NaNoWriMo update

It is the middle of November which means that I should be just about hitting the 25K mark on my WIP over at NaNoWriMo. And I am... just under 22 thousand words. Actually 21760 to be exact. So as you can see from the below graph I'm a bit behind.



The reason I'm behind is that for the past couple of days I've had some interrupts to my writing time (those are the red days). For example last night we went to the opera in San Francisco and that meant no writing in the evening after work. The day job keeps me from working on my manuscript during the day, and I'm also in rehearsal for The Nutcracker in which I'm playing both Grandmother in the first act and Mother Ginger in the second, so I have two sets of rehearsals to be at during the week and weekend. Tonight is Party Scene rehearsal so today may also be red. That's life during NaNoWriMo.

But this weekend I'm going to crack the whip and get caught back up again. I'm just about two days behind at this point but I've done this three times before and was able to come up from behind each time. The whole point of NaNo is to remind the writer that creating a novel isn't a sprint, it is a marathon and a bad day shouldn't take you out of the race.

I'm going to see if I can't get 500K words done before I head into work this morning and write some more this evening after rehearsal, and then write extra Saturday and Sunday to not only get to where I should have been, but even ahead so that when the Thanksgiving holiday hits I've got some breathing room.

If you want to follow my progress, my NaNo handle is janetmfoo and you can see my stats here:
The Girl Unboxed

The big question will be not when I get this book done but when I'll get it on the bookshelves over at Amazon, edited, formatted, and for sale. I'm hoping for just after Christmas so keep your fingers crossed. Mine will by typing madly away.

Cheers,
Janet/Cricket
WIP The Girl Unboxed
Falling in love was just the beginning of the story.

NaNoWriMo - Status report

And so once more my friends I have delved headfirst into the writing insanity known as NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. In thirty days I intend to write 50K words of a new novel, starting November 1st and ending on November 30. This includes the four days usually devoted to Thanksgiving, also known as the great black hole of not writing. In short, I am a complete loon for dedicating myself to this task but I have a good reason.

This is the one month when I actually get a lot of writing done and it is all because it is expected of me to write this month. I say "I'm doing NaNo" and my friends and family tend to stay out of the way of my getting to my keyboard.

It is marvelous.

So anyway here is my current progress:


As you can see there were some good days, some okay days, and one very bad RED day where I went whale watching without taking Dramamine first and spent the rest of the day feeling really, really sick.

However I see some whales before I threw up so it wasn't all bad.

So I'm going to be brief in this update because I have very nearly made up for that red Sunday and I hope by the time you all see this I will be very, very close if not over the 25K words I need to have by the 15th of the month to stay on target.

Happy writing everyone, particularly those also doing NaNo.

Cheers,
Janet

NaNo Nudges

National Novel Writing Month, known to us all as NaNoWriMo, began yesterday. Many are participating, hoping this will inspire them to write
that novel that's been rattling around in their minds. Some are hoping to create something different. A few, like me, are using it as a kick in the bum to finish a lagging project.

Whatever the reason, the month-long challenge involves a strong degree of sacrifice--and determination.

But isn't that what writing entails year long? We sacrifice time with family and friends to devote time to writing about the inhabitants of our minds. For those with outside jobs and children, you sacrifice sleep to dole out an hour of daily writing time--and oh how I respect those who do. I didn't begin writing fulltime until I retired. Writers must also be determined year long, too. Determined to write their best. Determined to finish the project we love, no matter what comments we hear about our efforts.

So, what is so special about NaNo? Why all the hype? The low rumble of excitement and the flurry of encouraging emails? Could it be the collective community of writers worldwide, striving to achieve the same thing? A collective energy force, as it were?

To those of you participating in NaNo this year: Yay, you! Keep at it. On days you fail to reach your quota--and let's face it, life happens--don't give up. Strive to make up your word count on better days. Keep the vision and write forward. You'll be amazed at what you achieve. I'm working on a romantic suspense, the second in a series. This one is entitled "Rain is a Love Song" and is set in Paris and Budapest. I was a shade over 35,000 words when NaNo started, so I'm hoping to finish the rough draft this month. Wish me luck. My agent has it on her reading calendar for the second week of December, so...I have to finish this puppy. To all of you--WRITE ON!

NaNoWriMo - Part Two - Status report

It is now halfway through the month of writing a fifty thousand novel in thirty days and I’m ... well I’m pretty much on target. I've added a "widget" that shows my progress so far. Yellow are days I've been under the word count, orange days I've been really under, light green means I've made my count, darker green are my catch up days.

As I write this I’ve got about 20K written and by Sunday evening I should be well ahead of schedule. The problem with having a day job is that while sometimes you can do 1667 words in an evening, more often you have to rely on the weekends to write more than the minimum word count in order to make your numbers.

This is particularly true since in addition to the day job, I'm also coordinating a category in my local RWA chapter’s GOTCHA contest, and dancing in a local ballet school’s production of The Nutcracker, performances being Thanksgiving weekend, so I have rehearsals some evenings and weekend days. I play Grandmother and Mother Ginger, which I’ve done for close to 18 years now. And of course there is Thanksgiving, which I’m probably going out of town for. So I have to get the bulk of the book written during the next two weeks before things get really crazy.

In short, if I can make the word count, anyone can. And I have for two years running completed NaNoWriMo with the same set of roadblocks.

The story of my book is still evolving. I still have the vampire on the cruise ship and the sexy werewolf who wants to be her companion but I got rid of the extra guy and am focusing on giving the pair a mystery to solve. I’m glossing over some parts that will be filled in later on. Sometimes I’m in the mood to write sex scenes and sometimes I write “There is a lot of sex here and she’s the one in control this time...” which works for the rough draft. That’s the beauty of a draft, you don’t need to fill in all the details quite yet. What you want is the basis of the story, and you want to write it quickly so that the plot gets solidified. The “good stuff” can come later.

So I need to keep this short because I have about a thousand more words to write today before I can call it quits. Happy writing everyone!

Cheers,
Janet Miller/Cricket Starr

Nanowrimo

I was so excited to realize my blog day fell on Day 1 of Nano. Short for Nanowrimo. Which translates into National Novel Writing Month. Founded by Chris Baty and his friends who wanted to see what they could accomplish in a month if they really tried. It is for writers to set a goal to write 50,000 words on a novel in 30 days. You can find all the information at http://www.nanowrimo.org/

This will be my fourth year of participating. I love the thrill of trying to sit down and write so many words in one month. This month is really important to me, personally. I’m going to write a sequel to the published book I have coming out early next year. I want to see if I can plot out a book for a week or two and write it in a month. 50,000 words for me will be the whole book.
Lots of writers say they can’t do Nano because it is too intense, the holidays are coming, or for whatever reason. I don’t believe that. Nano is a great way to see what you can accomplish. It might not be the whole 50,000 words, but I bet if you try, you will have more words than you started at with on November 1, or you might surprise yourself and get the whole 50,000 or more.

Writers with deadlines don’t have the luxury of saying, “oh, it’s the holidays, I don’t have time to write.” If you are a beginning or intermediate writer Nano is a tremendous example of what writing under pressure is like, with the added bonus of releasing some of that pressure if you must. The only deadline you have is the one you set yourself. But let me warn you, Nano is very competitive. Once you start accumulating words, you want more and more. When you see how many your Nano buddies have, you want to stay up late or get up early and get more than them.

Will I see you there? You can find me under mrsgodiva. I’ll be working on Taming Brad, a contemporary romance. Here’s to all of us finding our 50,000 words.

Who wants to write a book in a month?

Next month is National Novel Writing Month, or NANOWRIMO, and for the third year I’ll be a part of this global challenge. The challenge? Write fifty thousand words of a new project between November 1st and November 30th. The words all need to be written during that time. No rewriting of older work, no starting the project early. To achieve it you should write 1667 words per day, every day, in order to keep up. If you write more words in one day, that puts you ahead of the game, but the more you keep up with the writing, the more likely it is you’ll finish.

Mind you, this isn’t going to be a finished book. It will be a rough draft, something to edit into something that can be a sellable project. Acknowledging that this isn't a completed project gives the the option to play with ideas rather than committing yourself to making it letter perfect. That can come later during the editing phase.

My plan is to write a new Hollywood After Dark book, as that has been a pretty popular series. I’m thinking of doing a story about a vampire who decides to take a cruise, inviting along her long-time psi male companion and then finding out someone has hired a male shifter to be her bodyguard while on the trip. Maybe the guys get together and end up with her as well. Three in a bed is always such an interesting number. And then there is also the possibility of someone falling overboard, needing to be rescued, the three of them ending up on a deserted island...

So many interesting ideas to cover--and only thirty days to make them happen. I’ll have to let you know next month how it is going.

Cheers,

Janet Miller/Cricket Starr