Day Seventeen of NaNoWriMo

So writing was easy today. Better than I expected. However (in my own opinion) I did cheat a bit. I started writing something new. I have added it to the NaNoWriMo word count, but I might delete it from there later. For some reason this new story got stuck in my head and I had to get rid of it. I should add that it is only the beginning of a story, but it's not bad despite that. At least I think it's not bad....

So today I wrote 2610 words, giving a grand total of 45123 words. However it is across two stories. But I did have to write the second one.

Tonight I plan to print out what I've written so far and then start editing it. I'll cross out the bits I don't want and I'll mark where I need to add stuff. Hopefully tomorrow I'll write some of the new stuff. From the main story I won't delete anything, just white it out. Still undecided about the second story. Maybe I'll move that one.

Still there are still 13 days to go, so I should do OK.

Quick update

I thought I'd just have one last try at a few more words and I made my daily goal of 2500 words exactly. So my total for day 16 is 42513 words.

And I am happy.

Day Sixteen

So here we go again. Unfortunately that's the way I feel today. Still I've so far written 1991 words, taking my grand total to 42004. Not bad, but I haven't reached my daily goal.

At least not yet. I might write some more. I might not.

The story line is now finished. I'm just starting on the aftermath section. In which, I'm putting in any missing explanations and showing what happens to the characters. This section will almost completely vanish in the final version, but I want it here so that I don't miss anything. If the novel works properly, there should only be need for a short summary at the end.

Only 8k words left to find in order to "win" NaNoWriMo and two weeks left to write them. From that point of view, I'm ahead.

Day Fifteen

So I wrote today. I managed 2456 words, which is just under my target of 2500 words per day. My total is a very respectable 40013 words and the story isn't finished yet.

I thought that it would be over by now and I would be wrapping up the loose ends, but due to a change in the killer I'm still to finish. It won't be long now, probably around the 45k mark. Then some wrapping up, most of which probably won't make it beyond the first draft, but I want to include it for now.

After that I will add some scenes so that I go over 50k and then I'll start editing. Hopefully by the end of NaNoWriMo, I'll have something decent to work with. And a good habit that I can keep up.

Day Fourteen

Well I didn't write at all yesterday. So my total for the day was 0 words. Real life got in the way, but I did get all my Christmas shopping for my family in England done. So now all I have to do is wrap the presents, put them into boxes and send the boxes abroad. If my family are very lucky, they'll get their presents before Christmas this year.

As for today, day fifteen, I'm already at 500 words, so maybe I'll make my goal. We'll see.

Day Thirteen Update

Starting to write today was like pulling teeth - extremely painful.

The result was 2546 words, giving a total of 37557 words. So I made my 2500 goal. Just.

I guess, and from current experience, bad days are more common than good ones. I don't know if this is because this I am new at this writing business or whether it is just me or whether other writers find this as well.

Now there is one difference here to most writing situations and that is NaNoWriMo. I have to write everyday. I can't decide to edit instead. Having said that, I think it is a very good thing.

My reasons:-
1) I am actually going to complete my story. No procrastinating and using editing as an excuse. I will have written the story.
2) It forces me beyond the "I don't want to write" or "I can't write" stages of the day and it makes me write. I feel guilty if I don't write something, even if it is only 400 words.

When I finally finish the story, I will go back and edit, and add, and do all of that, but when I reach that point I will have a first draft. It won't be 50k, I know that, but I will have a draft. I'll add to it until I reach 50k and then do some more serious editing.

And the other thing that happened today was that my nicely planned reveal has completely changed. The murderer is someone who I thought was completely innocent, but can be completely guilty without having to change the story line. It was not one I had considered before, but it works.

At least it works at the moment. Perhaps when I re-read it all, it won't make any sense. We'll see.

Day Twelve Update

So I reached 35011 words. Amazingly, I'm still going.

Today I wrote a total of 3520 words, which is not bad as I was having a bad day. I wrote in short 500 word sections. Then did other things, such as work or lunch. Slowly the writing got a bit easier and I went over my goal of 2500 words. So I made up 1000 words missed yesterday, which is not bad.

I just had a difficult time persuading myself to write. I want to go back and edit stuff, deleting and moving parts around. Instead I wrote and I had to force myself, but I did it. I know at the end of NaNoWriMo, I've got a lot of story to move and delete.

Still I should reach the end soon, which will be a relief. I will have to add either more scenes or more detail to reach 50k, but I can also start moving text so it makes more sense within the story. And of course, I can blank out bits that I don't want. (Turn the text color to the same as the background color.)

Hopefully I'll be a lot further on by the end of NaNoWriMo not just with the story, but also with the novel.

Day Eleven

I wrote practically nothing on day eleven. In fact I wrote just over 400 words all day. I have no excuse. I just got caught up in work and my home life. However I will try and catch up at least some of the missed words, but I'm not going to worry about it.

Even with missing a day, I still have plenty of time to reach my goal. I currently have written 31491 words and, if I write every day, will pass the 50k mark in about a week. As it is only the 12th November, I have plenty of time, not just for writing but also to begin the first edit.

And hello to Wendy :)

Day Ten

Well today I hit 31k words about which I am very happy. I might write some more later, but for now that's it. So my total written today is 2659 words.

I definitely much more relaxed about the new daily goal and I find I can write better. I'm less concerned with hitting the 5k and more concerned about the story and where it is going.

I still think that I will finish the storyline before I reach 50K, never mind 75k. However I know I've skipped over sections and there are definitely some scenes missing, so I can go back and add.

I know I've contradicted myself at least once, and probably more times. These I am going to leave in situ at the moment and only delete them or re-write them once NaNoWriMo is over. Chris Baty would skin me alive if I deleted something during this month.

However once I'm over 50k and the storyline is finished, I am going to start some editing. I just won't get rid of it before November 30th. I will add to the file and move sections around. This means I should finish with a good total.

The further I get through the story, the better I can see how it should be. If that makes any sense. The story is definitely evolving and it is not the one I originally thought I would write. Having said that, it is one that I like and I think I can make it into a book.

I don't think it will be the longest book in history, but I hoping for 75k to 90k in total. I would guess it will end up at the lower end of that scale. I know I'm writing a first draft, but I can start to see what might actually come out of it.

Altogether it's been another good day.

Update day nine.

Well today went very well. Much better than I ever expected it to. I actually wrote almost 5000 words without much effort at all.

I think that this lower day goal I have set myself is working. I'm not spending my time worrying about whether or not I can write 5k words. I just write.

So my total for today is 28360 words and the story is going smoothly. I am more almost two-thirds of the way through the storyline, but much less than that on the word count. I am not worried, because I know that when I finish the storyline, there are plenty of scenes to go back to where I can add detail or change things from telling to showing.

I deliberately skipped over some scenes because I didn't want to write them at that time, but that means I can easily up my word count. I think that there are some scenes that are also missing. I have added a few already. I will go back over the beginning of the story and add a few extra there.

Overall it's been a good day. The words came easily and I wrote a lot of them. Let's see if this continues tomorrow.

Update Day 8

Well all I had was a bad cold. I soon got over it and I did manage some writing over the weekend. My total is 23364 words in the first week of NaNoWriMo. Not quite the 30k I had originally set myself, but still not a bad total.

This week I'm going to write a bit slower and attempt to average 2500 words a day. This should give me an extra 12500 words over Monday to Friday. I'll use the weekend to make up any shortfalls that may occur and perhaps to give myself a boost for the following week.

Overall I'm happy with how the first week turned out. Let's hope the rest are as good.

Damn it.

Ok, I'm sick. I admit it and I'm going to bed. So I'm not going to make 30000 words by the end of tomorrow. I'm probably not going to hit 30k until sometime next week.

I'm at 21k as I write this and I probably won't write any more today. If I'm lucky I'll hit 25000 words by the end of Sunday. At least it would be nice to get there. In the worst case, my total for week 1 of NaNoWriMo is 21100 words, which still gives me a nice cushion.

I might post an update if I feel up to it. Otherwise it will be next week.

Good luck all.

Day Four Update

Well I made it to 20k words. I acutlly took my total to 20011 owrds. Not bad at all. Yesterday was a good day. The writing was much easier than Tuesday's.

Not much else to say. Except that I might change my word goal at the end of the week. At the moment I am trying to write 5000 words a day, with the goal of reaching 30000 words by the end of Friday. This is a lot of writing in a day onto of my regular work. So starting next week, I'm going to change my goal slightly.

I'm going to have 2 goals - a minimum goal and a "would-be-nice-to-get-to" (wbntgt) goal. The minimum I want to write in one day is 2500 words, which is still more than the NaNoWriMo minimum. And my wbntgt goal is 5000 words per day as I have been doing this week, but I'm not going to go to extremes to get there.

I believe that the result of this, will be a more balanced writing habit that I can continue to use after NaNoWriMo. At the moment, I find the balance completely wrong so that I find I'm not sleeping well and my hands are killing me from all the typing. Of course, if I ever give up my job, I will spend more hours writing. But for now, less is more.

I will probably change my mind next week and then again the week after and so on, until I find something that works for me and that I can use in my everyday life.

So time to write today's 5000 words and get a total of 25k words.

I hope everyone else is doing well and acheiving their own goals. Good luck to you all.

Day Three Update

So yesterday I was supposed to hit 15k words. I didn't make it. I only reached 14610 words, which means I missed my goal by 390 words. Not too bad, but also not good. I mustn't let the gap get any bigger.

I have to admit that my cunning plan to write at work was the reason I missed my target. I'd set things up so that I would be running simulations all week. Unfortunately events took over and I actually had to do other work as well, meaning I had less time to write.

Well that was one of the reasons. The other was that yesterday I had a bad day. I had trouble writing, even though I knew what I had to write, I just couldn't seem to get into it. But I persevered and ended up with a decent total. Towards the end of the day, it did get easier to write. It never flowed quite as well as the previous day, but it wasn't that bad.

Of course now I'm worrying I won't have enough story and I won't make 50000 words. I get the same worry every year and I always seem to find enough to write about. I also know that I can go back and fill in some of the parts that I've skipped over. Where I've used a lot of telling, I can replace it with showing. It will take longer to write, but it will produce many more words.

If I'm having trouble with a scene, I tend to tell the reader about the scene. I've done that in a couple of places so far. I know that writing those scenes so that I show the reader the action instead will take me quite a bit of time and mean I will need to look up some details first. If I have time at the end, I will do this. But only if I have the time.

For now I will continue as I have been going and try to write another 5000 words today and reach 30000 words by the end of Friday. If I fail, then I'll make up the difference over the weekend. If I succeed then I'll take the weekend off - for the most part. I'll probably write 2500 to 5000 words over the two days, but this is a lot less than I've been doing per day so far.

So my tally so far: 1 good day and 2 bad/not-so-good days

I reached 10K

To answer Bill's comment from yesterday: yes, I do care about my characters. In fact yesterday's writing went extremely well, much better than I had been expecting. I really got into the story and made up for the low word count on the first day. I wrote 6272 words yesterday and ended the day with a grand total of 10029 words. Pretty good even if I do say so myself.

My goal this week is to reach 30000 words by Friday. That's 5000 words a day, which I know I can manage easily. Anything above that is more of a stretch. I know yesterday I wrote more, but the last 1000 words were very difficult and took the longest amount of time to write. Not because I had nothing to say, but because I start to struggle at this point even if I have a clear path and I know where the story is going.

The most that I have written in one day was over 10000 words, but that was so hard. It was made worse by the fact that I had no outline to follow and the result was dreadful. Yesterday, I had a clear outline of which scenes I was writing, but the last part was still hard to do. I know that when I look back over what I have written, that last section will be one of the worst and need the most changes.

However if I can keep up the momentum, I should have no problem finishing before 30th November, even if I need to take some days off. I just have to write whenever I can and not make excuses for myself. Remember to reach 50k, when writing 5k per day, you only need 10 days. To reach 75k, you need 15 days.

So what I have learnt is that I can write 5k a day and I should write 5k a day. If I miss a day, it won't be a disaster, but I need to get back writing as soon as I can. I can't write more than 5k a day easily. Maybe that should be I am not happy in writing more than 5k a day. I find it becomes to much of a strain on my poor little brain...

And as for my story, that's going really well. It is definitely mutating, but I knew that would happen. Some of the minor characters are taking over a bit, but that isn't a bad thing and some, which I thought were a little boring, are becoming far more interesting. The story line is still intact and my preferred ending looks like it will still happen.

So onwards and upwards...to 15ooo words.

NaNoWriMo has begun!

Which will come as no surprise to most. I have started to. I wrote 3747 words yesterday. Less than I had hoped for (which was 5000 words), but more than I needed to write (min. 1667 words).

What I do know is this, and it is as I suspected, I have no sense of urgency at all in my writing. I was afraid that this would happen. Thirty days seems like such a long time and I know I can write 50000 words in ten days.

The upshot is that I feel like I don't have to write. I have no motivation to write. I have to force myself to sit down and write. And that worries me. I am afraid that at some point soon, I'm just not going to do it and I'll leave it until the last few days as usual and write very badly as usual.

One difference I have this year that I didn't have last year is a detailed outline of the story. This might help me write better at least, so that I might end up with a coherent story at the end of November, which is more than I have achieved before. It will need serious editing and I do mean serious, but maybe having the story there will be enough.

Perhaps what I need to do is set myself one or two week deadlines. So I have to write 25000 words in one week or I need to edit a chapter a week. Something like that. Maybe that will work for me.

Well I just hope that I can complete NaNoWriMo and end up with something usable. Here's to the next 5000 words.

Cookies and numbers

I've added a cookie to the template of this blog. It should tell me how many times and when people do look at this blog.

It shouldn't affect you, the reader. However if it does, let me know by leaving a comment. If it causes too many problems, I'll delete it.

I only added it because I love statistics. Sad I know, but true. I keep a spreadsheet throughout NaNoWriMo so I can analyse my performance...

And on statistics, I have actually completed the 50000 words in ten days in all the years I have completed NaNoWriMo. Not necessarily consecutive days, but always in 10 days and never starting before the 10th November for various reasons.

After last year (the first time I failed) I have decided that this year I will be starting on the 1st November, but it still remains to be seen if I actually spend more days writing. Of course it helps that the 1st falls on a Sunday.

My goal is different this year. The previous years I just wanted the 50000 words and that was it. Included in this, was a fantastic 5000 word chapter on making a sandwich. It was absolutely brilliant. I really should dig it out again, give it a good edit and see if The New Yorker (or similar) will publish it.

This time I want to actually write a real novel that has a chance to be published (with editing of course). I'm also hoping for 75000 words, as this is the length of the final book (approxiamately speaking).

And yes, I know the book will be length it needs to be, but I think 75000 sounds reasonable for a murder mystery. Of course if it's longer or shorter, I still be happy as long as it ends up as a book.

And now I've posted twice in one week. I think I'm getting addicted.

So I'm back and to my shock, I have a follower! Hello Dr. Bill Irwin :)

Anyway, I still have to work a bit on my characters, but in truth I'm ready to go and there's still a week to go. The only thing that is bothering me a bit is my typing. It's truly atrocious. OK my spelling is worse, but I'm used to that.

My typing was so much better last year. I could type faster and more accurately. This year my typing is so slow and I keep on hitting the wrong keys. Just reading through this post and correcting all my typing errors, takes a lot of time. I hate to think what's going to happen with NaNoWriMo. And I keep adding spaces in everywhere. I guess it's time to break out the typing program and get a little practice in before Sunday.

Time seems to be running so lsowly at the moment. I could have sworn NaNoWriMo was only just around the corner and now it seems so far away still. Isn't relativity a wonderful thing?

So time to finish of the character biographies, do some actually real life work and pretend that time is flying past.

Here's to Sunday and Good Luck to everyone. I hope your writing flows easily and smoothly.

Going away

As I am going to away next week and unable to access the internet, I am going to update my blog today instead of next Monday.

I don't actually have much to say. I haven't done anything on the character bios. I will most likely complete them when I get back. I will be home on Thursday, so that still gives me over a week to complete them.

On the Saturday 31st October, I will review my outline, bios and any other notes I've made, so that I am all set for the 1st Novemeber. I won't, as many other people are doing, stay up until midnight so that I can start then, but instead I will get as normal on the Sunday. I should be able to write up to 10000 words that day. However anything over the 1667 words needed, will be a bonus.

As I've said before, my aim for this year is different from previous years. Before all I ever tried to do was reach 50000 words. This time I want to actually get book out. This doesn't mean that I'll write more, though that would be nice, but this time I hope that the 50000 words form a completely coherent story with conflict, plot and interesting characters. Previous attempts have had at least one of these 3, but none have had all of them.

At least I think that's been the problem. However the 5000 word description about someone making a sandwich was a true page turner...

Well I'll be back a week on Monday.

Writing update

OK, so I'm not very good at actually keeping up with the blog. I have actually been writing, just not writing for here. I think, from now on, I will try to update my blog every Monday at the very least. Whether this happens, is a completely separate matter.

So a writing update...

My one line is done. I don't think much of it, but I'll update as and when I can think of something better. I've managed to write an outline. It's not complete, but it does cover more than half the book. The last section isn't covered yet and I'm not sure at this point if I will cover it at this time. The reason for this is obvious and simple - at least to me - I'm not sure which ending to use.

One option would be to outline all the possible endings. Another, and the one I prefer, is to see how the characters really work out as a group and decide later on which is the best way to go. Then once I have an ending, update my outline and see how it all looks. I'll use the outline to create the synopsis once the book is finished. If that ever happens of course.

So I'm just starting on some character bios and once they are done, I'm just about ready for NaNoWriMo in just under 3 weeks. At least the 1st November falls on a Sunday this year, which means I should get a good number of words in on the first day for a change. I'm hoping for 10,000 words, but anything over the 1,667 will be a bonus.

I've done NaNoWriMo several times already and each time I've won, I wrote my 50,000 words in ten days each time. Once I started on November 20th and still finished well before the midnight deadline on the 30th. This year, however, I'm hoping to take it a bit more seriously and not have 5,000 word descriptions of making a sandwich, which was included in my very first attempt.

This year I really want to have something that I can edit and manipulate into a novel that can be submitted to agents and may even get published. That's my aim.

One other point, I've never been ready this early before. OK I probably just jinxed myself and now I won't actually finished the bios before November, but usually I only start preparing on October 31st. So what I've already done is more than I've ever done before.

"May you live in interesting times"