This is my first year taking part in NaNo and I have to say it's a lot harder than I anticipated. Yes I know I write for a living, but 50,000 words in one month is no mean feat. It's certainly not an unrealistic goal, in fact 1,667 words per day is an achievable amount to write even for those that have otherwise busy lifestyles. I suppose it all comes down to how committed you are and how well you cope under pressure. Because of course the problem with NaNo is if you miss a couple of days for whatever reason then you can find yourself scrabbling to keep up and drowning under a very large daily word count.
So my apologies for being out of touch recently. I guess it's true what they say about us writers burying ourselves in a writing cave. But I'm out now! - Well, for the time being, at least until the last week of NaNo when I will probably disappear again until I reach my 50k. ;)
How are you all doing with your NaNo novels this year? Out of all my writing buddies on NaNo, Marie Sexton is doing the best with 22,170 words at the time I wrote this post. Go Marie! And for those interested parties(which includes me!) Marie is writing the spin off to Song of Oestend so I hope you'll all join me in wishing her good luck.
Greetings Lavinia:
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean about the minimum daily word count. I've written more than that in one morning! But I've been inspired. I've also written far less than that over the course of one week, so, who knows?
I'm currently at 11,454. Ouch. Nano IS harder than it looks, despite the fact that 50K is truly quite doable when not putting that much pressure on yourself. For me, though, it's not just the pressure. It's the simply fact that the writing is quite messy! Sentences are off structure, events are out of place, details are missing.
Nano is definitely not for the obsessive/compulsive writer!
Good luck with your piece!
Hi Johnny!
ReplyDeleteHey well done on your 11,454 words! You're not far off target and all it will take is a couple of good days to get yourself back on track. You can do it!
Yes it's definitely not as easy as it looks and the word count is not the problem. The problem is that the quality of writing suffers when you're trying to write too fast. I can write 1000 words in about 25mins, but it takes another hour to get those words up to an acceptable standard and even longer until they worthy of submitting.
That being said, I don't think it matters too much at this stage, that is what editing is for after all. As long as you have the main bones of the story and strong, believable and likeable characters anything else can be 'fixed' later on. Trust me, mine is messy too! lol.
And I couldn't agree more, Nano is definitely not for obsessive/compulsive writers.
Thank you for stopping by and for your good luck wishes. I'm sending positive vibes and good luck your way too. Now get back to work! *g*
Hi Johnny and Lav. I finally caught up last night so I'm on pace to finish on time. The stress Im feeling from Real life is somewhat relieved and I'm trying to hang in there.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the great work and good luck Marie!
Hi honey! Thanks for stopping by and commenting. Rawiya, you really are an inspiration. I don't know how you do it. Well done on getting up to speed on your Nano novel.
ReplyDeleteI know you have lots of other wips that you're working on at the same time and all the work you do for your blogs. Yes sometimes it is real life that is the problem and it often intrudes on our writing, but you always manage to pull it out of the bag. Congratulations and keep it up lady! :)
Good luck to all of you. I am here shaking my pom poms in support. NaNoWriMo scares me. LOL
ReplyDeleteLol Dawn. It scares me too and I'm doing it! You sure you don't want to join in the fun? It's not too late... :P
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by and commenting! And the pom pom shaking is much appreciated. I might ask for an extra shake or two during the last week - or a virtual whip cracking. I'll let you know.