Day 29

I am victorious! I’m sorry I didn’t post word counts daily. By the time I finished writing on my novel every night, and wrote an entry in my other blog, I was just too tired to post to this blog as well.

This novel, tentatively titled Simon Down Under, came in at 51,338 words, which is about normal for a middle-grade story. I expect it to grow a little with revising. As they say, write in haste, revise at leisure! It is the third book in a planned five-book series, and my ninth finished novel.

Of course, I won’t be revising anytime soon. I need to let this sit for at least a month or two so I’ll be able to look at it with fresh eyes and identify any potential plot holes.

My dilemma is that this feels like a pretty big achievement, and one worth celebrating, but . . . I have no one to celebrate with. Not a single person that I am close to has even the slightest interest in my writing. If I mention that I’ve just written a novel in one month, the most likely response is something like, “Oh, cool,” with the implication, “please don’t force me to listen to you talk about it.”

So, I just had a nice big mug of tea like I do every afternoon. And I will channel my energies into submitting some of my previous novels, which have been thoroughly revised already.

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Day 14

I have struggled the last few days and have been too tired to post, but I’m keeping pace—just barely. My plot is going faster than I expected so I will have to think up some new complication. BUT I passed the halfway mark today. I wrote 2288 words and my total for the month is 26,336. So that is a relief.

Day 8

My lowest day yet—but I’m still not behind. Only 1209 words today. But I voted and did a bunch of other stuff!

Day 6

So, I went to a concert tonight, and that really ate into my writing time. 1591 words today, but so far my average is over 2000 per day, so I’m feeling pretty confident.

Day 5

3181 words today, for a total of 11,682. Five days in, and I’m over one-fifth of the way there. I will need this advantage in the days to come, I’m sure.

Day 4

1739 words today. I had a very busy day so this is still a win. Hoping for a good total tomorrow.

Day 2

I had all day to think about my story and I figured out a huge plot element. Yay me. And I wrote 2509 words today, for a total of 4989. Almost one tenth of the way there!

So It Begins

Here I am, doing NaNoWriMo again. I hate that it’s in November. But my competitive spirit makes me want to “win” at this, even if it’s very stressful every year. I’ll be posting word counts here to keep myself accountable.

This year’s NaNo novel is #3 in a series of 5 middle-grade novels I’m working on. Today, day one, I wrote 2480 words. That’s a good start.

Victory!

I am triumphant! This manuscript has been so challenging to write. I’ve felt like my brain was replaced by mush for most of this month—and yet, somehow, I have made it to the end of my rough draft. The final word count is 57,750. That, of course, will change during revisions, but I still hope to keep it under 60,000, as it is a middle-grade novel. What a relief to be done with it for now!

So Close

I think I could have finished today. I wrote 3238 words. But I decided to leave the very last little bit for tomorrow when I am scheduled to have another write-in with a friend. Going strong and looking forward to writing “The End.”