NaNoWriMo - Day 14

No major update for day 14. Managed 500 words before work, and nothing after. Bummer.

NaNoWriMo - Day 13

Yawn. I only managed about 1000 words tonight before my brain started fogging over. Tomorrow marks the end of week 2. My total word count stands at about 10,500 words. That is less than half of what I should have by end of tomorrow (roughly 25,000).

Ugh. One thing is for sure - this is definitely not for the faint of heart. I am sticking with it and will finish the month. Whether I can get close to sniffing 50,000 remains to be seen, but I will spend every spare moment trying to scrape my way there.

Back in the Saddle (NaNoWriMo Day 12)

Spent about an hour and a half writing and managed to get in about 1500 words. Not bad, but not that great either. My word count deficit is ballooning out of control. Paging Alan Greenspan…

Glad to be back at it, and I was able to pickup the story with no problem. But that word count thing is becoming an albatross.

Real Life Sucks (NaNoWriMo Days 8 - 11)

RL through a nasty curve ball my way. Had an all-day out of town meeting on Friday, for which I traveled for on Thursday & Friday, then spent the entire weekend working on my bathroom situation. In the spirit of full disclosure, I did spend 3-4 hrs on Thursday night playing Guitar Hero with my brother, time I could have spent plugging away. I rarely see him though, so took the opportunity for brother bonding. (excuse)

The net result is that I have not even opened the word processor since last Wednesday. I don’t even want to think about how many words I am behind.

Still, I am committed to this. I knew going in that I did not have the most accomodating of life schedules (demanding job, young kids at home, prone to fits of procrastination). I will get back on the horse.

NaNoWriMo - Day 7

Today marks the last day of the first week. I can feel my enthisiasm waning a bit, not for the story itself, but under the sheer weight of this thing. It is a massive undertaking, to be sure. Especially when I am devoting all of my free time into this venture, but am only managing to tread water. Funny how 50,000 words didn’t sound like much a week ago.

Got about 900 words written on my lunch hour. Not sure if I will have time to write later tonight. Hopefully I will so that I can cut into my growing deficit (now 3447).

Projecting my actual pace across 4 weeks would put me at about 33,000 words. Normally I would be happy with that kind of output in a month, but for NaNoWriMo? Yikes!

Created an interesting character today, my favorite so far. Not sure yet where I am going to take him. Initially, he was going to be story fodder, fuel for the antagonist to chew-up. But now… I’m not sure I want to sacrifice him. At least, not yet. I’ll keep him around, develop him further, and throw him into some situations to see what happens.

NaNoWriMo - Day 6

Another day of furious noveling. Only had a spare hour and 1/2 today, which I devoted to writing. However, I only managed 1200 words, less than my 1667 daily quote, and worse, putting me further behind the eight-ball.

This is definitely a grueling haul, and I am not doing myself any favors getting so far behind (2640 words at this point). The good news is that I am sticking with it, and am spending any free time I have on this. The bad news is that I just don’t have enough free time right now.

But… I will survive. I’ll keep plugging away, in 1000-word chunks if I have to, and hopefully I’ll get some large chunk of free time one of these weekends to really churn on this.

The other positive thing is, though I am certain my prose is awful, the story itself seems to be shaping up. I’ve got a diverse cast of (mostly) fleshed out characters, some intriguing stuff related to said characters reactions to a catastrophe, and a threat on the horizon. The chest pieces are on the board, now its time to shake them up and see what happens.

NaNoWriMo - Day 5

So I missed a day yesterday. Not a surprise given that I knew I would be working on fixing up the bathroom all day, but a disappointment nonetheless. I hate to see my momentum, such as it is, interupted. But despite my best attempts to deny & ignore, life goes on.

The good news is that I have carved through a substantial portion of my deficit. As of midnight (technically Day 6 now, sue me), I stand at 6188 words, an increase of about 2500 words from when the day started (or when day 3 ended…). If my math is right, I should be at about 8300 words at this point, so I still have some ground to make up.

It’s a slog, that’s for sure, but I am enjoying it so far, and look forward to seeing where the story will take me next. Which, when it is all said and done, is THE important thing (and truly the only thing). But I enjoy the contest against myself, and find that even when I want to be lazy and have plenty of excuses for that behavior, I am firing up the laptop, and not just for email.

NaNoWriMo - Day 3

Not a great day for NaNoWriMo… only had an hour of free time today (which I spent writing). Added 900 words, my 3-day total is now 3625. If I had written to the ~1600 word quota, I’d be at 4800. I am 1200 words behind the pace.

Still not overly worried. I knew going in that I wouldn’t be able to write 1600 words/day, but rather would chip away at it daily in 500 word spurts, and then have larger 2000-3000 days when I have a large block of time.

However, tomorrow looks to be a complete wash, as my parents are headed down to help me rip-out and install a new shower. Which would leave me about 2800 words behind. Ouch.

NaNoWriMo - Day 2

Day two was much more productive than the first day. I churned out 1900 words in about two hours, cutting into my deficit from the first day quite nicely. I’m now at 2705 words, about 600 words off the pace. No worries though!

It’s only day two, but it is surprising how motivated I am to sit down to write, even at the expense of time spent with my xbox 360. Amazing how watching the word count grow is a meta-game onto itself, and fuels me to continue. Then again, it IS only day two…

NaNoWriMo - Day 1 (cont.)

I only managed another 200 words for the day, bringing my 1-day total to 800. That’s half of what I need to write to keep the even pace. Not the best of starts, but I am still optimistic!

NaNoWriMo - Day 1

Ok, I managed to eke out 600 words before my mind shut off for the night. Yawn. Still, its a good start.

T Minus 5 Minutes…

Signed up for NaNoWriMo for the first time. This is part of my renewed focus on writing of late. I will get published, I will get published…

But first I must write!

3 minutes!