It’s just over a week into Nanowrimo 2015, and so far it’s been successful for me. Like last year, I took a week off work to kick the month off. I felt the need for a week off anyway, so November 1-7 happened to be the perfect time to do it. I went to most of the 1st week write-ins, hung out with other local writers and had plenty of fun.
The best part of our local Nanowrimo is the overnighter. We get together and write all night. The first few hours are actually quite productive for everyone, with an hourly word war to get everyone competing to write the most words in 15 minutes, to all the cookies and candies that everyone brings to keep our brains fueled by sugar. But around 2 in the morning, everyone starts getting delirious, and that’s when the real fun begins. That happened on the 6th-7th this year.
When people start calling themselves albatrosses, or deleting words when you’re not supposed to during Nanowrimo, the real party begins. We lose all productivity and start talking about comics or showing very weird cat videos. Seriously, if you’re a Nanowrimo ML and your region doesn’t have an overnight write-in, figure out a way to host one.
As for my personal progress, I’m doing better than I expected. I planned to write 4,000 words after midnight on November 1 before going to bed, and that somehow turned into 7,200 words. My plan to average at 10,000 a day for the first 10 days is going to be surpassed. I’m pretty much guaranteed to make 100,000 words by the end of November 9 at this point. Whether that’s the end of my first book for the month, notes for book 2 or an extra blog post I’m not yet sure, but if I don’t make it by midnight, I’ll make it shortly after. Last year I totalled at 191,386 words, and the most I wrote in one day was just over 12,000. This year I’ve had 3 13,000 word days and even after taking a break last Wednesday, I’m still averaging 11,000 a day. I’m well on my way to beating last year’s total word count. I’m kind of excited to see how far I can go.
My word count would be even higher if not for my Grandma’s 85th birthday celebration yesterday, or that my cousins from BC are in town for a few days. I only see them once every few years (well, I saw the one twice because she was in England for school when I travelled there in May). We saw Specter tonight. My thoughts are that it’s decent, but Skyfall is the better of the two last Bond movies in almost every way. My brain is too tired to come up with a more analytical way to describe my thoughts and I need to save it for tomorrow’s writing.
I’m enjoying the book I’m writing right now, but at the same time I know it’ll need a lot of improving for the second draft. A lot of the character development feels rushed, and there are a lot of supporting characters who don’t even have names yet. Some of the dialogue will need to be trimmed also. It is book 9 in my Blood Rage series though, and I’m still trying to get book 1 published. I have plenty of time to fix it up.
I’ve decided that my second novel for the month will be the retail-based comedy. While I do hope to rewrite my ex-assassin book that I originally wrote in high school, I don’t really have detailed plans for it yet. The retail book on the other hand will be based on my own experience, and the story will resemble my first few days at work, which I remember quite clearly. I won’t need that much planning to begin with.
Anyway, that’s it for this journal entry. I hope you enjoyed reading. And for anyone participating in Nanowrimo this year, good luck with your writing.
healed1337 