Tag Archives: NaNo

NaNoWriMo – incomplete but not a failure

Posted on December 1, 2011 | 8 Comments

It is over. NaNoWriMo 2011 ended at midnight November 30.

I did not “win”.

I tried. I even pulled two all-nighters of writing, not getting to bed until 4:00 AM, but it was not enough. I just could not manage the 50,000 words required for a win.

It was my own fault. Getting started was really hard this year. Because I wanted to complete my novel started in NaNo 2010 (50,265 words written then), I think I felt restricted and I had lost my momentum. (Those reasons and life stuff.) Once I finally got going with it, ideas kept unfurling themselves and evolving into more depth and extended drama.

My story is not yet complete. It is getting ready to wind down, though. Some details have to be worked out to fit into the story so that the conflicts and questions can be resolved. I need to write several thousand more words to settle that out.

Here are my stats:

Your Average Per Day … 1,071
Target Word Count … 50,000
Total Words Written … 32,150
Words Remaining … 17,850
At This Rate You Will Finish On December 17, 2011
 
Yes, I wrote 32,150 words. A lot of words, but not enough for a win. But, I do not consider that to be a failure, just an incomplete. According to my stats, if I were to keep at it the same way I would meet the goal in 17 days. If today is any indication, that is not going to happen. I got up at 7:00 AM, took care of the dog, went back to bed and didn’t wake again until noon! (All-night writing binges do not a wakeful mind make. ;) ) But do I even want to keep up the same pace until the 50,000 words have been written?
 
What I want to do is finish my novel’s first rough draft. And rough it most definitely is! Once I bring the story to a satisfactory end, then begins the editing. Oh my! I have plot holes, repeats of scenes but in different ways, - a couple of those, and they were by accident because once you begin NaNo you are not supposed to go back and reread or you will not have time to finish .. so you just write on, - I have names mixed up, facts missing, details confused, a time line that must be established, and unnecessary fluff to be sifted out. For this to become a readable novel there is yet much work to be done.
 
*Laura, do I sound like a writer to you?  ;)
 
NaNoWriMo 2011 is over, but the challenge has not ended for me. I have a novel to finish!
 
Do you get totally wrapped up in your writing projects so that you cannot stop until you have them done? Or do you easily put them away to work on at a later date? Do you lose your momentum or inspiration if you wait?
 
Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! :)
 
Next post: PiBoIdMo (Picture Book Idea Month) update.
 
 
 

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Nearing NaNoWriMo end, not enough words

Posted on November 30, 2011 | 2 Comments

Here it is, November 30th, according to Nova Scotia time. Last night I stayed up until 4:00 this AM, slept several hours, then got on with today.  I have been writing all day today with some short breaks in there. 

Even with all that progress, and I do consider it progress, I am still just shy of the halfway mark.  How I can ever write over 25000 words in one day is beyond me! I am making a valiant attempt nonetheless.  The problem is that I have to go out to do a few errands, and that will mess up my writing time considerably. I suppose one could say I have already lost, but .. in NaNo vocabulary, I have already won just by taking it on.

My story is going along with its twists and turns and puzzles. My characters are full of surprises.  I am not sure how I can stretch the story to include a second 50000 words (having the first 50000 written last NaNo), but I don’t think I am going to have to worry about that. I will just write until NaNo has ended in 24 hours. (Admission: I now doubt that I can get to 50000 words by the end of Wednesday, but we shall see how close I come.)

At least my stats don’t look quite as pathetic as they did 5 days ago. You can refer back to this November 25 post  to compare.

Your Average Per Day — 832

Words Written Today — 6,926

Target Word Count — 50,000
 
Target Average Words Per Day — 1,667
 
Total Words Written — 24,130
 
Words Remaining — 25,870
 
Current Day — 29
 
Days Remaining — 2
 
At This Rate You Will Finish On — December 30, 2011
 
Words Per Day To Finish On Time — 12,935
 
It says there are 2 days remaining, so I think it is going by Central or Mountain time zone.  It will soon flip over to 1 day remaining.
 
I will keep writing and posting my word count. Maybe I will have made it to to 25000 by the time the NaNo site recognizes a new day. That would be rewarding.
 
Okay, end of break time! Looks as if it will be another all-nighter before NaNoWriMo ends.
 
Do you ever pull all-nighters to write?
 
Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! :)

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NaNoWriMo 2010 is over — I WON!

Posted on December 1, 2010 | 14 Comments

Yes, NaNoWriMo is over for another year.  If you have not been following my posts — this is the first NaNo challenge for me and I WON!  That means that I met the challenge of writing 50,000 words in 30 days – with a few words over just to be sure – and I now have the certificate to prove it.  Yay!

My ‘novel’ is not completed, though.  I stopped writing in a place where there are three conflicts set up to be resolved, but I think it was a good place to stop for this challenge.  Now I have the personal challenge of completing my ‘novel’ and doing a LOT of editing.

Writing my last post I was SO TIRED, and I had to laugh today when I read it over and saw the typos I made last night.  And I don’t know why I didn’t say in that post’s heading that I had won in NaNo.  Too tired to think it through, I guess.  :)

Last night I also signed the pledge to verify that I had completed PiBoIdMo, and now we wait to learn who, of all of its participants, win those great prizes that Tara Lazar gathered to give out on December 3 or 4.

Talking to my husband over supper tonight I realized that I really did accomplish quite a bit of writing last month (November) — 50K words for NaNoWriMo, 30 picture book ideas for PiBoIdMo (I actually got 44), and I completed and mailed out the Autumn issue of Valley Sunshine newsletter.

No wonder I’m tired.  I am ending this day early.   Hopefully tomorrow I can get more accomplished in my house than I did today.

And it’s now December!  Time to get my house in order to start decorating for Christmas!

So, how was your day?  Have you started Christmas shopping and decorating?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings!  :)

 

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Day 30: NaNoWriMo & PiBoIdMo

Posted on November 30, 2010 | 2 Comments

Tuesday, Day 30 of NaNoWriMo — I’m SO TIRED!  Last night I stayed up and wrote until 4 AM.  As I posted yesterday I did what I said I would do … wrote until I couldn’t stay awake to write another word.  That is just what happened.  (I’m glad I did this because I had several interruptions today that would added stress to completing.)  So at around 4:30 AM I had just relaxed beside my husband and his alarm went off.  I went to sleep and slept until my alarm went off around 8:30, then I was up and wrote until I finished NaNo.  So I WON!  It’s a feeling of accomplishment and relief that I actually completed it and got my ‘novel’ validated on time on the site.  I did use the program that generates paragraphs and words.  When I finished the challenge and posted my word total, then I generated the number of words I had recorded – which was 50265 – and submitted that to make it official.  (I’m actually having trouble staying awake right now to write this post.)  I have the NaNoWriMo challenge 101% completed!

Even though I completed the 50K challenge, my story is not completed.  I left a major conflict unresolved and hope to continue writing to finish the story.

PiBoIdMo ended today, too.  I completed with 44 ideas. It was a wonderful experience for me.

Have you pushed yourself beyond what you thought you could do?

Thanks for readings, and … Creative Musings!  :)

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Day 29: NaNoWriMo & PiBoIdMo

Posted on November 30, 2010 | Leave a comment

Monday, Day 29 of NaNoWriMo is the best day for me yet!  The pressure is on and I have to finish this!  I spent most of today writing, thinking, writing … and writing, thinking writing some more .. but mostly writing.  Just writing.  whew! I wrote 5073 words today!  Can you believe that?  One more day of this challenge and I can write no more that will be counted.  My total word count stands at 44257 which means that as much as I managed to put on paper today I have to do that and more before tomorrow at midnight.   5743 more words should do it, but to be safe in case of miscounts I will try to write 5800 more.  I will not be stopping tonight until I just can’t stay awake to write another word.

A very good thing is that I found a program that will generate the number of words I need posted to the NaNo validator once I reach 50,000 words.

As for PiBoIdMo, today I came up with two cute ideas, so now have 43 to my credit.  Surely something of all those will be worth turning into a picture book manuscript!  The PiBo challenge ends at midnight tomorrow too, and then there will be winners announced soon after – winners who are chosen among those who finished with 30 PB ideas.   I would be thrilled to win something, but I already have from one of the daily blog posts of encouragement.  (Remember the bug caricature from Day 19, Nov. 20?) And, besides that, I am so much further ahead now since doing PiBoIdMo in discovering what I can do and how to brainstorm for picture book ideas.   So, yes, this has been a very good experience for me.

Have you found encouragement lately to keep you going?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings!  :)

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Day 28: NaNoWriMo & PiBoIdMo

Posted on November 28, 2010 | Leave a comment

Sunday, Day 28 of NaNoWriMo –  Today was a busy and rather jumbled up day.  This evening I am so tired I just can’t think my way through this.  I have only written 657 words and I am going to be “hitting the hay” soon — going to try to sleep longer tonight.  This means that tomorrow I have to WRITE probably all day or as much of the day as I can.  I’ll only have Monday and Tuesday to finish this challenge.

I visited a writers chat room tonight and got some tips from Wrimo‘s in there.  Some of the writers there have participated in NaNo and are doing it this year, too.  One lady got a book published that she wrote during last year’s NaNoWriMo!  Cool, huh?

A big problem has arisen for me, though.  It seems that I have to type all this over so that I can submit it for validation, and I haven’t finished writing it yet.  But they gave me tips regarding that, too, so I will be very busy the next two days.  All the more reason for me to get more sleep tonight instead of writing until midnight and then blogging about it after that.

So, my total is now 39184 at 79% completion.

I also wrote down an idea for PiBoIdMo so I have 41 ideas for that challenge.  I certainly hope that from all this writing something good comes out of it eventually.  :)

Do you have any dreams you are working on?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings!  :)

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Day 25: NaNoWriMo & PiBoIdMo

Posted on November 26, 2010 | 2 Comments

Belated HAPPY THANKSGIVING to any American readers of these pages.

Thursday, Day 25 of NaNoWriMo was not as productive as it should have been, but I did write 2055 words.  This brings my total to 34234 and I have the challenge 69% completed.  Stats says I will finish on December 7, so with only 5 days left in November it’s going to be very interesting to see how much I manage to write on each of those days.  Much of three of them will be taken up with other things.  The pressure is on!

For PiBoIdMo I came up with idea #38.  I had sent an email to two friends and made a silly comment in it, then thought … oh my! I just came up with an idea for PiBoIdMo!  I have learned to listen more to myself through this challenge.

I miss reading.  I have been spending so much time writing for NaNo and PiBo and I’ve purposely stayed away from the books that I thought would influence my own writing.  So, I miss reading!  When December comes I plan to devour some books.  :)

How about you?  Which do you prefer to do, read or write?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings!  :)

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Day 24: NaNoWriMo & PiBoIdMo

Posted on November 25, 2010 | Leave a comment

Wednesday, Day 24 of NaNoWriMo was a good day.  Today it rained and then snowed a little more, so I didn’t hang the laundry out to dry – which I prefer, but it takes more time to do.  That just meant I had more time to do the ‘writerly‘ things I enjoy.   So, I got Valley Sunshine all printed off on my cantankerous duplicating machine, collated into 63 copies, stapled, stuffed into previously prepared envelopes, sealed ‘em up ready to go … but not in time for today’s mail.  My sister stopped in and offered to take them with her to mail in the morning, so I kept the local ones to go here and she took the rest.  Yay!  They will all be on their way tomorrow!

With Valley Sunshine done I was able to start my NaNo writing earlier in the evening.  Today I wrote 2849 words, taking my total to 32178.  Now I have the challenge 65% completed!  That is encouraging to me.  With only 6 writing days left in the challenge I have to write almost 3000 words each day to win.  Sadly, according to my stats on my NaNo page, at this rate I will finish on Dec 8.  Okayyy, NOT acceptable!

I’m still getting ideas for PiBoIdMo.  This afternoon I told my sister that I had yet to come up with an idea for it today, and she said “snowflake”.  (It was snowing at the time.)  I said, it has to be something different, I’m sure that’s been done to death.  Then an idea instantly dropped into my mind, a storyline to do with snowflakes but something different.  TaDa!  Idea #36 which I wrote down and added to later as the story evolved.  Then on Twitter I read something that gave me another idea, although it may be rather distorted.  Some of my ideas are lame, some are crazy mixed-up ones, some have amounted to nothing more than a title as yet, but a few just might make it.

I’ve been really enjoying all this writing.  It’s amazing that the month is nearly over already.  NaNoWriMo has allowed me to see what my mind, given the chance, can create with words – beyond what I have ever attempted before.  PiBoIdMo has been fun and very inspirational for me.  I am hoping that some of the people I have ‘met’ through it will be people I can stay in touch with somehow.  You know, ‘writerly’ types.  ;)

Another bonus for me is that I have discovered the blogs and websites of some very talented people who love to write.  Some have been published and some are still on the long journey to reach that goal.

If you are a creative person, have you had a chance to enjoy the company of like-minded creatives?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings!  :)

 

 

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