I’m just that excited.
In this process, I’ve made a ton of new writer friends. We chat on Discord, encourage each other on Instagram, meet in real life to write separately together. It’s been great. I’m even tempted to volunteer as a regional rep next year if my family allows. That brings me to my only real negative in this experience. I have definitely skimped on family time in my quest to reach NaNoWriMo success. I’ll definitely be slowing down now that I’ve gotten close to the finish line so early so that my family will actually remember who I am come Thanksgiving.
It’s Day 10 of NaNoWriMo and I spent the entire day on my behind in front of my computer. Only taking breaks for basic self-care and a thirty-minute dance party with my minions. All my hard work resulted in a massive 7k+ word gain! I’m surprising even myself with how many gains I’ve gotten over the last ten days. Then again my minions have missed me terribly as I’ve squirreled myself away to accomplish the undertaking.
Okay, so I just made that up but no matter if you are in a mad dash for that 50K goal or taking the scenic route, this Friday is the start of an exciting weekend of writing. Who isn’t excited for the weekend! I had an entire day wide open to get my creative juices flowing again. I took it slow in the morning hours not wanting to burn myself out for the scheduled Write-In later in the evening. I also didn’t give myself a set goal because I found myself overthinking trying to get there and that’s never good for my writing process.
I’ve been able to solidly pants my way through the first week of NaNoWriMo but today I took a step back to do some basic plot arc outlining to get myself back on track. I know the goal is to get 50K words with no stipulation on them being good words but I’d at least like it to make sense. Since I’m planning to publish my NaNoNovel someday it would help if I didn’t have whole chunks of garbage writing to edit away.
Bonus tips: If you have a smartwatch or fitness tracker use the hourly activity notification as your word sprint clock. I have a Samsung Gear Frontier and its hourly reminder to get moving also keeps me from being too sedentary while on my writing binges.
Eight days in and I’m a little burnt out. I’ve put up some good numbers so far so I can afford to take a little break. Despite today being Distraction Free Day it was anything but for me. I did manage to find a little time to add 700 more words to my novel. Any progress is better than none!
It’s officially been a week of NaNoWriMo! I hit a bit of a snag the last two days but today was lucky number 7! I got my mojo back and while I didn’t have as many hours to put towards writing, that didn’t stop me from sailing right to the halfway mark of my NaNoWriMo journey with 4,517 new words under my belt. Shout out to Shut Up & Write! Tri-Cities for hosting my burst of word genius!
I came in expecting to race through my sprints and instead only did a short jog halfway up the block. Rounded out my day with A Local Write-In and finally got some mojo back. I didn’t meet my 2k word goal today, but I still managed to eek my way past 20k total for my NaNo Novel.
Five Days in and I’m feeling the burn. I started out sprinting even knowing this was a long distance race. I already knew that I wasn’t going to be able to keep such fantastic numbers every day so I set my goal just over the daily average to complete 50k in 30 Days (1,667). I managed to barely eek by my goal but still a solid word count of 1,930 words. Which put me falling just short of my 20k total word count goal for the first stretch. Definitely needed and appreciated that NaNo Pep Talk from Andy Weir today!
