Showing posts with label NaNoWriMo 2016. Show all posts

#NaNoWriMo2016: Week 3

Wow this month is flying by so fast! Can't believe we're at week 3 already.

This past week has been full of highs and lows... lots of lows...

I got writers block. Yep, the words stopped flowing. I had days where I wrote 0 words. Others when I wrote just a few hundred. It wasn't good. In fact it wasn't until Friday that I actually did any significant writing. Friday was a good writing day.

The Block

A writers worst nightmare. The words just don't come. Those of you that have been following my progress this month will know that I hit a few slow days already during week 2. My characters took over and well, I ended up getting lost. This week I had to deal with the after-math of that.

I ended up doing some serious brainstorming. My antagonist had just turned out to be a whole lot more of a bad guy than I'd originally planned for, and my protagonist now has to face new challenges.

I roped in the help of others (brainstorming with others really helps me organise my thoughts). On Tuesday evening I chatted with a friend of mine about the story and why I was stuck. That in itself actually helped a lot. Explaining in a brief summary how I got to this point was really good for getting my focus back on the story. Together we started to find possible answers for the never ending list of questions that had arisen, and I started to get a better idea about the backstory of my antagonist.

I started to pull together my new ideas for where the story was going. Not great, but a start at least. It was enough to beat the block, and turn things around.

A Good Writing Day

Like I said, Friday was a good writing day. What I call a jet-pack day. I got down over 3K in less than two hours. The words began to flow again. I was back on track!

Hitting 40K

On Saturday I reached the big 40K landmark. I have to say this felt pretty darn good :) It's great being able to see the end approaching.

Unfortunately I didn't get time to come up with any NaNoRewards though as my youngest came down with a fever :(

Sunday was declared PJ day in our house, and the kids and I spent most of the day watching films from our DVD collection. Managed a quick word sprint session and got down 719, bringing my total to 40,719.

As my youngest is still ill, and therefore off school for the day, not sure how productive I'm going to be able to be today, but hopefully I'll be able to squeeze in a word sprint or two at some point. Fingers crossed.

#NaNoWriMo2016: Week 2

Time to tick off week 2 on the writing frenzy known as NaNoWriMo, and what a week it was! (If you missed the week 1 update you can find it here: https://www.jolinsdell.com/2016/11/nanowrimo2016-week-1.html)

Getting lost

I started week 2 by getting lost. My characters took me off my original plot outline, which was fine for a brief moment, but then everything suddenly became hard. Following my scene outlines everything had been going really well. Words flowed and I knew exactly where I was headed. Not any more. Thanks characters!

So what do you do when your characters take over, and leave you feeling lost? Turns out you just keep on writing. It was that simple, and that hard. I kept writing through it and somehow managed to bring my story back on track with my original story plan.

Allow yourself to suck

A really important thing that helps in situations like this is something that NaNoWriMo creator, Chris Baty, talks about in his book No Plot? No Problem (grab a copy here: http://amzn.to/2eUCNhg). In chapter 5, he asks that I let the NaNoWriMo team "Take my inner editor". There is a very good reason for this. The goal this month is to write a first draft of a 50K novel. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be written.

Knowing that I'm not writing a great masterpiece, but instead building a foundation that can be worked on later, helps. Trust me, I've written some sentences over the past two weeks that are seriously cringe-worthy. I have written over 30,000 words in just two weeks though, some of which are even good.

There is no limit to how rough a rough draft can be.~Unknown #NaNoWriMo2016 #amwriting #quote

Big milestones

On wednesday I reached 25,000 words. The big halfway mark! This is a huge turning point in the challenge as what is written from now on is more than what is left to write in order to reach the 50K goal. It's no longer so much about how much you still need to write, but instead knocking words off the still need to write tally. It feels good.

NaNoRewards

Let's talk a bit about NaNoRewards. A NaNoReward could be something small like allowing yourself to eat a chocolate after you've written 500 words, or going out for dinner to celebrate hitting a big milestone (yes, both of these are on my NaNoReward list ;)).

After the high of Wednesday, I gave myself a big, well deserved NaNoReward. I gave myself the day off. Yep, the whole day. A daily word count total for Thursday of 0. It was wonderful. I caught up with other tasks I'd been putting on hold, spent time with family, relaxed... bliss.

Friday was not so wonderful. You see the problem with taking the day off is that you come back with a sense of guilt. You see that big fat 0 on your progress chart and kick yourself. What was I thinking?!

Writing was hard going, and most of Friday morning was very frustrating. The words just didn't seem to flow. Then I remembered what had happened on Monday. I just kept writing... and it worked. I still made good progress.

Writing with kids

Weekends are always hard for me to find writing time. I have two small children. With the help of cartoons, and video games I managed to squeeze in some word sprints though and met my goals. Don't underestimate the power of those quick 10 minute sessions. It might just gain you 300 words, but it makes a big difference at the end of the day.

Current stats as of Sunday 13th Nov.

and then there was this....

#thatmomentwhen you realise you are #writing book 1 in a series. #notplanned #nanowrimo pic.twitter.com/Wg4EngluYm
— Jo Linsdell (@jolinsdell) November 11, 2016

Yep, looks like this is going to be a series. Still not sure how I feel about this.

#NaNoWriMo2016: Week 1

As you probably all know by now, I'm taking part in the NaNoWriMo challenge this month. Find me at http://nanowrimo.org/participants/jolinsdell and add me as a writing buddy ;) Read the synopsis for my book here: https://www.jolinsdell.com/2016/10/nanowrimo2016-do-you-like-me.html.

Today is day 7, and so marks the end of the first week of the challenge. So far it's going really well.

Here's my current stat situation:

As you can see I'm a fair bit ahead of the required daily goal. I'm hoping to fit in another couple of word sprints today too in the hopes of reaching 20K.

Why I'm writing so fast

Scene outlines

One thing that is definitely helping is that I did scene outlines before the challenge started. I actually did finished these the night before the event started so don't go thinking I did major plotting in advance. I didn't. What I did do though was break my plot idea down into scenes, and make a few notes about what needed to happen in each scene. This is the first time I've done this for NaNoWriMo, and I honestly say it makes a huge difference. Knowing what needs to happen means I can just write it without having to think about too much.

This doesn't mean I can't be flexible. My characters took over yesterday and I ended up adding in a scene that wasn't in my original plan. What it does mean is that I know the story arc and so, even, when I get taken on little diversions, I know what I need to work back to.

Word sprints

Second is word sprints. I'm a busy person. I never have a whole day to just sit and write. It's just not going to happen. This is why I love word sprints. Quick little 10 or 15 minute shots of writing frenzy. Seriously, they do wonders to boost up your daily word count. Another one of my favourite word sprints this year is the 1K30 where the goal is to write 1K words in 30 minutes. I don't always manage it but can usually get out a good 800-900 words in that time.

Dialogue

A lot of what I've written is dialogue. I find it's faster to write than descriptions about setting etc... I can go back and add that in later during the revision process. The goal is month is to write the first draft. This mean getting the story down. It doesn't have to be perfect (and trust me when I say mine is far from it), it just needs to be written.

Dialogue is also a great way of revealing things about characters. Whether it's them talking, or others talking about them.

I'm really pleased with how the challenge it going so far and hope to hit 50K early so I can then switch over to my non fiction manuscript and get that finished this month too.

I'd also like to point out that although I'm ahead, this is the first time I've done NaNoWriMo and been this far ahead. Slow and steady can win the race too, so don't compare yourself of others who have written more than you. NaNoWriMo is really a personal challenge. It's just you against your word count. Not you against other writers. Just keep writing. Whatever your progress, you're closer to finishing your novel than you were at the start of the month.

How are you doing so far?

Join me

If you'd like to follow along with my daily progress, and maybe join me on some word sprints, you can join the event page I set up at https://www.facebook.com/events/2203724819766193/ or follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jolinsdell

T'was The Night Before NaNoWriMo...

So tomorrow is 1st November and the first day of NaNoWriMo 2016. Despite not being sure about whether I'd be taking part or not this year up until a couple of weeks ago (my health continues to give me problems), I'm actually feeling quite prepared.

You can check out the draft cover design, and read the synopsis here: https://www.jolinsdell.com/2016/10/nanowrimo2016-do-you-like-me.html

This year I'll be writing a YA. There will be a bit of romance, a bit thriller.... should be fun.

I made the most of my kids swimming lessons to write up some plot notes. I always have a notepad and pen in my bag, and so pulled them out as I sat pool side and did some brainstorming, and plotting.

I've written up some very basic character notes for the main, and secondary characters too. Things like; name, surname, age, height, build, hair colour and style, eye colour, and relationship to main character.

I also made a board on Pinterest for inspiration. I've been pinning inspiration pics for locations, and character outfits.

As my book will deal with stalking I've also been researching stalking laws and statistics online.

I even made a word count tracker (you can grab yours here https://www.jolinsdell.com/2016/10/nanowrimo-2016-word-count-tracker.html). I'm all set to be writer-tastic!

What I hadn't banked on was earthquakes. We've had a lot of earthquakes recently here in Italy, and some of them have been pretty scary. Due to damage to some buildings in Rome following the earthquakes, they've decided to close the schools for security checks today. Tuesday the schools are shut anyway as it's festive here. So, whilst I'm happy that they've adopted a better safe than sorry approach, this does not make for the best of starts to my writing frenzy month. I was hoping to have more time today to sort through my NaNo prep, and maybe do some more work on my plot. I may still fit in time for some work on my scene outlines though. Fingers crossed.

In past years I found a good way to increase my word count was to do word sprints. Usually 10 to 15 minute sprints. I think I'll be doing lots of those this year. I've set up an event page on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/events/2203724819766193/ where I'll be posting about my writing progress, and writing sprints I'm doing. I hope you'll join in with the sprints :)

Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year? How have you prepared for the challenge?