Looking Back

December 3, 2010
Total Word Count: 102,056

Well, NaNoWriMo is officially over for 2010. I can no longer claim to be a 'newbie'. I have gone through 2 months of preparing, 30 days of writing, and now countless days of rewriting and perfecting before I submit my novel to createspace.

I am thrilled to have gone through this experience and come out on the other side as a 'winner.' I can't believe I had the capabilities to write 102k words. I will continue to ponder how I ever did this for quite some time.

Now I can look back on my first NaNo and jot down some thoughts to help me next year...

1. Set higher daily word count goals. 
2. Write my ass off during the first week to stay ahead of the pack for the entire month.
3. Don't need most of the items on my survival guide list, including fingerless gloves, multi-colored highlighters, and index cards.
4. Do MORE research and have a more detailed outline for my novel. 
5. Attend every Sunday write-in and Monday virtual write-in. These were HUGE for my word count total.
6. Get up at 5:00 am every day to write. The solitude and quiet were invaluable to my ability to write.
7. Have the perfect playlist. Another tool that helped me get my story out of my head.

I'm sure more things will come to me over the next eleven months and I will keep revising my list so I don't forget any of the details.

I had a wonderful time doing NaNoWriMo and I only wish that I didn't have to wait so long to go through this again. But, I have a completed novel that I will continue to rewrite and revise until I feel it is good enough to be made into a proof copy that I will cherish for the rest of my life.

Thank you NanoWriMo! See you next year.

I Did It!

November 13, 2010
Day 13
Total Word Count: 50,347

I've been writing since 5:00 this morning (it's now 10:45) with only a breakfast break. I wrote 5,144 and I just crossed the finish line!

I'm so excited to see my progress bar go green. It's an incredibly rewarding feeling to know that I've just crossed over the 50,000 word mark.

And I'm not stopping. I still have more story to write and I'm setting a personal word count goal for 75,000 words. I've got 17 days to do it. Let's see how it goes!

Woo Hoo!

Day Ten

November 10, 2010
Day 10
Total Word Count: 33,202

So, I know it's been a while since I've updated my blog and thought it was time to take a break from my novel to let you know what's been happening.

First, I can't believe my word count is where it is. I had such anxiety in October about how difficult it would be to write 1,667 words a day. But I've gotten into a great writing routine, and it's helped me tremendously. I wake up every morning at 5:00. The family is still sleeping, so I have an hour of uninterrupted writing time. In that amount of time, I can usually write 1,667 words, so I've got my goal accomplished before breakfast. Then, any time during the day that I find to write, is extra words towards my total.

The second thing that helps me write is my outline. Now I don't have an extensive outline. I don't write out chapters and I don't write out scenes. I write out the general ideas that need to happen in a three-act structure to make sure that my story and characters stay on track throughout the novel. Whenever I get lost or can't think of something to write, I go to my outline and remember that an entire subplot hasn't been written yet! Well, there's a few days of writing right there.

The third important thing for me is the write-ins. I attended my first regional write-in on Sunday 11/7 and in two hours I wrote 2k words. Then, on Monday 11/8 I participated in my regional jabber chat write-in and was able to write 1.5k in roughly an hour and a half. I wish I could to a jabber chat write-in every night!

Now, let me say, that I am highly motivated by my word count and the word count of others. I am extremely competitive and when I see how close I am to the person above me on my regional wordcount chart, I just want to sit and write asap! I'll admit, my writing isn't that great. At least not right now. And that's okay. I freely admit that my writing lacks any sort of polish and I also know that I will have months and months to do many rewrites of this novel. So I don't worry about it now.

Well, I'm going to try to keep writing. :)

Day Four

November 4, 2010
Day 4
Total Word Count: 14,931

Well, since my last post, I've been putting life on hold and ignoring my kids in order to write as much as possible. I remember reading in No Plot, No Problem, that an essential goal in the first week is to write as many words as possible so on the days you can't write, or have writer's block, you will not fall behind.

Well I just wrote a little under 15,000 words in three and a half days (it's only noon right now). Even though I have a very busy afternoon, I'm hoping to have at least 17,000 before going to bed. Is my writing any good? Most likely no. I'm a very harsh critic for myself and I know that the most important thing write now is to tell the story. I've got so much time to edit and rewrite later. But I'm excited and I don't want to lose my momentum by starting to obsess with everything bad about my story.

One HUGE incentive, which I didn't think would affect me so much, is the word count list of everyone signed up with NanoWrimo. I found an old post on the forums (before they were cleared in October) that said if you click on the search button, click authors, click search, you'll get a list of everyone signed up on the website. Then you can sort by word count (in ascending or descending order). I've been checking it at least once a day to see how my word count compares to everyone else. I know, I know, it doesn't matter how fast I go, just that I'm finished by 11/30. But the competitive side of me is smacking my butt, telling me to get out there and write, write, write!

So, that's what I'm going to do. I'll be proud to finish with 50,000 words. I'll be downright giddy if I can hit 60,000 or maybe even 75,000!

And So It Begins

November 1, 2010
Day 1
Total Word Count: 3,520

Well, I woke up at 4:00 this morning, turned on the light in my dining room, put my headphones on and started writing my novel.

I was excited, anxious, and nervous about this day. Sure I wrote a lot of backstory in October, and it flowed from my brain with ease. I could easily write 1,600 words in an hour. Piece of cake! Or so I thought. Once I got over the anxiety of starting today, and figured out that sometimes I was going to have to stop and think about my story (that it wouldn't just flow out of me as my backstory had), then I settled my brain and was able to write close to 2,500 words. It's only 5:00 pm now and I'm planning on doing a bit more writing after dinner. With any luck, I'll get my word count to 3,000 before I go to bed.

Then, I'll get up at 4:00 tomorrow and start the whole thing over again.
So far so good for Day 1.

Where's the middle?????

So, for the last two months as I've thought about my novel, I always assumed that I would not write an outline or character sketches. I was (and still am) afraid that if I do too much prep work, that I'll lose all of my inspiration to write the story. My pre-plan was to write some notes, think of some scenes to write, and let the rest "just happen."

But then....

I started reading the book "Story Structure Architect." If you haven't read this book, you should take a look at it. The book gives incredible detail on how to build compelling stories for over 50 different types of situations (traditional, deliverance, adultery, madness, obstacles, mistaken judgement, etc.) As I read this book, I realized that I have a beginning for my story, and I have an end. But there is NO MIDDLE! I started typing out a very basic outline, dividing my story into three acts. I'm not working on chapters and I'm not including specific scenes. It's more about general because I want to let the story unfold as I write it. But I realized that without some basic structure, I'm going to write about 10,000 words and then be completely stuck. Not good.

Now, I'm obsessed with thinking about my story and what could possibly happen in the middle to keep the reader reading. I want to stay true to my ideas, but I'm worried that my novel will be boring without some plot twists and sub plots.

So, for the next 11 days, my goal is to focus on the middle and hopefully come up with a few ideas. If I can't, then I'll keep my fingers crossed (though not while typing) and hope that my characters will tell me what to do.

Just Created My Banner

So, I decided to make a banner for my story this year. Luckily I have a small amount of graphic design experience so it didn't take long (or much effort) to put this together. Here it is....