Showing posts with label 2015 writing challenges. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2015 writing challenges. Show all posts
WOW! What a month! This November I decided to take part in not one, but three, writing challenges (crazy I know!). - NaNoWriMo AKA National Novel Writing Month, goal to write a 50K novel in 30 days. - WNFIN AKA Write Non Fiction in November, goal to write a non fiction book in 30 days. - PiBoIdMo AKA Picture Book Idea Month, goal to come up with 30 ideas for children's picture books in 30 days. We've finally come to the end of this roller-coaster month of highs and lows. It's been 30 days of writing frenzy, but I've had a blast along the way.
Here's a quick look at how things went:
NaNoWriMo
This was hard this year. In fact, I didn't win. Both kids got ill, I got ill, life happened and well, my novel stopped happening. I'm still pleased though as I'm 30K into a novel that was just a blank page at the the start of the month. That's still pretty good going. I love the characters I came up with, and the story, and will be working on finishing this first draft of Family Secrets over December and January.
WNFIN
Ta da! My winners badge! :)
I successfully managed to finish the first draft of my non fiction book From Idea to Published. Loving how it turned out, and can't wait to jump into editing it this month (more about that soon).
PiBoIdMo
And another winners badge! :)
Not all the ideas on this years list were amazing but there were a few diamonds in the rough that I'll be turning into books in 2016. One thing that did surprise me was the number of non fiction picture book ideas I listed as in past years I'd always listed mainly fiction ideas. That said, the ideas I'm most excited about are fiction ones.
Want to go further behind the scenes? Watch this video of my day by day diary of the highs and lows of; writing a novel, a non fiction book, and coming up with 30 ideas for children's picture books, all in just one month.
Did you take part in one, or more, of these challenges this year? Did you reach your goal? Share in the comments below.
I'm not going to lie to you. This week did not go well. It started with my youngest off school ill, then had my eldest off school ill, and to top it off my husband was on holiday from work (a good thing don't get me wrong), which meant time I would usually have spent writing got used for other things. Here's a quick run down of how things went this week:
NaNoWriMo
I started off on a high, hitting 25K. To celebrate I went and cut my hair off for charity. Yep, no more long hair. It's now on its way to The Little Princess Trust to make wigs for kiddos with cancer. A good cause I think you'll all agree. Here's some pics:
Una foto pubblicata da Jo Linsdell (@jolinsdell) in data:
Unfortunately for my word count, that was the only high of the week. In fact, I had several days of 0 words after that. I did get an idea for another book though whilst we visited Civita di Bagnoreggio... maybe next year I'll try my hand at some young adult?
Here's a few pics from Civita di Bagnoreggio so you can see what a beautiful place it is, and why it was hard to feel bad for not writing whilst we were there:
Una foto pubblicata da Jo Linsdell (@jolinsdell) in data:
Hoping for a better week ahead.
WNFIN
A slow week on this too, but I did do some little bits in and here. I had hoped to have this finished by now, but at least I'm not far off now.
PiBoIdMo
This is the only challenge where I'm actually ahead of myself. I really like some of the ideas I've added to my list too.
Are you taking part in a challenge this month? How's it going so far? In case you missed it you can check out last weeks progress report here :)
Here's a quick run down of how things went this week:
NaNoWriMo
This week had its highs and its lows. Mainly lows... This week did not go brilliantly. Starting with a weekend of birthday parties, my youngest getting ill in the middle, a visit from a friend from the US, a night out at WWE.... I'm amazed I actually found any time to write! I did though, and my word count is still looking pretty good all things considered, although I am slightly behind with my word count at the moment, just not so much behind that I can't catch up again. In fact, I did have one really good day where I boosted my word count nicely, making up for some of the slow (or just plain nothing) days of the week. My characters have continued to take over the story, and I've added in several scenes, and some new characters, that weren't in my original plot outline. This means I've also had to add in a few extra scenes to my plot outline to be written over the next few days to fill in some gaps. One of my characters who was just an extra kind of role before has now been promoted to a more involved role. I'm also now not sure about the ending I had planned. The story may not stop there anymore.
WNFIN
I had hoped to have finished this by now, but I've neglected this project badly this week, and done next to nothing on it. *Slaps wrists* Must do better.
PiBoIdMo
Still bang on track. Finally added some fiction ideas to my list too. Doing one, or more, of these challenges? How are you doing so far?
November is going to be a busy month. For the next 30 days I'll be taking part in 3 creative challenges. Yep 3! I know I probably seem completely crazy but I'm pretty sure that at the end of the month I'm going to feel awesome. Tired, but awesome!
In just 30 days time I'll have the first draft of a 50K novel, the first draft of a non fiction book, and 30 ideas for children's picture books. Not bad for one months work.
I know I've raised the bar on myself and made this month super hard by doing all 3 challenges at the same time. That said, I did all 3 back in 2013 and collecting my winner certificate for both NaNoWriMo, and PiBoIdMo. I didn't quite finish my WNFIN project but I did get over half way with it. That's a lot closer than I was at the start of the month.
If you're taking part in any of these challenges this month please reach out so we can support each other as we go along. Post your profile links below or just comment with the challenges you're doing.
I'll be doing word sprints over on Twitter throughout the month, so feel free to join me there too.
Let the writing frenzy begin!
As you know, I'm doing 3 challenges this November: NaNoWriMo, PiBoIdMo, and WNFIN. Todays post is dedicate to the latter.
I mentioned in past posts about how I'm preparing for the other challenges, part of which was designing a draft cover for my NaNoWriMo novel Family Secrets. Well, I decided to apply the same approach to my WNFIN project.
This year my WNFIN project is writing From Idea to Published. This is the draft cover for the book:
I would love your feedback so please let me know what you think in the comments below.
Are you doing the WNFIN challenge this year?
This week I've been working on character sheets for the main characters in my NaNoWriMo novel in preparation for the November challenge.
I'm hoping that having a file on hand with all their basic details will help make writing the novel easier.
Creating character sheets is definitely a good way to get to know your characters a bit. I didn't want to overload them though. I'd found numerous examples on the internet but they all seemed like too much. Maybe it's just me but I like my characters to surprise me along the way too. It makes writing the story more fun, and helps give it that natural flow.
I decided the best thing to do was to make my own character sheets with just enough information. All the basic, important stuff, without going over board. The file is in fact only 2 pages long.
As you guys are fab enough to follow me here, I've decided to share my character sheet with you... for FREE so you can use it too.
So now I'm all signed up, it's time to do some preparation. In past years I took the Panster approach to the challenge, and just had a vague idea and went with it. It was hard work but I still managed to be a winner (actually finished a day early. YAY me! :)).
This year I want to try a more organised approach. This October I'll therefore be doing NaNo Prep so I have an outline to work to, and character sheets (at least for my main characters).
This year I'll be writing another thriller. I had ideas for some romance novels too but the thriller took over and choose me. A good sign that it's the one to work on for this challenge.
I figured it would be good to do some general research at this point to find some tips for writing the thriller genre, and creating villains. Here's some of the articles I've been reading today:
I've now outlined a very rough plot (which I will be working on more as the day goes on), and have my main characters.... none of which have names yet though. If you'd like to help with naming them please leave a comment on this Facebook post:
Off to a good start with #NaNoPrep this morning. This thriller is starting to take shape. I now have my rough plot, a...
Are you planning on doing NaNoWriMo this year? What genre will you be writing? Are you a Plotter or a Panster? What are you doing to prepare for the challenge?
As my own books, Out and About at the Zoo, and Fairy May, are both rhyming picture story books, it's not hard to see why this challenge appeals to me. Btw, I hope you'll add them to your reading list during the challenge ;) So what's RhyPiBoMo all about? Here's the pledge:
See, I told you it sounded fun. So will you be joining me? Got some suggestions of good rhyming picture books I should add to my to-read list?
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I successfully managed to finish the first draft of my non fiction book From Idea to Published. Loving how it turned out, and can't wait to jump into editing it this month (more about that soon).
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