Words/Time: 45 minutes revising “Pithea.” I started with writing the letter that will probably be the last text of the book. I’m not sure about it, because it was really hard to write, being a bit out of character for the person writing it, and I’m not so good with emotional stuff. I’ll let my sisters tell me what they think at our editing session on Saturday. The rest of the time was spent putting in some details about a character’s nervous habit that I didn’t bother including until we were near the end of the draft. I found a few places to sprinkle it elsewhere in the story.
My list of things I need to do before Saturday is really shortened. I may take tomorrow off of any writing work, so I can rest from NaNo. I don’t feel like I’ve gotten much chance to do that yet. And Saturday I’ll be doing writing work for probably 12 hours, so I think that should more than make up for a day off.
Words/Time: 35 minutes revising “Pithea.” One character isn’t from Pithea, and he’s meant to have a slight accent. While that’s difficult to write in text, especially when the accent is vague, my sisters and I decided that we should at least make sure he chooses words differently than what seems normal for the rest of the characters. (It’s also not meant to be a particularly strong accent.) Every time he appeared in part 4, we neglected to go over his dialog in this way, so I was going through and finding some possible changes to make.
I’m putting off what I really need to do, which is to write an emotional letter that will probably be the very end of the book. I need to have it ready for Saturday, when we’re going to go over some final notes and fixes for the story. Maybe I’ll write it tomorrow… it won’t even be very long, it’s just…emotional.
NaNoWriMo is over, but I just have a few more things to say. This year was different than past NaNo experiences for me in multiple ways. It was full of a lot of highs and lows. My first write-ins, my first word crawls, a new writing buddy, and the 25k on day 1 all made this a November to remember. I also wrote a full novel and probably 2/3 of another, which was new for me. One thing I learned is that I’m better not pushing for a huge word count in a single day. If it happens, then I’m probably in the right mood for it, and great! Otherwise, I risk burning out, and I really did teeter on the edge of that during the rest of the first week.
I just have to say a huge thank you to my husband who gave me everything I needed this month–time and encouragement to work, but also a reminder that I don’t have to overachieve if it’s just not feeling right. Oh, and lots of fun and relaxation right when I needed it. And to my sister who came to the write-in with me, even though it was so far from where she lives. It was so much fun doing that, and we were even in the paper!
I keep saying that the community and mutual encouragement of the community is what makes NaNo so amazing, and it really is true! I felt a lot of that when I was having issues this month, from fellow bloggers, people in my region, and just from finding new ways to be inspired on the NaNo forums. I will always love this event and the people who are involved!
One last time for 2015, make sure to check out the final NaNoToons – 2015 December 1st
And since I apparently forgot to post any more episodes of the musical, here is episode 5. There’s one more after it, and I think it’s linked at the end of this one. I wanted to get to episode 5 specifically, because it contains my favorite out of all the songs.
Now onto the non-NaNo part of the post, today’s daily writing check-in:
Words/Time: 25 minutes organizing notes for “Pithea” in anticipation of the next (and probably last for a very long time) marathon meeting of the TCSTB. We’ve left a lot of things to work on later through the 100,000ish words of this novel, so I went through and found all of the issues, questions, or whatever, and made a list of what we needed to work on.
A Journey of Words 