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 Days 8, 9, 10, & 11

I haven't blogged the past few days because... I'm still behind. I did pass the 15,000 word mark -- woot! -- but I still need to write another 1,400 words today to be at the bare minimum. I'm having trouble forcing myself to write. I think part of the reason is that I'm writing this novel "organically" (no outline) so I don't exactly know where I'm going. Since I don't know where I'm going, I don't want to get there. Does that make sense? I'm worried I'll make a mess on my journey. I'm hoping that my first draft of Neighborhood Watch won't be a totally crazy disaster. But it probably will. And if it does end up that way, it's only the first draft, right? I can always edit it later. At least, that's what I keep telling myself.

I wrote my first "novel" (in retrospect, it's really just a long short story) almost two years ago. Neighborhood Watch will hopefully be my third 50,000-words-or-longer-novel. But, I have yet to even go through the second draft of a novel since I started writing novels. So, I keep telling myself that I can "edit later" but that's a lot easier to say than to follow through with. I told my family, though, that once I am done with Neighborhood Watch that I would not write another novel until I edit a novel. That should force me to get to work in editing because I want to do NaNoWriMo again next year plus I have tons (ok, maybe just a dozen) novel ideas I would love to work on.

How do you get yourself to edit something you've written?

NaNoWriMo Days 8, 9, 10, 11, & 12

These past five days have not been easy. When I got to chapter four I went ahead and started on some of the events that were going to take place in chapter five. This got my out line off a bit. Just when I thought I would recover from that... I got behind in my word count when I missed almost all of day 10. Not. Good. So, yesterday, I managed to write about 3,000 words -- not to terrible to write but not exactly fun. But I am still over 1,000 words short today plus my word count for today. Ugh.

My grandma also wants to write a book. So, I am going to her house this afternoon and we are going to have a little write in together. I hope I can catch up a bit. I need to take some time and actually plan out a couple of chapters that are very empty right now and I have no plans for them. I outlined and wrote little one page synopsis for each of my chapters except two which are totally blank (other than the title). That won't be fun when I actually get to those chapters.

So, I'm behind in my word count and on out-lining. But this would be oh-so boring if I didn't get a little behind, right?!?

NaNoWriMo Days 11, 12, 13, 14, & 15

Well, things have been going well these past five days. I managed to write and stay on track from the 11-13th. On the 14th I didn't end up writing at all. :( We had a debate Round Robin that kept me busy from 5am to 9pm. I was just to tired too write when I got home. So, what did I do today? Well, this morning I wrote 2,000 words before church and then I came home and wrote another 1,300 words. I am now proud to say that I am half way through the month and I have passed the half way mark of 25,000 words :D As for my story, it's still going pretty well. I am enjoying the characters and the plot seems to be doing well. All in all, I am very happy of what I have done so far this month.