Sunday, November 10, 2013

Nano update: Day 10

Well, here we are at day 10 of Nanowrimo.  Technically I should be at 16,670 words if I were on schedule.

However, that was not meant to be.  Due to a variety of factors I have clocked in at day 10 with a mere 10,132 words.

Is that low?  Yeah, for the pace I hoped to set, that's a few thousand short (I was hoping to be closer to 20k by now).  Am I disappointed?  Yeah, a little.  Am I discouraged?  Not really.  I have 20 days left on this thing and could still hit 50k if I push myself some.  So it's still doable.

And here's the thing.  As things stand now, my word count for November is better than my word counts were for September and October.  I have an excellent chance for this to be my best total word count month for the year, even if I miss the 50k mark (my best month so far this year was June with 18,462 words).

Do I still want to hit 50k?  Indeed.  I'm estimating the book I'm working on to clock in at around 60k so that would put it close to finished.  And 50k would help me hit my goal for 180,000 new fiction words this year (this doesn't count the column I write every week, which is non-fiction).

So I'm a third of the way through, not exactly where I want to be, but not ready to lay down and quit yet.  So if you're working on Nano and still have a ways to go, don't give up!  Just keep writing.  And I'll update you again in a few days on my progress.

Write on!

Friday, November 1, 2013

It's November...

...so it must be National Novel Writing Month, that time of year when I mainline caffeine and lose what's left of my mind.

The goal of National Novel Writing Month (otherwise known as Nanowrimo, or Nano) is to write 50,000 words in the month of November.  That breaks down to about 1,667 words a day, or around six and a half pages.

Is it crazy?  For sure.  Hard?  You know it.  Am I going to do it?  Of course!  Even if I don't hit the goal of 50,000 I will have a lot of new words written and be well on the way to writing a new novel.

The novel I'm writing?  "Death On the High Seas."  It's about a murder that takes place on a stranded cruise ship and the woman who tries to solve the case.

I'll try to update you with my progress.  Meanwhile, if you've ever wanted to write a book, this is a great time to start it!  Let me know if you're participating!