No progress

I'm still at just over 33000 words, which means I need to write just under 17000 words before midnight tomorrow. Definitely doable. OK, I might not finish until late tomorrow, but I will finish. I'll aim for 40000 words today and leave the last 10000 until tomorrow.

33000 words

Not too bad, not the 35000 words I was hoping for, but a lot better than I feared. And tomorrow is another day.

writing

I ended yesterday with just over 30000words. Today I've added about a thousand more and I can't think of a single thing more to write. I'm not feeling very well, but that's just an excuse. I really don't feel like writing. I was hoping to end the week with 40000 words, I'll be lucky to hit 35000 words.

Of course, this doesn't mean I won't reach the magic 50000 words. It just means I have more to do in the last remaining days. That is what I'm good at. I just wish I could be more consistent.

My spelling is improving, but I get the feeling my grammar is getting worse.

Today

Yesterday I ended up with a touch over 26000 words. I'm hoping to get to just over 30000 words today. It should be possible. In theory. Trouble is I was never very good at theory.

I have added 500 words so far today, which is progress. Let's hope it continues.

25000 words!

So I am now over the halfway mark. Less than 25000 words to write to win NaNoWriMo. I will write enough to win, but I won't be anywhere near my original target.

However I will have a good first draft, that needs expanding, re-writing and editing. In the end I will end up with a good manuscript. I have no idea if it will attract an agent, but I should get to that stage this time.

After NaNoWriMo, I will work on one chapter a week. I will, however, not start until next year, before that I'll work on the outline to another book. I need a break from this one. But this is, by far, the most advanced story I have to date. It is consistent.

The weekend

I reached 23000 words over the weekend. Not exactly brilliant, only an extra 500 words. But we are now into the home straight, so I know I'll start writing more.

Only 8 days to go and 27000 words, that should be no problem. It should take 6 days, so time to spare. Now it is time to write.

yesterday, Tuesday 16th

I wrote 1400 words, bring my total to 21700 words. So I'm still behind the NaNoWriMo average total for the given date. I'm not feeling well today, but I'll see how I do.

Some how I see myself writing the last 25000 words in the last weekend, and making it just in time. Sigh.

Writing

I'm finding it increasing difficult to write each day. I keep trying and I fail miserably. That doesn't mean I don't want to write or that I have nothing to write, but I just don't want it to become routine.

I don't know if that makes any sense. It makes sense in my head. I know I'll win NaNoWriMo - barring accidents of course - but it won't be until the final week. Then the deadline will be looming and the adrenalin will be flowing and I will end up writing 10000 words a day. It's the way I always win.

What worries me is will I be able to write away from NaNoWriMo. I didn't do so well last year, but part of that was a lack of an outline, meaning I got lost in an ever changing story. I've started the outline for that and I do intend to do the re-writing. I'm just worried I won't have the discipline to write consistently. Maybe I was never meant to do that.

Having the outline definitely helps. It's the best thing I ever did. This years NaNoWriMo is much more consistent than previous years. However it is nowhere near ready to submit. I'm skipping over chunks of the story by putting in a "telling" section. These need to be changed into "showing" scenes. I may even go back and start writing these before the end of November, as long as I've reached the end of course.

I may even need to do that to reach the 50000 words.....

Update

I wrote a total of 1100 words over the weekend. Not good, but at least I wrote something. This week I'm hoping to write 20000 words, with a target of writing 5000 words a day for 4 days out of the 7. I should be able to do this because I have done it before. It simply means I have to write. That means not writing here, or surfing the web or wasting time.

I'm very good at wasting time. Time to start writing.

no more words

OK, so that's not strictly true, but...

I didn't write a single word for NaNoWriMo yesterday and only 200 the day before. That is not good. I would love to use the weekend to catch up, but I somehow get the feeling that it won't happen. Life continues as does NaNoWriMo.

I'm not worried because I know I will make it to 50000 words before the deadline. Even if I have to write the remaining 33000 words in the last couple of days. I know this because this is how I normally write and win NaNoWriMo.

The trouble with that is that NaNoWriMo only happens once a year and so I have no push to write the rest of the time. There are so many other things to do. I do write, but only a little and very infrequently. I need to change my priorities. But will I?

10th November

I wrote a grand total of 200 words. Pathetic, but never mind maybe I'll do better today.

yesterday's progress

I wrote 3200 words yesterday. Bringing my total up to 16700 words. I even remembered to put the total in on the NaNoWriMo website. It went very well yesterday. I wrote until the battery in my netbook died. That's the first time this year that I've found it so easy to write.

Let's hope today goes as well.

Today's tally

I've just reached a total of 13500 words, so I am back on track to hit 50000 words on 30th November at 1667 words per day. I've added 2750 words so far today and I'm not done yet, but I probably won't update again this evening. That's a pretty good total and I did it easily, though I did have fewer interruptions today.

Tomorrow will definitely be different and I will have to make an effort to update at least NaNoWriMo in the evening, so that the graph looks reasonable. I can always write a new blog entry the following day.

Things are looking up.

The weekend

I wrote a grand total of 250 words over the weekend. I didn't bother to update NaNoWriMo or here. I'll add those to today's total. Assuming, of course, that I actually add to my total today.

OK, I know I will add to my total. I'm not quite that bad yet, but I definitely write better when the deadline is looming. I should say I write more. There's no proof that it is better.

Progress today

Do far I'm at 10500 words. By far the most I've written in one day in this year's NaNoWriMo. OK so it is only day five, but still it is much better than some of the other days.

My biggest challenge over the weekend will be keeping the NaNoWriMo website updated with my word count. I rarely go online at the weekends, but I have to make a special effort this month.

Yesterday

I managed to the total to 7800 words yesterday and update NaNoWriMo. I'm hoping to reach close to 10000 words today. I should be able to do that. It's just a little over 2000 words, which is close to my average so far.

This is a very boring entry, but there isn't any thing else to say.

Today!

So far my total is 7000 words. Not bad. Not brilliant either, but it's better than I feared. I'm hoping to make it to 8000 words by the end of the day. I should be over 10000 words if I want to write 80000 words before the 30th.

Still maybe I'll write more at the weekend. I probably won't, but perhaps I'll be disciplined enough to do it. If I keep up my current rate, I should end up with about 54000 words. I will win, I just won't be anywhere near what I was hoping for. Of course, I will only have myself to blame.

yesterday seems so far away......

OK so it's a dreadful title. I ended the day with 5500 words written. I managed to update NaNoWriMo, but forgot to add an entry here....

I wrote much less than I hoped, but work got in the way. I spent too many hours struggling to instal a program on my computer. Failed miserably and ended having to go another route, which basically meant working out how to make two other programs talk to each other. Still I finally got something working.

The result is that I never finished chapter three - the idea was to write a chapter a day - but I did stay roughly on track. Time to go and post my 5k shoutout.

Yesterday

I ended the day with 4400 words. I forgot to update NaNoWriMo as I had intended to do. Never mind, the extra words count towards today's total instead.

I'm still finding it difficult to get into the flow, but I think that's just the lack of urgency. If it was November 25th, then it would be a completely different story...

Trouble

I'm having trouble writing today. I have in fact managed just 250 words all morning. I wouldn't call it writer's block. I'm not sure what to call it, but I just can't seem to get into it. But on the bright side, at least I don't need to go an pick up any extra notes. I'll have plenty still to write during the music lesson. There should be time to add about 1000 words, then I'll continue once I get home. I'll also try to update NaNoWriMo website too.

A mistake

I just realised I only brought the notes for chapter two with me. I should have picked up the notes for chapter three as well. The reason for this is that this afternoon I have to take my children to their music lesson. This will give about one hour to write while I wait for them. It's highly likely that I will finish chapter two before then. I might swing by home to pick up the other notes, but it depends on the time. I normally have a pretty tight schedule.

word count update

I finished yesterday on 2200 words. Not bad for the first day. Chapter one is written. It's not ready for publishing, but the first draft is there.

On to chapter two. I'm hoping for roughly the same word count. A little higher would be nice, but not necessary. However I do think that this first draft is going to be a lot less than 90000 words. It will probably end up 70000 to 80000 words. At worst it will be 54000 words and that's if I write 2000 words per chapter.

1500 words plus

I have now written 1541 words. Far more than I thought I would write when I started about one and a half hours ago. So I should definitely make the 1700 words. I'll see how much more than that I manage.

1000 words written

So the fire alarm went off and we all had to leave the building. But despite this I just hit 1000 words. Another 700 to go for the minimum and 2000 more for the average. I think I'll end up somewhere between these two values.

And I'll stop posting so frequently too. I'll probably end up posting twice a day. Once in the morning and once in the late afternoon.

It's going pretty well so far...

Hit 500 words

I finally started to write and I have now reach 525 words. Just under 1200 words to reach today's minimum and just under 2500 words to reach my average daily goal.

Somehow, it doesn't feel real yet. I think I work better with deadlines. If today was the 20th November, I would be more motivated to write.

Well I still have lots of time to go. However I won't update here or NaNoWriMo after about 5pm CET (Central European Time). I'll update first thing in the morning if I write after that time. This of course only holds until the 29th November. On the 30th, I'll update as I need to, if I haven't already finished that is.

By the way, I'm writing in UK English.

NaNoWriMo blog chain

Rebecca Enzor has started a blog chain for NaNoWriMo. Click here to go to her post and add your blog to the chain.

My NaNoWriMo total is still at zero.

Not yet started.

So it's now 12:15pm and I haven't even started writing this years NaNoWriMo. I will start to day and hopefully complete the minimum (1700 words). I might even make it to 3000 words, which I hope will end up being my average for the month.

My excuse is that I was on holiday last week, from work at least. So now I have to catch up on all the missed emails and work I should have done.

Though I been waiting for NaNoWriMo to start, it feels more like an anticlimax than anything else. But then again, I normally do most of my writing in the last ten days when there's a greater sense of urgency. Maybe that's the problem.....