NaNoWriMo - the Final Days (& Stats & Post Card #3)

2012 Winner!

VICTORY DANCE TIME! 

That's right, people! I won NaNoWriMo for the fourth year in a row! And guess what my final wordcount is??

53,191 words!!!!!!!!

Yes, you read that correctly. I am almost two days of quotas ahead in this year's NaNoWriMo challenge. (Disclaimer: Some of these words were re-typed from my blog posts, journals, and a few old papers I wrote. I still wrote thousands of original words this month though and I'm proud of all that I have accomplished.)

My last postcard -- homemade
and absolutely adorable!
Thanks, Tessa :)

Sad part? I still have 1.5 years of my life to document. My goal is to be completely done with the first draft of this project by Christmas day.

Stats for this year's NaNoWriMo:
Most words written in one day: around 5,000 words
Least amount of words written in one day: 0 (this happened twice... one of those days being today)
Cups of coffee consumed this month: I would say at least 60 (2/day). Some days I had zero, most days I had 2-5 cups. Yeah, I'm addicted.
Hours of music played while noveling: 0 (yup, did this NaNo fairly quietly)
Number of different places I wrote: 2 (my room and the school room...)
Post cards exchanged: 3 (this was super cool!)
Level of fun had writing this month on a 1 to 10 scale: 5,342,918

Thanks for a great year, everyone! Mom, Dad, sisters, family, friends... y'all are all awesome!
I have several friends participating this year. Some won, others didn't quite make it. I'm proud of them all and it's just cool to be participating together and supporting each other. Writers of the world, unite! :)

Last, but not least...

30 days. 53,191 words. NaNoWriMo 2012 winner.

NaNoWriMo Day 28

Just a quick update to say...

2,000 words. Two days. Two chapters.

That's all I have left. The only thing holding me back from winning is the Rapture. No joke.

Okay, that is all. And if you haven't captioned the photo in my post below, do it!!!

NaNoWriMo Day 27

My caption: "The right way to write."
Colleen's caption: "Burning the midnight oil!"
What's YOUR caption?

Word count goal for today: 45,000 words
Total word count as of today: 46,667 words
Words ahead: 1,667 words (exactly one day's quota)
46,667th words: Virginia (talking about taking Kelsey to college :))
Days remaining this month: three!
Words left to write to reach 50k: 3,333 words!

It's been an awesome day. I had classes all day, took a walk on my lunch break, watched about an hour of High School Musical (don't judge.), and then wrote! I'm only two day's of word quota away from the 50,000 word finish line! I'm hoping to write a quota in each of the three remaining days though just so I can get more info in there. Who knew writing about yourself could be so easy =P It's been an awesome month!

NaNoWriMo Day 26

Okay, my stats:

Word count goal for today: 43,333 words
Total word count at the end of today: 45,535 words
Words ahead: 2,202

That's. Amazing. No seriously -- I'm not sure if I've ever been that ahead in NaNoWriMo. I always seem to be right on track or a little behind.

But let me admit to you why I'm ahead and you might not be so impressed...

All of the words in that word count are, indeed, my original words. Well, I've quoted Mom's journal occasionally, but most of it is indeed mine. However, some of those words I've written in the past. Like, before this November. *gasp* I know. I'm typing up some journal entries or picking excerpts from my blogs to include in my novel. I've done this particularly the past two days because I was a heavy journalist (journaler?) and blogger during the years I am writing about.

But I have two good reasons for using past words in my auto-bio:

1. Those source documents, so to speak, are the best way to tell my story. Rather than re-telling about my trip to Mt. Rushmore, wouldn't I rather record some of the thoughts I wrote down in my journal four years ago from the day I was actually there? The second choice sounds better to me. In fact, that's exactly what I did. And by re-reading and typing up those journal entries, I was reminded of the actual timeline of that trip. I would have had it all jumbled up if I'd tried to write that trip from memory. After typing up the journal entries, I expanded my thoughts and details with some original words.

2. I want to have a unified record of my journal/blog entries. (I consider my blogs to be public journals.) Let's pretend my house burns down, the internet completely crashes, or I'm an old woman who can't remember a thing about her life. Wouldn't you want your life story all in one, handy-dandy book that you could just grab and go or read through on a whim. If I lost my pictures or journals or if my blogs suddenly disappeared from the internet, I want at least one hard copy of all the highlights.

So, I am using words I've written before. But big deal. I am adding thousands and thousands of more words, original words from this month, to the stockpile. In just a little over three days, I'll have a masterpiece that I'll call my first 18 years.

NaNoWriMo Days 21, 22, 23, 24, & 25 (& I donated this year!)

Notice how my updates/stats/excerpts/etc. are becoming less frequent. That normally happens during NaNo... I start to get behind in writing, in school, in life. I get overwhelmed (it's pretty overwhelming, okay?). But it's fun, too. As of today I'm only at 38,200 words. I need to be at 41,667 words by midnight tonight to be considered on track... I'm not sure if I'll get there (I still have some Odyssey to read...) but I'm gonna try. It's only 3,500+ words. How hard could it be? Ha.

But anyway... better go write. Thanks for the support, y'all! Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. I did!

Oh, and by the way, my name is now on the "NaNoWriMo is brought to you by" page... booyah! Check it out and see if you can find me under the $10 section. You can always use the Control F function if you're having trouble (that's what I did! haha!) ... http://nanowrimo.org/en/donations

NaNoWriMo Days 16, 17, 18, 19, & 20

I was not able to write at all on Saturday (day 17) but I managed to get caught up for the most part on Sunday and Monday. (Maybe that day off was good for me?) I am currently only 200 words behind (supposing I write today's word count) which is hardly anything. Granted, I did use an old essay to help me out with one of those memories (which added quite a few words to the word count)... but all of those words are still originally mine!

Right now, my word count is 31,503 words. By the end of today I should be at 33,333 words (isn't that a pretty number?).



The fun thing about NaNoWriMo is you never know what is going to come next in your story. Well, that's one of the many fun things about NaNoWriMo. This year, I already know what is coming in my life's story. I already know that the main character lives, what happens when people get sick, what happens when a friend is lost or a love-interest is found, what happens when a bully messes with the main character, or what happens when there is a spiritual revelation. I already know because I'm writing about me and these things have already happened. But remembering these moments, days, or seasons brings smiles to my face and/or tears to my eyes. It just depends. I've had an exceptionally blessed life; but, my story has some rough patches too. Some of these patches were totally out of my control, while for others I must take full responsibility.

I'm writing through the smiles and the tears, though. And in about 20,000 words/10 days, I should be able to read through my auto-biography and praise God that I've made it this far, that I've grown through it all, and that I still have the Holy Spirit to guide me in the next season(s) in my life.



Have a great Thanksgiving, everyone!

NaNoWriMo Day 15

Halfway through the month! Halfway through the word count! That's right: 25,000 words!!

I crammed our whole trip to China into about 1,200 words. I know it's not enough but I need to keep moving for now or I will not get trough everything! I also wrote about my Pine Cove days as well and my baptism. So many memories... I'm enjoying this project :)

I probably won't have a chance to write much Saturday or Sunday. I'm aiming to write 2,000 words tomorrow morning, but that won't put me ahead for those lost days. Hopefully I can catch up over Thanksgiving. That's what Turkey Day is for, right?

Have a nice weekend!

NaNoWriMo Day 14

So, that's basically where I am right now. I need to be at 23,333 words but alas, I am a bit behind. Only 600 words, but I need to get ahead two days wordcount before Friday afternoon. Goodness me. 

By the way, my 20,000th word was "conventions". I was talking about Mom's Usborne books and MLM days :) 

Hopefully I will write, write, write tomorrow (that is, when I'm not doing the other thousands of things on my list.

I realized that I'm only just starting 2002 and I'm almost halfway to my wordcount. I've only written about seven years and I need to be at year nine (at least) to finish my life story before November ends. Either I need to write more words (around 60k) or I need to write less words about each year to finish on time. Oh dear...

Thanks for the continued support and patience this month. Y'all are the best! 

Oh, and I donated to NaNoWriMo today! It wasn't much (10 bucks) but I'm glad I finally contributed to the awesome organization that has helped me achieve so much! 

One last thing: If you're on figment (or if you aren't...), please read and heart my short story The Hungarian Girl. Thanks! I still need to make a few edits to it but I'll get to that later... Here's the link: http://figment.com/books/471115-The-Hungarian-Girl

NaNoWriMo Days 11, 12, & 13

Okay, I messed up my count yesterday and realized this morning that I was 600 words behind what I should be. So, I tried to catch up this morning but am still about 600 words behind. Just opened up my word doc. and about to work on those keys for about 20 minutes or so. I will hopefully be caught up but I'm not making any promises.

But hey, this can't be very exciting if I don't get behind at least once, right?

I am going out of town Friday evening through Sunday morning. I am not supposed to bring electronics on this trip (it's a retreat) so I'm not sure how that will go over with my auto-bio. Hopefully I can get ahead before then but again, no promises.

Just gonna keep chucking along and see what I can do. As long as I don't have to do another 10,000-words-in-a-day thing again like last year I should be good.

Going to a poetry reading tonight. I hope I'll be inspired to write, write, write when I get home :)

NaNoWriMo Day 10 (& post card #2 & an injury & an excerpt!)

How am I supposed to write with an injured thumb?
I have to use that space button a lot, ya know?
And yes, that is an Iron Man bandaid :)

 Lots of fun things today! Went on a college visit all morning. I had two hours in the car and did absolutely no writing or school work. I know. I'm bad. But I enjoyed visiting with my dad :)

Sad thing happened while I was cleaning the kitchen, though. I cut my thumb with a Cutco knife. Those things are sharp!! I was bleeding all over the place. My thumb is in intense pain -- I can hardly push the space bar. Okay, okay, just kidding. But it is a minor set back =P

I made it to 16,705 words today! I am barely on track/ahead, but I haven't fallen behind yet! Will hopefully wake up early tomorrow and write so that I can work on school Sunday afternoon :)

Have a great weekend!

Oh, and one. More. Excerpt. Seriously, I am having way too much fun with these!

We loved our small frame house on Circle Way. It was a nice size, especially with the new add-on that Mom and Dad put in (an office and a small bathroom).

            There were disadvantages to living in that house, though. Basically every little critter you could ever think of lived in the attic or in the floor of that house.

            Opossums, rats, mice, raccoons… you name it! Probably the raccoons were the worst of them all. The other animals we could catch or poison. But not those pesky raccoons. They were much, much harder to get rid of.

Post card #2 from Williamsburg!
Sent by Monica. Thank you!!

            I think our first attempt at getting rid of the beasts was with some bait and a cage. The only problem with that was that those raccoons were smarter than we thought. They would either ignore the bait altogether or somehow get the bait and avoid getting captured by the cage.

            Our next attempt was music. We read or heard somewhere that if you play loud music all day so that they can’t sleep, the night-creatures will find a quieter, more peaceful place to live. But alas, that was also to no avail.

            Poor 7-year-old Kelsey couldn’t sleep sometimes because of the nasty critters living in our attic. They would roll around or fight just above her bed.

            She staggered into our parent’s bedroom one night, half sobbing as she said, “Daddy, the ca-coons are keeping me up again!”

            That was the final straw for Dad. He had tried to catch them in a humane way, to drive them off without even making contact, but they had to make this difficult, didn’t they?

            He jumped out of bed and headed for the closet where he kept his only weapon: a shot gun.

            “Lance,” Mom said, a bit panicky.

            He was already in the hallway, pulling the attic stares down from the ceiling with a loud squeak and a thump as they reached the floor. 

            “Lance!” Mom said again, a little louder, but to no avail. He was already halfway up the stairs by now, shot gun in hand.

            “Come on,” Mom told Kelsey. They grabbed Colleen and me and we sleepily made our way to the front porch. All four of us could fit on the green swing.

            “What’s Daddy doing?” I asked.

            “We’re just going to sit out here for a minute sweetie until—“

            Boom! Boom!

            Mom winced.

            I covered my ears.

            Colleen cried.

            Kelsey inhaled sharply.

            “What was that?”

            Before Mom could answer Dad was on the front porch.

            “Honey,” he said, serious and stern, “find us a new house.”

            35 days later, we called Daffodil our home. 

NaNoWriMo Day 9 (& one more excerpt...)

Just passed the 15,000 word mark!!! I am currently in September of 1999. My 15,000th word? Racoons. I'm in the middle of talking about our lovely "pets" on Circle Way. I'll have to wrap the story up later after I get some school work done :)

Here is yet another excerpt. Please enjoy :) and remember, this is a first draft.

There was an old train open for passengers that traveled from Rusk to Palestine, Texas. I couldn’t have been more excited! What four-year-old doesn’t dream of riding on a real train? Even for a girl, this was going to be fun. Paw, Dad, Kelsey, our cousin Travis, and I all boarded.

            Well, it was pretty neat. But as the drive went on and on I began to grow weary. When would it end?

            We had my window opened and I just rested my head on the windowsill, enjoying the fresh air and the smell of all the pine trees as it passed me by. I suppose the burst of fresh air and the excitement from that morning put me right to sleep. I was snoozing in the window in just a few minutes.

            Meanwhile, Kelsey is sitting across from me, her heart sunk from worry. The windows gonna fall, the windows gonna fall…

            Finally, she couldn’t contain herself.

            “Mary!” she said, and shook me. “Wake up!”

            I was startled awake and mad as all get-out. “Kelsey!” I shouted, extremely upset. “Don’t you ever wake me up if I’m asleep on a train again!”

            Little did I know she was simply concerned for my life.

NaNoWriMo Days 7 & 8 (& yet another excerpt!)

Sometimes I wonder if I should really be writing such vastly different "novels". I have a sci-fi/teen romance fiction novel, a serious Christian-themed novel, a spy/teen romance novel, and now a non-fiction (duh) auto-bio. But then I saw this on Pinterest last night and it made me feel better -->

Okay, I'm not posting stats for yesterday or today because... I don't have any, lol. Well, I'm currently at 13,074 words and I need to be at 13,333 so I'm super close to my goal today. But, I'm at such a nice stopping point. I just finished 1998. So, here is an excerpt from the end of that chapter. Enjoy :) and remember that this is the first draft! It is not perfect in any way. But it's just a taste of what I'm writing :) 

Papa Don came down to Lake Jackson on Christmas day of ’98. We had just spent a few days in East Texas and the fun continued with Papa Don in town. We opened gifts and went driving around . We tried to fish but didn’t have much luck at our location.

            Now, Papa Don smoked. He’d been doing so since about the age of 14. He was, at this time, in his 60’s. Today, he’s in his 70’s. He still smokes. Sometimes he smokes less, but he has to have that nicotine kick every day.

            Well, his trip was no exception. He would sit out on the front porch and smoke his cigarette.

            I was extremely intrigued by this process. I had never seen someone smoke before. Or if I had, I didn’t even know what they were doing. But I now had an opportunity to watch my grandfather smoke up close and personal. I could sit next to him, stand in front of him, watch from the window. Wherever!

            Papa Don was only in town for a few days. When he left, so did the cigarettes.

            But that didn’t stop my interest.

            As Kelsey and I were coloring one morning soon after, I realized that the white crayons kind of looked like something I had seen before.

            Yes, a cigarette!

            I started to peel the paper off the crayon (which took several minutes) and proceeded to stick it in my mouth.

            That’s what the white crayon is for, I probably thought. I mean, no one actually drew anything with the white crayon. It was supposed to be my own personal cigarette – duh.

            So, I started “smoking”.

            “That’s gross!” Kelsey said.

            I didn’t care.

            My habit went off and on. Mom and Dad didn’t know about it, though, for quite some time.

            Finally, I got out a new white crayon on day. As I began to peel the paper off Mom could hear Kelsey say, “You’re not gonna smoke that, are you?” in a totally grossed-out tone.

            But, of course, I smoked away. And I don’t think Mom or Dad even tried to stop me.

            Instead of going into the New Year with a goal to quit smoking, I decided to take it up. 

            Don't worry. That habit didn't last long. 

NaNoWriMo Day 6 (& another excerpt!)

I can't believe I've managed to blog every day of NaNo up to this point... I wonder how long that will last, haha!

Anyways... today's stats:

Word goal for today: 10,000 words
Total words written: 10,883
Words ahead: 883
10,000th word: Africa (talking about my Dad's mission trip!)

I got through to April 1998 today. Tomorrow, Colleen is going to be born and Dad is going to get Malaria ;)

And, I talked a girl I know into trying NaNoWriMo. I told her it wasn't too late to join in this year (lol!) but she's going to opt to try it sometime next year if she goes for it. I told her maybe she and I could try a different month than November and do it earlier in the year together. We'll see...

Another excerpt was requested so here is a short one from Chapter 5: 1998 --

Mom records January 6, 1998 as a day where Kelsey and I played “Mary and Joseph” all morning. She said the piano bench was our donkey. I guess the Christmas story was still fresh in our minds and we didn’t want the festivities to stop.

            Apparently we had just purchased two fish the day before. When Kelsey and I finally took a break from playing to go into our room and check on our new pets, they were both dead.

            One of them was floating on top, upside down. The other one had sunk to the bottom.

            Kelsey exclaimed, “We better call the pound, quick!”

            Mom tried to explain that they could probably handle this type of thing without the pound getting involved.

            Kelsey said, “Well, Jessica just flushes them down the toilet when her fish die.”

            Mom didn’t think this was such a bad idea.

            I remember Dad later that day taking the fish bowl into the bathroom and flushing our two little goldfish down the toilet. It was rather dramatic to see the little gold things swirling around the toilet and then watching them disappear. But to be honest, I thought they were going off to a better place. I thought they were heading to a pond somewhere and would be revived and alive as soon as they got there.

            I guess I didn’t realize they were dead. 

NaNoWriMo Day 5 (& an excerpt!)

Done with 1997! And up to nearly 10,000 words

Word count goal for today: 8,333 words
8,333rd word: David
Total words written: 9,352
Words over word goal: 1019

Yay! Going well. I'm a little worried that my early childhood is a bit boring. But, I tried to make this part of my life pretty humorous. Despite this, I keep reminding myself that the people who are going to ever read this are the people who are actually going to care about these little moments in my life. I'm not writing for a nation-wide audience.

But, here is an excerpt if you are interested in reading about a moment in my life. This is from Chapter 4: 1997 --

During this time in 1997 Mom and Dad were busy making home improvements to our little frame house on Circle Way. Painting the walls, improving the ceiling, adding on an extra bathroom. They were doing it all! New sidewalk, plumbers coming and going, and bills for these improvements piling up. But Mom and Dad were happy. They were making their house a home.

            During all this, Kelsey and I had to find a way to entertain ourselves. We certainly weren't going to do any of this hard work. We were ladies, after all. And according to Kelsey, ladies don’t have to work. We had recently installed new carpet. A blue carpet. It was pretty, but a little rough. Not so shaggy and soft. But we still liked it.

            However, as a two year old, I’m still getting the hang of this whole walking thing. So running was still a bit difficult. And on new carpet… that’s just asking for trouble.

            So while Kelsey and I tried to entertain ourselves, we decided a game of Duck, Duck, Goose would suffice.

            Yes, there were only two of us. Yes, you need more than two people to play Duck, Duck, Goose.

            But Kelsey and I didn't care. We would have this whole Duck, Duck, Goose thing down without any help from anybody else.

            We would use the coffee table! Yes, that would be perfect!

            So whoever was “It” would start circling around the persons head saying the word “duck” about a thousand times. Finally, they would say the word “goose” and the sister sitting on the carpet would get up, run around the coffee table once, and try to sit down without being tagged.

            Now, we played several peaceful rounds of this. Catching each other, missing each other, laughing, playing. 

            Kelsey circled me, her hand on my head, saying, “Duck, duck, duck, duck, duck…” until finally she shouted, “goose!!”

            I got up and started running. But I didn’t make it far.

            Slip, BOOM!

            I fell over on our new blue carpet, tripping over my own feet I’m sure. I hit the corner of our coffee table – the one we had already had for years and the one we would have for years to come.

            My forehead busted open. Blood started spilling down the side of my face. Tears were falling and I began screaming. 

            I’m not sure exactly what happened next, but I know we went to Dr. Bottenfield’s office and I had to get four stitches.

            When Mom and Dad later asked me what I was doing, I replied, “Playing Duck, Duck, Goose with Kelsey.”

            “With only two of you?” they asked, thinking maybe I meant to say a different game.

            “Yup,”

            Mom and Dad would talk about this day for a long, long time. I don’t suppose their laughing eyes as they recount this story has a thing to do with Kelsey and me playing a two-person version of Duck, Duck, Goose, does it? Certainly not. 

           At any rate, I certainly hope I didn't get any blood on the carpet...

NaNoWriMo Day 4

Well, with the time change, I didn't end up waking up at the proper time to write this morning. Darn alarm clocks! But hey, I got my words in. Here's the stats for today:

Word count goal for today: 6,667 words
6,667th word: apple
Total words written to date: 7,410
Words over word count: 743

Hoping to write about 3,000 words tomorrow if I can get on a roll!

I was writing about a seriously tough situation we went through early in 1997. I don't remember it, really, but reading about it through my mom's perspective was heart breaking. Brought tears to my eyes. I only hope my writing did it justice.

Until tomorrow...

NaNoWriMo Day 3 (and Post Card #1)

Two pieces of exciting news today (that are writing related...)!

1) I made it to 6,000 words today!!
2) I am doing a post card swap with 3 other NaNoWriMoers. Yesterday afternoon, I got my first post card from the swap!

Some wise words from Yoda (well, actually, from jazzaholic17).

Isn't it pretty? Thank you, fellow novelist!

Okay, here are the stats for today:

Total word count goal for the day: 5,000 words

Total word count at the end of the day: 6,038

Words ahead: About 1,038

5,000th word: to (I know. Boring.)

Thanks for the continued support fellow friends and family! I have several friends doing NaNo this year. I hope they're having as much fun as I am :D 

Other non-writing exciting news: I participated in two competitions today. One was like a how to cook show and the other one was like Iron Chef America. I won second place in the first competition and first place in the second competition (haha!). So it was a pretty insane day. I woke up at 6:15 to write, went to the competitions from 8:30-3:30. Then I campaigned tonight from about 4:00-8:30. Going to bed right now and will be up again tomorrow at 6:00 for more writing, church, and then campaigning. Busy, busy! But you know what they say: busy people still have time to write ;) So write I shall! 

NaNoWriMo Day 2

It's only 7:12am and I am done with day 2 of NaNoWriMo!

I quickly finished up 1995 and moved on to 1996. I thought I didn't have much to say for these early years (which, I didn't for 1995), but Mom's "Record" book that she wrote in almost daily from March of 1996 through 1998 or so provides some amazing day-to-day insight into my life as a toddler and later into the elementary years. She wrote down things like words I was learning to say, when I brushed my teeth on my own, and little conversations Kelsey and I had. She also wrote down birthday parties, family visiting, and the like. It's so much fun to read and (sometimes) remember.

It seemed to me that my family got together a lot in those days! We had a lot of fun together :) Cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, great-grandparents... they're all in there.


total word count goal for today: 3,333

total word count: 4,403

words ahead: 1,070
3333rd word: would

Preparing mentally for an insane weekend! We have a competition tomorrow morning and we are campaigning all weekend if we aren't at the competition or church... I'm going to be exhausted by the end of the weekend (which doesn't actually end until Monday for the campaigning part) but throw NaNoWriMo in there and I'll really be tired. But it'll be fun... right? Yup ^_^

NaNoWriMo Day 1

Day 1 is complete!

I got through all of my birth and the rest of 1994. I moved on to 1995 already. Since I don't have a whole lot of things to say about my first few years, I'm going to have to write several thousand words on each of the later years. But in perspective: I still have a lot to say even about the days/moments I can't even remember anything about (ie. my birth). So I think I've done well today considering I don't remember a thing, haha.

daily minimum word goal: 1667

1,667th word written: when

total words written today: 2,295

Besides NaNo, I got a seasonal job today AND I got my first college acceptance letter -- how cool is that? NaNo, a new job, and college acceptance letter: woohoo!!!

Looking forward to tomorrow!