30 Days of NaNoWriMo – Day 15: Goal!!

I only wrote about 916 words today, but I hit the NaNoWriMo goal of 50,000 words! Yay!!

Now, I just have to hit my personal goal of 60,000 to actually complete the event to my satisfaction. In order to do this, I have to start editing and rearranging. I’ve begun splitting up chapters, and I’m trying to make each one at least 2,000 words each. I had 14 chapters to begin with, and I’d like to get between 28 and 30 by the time I’m done.

I already have scenes I’m planning to add, and I am changing the ending as, thanks to one of the write-ins I attended last week. I am looking forward to completing this challenge!! Wish me luck and lollipops!!

See you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!!

30 Days of NaNoWriMo – Day 11

My word count dropped again today – it was 3,214 when I was done. While this does bring my overall total up to 41,588, I’m not competely satisfied with the count. I wanted to do more.

This said, I have noted many times in this project where I can split chapters and beef them both up so the count is higher overall. There are some scenes I do want to add to once the main project is done. Since I’m projected to hit the event goal of 50,000 words in 3 more days – if my daily word count stays above 3,000 – I’ll have time to do a rework of the overall project.

I plan to split up chapters, beef up scenes and add scenes where needed, and I plan to make sure formatting is the same throughout the entire project. I’m having issues with Crimson Knight right now, and I plan to fix it before Christmas.

As you can see, writing involves more than just stringing words together. 🙂

See you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!

30 Days of NaNoWriMo – Days 9 & 10

Yes, I’m doing two days today instead of one. That’s because I was so busy yesterday I totally forgot to post about NaNoWriMo and my writing project. It had crossed my mind I could write two separate posts and try to pass one off as having been written, but I couldn’t. I am trying to build a rapport, one of trust and mutual respect with a flavoring of ideas and events we both enjoy. I can’t do that if I lie, and the time stamp would easily make a liar out of me. So, I’m merging the two posts into one…

Monday, 9 November

I wrote 3,550 words bringing my overall total on that day to 34,836. I’ve begun tweaking the formatting of the chaptters as I write too. I made the paragraph indentation too wide in the first 8 chapters using a one inch indent. I’m going to fix those chapters while continuing on with the standard half inch indent from now on.

There wasn’t a write-in scheduled for today by anyone so completed my writing for the day and began researching how to make a simple loom for when I start learning how to weave. I’ll also be able to use if for macrame I do believe. 🙂

Tuesday, 10 November

I wrote 3,538 words today bring my total for my project to 38,374. I made notes on where I want to add a scene and where I want to split the chapter into two separate chapters. It will help things to flow smoothly and no slow down too much. I’m not happy I didn’t write more, but there’s still time for the additions I have planned once I get the initial goal reached.

I missed today’s write-in because I was busy doing research on industry in the 1930s in New York. I like to have some reality woven into my stories. It gives them more depth, I think. Anyway, I was reading and taking notes, forgetting all about the write-in until it was over. There’s a replay, but the live show is more entertaining and helpful.

I did fix the formatting on the first two chapters – it was niggling at me to do so. I didn’t want to forget to do it and end up with a mess like I’m dealing with in regards to Crimson Knight.

That’s all for today folks, I’ll see you on the flipside so don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!!!

30 Days of NaNoWriMo – Day 8

I didn’t do as well with today’s word count. Every word count is a chapter in my book by the way. At this point, I am developing the main part of the story. Today’s chapter isn’t one I’m completely happy with so, at the end of the event, I’ll be working on it until I am happy with it.

Today’s word count was 2,931. That brings my total word count to 31,286. This is the best year I’ve had since starting NaNoWriMo years ago! 🙂

I’ve been seeing people in the chats for the write-ins as well as the discord channel I host for my writing buddies talking about not”feeling it” about working on their projects. Some are very far behind, some not so far behind and some, burning out early.

I’ve been counseling not to stop writing; stop writing on your project. Just for today or just for a few minutes – whatever you need – just don’t stop writing. Writing every day needs to be a habit. It also doesn’t have to be project related. It could be a poem, song lyrics, a list of things you need to do – things of that nature. As long as you scribble something down every day, it’s a win-win situation.

See you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and screwdriver!!!

30 Days of NaNoWriMo – Day 7 – End of Week One!!

I had such a great time with yesterday’s virtual write-in on YouTube hosted by staff of NaNoWriMo I had a great day writing today! 😀 I wrote 4, 366 words which has brought my grand total up to 28, 355 words!!! The total for the event, as I may have mentioned before, is 50,000 words. My own personal goal is 60,000 words. I’m a bit over halfway there with the first and almost halfway there with the second, Considering this is only the first week, I’m doing a magalicious job!!!

I may even have time to do the editing and cover art and publishing before the end of the year!! It would be beyond fabulous to have a book published in time for Christmas!

Wish me luck and lollipops I get to my goal soon! Good luck and lots of lollipops for those doing the event with me!

See you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!!

30 Days of NaNoWriMo – Day 6

Today was a good day to write! I got 3,881 words written in a little over an hour. I only work on my novel for an hour a day to keep from stressing out. Stress is bad for a writer and can cause us to write nothing but junk that we’ll have to waste time deleting later. My total is now up to 23,989 🙂

At 3pm Central Time, NaNoWriMo is hosting a virtual write-in using YouTube and Facebook Watch. I’ll be on YouTube. I’ll post an update on my writer’s page on Facebook tomorrow. I’m only posting there on a weekly basis so I don’t get distracted. There will be virtual write-in events tomorrow and Sunday as well. 🙂 I look forward to them to join in the conversations and to see if I can get a new idea or two. 🙂

I hope those of you who are participating along with me are meeting your goals or, at the least, are still enjoying the event! Drop me a comment below and let me know!

See you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!!

30 Days of NaNoWriMo – Day 5

Today was a really good day! I got 3,833 words done bring my total up to 20,108!! The general goal is 50,000 words, and my personal goal is 60,000. I see myself hitting both goals by the end of the month even with me being away from home for 12 hrs a day due to my new job starting on 16 Nov. It’s in a town 2 hours away from me, and I will commute until I can afford to move.

Ever since I began this event, I’ve been attending the virtual write-ins hosted by the staff of NaNoWriMo. As I have, I’ve noticed other videos about writing I hadn’t seen before. One video that reached out to me was done by two members of AutoCrit. AutoCrit is an online editing service with an app that has limited services for free. It’s like Grammarly in that regard but more geared towards novel writers than Grammarly is.

I watched the entire video and now, I want to watch more of the videos put out by them. Deciding to do NaNoWriMo this year has been beneficial to me thus far. I’ve found a couple of new writing resources that are greatly helping my writing now and will help on future projects.

Check out NaNoWriMo yourself! Also, check out AutoCrit to see how it can help your own writing.

See you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!!

30 Days of NaNoWriMo – Day 4

Today wasn’t as productive as the last couple of days have been. I did 3,668 words and brought my total up to about 16,200. This is far ahead of what the site has so I’m pretty pleased about it.

Thing is, I’m a bit worried I’m not filling the scenes out enough even though “telling” isn’t as good as “showing”. The way I set a scene right now is pretty minimal, and I’m not sure if I need to add more. I want to try to leave a lot to a reader’s imagination, but not leave them guessing. It’s a conundrum.

Good thing is, once the event is over, I can do more work and have a beta reader or two check things out before I move forward with my plans to publish.

I can say that despite my small issues with my own writing, I’m enjoying the event immensly. We have several virtual write-ins scheduled for Friday through Sunday coming up , and there are more for the rest of the weekends of this month. We kicked off with two webinars featuring staff of the NaNoWriMo organization as well as a couple of published authors. They were all fantastic, and I can’t wait for the next one!!

See you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!!

30 Days of NaNoWriMo – Day 3

I’m still going strong!! I added 3,721 words and brought my total up to just over 12,000 words!!

I just completed Chapter 3 of the novel, The Inbetween, and it’s coming along nicely. I am checking and double checking formatting to make sure every chapter, every line, matches. I am hoping for a better result the first time than I had with Crimson Knight.

I am writing between 8am and 9 am Central U.S. Time for now. When I start work, I’ll have to shift to late afternoon because of my day shift at work. I’m sure I can keep up the momentum, for the most part.

Right now, I’m doing some light beefing up and editing work on the chapters. As I go on, I may be adding more and changing more. It depends on how the story moves me. I am not even sure of the ending yet. lol

Well, that’s all for now. I’ll see you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!!

30 Days of NaNoWriMo – Day 2

Today was another fantastic day!! I manged to get 4,800 words done!! Woot!!

At this rate, I’ll have the 50,000 word goal reached long before the end of the month. I’m actually aiming for 60,000 words myself. I’m confident I can hit that goal before the end of the month as well.

Now, I’m starting a new job which will keep me away from home for about 12 hours a day. I’m going to do my best not to let this keep me from writing on a daily basis. It’s a habit I desperately need to cultivate. Practice makes permanent, and I really need to keep practicing.

I plan to self publish the novel I’m working on too. It’s in its final stage so it won’t take much to do the final tweaking and get it published with the Kindle platform. Yes, I’m going to use Amazon again even though the book creator is a bit of a pain to work with. I need cover art before I do anything so I may go with someone else eventually, I don’t know yet. I need to focus on getting the novel done first.

I hope everyone has a great day and see you on the flipside; don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!!