NaNoWriMo – Updates

November 30 Final Word Count: 66,016

My November of NaNoWriMo has come to an end. I wrote this at 7:00 am, my writing for the day done, the rest of my day ahead. I’m going hiking later, but for now, I’m done writing. The draft of my novel, Ring War, is done. A vast amount of editing remains.

According to the NaNoWriMo website, I averaged 2200 words per day at the rate of 14 words per minute. This required about 78.5 hours or an average of 2.6 hours per day. Whew!

Would I do NaNoWriMo again? I don’t know. I did it. I got the tee shirt. Maybe I’m done. Right now, I need a break from writing. Ask me again about October 31st, next year.

I rolled over the 50,000 word mark on November 23. So, I “won” the National Novel Writing Month challenge: to write 50,000 words of a novel in the month of November. I downloaded my official winner certificate and, for good measure, bought the tee shirt and a NaNoWriMo coffee mug. Cool, eh?

I finished my novel, Ring War, which is the third book in my Once Upon a Time in Central Oith series. My next step is to finish the second book, New Ring Rising. It is about half done.

I’m thinking that I’ll continue to work on New Ring Rising in the mornings, although at a slower pace and, mercifully, without the urgency of NaNoWriMo. I think I could finish New Ring Rising by March and take the spring and summer (or beyond) to edit both books.

Right now though, I’m going hiking. I’m taking my camera.

NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, is a creative writing project that takes place annually in November. The NaNoWriMo challenge is to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. For a quick overview of NaNoWriMo, see the Wikipedia Article. If you are interested in participating, go to their website, NaNoWriMo.org.

My personal NaNoWriMo challenge was to write a 50,000 word draft of Ring War, the third book of my Once Upon a Time in Central Oith series. I actually managed 66K words.

The first two books in the series are: The Schnoz of the Rings and New Ring Rising. For more information, see the previous post and visit the Books Page.

Writing Ring War

I wrote in the early morning. For Ring War and NaNoWriMo, I set an alarm for 3:50 am so I could stagger around, make coffee, and be in my chair writing by 4:00 am. My target each day was 2000 words, but I actually averaged 2200 words. This resulted in me making my NaNoWriMo goal of 50,000 words on November 23. I finished with a 66,000 word draft. For reference, The Schnoz of the Rings, my first novel, is 63,000 words. I wrote at the rate of 14 words per minute and wrote for an average of 2.6 hours per day. Editing, here I come!

Daily Progress

• November 30 – 2254 words in 2 hr 52 min. Final total: 66, 016 words! Whew!
• November 29 – 2154 words in 2 hr 27 min. 63,762 words total.
• November 28 – 2235 words in 2 hr 17 min. 61,608 words total.
• November 27 – 2497 words in 2 hr 23 min. 59,373 words total.
• November 26 – 2100 words in 2 hr 26 min. 56,876 words total.
• November 25 – 2082 words in 3 hr 13 min. 54,776 words total.
• November 24 – 2113 words in 2 hr 35 min. 52,694 words total.
• November 23 – Winner, winner, chicken dinner! 2448 words in 2 hr 40 min. 50,581 words total for the win!
• November 22 – 2017 words in 2 hr 10 min. 48,133 words total.
• November 21 – 2166 words in 2 hr 21 min. 46,062 words total.
• November 20 – 2019 words in 2 hr 11 min. 43896 words total.
• November 19 – 2347 words in 2 hr 41 min. 41,857 words total.
• November 18 – 2230 words in 2 hr 52 min. 39,510 words total.
• November 17 – 2453 words in 2 hr 36 min. 37,280 words total.
• November 16 – 2258 words in 2 hr 53 min. 34,827 words total.
• November 15 – 2134 words in 2 hr 34 min. 32,569 words total.
• November 14 – 2291 words in 2 hr 48 min. 30,435 words total.
• November 13 – 2197 words in 2 hr 36 min. 28,144 words total.
• November 12 – 2162 words in 2 hr 30 min. 25,947 words total.
• November 11 – 2594 words in 2 hr 47 min. 23,785 words total.
• November 10 – 2199 words in 2 hr 44 min. 21,191 words total.
• November 9 – 2028 words in 2 hr 14 min. 18,992 words total.
• November 8 – 2018 words in 2 hr 31 min. 16,954 words total.
• November 7 – 2049 words in 2 hr 18 min. 14,926 words total.
• November 6 – 2123 words in 2 hr 32 min. 12,877 words total.
• November 5 – 2225 words in 2 hr 10 min. 10,754 words total.
• November 4 – 2225 words in 2 hr 24 min. 8529 words total.
• November 3 – 2094 words in 2 hr 30 min. 6304 words total.
• November 2 – 2131 words in 2 hr 5 min. 4210 words total.
• November 1 – 2079 words in 2 hrs 12 min.

Tips and Tricks

The biggest thing is to sit down and do it. For NaNoWriMo, the goal isn’t to complete a polished book, it is to finish a dirty, nasty, mistake-laden first draft. So, sit, write and don’t worry too much about spelling, grammar, punctuation or any of that other stuff that can slow you down. You can do that later. It is called editing.

In the evening, I sit down at my computer and close all the windows that I won’t be using the next morning, especially my email program and the web browser. Typically, my cell phone is in another room, but it doesn’t notify me for emails anyway and I typically only get junk calls during the day. The junk calls don’t usually come in when I’m writing, which is 4:00-6:00 am.

I mentioned in a previous post that I write with Plume Creator. It has a full screen mode which darkens the screen and I can see only my words, the word count, the time, and some formatting options, which I ignore. So I sit down and try to bang out 2000 words before breakfast.

When I’ve done my words, I write down some directions for the next day. I think about it consciously or subconsciously all day. The next morning I can sit down and start pounding out words. I write a chapter or a scene and check the word count. If I’m short, I start a new scene. I don’t worry if the scenes aren’t in order. I just write scenes that I know will fit into the story. Sometimes I follow characters past the point where I would have ended the chapter, just because I’m on a roll. I’m counting on being able to edit the mess into a book when when I’m done. When I hit 2000 words, I stop as soon as I find a suitable break.

If you are doing NaNoWriMo, too, I wish you the best of luck! If not, give a try next year!