Mini NaNo Challenge: 1K a Day (Part 2)

Part I is here.

well the first half of the month I didn’t make a single per day word count. I think, had I not stuck to my rules below, I would have made it hands down. This story just isn’t popping in my head and I don’t know why. I see a scene but when I try and write it, it goes away. Scattered to the four winds. In order to make the goal of 50%, I have to hit 1k words each day on the second leg. No bloody likely. Still, I’m not giving up. My goal is to finish the rough draft at this point. Let’s go over my personal rules:

1. I must write 1k a day (thus the name of the challenge).
2. I cannot ‘make up’ a word count the next day. If I fail to reach 1k, that day is a loss.
3. If I go over 1k, I cannot use that total in the next day.
4. Blog posts don’t count toward word total.
5. I must first finish my pirate piece before moving to something else. Meaning, I cannot start another project to boost word count.

Now begins the humiliation….

1. 794 words. Not a winner but my best total yet. Today was Father’s Day so spending time with my dad was my priority. I’m satisfied, even though I didn’t make the goal, with my total. (June 16)
2. 633 words. Still on track, IMO. I’m actually coming to the main conflict of the story. Once the rough draft is completed, I’ll set this one aside until the month is up. Meaning, I will work on something else. Rough draft first, though. Obviously, I’m not batting .500 but progress is progress at this point. (June 17)
3. 0 words. I know, I know. It looks like I’m slipped, right? The truth is I got two releases this week and I had to get blog posts in line for them. I’ll take the zero on that because remember-blog posts don’t count in the total. (June 18)

Mini NaNo Challenge: 1K a Day (Part I)

So a little group we call The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pens decided to do something to jumpstart a few writing slumps we’ve gone through. For me, I’ve been in editing hell for the past month I couldn’t even fathom writing anything. Couple that with a few releases. Yeah, I’m pretty fried. Nonetheless, I’m going to do this and block it in the first half of the month and the last half.

My personal rules:

1. I must write 1k a day (thus the name of the challenge).
2. I cannot ‘make up’ a word count the next day. If I fail to reach 1k, that day is a loss.
3. If I go over 1k, I cannot use that total in the next day.
4. Blog posts don’t count toward word total.
5. I must first finish my pirate piece before moving to something else. Meaning, I cannot start another project to boost word count.

That’s it. Now I’ll list, per day, my word count. At the end of the challenge, I’ll tally up my good vs bad days and see if I was over 50% in the face-off circle.

1. 351 words. Excuses I could use: Camping without a laptop, watching hockey and losing my mojo because both my teams lost today. In reality, I had plenty of time in the morning and didn’t focus.
2. 398 words. Focus is about as good as a packer in a bubblewrap facility. Not even a dose of caffeine saved me from failing. Part of me knows this word count would be a breeze if I started something else but that’s not the point of this exercise. Oh! And I wrote a blog post for Evernight’s Naughty Fairytale Blog which, of course, doesn’t count.
3. 341 words. It’s like trying to climb a hill with a thousand dogs dry humping your leg. Once again, I did a future blog post instead of concentrating on the task at hand. Being a Gemini, I’m actively sabotaging my own efforts.
4. 574 words. Better but still not dice. On a lighter note, I did clean up some malware on my parent’s PCs and looked over some cool historic stuff for a cruise I’m going on. yes, I puttered about on the internet too. Still, I think I’ve gotten over the hump!
5. 353 words. 2 OT hockey just to watch my team go down 3-0 in the series and they actually showed up. Imagine if they would have played like this the last two games. This is doing NOTHING for my motivation. *sigh* On the bright side, a lot of the people who have joined me on this quest have found their mojo. Go team!
6. 35 words. A new time low! Woo! I had a lot of things going on and it just didn’t happen. I also received some edits on a novel I have coming out in July. Still, I’m going to forge ahead.
7.  310 words. Good gravy. By the time I was done drying in my Belgian beer over the Penguins getting kicked out of the playoffs in an embarrassing fashion, it was after midnight. Still, this manuscript is over half completed since it’s a short. I guess that’s something.
8. 0 words. An all-time low. Went to a t’ai chi class and a picnic. Totally crashed for the night around 8PM.
9. 0 words. Calling this one early as I’m typing this around 4PM. Edits have come through for a YA novel I got contracted and it takes priority as I only have about three das to scour over a 67K+ document. Since I fucked around and didn’t work on it at all yesterday (see above), I’ve got to nose to the grindstone now. Plus, I did laundry. Household chores wait for no one.
10. 0 words. It’s like a hat trick, right? three in a row? I had to do the finishing touches on my novel. Pick an excerpt, rewrite the blurb because the original just didn’t work. Pick keywords…that was a killer! Plus another Bio on top of that. Geesh. I’m spent. I will write tomorrow… I will!
11. 113 words. See? I wrote…something. My son took me to the movies for a belated b-day present. I totally don’t regret the day.
12. o words. Where have I seen this before? Edits rolled in (again) and I was generally distracted…Squirrel!
13. 116 words. Here’s to hoping that a road trip sparks the brain a little.
14. 419 words. I was on a road trip and a passenger. I would have logged more but for some reason, I get vertigo in he back seat of a car, especially when my dad is driving. Oi. Still, better than….
15. 0 words. Getting old, isn’t it? On this day, I was out in glorious Pittsburgh for my cousin’s daughter’s wedding… in a fire hall. Awesome sauce. I drank iron City Beer among other things.

0 for 15… ouch…

The Power of NaNo

Ah those 30 nights of literary abandon. They warp your mind and soul and make you wonder if it’s all worth it. It is if you have passion and a want to hone your craft. The most important thing to remember is once NaNo is complete, your manuscript is not. No one’s that clean, not even the writers that to do it for a living.

Your first run through is always a rough draft. Hell, you might not even finish it during NaNo. Most novels are more than 50k long. What NaNo does is give you the jump start you need. Which brings me to Ghosts in the Mirror. Ghosts was my 2009 project and it drained me. I barely made it over the finish line of 50k because I just couldn’t write any more. I originally had it in a couple of PoVs and wanted to make it mainstream fiction. Yeah, I was still on that kick. The problem? The market is flooded with them and back then, I really didn’t know if I had a diamond in the rough.

The more I read over what I had, the more I hated it. It’s a common thing for me and NaNo time. The loathing to even look at one page. So I set it aside and pulled it out in January. The disgust still lingered so I shelved it, unsure on where to proceed and knowing I had a little more research to do.

Through the years that followed, I worked on a chapter or two and even posted a good bit of it on Scribophile. Finally I got the jumpstart I needed. So on vacation of 2012, I decided I’d work on that. It was grueling but I wasn’t getting irritated with the project. In fact, I finally found a direction. I remembered my favorite book I read in high school–The Pigman. It was a gritty YA novel and not high school bubble gum that I can’t stand. Why not take Ghosts in the direction? The characters fit the age group.

So off I went. Not only did I strip at least 90% off the adult PoV out, I added a lot to it. It ended around the 65k range, I believe. Pretty good for all I cut out. In the end, it was worth it. I already had a publisher in mind for it and I’m happy to say they accepted it.

Thanks, Lycaon Press for believing in my story.

*The cover art featured isn’t the official one. It’s a mock up I did during NaNo to represent the story.