NaNoWriMo 2015 - Day 30

Here we are at the end of National Novel Writing Month. For those brave and foolish adventurers like myself, it has been a month filled with words and story. Some of us have made it to the finish line, some of us haven't. And that's okay. Anyone who has more words now at the end of November than they did at the start is a winner in my my book. Those of us who hit 50,000 words are just overachievers.

And yes, I am indeed in that category.

I hit my target of 50k words in one month. And on my first NaNoWriMo as well.

So how's it been for me?

Pretty good overall. It's been fun. Stressful, but then that's my own fault for deciding to attempt NaNo whilst in the final stages of my PhD. It probably wasn't the best plan I've ever had but I did pass my viva and succeed at NaNo. So everything turned out fine in the end.

It wasn't all smooth sailing though. I fell off the blogging wagon just over half way though. This was partly because it was getting a little tedious blogging about writing a novel I don't want to share details of yet. Mostly it was because I flagged a little and it was a case of either blogging or working on NaNo. I chose NaNo.

Would I do it again?

Absolutely. In fact I have a few other writing challenges lined up for next year in what has been dubbed as OPERATION WORDS OR GLORY by my friend Susan. And the plan does include doing NaNo again next year. If I haven't burnt out completely by then, which is a possibility.

Here's the graph of how I did over the course of the month because I like graphs. I particularly like this on because it's pretty obvious where in the month my viva fell. My daily word counts are below as well, mostly for my own future reference.

So that's the end of NaNoWriMo. I did it.

My plan for the rest of the year is to finish off my current works in progress, which includes my novel. 50k words wasn't quite enough to wrap things up and I'm looking forward to seeing the end of the story. I also have a couple of things I put on hold for NaNo that I need to get back to.

Then in the new year (how the hell is it nearly 2016 anyway) I can start on something fresh.

Gotta keep writing.


 November Word Count

Day 1 3734 : Total 3734
Day 2 2044 : Total 5738
Day 3 1701 : Total 7439
Day 4 1690 : Total 9129
Day 5 1887 : Total 11016
Day 6 2034 : Total 13050
Day 7 3632 : Total 16682
Day 8 1065 : Total 17747
Day 9 1279 : Total 19026
Day 10 545 : Total 19571
Day 11 0     : Total 19571
Day 12 0     : Total 19571
Day 13 309  : Total 19880
Day 14 3170 : Total 23050
Day 15 2001 : Total 25061
Day 16 1663 : Total 26724
Day 17 1718 : Total 28442
Day 18 2188 : Total 30630
Day 19 1791 : Total 32421
Day 20 951   : Total 33372
Day 21 3676 : Total 37048
Day 22 2022 : Total 39070
Day 23 1125 : Total 40195
Day 24 264   : Total 40459
Day 25 2008 : Total 42476
Day 26 1739 : Total 44206
Day 27 856   : Total 45062
Day 28 1114 : Total 46176
Day 29 86     : Total 46262
Day 30 3816 : Total 50078

NaNoWriMo 2015 - Day 17

Today was probably my worst day for procrastinating on NaNo so far. Not because I wasn't writing, quite the opposite.

In fact I ended up writing something else instead of working on my novel.

I've read a lot of writing advice on not starting anything new while you're working on a story and it's good advice. I'm just terrible at following it. I'm always working with more than one story at a time and I've actually got three or four works in progress that I put on hold for NaNo. I figure every writer is different and that's just how I work. Ideas just come to me too quickly to ever have just one story on the go.

Today I wound up with a first line and a concept in my head and I knew I wouldn't be able to knuckle down on my novel until I'd gotten them out. SO I ended up writing a completely unrelated 1000 word flash fiction which introduced a superhero and her sidekick who I'm totally going to end up telling more stories about. So, oops.

But I did sit down and work on the novel and I'm still on track to finish on time which is good. I'm still hoping I'll get one or two really good days in so I can get ahead but we'll see what happens. I'm still on track and that means I'm winning.


 November Word Count

Day 1 3734 : Total 3734
Day 2 2044 : Total 5738
Day 3 1701 : Total 7439
Day 4 1690 : Total 9129
Day 5 1887 : Total 11016
Day 6 2034 : Total 13050
Day 7 3632 : Total 16682
Day 8 1065 : Total 17747
Day 9 1279 : Total 19026
Day 10 545 : Total 19571
Day 11 0 : Total 19571
Day 12 0 : Total 19571
Day 13 309 : Total 19880
Day 14 3170: Total 23050
Day 15 2001 : Total 25061
Day 16 1663 : Total 26724
Day 17 1718 : Total 28442

NaNoWriMo 2015 - Day 16

Not really all that much to say today.

I made word count and  I'm on track to finish on the thirtieth. I'd quite like to get a few thousand words into a buffer but at the moment I'm pretty pleased with myself.

Also I've now hit 30000 words for the month (including this blog) meaning this month is already my most productive month this year!

Gone back and started a new chapter I realised I needed but I'm moving the story forward at the same time so I don't get too bogged down cycling back to fix things. Got some pretty epic shit to throw at my protagonist in the next few chapters. I'm looking forward to it.

Still enjoying writing this novel, I think I'm just feeling the after effects of the whole PhD thing. IT's taken a few turns where I didn't expect which is keeping things interesting. And I've just about sorted the plot for the sequel, which is pretty exciting.

Need to finish this one first though. Then on to the next.


 November Word Count

Day 1 3734 : Total 3734
Day 2 2044 : Total 5738
Day 3 1701 : Total 7439
Day 4 1690 : Total 9129
Day 5 1887 : Total 11016
Day 6 2034 : Total 13050
Day 7 3632 : Total 16682
Day 8 1065 : Total 17747
Day 9 1279 : Total 19026
Day 10 545 : Total 19571
Day 11 0 : Total 19571
Day 12 0 : Total 19571
Day 13 309 : Total 19880
Day 14 3170: Total 23050
Day 15 2001 : Total 25061
Day 16 1663 : Total 26724

NaNoWriMo 2015 - Day 15

Not much to say today.

Spent most of the day helping a friend turn a few barrels of apples into juice for later cider making. I was surprised by jut how much hard work it was. I was pretty exhausted when I got home from that and didn't really feel like writing. Made myself sit and do some anyway.

The plan was to write 3k words today, which didn't happen. I did manage 2k, which got me to 25000 words (half way!) and back on track. If I can manage 2000 words a day from here on out (which I was doing in the first week) then I should hit the target by the end of the month.

Managed to get past the scene that was giving me trouble and now we're about to hit a bunch of action. With a bit of luck that means the words will be coming thick and fast for a while.

We'll see what tomorrow brings.


 November Word Count

Day 1 3734 : Total 3734
Day 2 2044 : Total 5738
Day 3 1701 : Total 7439
Day 4 1690 : Total 9129
Day 5 1887 : Total 11016
Day 6 2034 : Total 13050
Day 7 3632 : Total 16682
Day 8 1065 : Total 17747
Day 9 1279 : Total 19026
Day 10 545 : Total 19571
Day 11 0 : Total 19571
Day 12 0 : Total 19571
Day 13 309 : Total 19880
Day 14 3170: Total 23050
Day 15 2001 : Total 25061

NaNoWriMo 2015 - Day 14

Today was the first real day of playing catch up. Done pretty well to be honest, despite a really slow start. I'm well and truly into the post-viva funk and have no motivation to do anything whatsoever. But this novel won't write itself so I need to crack on.

The progress graph I'm keeping looks really silly now I've started to gain on the word count again.  I've added it here just because it amused me. Also because graphs = science.

Graphs mean science. It's true. I have a PhD, I know these things.

Managed the 3k I wanted write today just just about put me back on track. Gonna go for another 3k tomorrow to get my buffer back. We'll see what happens after that.

Story wise I've hit a bit of a block. There's a few scenes here and there that I realised were needed so I've gone back and put them in, but it does mean I've not really been moving the forward all that much. I think part of my reticence is because I've reached a major argument between my protagonist and her best friend (a character I really like) and the inevitable result is the friend's departure from the story. Which I'm not really looking froward to.

I just have to tell myself that with the best friend (and my protagonist's voice of reason) out of the way I'm free to throw a whole bunch more trouble at my character to see what happens. Just gotta get through this scene first.

And keep on writing.


November Word Count

Day 1 3734 : Total 3734
Day 2 2044 : Total 5738
Day 3 1701 : Total 7439
Day 4 1690 : Total 9129
Day 5 1887 : Total 11016
Day 6 2034 : Total 13050
Day 7 3632 : Total 16682
Day 8 1065 : Total 17747
Day 9 1279 : Total 19026
Day 10 545 : Total 19571
Day 11 0 : Total 19571
Day 12 0 : Total 19571
Day 13 309 : Total 19880
Day 14 3170: Total 23050

NaNoWriMo 2015 - Day 13

All has been quiet on the NaNoWriMo front for a few days owing the fact that yesterday was one of the most stressful days of my academic career. Yesterday afternoon I had to sit in a room for two and half hours and convince two people with PhDs that I deserved to get one too. And I did it! I'm a few bits of writing away from achieving the highest academic qualification you can study for.

I can do that. Writing things is no problem.

Which is why NaNo has taken a back seat this week. I managed 545 words on Tuesday and nothing Wednesday or Thursday. Got back to writing today but I'm planning to give myself a few days to come down from the post-viva high before I knuckle back down with the novel. And then job hunting and thesis corrections I guess.

Managed about 300 words today. Not great, but it's a start. And it's better than nothing. I just did a hell of a thing that I'm immensely proud of myself for so I'm going to cut myself a bit of slack on the writing front.

Sometimes life gets in the way of writing, and that's ok. The trick is to pick yourself up and get writing again afterwards. That's my goal for tomorrow.


November Word Count

Day 1 3734 : Total 3734
Day 2 2044 : Total 5738
Day 3 1701 : Total 7439
Day 4 1690 : Total 9129
Day 5 1887 : Total 11016
Day 6 2034 : Total 13050
Day 7 3632 : Total 16682
Day 8 1065 : Total 17747
Day 9 1279 : Total 19026
Day 10 545 : Total 19571
Day 11 0 : Total 19571
Day 12 0 : Total 19571
Day 13 309 : 19880

NaNoWriMo 2015 - Day 9

Today was hard.

Anxiety about the viva is ramping up and I had the flat to clean in preparation for my mum coming to visit tomorrow. I didn't have a lot of time to write and by the time I sat down to do some it was quite late.

Managed 1200 words but it was like pulling teeth the whole time and not just because it was a difficult scene. Still, I managed to break 19000 words tonight, putting me approximately 4000 words ahead of the target.

There will be better days. I knew this week would be hard and it would affect my word count. Getting any words down is a win and I'll happily take that.



November Word Count

Day 1 3734 : Total 3734
Day 2 2044 : Total 5738
Day 3 1701 : Total 7439
Day 4 1690 : Total 9129
Day 5 1887 : Total 11016
Day 6 2034 : Total 13050
Day 7 3632 : Total 16682
Day 8 1065 : Total 17747
Day 9 1279 : Total 19026