The Words: 3248 written today.  Just a tad shy of my goal, but not bad! I went to a write-in today, where there were 3 of us writing. There wasn’t as much conversation this time, but lots of writing. All of my words came during that time.

This evening, I had another Skype meeting with my editing group. We got through the rest of the draft without any real issues. Now we’re down to broad strokes we want to discuss, which we’ll hopefully get all out of the way in one fell swoop some time in the next few months. We’re wanting to have an in-person meeting, though, because it’ll be easier to converse and discuss, since the Skype process can be difficult sometimes. So I didn’t have my normal evening writing time, but thank goodness for the write-in!

The Story: We meet Jonathan’s apprentice, Marct, as the two of them discuss how or when to start moving equipment and supplies out of the shop they’d set up in their team’s building. And later, Missy has the depressing task of gathering up her own workspace. She is an apothecary, using herbs and other ingredients to make medicines and such. She has a lot of smaller and more fragile supplies to move.

Missy is joined by a team member who offers to help. The day’s writing stopped just as this other team member finds a piece of paper on the floor that doesn’t belong there.

Total word count: 64,229

Don’t forget to check out today’s NaNoToons if you haven’t already: 2015 – November 17th

The Words: 3426 written today.  I had a migraine most of the afternoon, and still had a decent headache going into my writing time. It actually eased up pretty quickly once I started writing, allowing me to go for a few hours and get the word count you see.

Since I put the final words into the novel I started the month with, I had to make a decision today. I’d always figured I’d just go onto another novel I had in mind if I did finish the other one early, but I started to realize some possible negative implications in doing that. If I don’t finish the second novel this month, it’ll most likely sit untouched and unfinished until next November. And I don’t like the idea of starting into an already-started novel at the beginning of NaNo (not just because it’s technically against the rules and would make me a rebel, but because I prefer to be able to start fresh). But I also don’t want to just call NaNo over for the year yet.

Other options I considered were using the rest of the month for revision, and tracking time spent, rather than words. But that’s just not as fun or exciting, and you can’t do word sprints or wars. I also thought about just writing random stuff from prompts or working on smaller stories, but I thought that would just be more difficult to keep going through the month.

So I’ve decided to start on a second novel. I have 15 days to get as far into it as I can. My plan for right now is to aim for a daily word count of 3333 words (twice the normal daily amount), in an attempt to get 50k words of it done before November ends. But since it’s an extra goal, and I’ve already had some rough times this month, I won’t be holding myself too strictly to that. It’s just something to aim for.

The Story: When I get a chance, I’ll try to come up with a proper synopsis for this story, so I can share it here and on the NaNo site. And a title, even if just a working title, because I have no ideas for one yet. For now, I’ll just dive into what’s going on.

The main character, Jonathan, and his War Games team have recently been evicted from the building in which they’ve been living for a while. They have 24 hours to vacate, and we peek in on some of the packing that’s happening. We meet some of the other members of the team, as well as the team’s leader, who is heavily stressing out over the events that led to their eviction.

Jonathan is the team’s official blacksmith (yes, more smiths), who makes bladed weapons for his teammates. He has a small set-up in the building, so he has a lot of equipment to move out. First, though, he has to contact his wife, who was away on a mission when everything happened. She’s upset that she’s unable to be there to help him pack their things.

Total word count: 60,981

Don’t forget to check out today’s NaNoToons if you haven’t already: 2015 – November 16th