Tag Archives: NaNoWrIMo

NaNoWriMo Day 15 – Oh Crap

So I was doing pretty good. I had my word count on par, I had no worries about finishing on time. And then I got slack.

And by slack I mean I haven’t written anything since Sunday.

So today, when I’m supposed to be at 25000, I’m… Not. Guess what I’ll be doing today.

I don’t have good reasons as to why I fell behind. I’ve had a couple of “tired” days, chose to edit over writing, and found myself slacking after dinner every night. I’m not making excuses, I know full well what I’m doing when I don’t do anything.

How’s your NaNo going?

Ha! Take that NaNoWriMo!

Day seven, and I’m back in the game! It tried to pull me under, drown me, take me out, but I fought back. So I smugly sit and enjoy a cookie and a tea, thinking that, now that I’m back on track I will stay there. Here’s hoping.

So how did I get out of the big, scary jungle?

I spent all day yesterday (and by all day I mean from when I woke up to about five o’clock) writing in an effort to catch up and make my project a little better than my half assed attempts in getting my word counts. I’ve caught up, and gave myself almost a full day’s worth in buffer in case I miss a day. I’ll admit I slacked off a little bit at lunch time, but only a bit. I did some plotting so I at least have a little more in the story line department.

How is your NaNoing going?

Day five of NaNoWriMo and already I’m sinking.

HELP! I’m sinking!

Day five and I’m not only behind on my word count, but I also had an epiphany for my novel that I should have had weeks ago (and thought I did. My bad). It’s that kind of “AH HA!” moment in plotting that you just know what your story is going to be about. Luckily, the crap I started writing beforehand can still be salvaged, but it wasn’t a whole lot of words anyway.

Still, I foresee myself taking a day (or three) being dedicated to writing. Not today, though. No, today I get to sit in a waiting room with a notebook to try to write. Or at least make a copious amount of notes.

Yep, NaNo has me deep in the water this year.

How are you doing with yours?

Oh crap, it’s NaNoWriMo time.

I know, I was excited for it before. Now, though, I feel very unprepared. I was sick not once but twice during October with barely a week between colds. Sure, a cold is nothing, and it shouldn’t have held me back. But I can’t take anything for it, and naturally getting over something is extra tiring (especially when caffeine is also out). So my editing fell way behind and I still have 10 chapters to do hard edits, then put all the changes of all 38 chapters into the digital file, and then edits round 3. Plus I need to do my 1667 words a day.

So I’m pretty sure NaNo is going to kick my butt this year. With more doctor’s appointments this month, and needing to have all my Christmas gifts/cards ready for mailing at the end of the month (thanks to my inability to travel starting in a week), November is already a busy month for me. Add the challenge on top of it all, and I think I’m going to have to take all of December off just to recoup.

But this may be my last year for NaNo, at least for a couple. I liked doing it last year, and I”m sure I’ll have fun again this go around. I just need to schedule well (excuse me while I laugh).

What challenges are you facing this NaNoWriMo?

NaNoWriMo – It sneaks up on you

I remember it wasn’t all that long ago I was wondering why it wasn’t November already. Then I accepted that I’d have to wait, procrastinated a little, did a little editing (Wishing I had the energy to do more), thought of NaNo on occasion, but mostly “forgot” about it.

Well, today is two weeks away from the start of the challenge. I still have a ton of editing to do, and I also planned on doing a re-write & edit for last year’s NaNo work. How did this happen? I was going to be all set and ready to go! And now, well… I’m still tired. I’m not going to get over that. And I can’t use coffee to get me through this year’s round. So it looks like my challenge for November will still be working on multiple projects, but this year it won’t involve writing two novels (like last year. Such a bad idea).

What challenges are you going to have to deal with in two weeks? Or are you ready to go and are bouncing in your chair with anticipation?

Why isn’t it November yet? A NaNoWriMo post

This happened to me last year too: A month and a half before NaNoWriMo begins and I get the urge to write a new story. The idea is there and it’s clear. I like it, I see this being a fun story to write. And it was from the seed I originally planted in the back of my mind to sprout in time for NaNo. I blame my forced bed rest during August for it’s early bloom. When you can’t really do much but sit and watch TV, read books, and maybe attempt some editing when not entirely drained, your mind has a lot of time to rest and still absorb. The only problem is now I have over a month to wait and hope that this idea doesn’t wither (It happens to me more than I care to admit.)

What does one do when waiting for November with a fresh story in your head? Take copious notes, for one. Hack apart another story for another. Hope that I can do both for long enough that I don’t jump the gun and start writing like I did last year. At least then I had two ideas and I jumped on the one that nagged to be written the most.

What do you do if you have an early NaNoWriMo idea begging to be written.

Food for thought (and fall)

Alright, I know that this is a blog about writing and observations made while doing so, with the occasional reading or music post thrown in. But I have to share this with you because they’re just so darn good.

Fall is my favorite season for many reasons, but pumpkin flavors are one of the things I get excited about. In fact, they’re a family favorite in my home. So when I find a good recipe I have to share it. And yesterday I found two.

In all fairness, my sister found the first one. It’s a recipe for Pumpkin Spice Drink Syrup. This is supposed to taste like the kind Starbucks uses in their drinks and let me tell you it’s pretty darn close. I’m drinking it right now in a homemade “latte”. Mine didn’t really thicken as much as I think it should have, but I’m not complaining.

The other recipe is for a Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffin. It’s another Starbucks knockoff that is, again, pretty darn close. This person has sugar crumble on hers. I do not for two reasons: 1) I was already tired, the muffins took a while to make, and it’s not like they wouldn’t turn out if I didn’t do it. 2) There’s already a lot of sugar in these beasts, plus that in the syrup, so I thought it would be smarter to skip it. My favorite part about these things is that the cream cheese didn’t melt inside. I’ve attempted a version of these last year and was met with that problem. This time, not so much.

This is my sharing for the day. Maybe these wonderful fall treats will get you motivated for some writing, plotting, reading, what have you. Maybe even serve as a scary reminder that NaNoWriMo is not that far away (for those who do it.) Now me, I’m going to go back to eating muffins, sipping coffee, and editing.

Writing to Music: Extreme Edition.

I’ve been thinking of NaNoWriMo lately. Early, I know, but I haven’t gotten any good writing in since March. My life has been all about editing and whatnot. I thought what could be really fun to do this year is write a story inspired strictly by ONE Band/Artists music. I think it would have to be one with a very large catalogue, because if you need variety one album probably won’t do it.

Maybe Maroon 5, Adele, Taylor Swift, or (depending on the project) some Linkin Park?

The idea originally came to me after last NaNo, while I sat on my living room floor wrapping presents and watching Mamma Mia. It’s kind of neat that someone sat there and wrote a whole musical around Abba’s music. Of course, Abba is a music legend, and writing a novel is  not a musical (even if your characters sing the songs in your head), but it can’t hurt as a writing exercise. It would be challenging, maybe even fun.

What do you think? Would you be willing to limit the music you listen to while writing to one artist/band/musician?

Tuesday Tunes – My NaNoWriMo Playlist

NaNoWrimo has one day left. Because of this, I thought I would share my NaNo Playlist. It’s small, and the selection has to be the most varied of any WIP playlist I’ve ever had, but it’s hard to find good music reflecting the anger one may have towards a she-devil future mother in law.

On my list:

What did you listen to over November? I’d love to know, I’m always looking for new music.

5 Things I learned from NaNoWriMo

***This post was originally released November 25, 2011. Given NaNo’s rapid approach, I thought I’d share this once again***

NaNoWriMo is almost over. As of today, the people who crossed the 50 000 word finish line can be declared winners, and the rest of the Wrimo’s start sprinting for the end (or lightly jog, maybe power walk, depending on how close you are).

NaNo did hold some challenges for me when it came to the manuscript. I manage to write roughly a thousand words an hour, so getting it done wasn’t the issue. I’m one of those people who only has a husband to distract me (I live two provinces away from all my family and a good chunk of my friends.) I went out almost every night, Monday through Friday, with Caro where we occupied a café table or two for three hours and devoted our time (or most of it) to our NaNoing.

The challenge I had from doing NaNo was trying to keep up with EVERYTHING ELSE that I had to do. So, as an explanation, I give you the 5 things I learned from doing NaNoWriMo:

1)      I’m a multitasker, but only when it comes to none writing things: I had this big, amazing dream that I was going to write two novels during the month of November simultaneously. I was going to spend a few hours during the day delving into one story, pounding away on my keyboard with enthusiasm, stop, eat, hop the subway, and switch trains of thought from one plot to another on my forty minute venture. Then, I would spend three hours, making sure I get my *at least* 3000 words in a night (which was my goal). It didn’t happen. What did happen was I would sit in front of my computer, stared at a blank word processing screen, maybe draw out the plot on my whiteboard, maybe write something, and then realize I need to start getting ready to head out. My poor Plot 1 (aka, none NaNo book) sat sadly untouched until I crossed the 50 000 word line for NaNo.

2)      I have no sense of regularity during the challenge: I don’t mean bathroom regularity, I mean scheduling. The five days a week venturing out threw off my groove for my at home writing schedule, and I’m still trying to figure out how to regulate my time while factoring in the travelling and normal, daily tasks that need to be done for when Caro and I go back to two days a week. I also started losing track of what day of the week it was. I’d know it was the weekend when I woke up, because those are the only days in which my husband is still around after 7:30am. My blog suffered, not like it was really flying anyway, but I was starting to get a rhythm for posting regularly before November. I screwed that up. Let’s try this again in December.

3)      I can’t get so excited about a plot in October that I jump the gun and start writing: Don’t have a cow, I had a back-up plot. I had two ideas for my NaNo novel, and I was pretty certain I knew which one I wanted to do. Then, about mid-October, I felt like I was going to burst with the crazy awesomeness that was my idea and I started writing. “No worries,” I thought, “I’ll just use idea number two for the Wrimo challenge.” But the mid-point of  week two I was kicking myself, because I had been soaring through Plot 1, and had made it about half of the way through that plot line with a nice, fat word count to go with it. Plot 2 (aka Nano Book) struggled and starved. I had a hard time beefing it up, with (as it seemed) not a enough plot to serve all fifty thousand words without a bunch of additives.

4)      Listening to two separate WIP playlists can cause issues with your characters: Plot 1 is about the journey two of my previously used characters had where they met, fell in love, and crashed and burned. Plot 2 was where two more of my previously used characters planned their wedding and dealt with the most evil woman in the world: the groom’s mother. The two playlists don’t exactly contain complimenting songs, and because I tend to listen to my playlists when I go for walks, I had a hard time focusing on one book. And if I managed to concentrate on one story line, the songs would tend to make the story go in a direction it simply couldn’t. That, or I would be skipping a lot. So, it ties back in with the first thing I learned: don’t write two stories at once. But should I try it again, I’m going to be writing to books with similar plot, or at least characters with similar music tastes.

5)      Don’t count on writing a short book, because short can be a hindrance: My thought with Plot 2 was that, ‘on the bright side’, it was intended to just be a Novella, or a really small novel at best. Just that nice little extra thing that would finish up a somewhat on-going tale. But that was a mindset I shouldn’t have had going in, because I couldn’t think of anything outside of what I already envisioned for the plot, and it was everything I could to make the characters think a little more on things to get the word count. Even if it was on things like cake flavors or invitations, I’m not a fan of weddings, wedding planning, or anything related, and neither was my character. It was torture for both of us.

In the end, NaNo helped me grow as a writer. Getting the word count: piece of pie. Remembering to do everything else required of me, balancing my work load, and basically functioning in all other aspects of writing life: like making my husband’s birthday cake from scratch.