The Words: 1843 words, again just happy to get at least par. More freelance work for my old job took up my morning and afternoon, and I have to get up really early tomorrow, so I’m going to bed early. I really hope to pick up the pace for the rest of the month, but it’s not going to happen today.
The Story: Storyline 2 saw a reuniting of two friends who spent the whole story before now apart. It was nice, but it’s nothing compared to the reunion that’s coming soon. The end of this storyline isn’t far away, which at this point is a good thing. While I hate running out of something to write before the end of the month, I’ve been a little concerned about finishing the draft this month, due to being so busy, so I’m seeing some hope for that now!
Total word count: 73,418
Don’t forget to check out today’s NaNoToons if you haven’t already: November 23, 2019
The Words: 2040 words and happy to get that. I did some freelance work for my old job today (helping get an app built, which is really not my area of expertise) and worked on the cover of “Pithea” (which comes out on January 10th!) to try to make it look better on the paperback. By evening, my head just wasn’t in the first-draft writing space. But I dug down deep and did some sprints with @NaNoWordSprints on Twitter and at least wrote a bit past par.
The Story: Today was all conversation for storyline 1. I really like how the characters are developing in this storyline, but I will probably have to put more variety into it in the next draft. For now though, big news has been revealed that may or may not be as much of a huge revelation for the readers (someday far in the future) as it is for the characters.
Total word count: 71,575
Don’t forget to check out today’s NaNoToons if you haven’t already: November 22, 2019
The Words: 3538 words. I did a few sprints with @NaNoWordSprints on Twitter this evening, and some writing on my own between sprints. It’s nice to feel like I’m making progress with higher word counts again, but I think tomorrow will end up being another shorter day.
The Story: I went back to storyline 2 today and gave the main character there a chance to release some frustration over some pretty crappy things that have happened to him recently. And I realized that I don’t really know what my climax is for this book, because there’s a potential for one in storyline 2, but I had never planned to actually show this scene happening for multiple reasons. So I think storyline 1 might have to contain the climax, but thanks to some fresh ideas I’ve had come up during writing, that might actually be possible!
Total word count: 69,535
Don’t forget to check out today’s NaNoToons if you haven’t already: November 21, 2019
The Words: 1727 words. I had an afternoon and early evening without kids today, but still ended up spending most of my free time during it working on formatting for “Pithea”. Then I had to head to my church for worship team practice (I’m on once a month), and realized how late it would be when I got home. So I took my Neo with me and wrote in the car for the second time this month.
It was dark all the way there and back, so it was really rough at first, because I couldn’t check the screen to see what I’d last written, and even though I try really hard not to backspace to fix mistakes, it’s a habit. So I wouldn’t know if I’d actually erased enough or too much. I ended up turning on the light on the mirror of my visor.
All of the words came during the half hour drive there and back, which was really not too bad at all, and I liked being able to make use of that time.
The Story: I wrote more for storyline 1 today, and think I will need to do that more tomorrow, because there is more of that left in the outline than for storyline 2. I hit on a new idea today, which will likely be part of the next book, or maybe come up near the end of this one. It was a somewhat larger “Aha!” moment building on the smaller one that occurred on day 15 and involves politics, which I never really thought I’d care to get into much in my books, but in a way that actually interests me. Hopefully I can make it interesting to readers too.
I claimed my win today (thanks to an email explaining how), which is always exciting! Also, my winner’s shirt will be arriving in a few days!
Total word count: 65,997
Don’t forget to check out today’s NaNoToons if you haven’t already: November 20, 2019
The Words: 4118 words. The weekly write-in at my local library was today. It’s a small writing group that meets throughout the year, and none of them really do NaNo. Some like to come to the write-ins, though, and work on whatever writing they’re doing. No one showed up last week, so I went home after waiting about 15 minutes. Today, I had higher hopes that some would come, because it’s the Tuesday we normally meet monthly. But when no one was there at the starting time, I decided to start a 20-minute sprint myself, and at least get some writing in while also giving others a chance to arrive late. No one did, but at least I went home with a 1139 jump on my words tonight. The rest I got in a #1k30min sprint and a regular 20-minute sprint with @NaNoWordSprints on Twitter. It felt really good to get a higher word count again.
The Story: For the sprint at the library, I wrote for storyline 2b, which I haven’t spent as much time on this month, but is also the shortest of all the storylines (it is a sub-storyline, after all). The main character in that storyline got a little snarky and called his counterpart out, which was not in my plans.
The rest of the time was spent writing for storyline 2. That included more stress and anger, from the same character, actually. And then I started pantsing a scene that will transition from where I was to the next plot point in my outline.
I don’t quite know if I’m still on track to reach the end of the draft by the end of the month. Going strictly by the numbers, I’m about 70% of the way through my outline, and we’re only 63% of the way through the month. I keep adding new scenes that come up organically, or that seem necessary to get from one plot point to another, though. I’m still hoping to finish with all the little formatting thins I’m working for “Pithea” soon, which will give me the ability to go back to spending more time on my NaNoNovel. Publishing a book is a lot of work.
Total word count: 64,270
Don’t forget to check out today’s NaNoToons if you haven’t already: November 19, 2019
This is a good time to watch episode 4 of the NaNoMusical, where things really heat up!
The Words: 2127 words in 3 sprints with @NaNoWordSprints on Twitter. Not much more than that to say today.
The Story: Today was back to storyline 2, and plans for an escape are finally getting underway. I’m starting to question some of my ideas for this story, or for how certain characters act, but I’ll keep going this way for now, because that’s what NaNoWriMo is about. If it doesn’t work out in the end, I’ll revisit the outline and make changes for the 2nd draft.
Total word count: 60,152
Don’t forget to check out today’s NaNoToons if you haven’t already: November 18, 2019
The Words: 2027 words in 2 sprints with @NaNoWordSprints on Twitter. My updates are getting pretty repetitive, because my NaNo writing lately has been very similar day by day. I am hoping to be done with the final revision of “Pithea” in the next couple of days (though will have to push hard to do that), after which I’ll send for one last (hopefully) proof copy, and start pushing to get through more of this draft in a day while I wait.
The Story: Like the last few times I wrote for storyline 1, today was a lot of discussion between the government leaders of two neighboring nations. I realized today that most of what they’re discussing is mostly just me figuring out how to proceed, since I’m veering off of my outline a bit. Or maybe just fleshing out what’s there. There’s also some very simple, somewhat immature flirting, which is always fun.
Total word count: 58,025
Don’t forget to check out today’s NaNoToons if you haven’t already: November 17, 2019
The Words: 1954 words. I sat down to write near the end of a sprint on @NaNoWordSprints on Twitter, so I wrote a little to get warmed up while I waited for a sprint to start. Then they started a #1k30 (write for 30 minutes, try to write 1000 words), and I really hit a stride with the story, ending the half hour with 1637 words. It only took me a few minutes more writing to get to the number I ended with.
The Story: I was back to storyline 2 today, and got to write about a reunion between two old friends that goes back to my NaNoNovel from 2014. While things are drastically different for both of these friends, it was really fun to get to see them together again.
I am not progressing through my outline very quickly any more (it didn’t help that yesterday, I ended up pantsing an entire scene out of nowhere), so these shorter word count days are making me worried that I won’t finish the draft by the end of the month. But cutting it short has been helping me get through the final revision of my soon-to-be-published book, so…priorities.
Total word count: 55,998
Don’t forget to check out today’s NaNoToons if you haven’t already: November 16, 2019
The Words: 2090 words. Half of the words were done along @NaNoWordSprints on Twitter, and the other half on my own trying out the Fighter’s Block website.
The Story: Today’s writing was for storyline 1, which was solely diplomatic talks. Right now, it seems like this storyline is 75% peace talks (and maybe it is), which I will have to scrutinize during revision someday. For now, though, I’m getting the sequence of events down. And I had a bit of an “Aha!” moment today, when one of the characters started to look suspicious to the others (and I didn’t originally plan for him to be a villain). I love the discovery in writing! It was a small eureka moment, as eureka moments go, but it was enough for me to award myself the badge.
Total word count: 54,044
Don’t forget to check out today’s NaNoToons if you haven’t already: November 15, 2019
The Words: 1886 words. I did a great job with my first day of not pushing to write more than par or a bit above. I don’t like it, to be honest, and I really do worry about the likelihood of getting the draft done by the end of the month. But if I can get this line edit of “Pithea,” done and another proof copy on its way with some time left in the month, I’ll push for more words per day if it looks like the draft won’t get done otherwise.
The Story: The writing of storyline 2 today involved some revelation, including someone finding out that an old friend long thought dead wasn’t really dead!
Total word count: 51,954
Don’t forget to check out today’s NaNoToons if you haven’t already: November 14, 2019
A Journey of Words 