Blogger problems and freelancing again

I meant to blog again sooner, but lately Blogger has not been showing the usual compose screen: the compose screen is HTML only, no one-click fancy formatting. I was waiting to see if the problems would get fixed, but so far they haven't, so I guess I'm blogging without the conveniences. All I can say is, it's a good thing I know HTML.

With NaNoWriMo finished (and won), on Friday I went back to freelancing full-time again. It took longer than I'd like to complete the work I did on Friday; it's hard to get back in nonfiction mode after writing about 8,000 words of fiction. I'll be working a little this weekend, as a result. Still, there's something nice about writing articles again.

As for my novel... After a short break, I plan to start the editing and revising process. The break is to let my brain rest after writing the whole first draft in just a month, because I intend to make several major revisions. Several of them, I knew I would want to make shortly after writing the sections, but in the spirit of NaNoWriMo (and for the sake of maintaining my word count) I just kept going!

KATHARINE SWAN: NANOWRIMO WINNER!!!

Well, everyone - I did it! Despite how behind I'd gotten on my novel, I was able to reach 50,000 this afternoon.

Now I have a bunch of cool little icons and other such, which I will install on my blogs - and possibly even my website - shortly. Hooray!

46,077 words - my goal for the night met!

I wasn't sure whether I'd be able to meet it, but earlier this evening I set a goal for myself: to reach 46,000 words tonight. And I did!

That means that I have just under 4,000 words to write tomorrow in order to reach 50,000. Since I don't have anything else that I simply must do before evening, I should be able to resume work on my novel right away when I wake up, hopefully allowing me to finish before I have to leave to babysit.

I had feared for a little while there that I wouldn't be able to finish NaNoWriMo this year - but it appears I might be able to, after all! Hoorah!!!

43,653 words

As Michael says, I am smoking today! I have nearly 44,000 words. I think my goal for tonight will be to reach 46,000 words. That should leave a doable amount for tomorrow.

Of course, I still haven't finished my freelancing article, which I need to do sometime tonight as well...

After writing for so long, I think I need a little break.

41,781 words

Here I am, trooping steadily along! I added to my word count for the day (since last night's technically went on today's), making the total for the day (so far) 5,064. That puts me at 41,781 total words. I've made excellent progress today, but unfortunately, it may not be enough - I have just over 8,000 words to write by tomorrow at midnight! And unfortunately, thanks to babysitting plans for tomorrow evening, I'm not sure I can trust to be home before midnight... Which means I need to try to reach 50,000 words before I go.

I'll still write a little more tonight, but I also have a freelance article to finish first.

38,761 words

I wasn't able to write the phenomenal amount of words on my novel that I wanted to accomplish today, thanks to a combination of freelance work and getting something in my eye this evening. I have more freelance work to do tomorrow, unfortunately, but I'm hoping to be able to spend a little more time on my novel. The good news is that I wrote 2,044 words this evening; the bad news is that I have more than 11,000 words left to write with less than two days to do it in.

36,717 words - still a long way to go

I was able to get a little more writing done tonight. I am currently up to 36,717 total words - a far cry from the 45,000 I was hoping to reach by the time we got back from our vacation. However, I feel that I made good progress today. Hopefully I will be able to devote a good deal of time to my novel over the next few days.

All play and no work...

I thought I'd easily be able to work over the holiday because I love writing fiction so much... but it turned out to be harder than I thought. We visited Michael's family, and I'm not sorry to say that I ended up visiting with my horse a lot more than I worked on my novel.

Michael's brother recently got a new horse - a colt named Sundance. Although Sundance is only 7 months old - a good 6 months younger than Panama - he's already bigger than Panama. He is a mix of draft horse and some type of show horse; the show horse blood is quite evident, especially when Sundance trots, picking his legs high up in the front. He's a beautiful horse, and very sweet-tempered - but I prefer my fiery Panama.



Panama is still a little bit on the wild side, but I think I was able to connect with him a lot better this time than last time. The first couple of days I was there, he didn't have a halter on - they had had to take it off because it was getting too small on him. It was difficult, because I had no way to keep him with me once he decided to leave, but I was able to give him a little bit of attention here and there.



On Saturday, with four of us helping, we managed to corner Panama and put a halter on him. It took some work, but once we got it on him he was like a different horse - much gentler and tamer, though still slightly skittish. He just doesn't get enough attention, poor guy - but the more he gets of it, the more he wants. By the time we left this morning, he came right up to me when I stood at the fence to say goodbye.



Panama has gotten rather plump, which is good to see - he had been so underfed when we first saw him in May, and it took a long time for him to gain enough weight to cover his ribs. He is now almost 13 1/2 hands tall (a hand is four inches, and a horse's height is measured at the shoulders). He's tall enough so that I can lean my forehead against his neck and smell his horsey smell.

I don't regret for the moment all the time I was able to spend with Panama. It seemed to do him a lot of good. I was able to write a little, reaching a measely 35,080 total words. With only three full days left of NaNoWriMo, I'm hoping I'll be able to devote some time in the next few days to working on my novel. I want to make sure I "win" (i.e. reach 50,000 words) my first go round!

32,322 words

I've written another 2,308 words. Although I reported them after midnight, so they technically go on tomorrow's count, in actuality I wrote a total of 4,699 words today.

I doubt I'll get that many done tomorrow, but I hope to get at least 2,000 done. My goal is to reach where I should be by the end of the weekend - about 45,000 words. If I can do that, it should be an easy sprint to the finish line.

30,014 words: Catching up!

After just over a week of not working on my novel, I was able to devote more than two hours to it today. As a result, I added 2,391 words to my total word count - and I'm hoping to write some more before the night is over.

As a NaNoWriMo side note - last night the South Denver NaNoWriMo group met to go see Stranger Than Fiction. Amusingly, the plot line of the movie reminded us all of a NaNo novel... But it was a lot of fun. I really enjoy visiting with the other writers that I've met, and I'm really disappointed that there's only one more meeting left. :o( With any luck, though, we'll be able to keep in touch - and we'll see each other again next November!

The call of duty

I knew it would eventually happen: my freelancing work would eventually supercede my NaNoWriMo goals in a major way. It's been several days now since I have been able to work on my novel, but tonight freelancing had to take precedence once again, as my most important goal is paying my bills.

However, I have a plan for catching up on my novel writing. I'm going to get all of my work done before Thanksgiving - hopefully by Tuesday, actually - and then use all the down time I can muster to work on the novel around the holiday. I think I can get quite a bit out of the long weekend if I am really determined.

Another night of sacrificed NaNo time

I won't be writing again tonight. Unfortunately, I need to get up very early tomorrow - probably about 6:45, which is extremely early for me - in order to take Michael to work so I can borrow his car. (Mine has not been running for a few weeks now, as I haven't had the time to fix it.)

I also have a very busy day ahead of me tomorrow. I am interviewing a subject for an article tomorrow morning; I have a doctor's appointment in the afternoon; and I babysit in the evening. Somewhere in there I'd also like to squeeze in getting a haircut, picking up a couple of books on hold for me at the library, and getting some writing work done.

Unfortunately, this pace may continue through the weekend. Saturday there is a doll sale I've been waiting to go to; Sunday and Monday we are celebrating Michael's birthday; and Tuesday all of the local NaNoWriMo-ers are going to see the movie Stranger Than Fiction. And then with Thanksgiving coming up soon after that... Well, finding time to write may be a struggle in the next few days.

27,623 words

I was able to write tonight, although admittedly I neglected some freelancing work to do so. I decided I can do it as well tomorrow.

I only wrote 1,757 words tonight, but that puts me up to 27,623, almost a full thousand over where I should be at by day 16. It's not as comfortable as a lead as I had before last night, but it'll do.

I also attended a local NaNoWriMo meeting tonight. I really like all of the people that come to them - there was seven of us last time, eight of us this time - and I'm hoping to stay in touch with them after NaNoWriMo ends. Admittedly, I am considerably older than some of them - the second oldest in the entire group - but noveling must be a very strong connection between all of us, because I don't often notice the age difference at all.

I think it's always a good thing for a writer to have other writers as friends. They understand things that non-writing friends just don't, no matter how supportive or appreciative they are.

Freelancing responsibilities come first

Well, I didn't make it back to my novel tonight. I didn't have the evening to work tonight, and as a result I didn't get as much done as I had wanted - so NaNoWriMo had to take a back burner until I got caught up on the paying work. I'm still slightly ahead of schedule on my word count, so as long as I get a chance to write tomorrow night I'll be fine.

The plus side is that I will have the money I need to take Michael out for his birthday. Hooray!

25,866 words

Tonight I wrote 1,926 words, bumping my total word count up to 25,866. Although I ran out of steam early (i.e. just shy of my goal of 2,000), I'm quite pleased with the progress of the novel. Although I hadn't outlined more than a handful of chapters (and those very roughly), the story is beginning to take on a definite shape now - I know not only how it will end, but much more of how it will get there. And I'll only have to go back and make one major plot change when the writing stage is all over.

I'm already somewhat dreading the editing stage. Although I wrote three novels in high school, my reluctance to edit (combined with the fact that I didn't have much encouragement to pursue it as a career) is partly to blame for the fact that I never published any of those. Although I have gotten much better at editing my own work in recent years, the thought of editing an entire novel is still a bit unnerving. Still, though, I hope to push my way through it, much the way I have pushed my way through NaNoWriMo, so that I can work on publishing my novel.

At which point I will have to deal with a whole new set of tasks that I dread...

23,940 words

I'm very pleased to say that I'm moving along at a fantastic pace. With somewhere around 2,100 words for today (counting what I wrote before and after midnight), I've reached 23,940 total words.
I've decided to almost completely cut an earlier scene when I go back and edit, but since I wrote it during NaNoWriMo, the words count... Therefore the scene stays in until I actually do the edits.

I have a comfortable 2,300-word lead, so as long as I maintain a decent pace of between 1,500 and 2,000 words each day, I should finish the 50,000 words by the end of the month. The novel plot is going strong, too, as I successfully saved it from fizzling out and ending early. (The reason for deciding to delete the earlier scene.)

According to my progress report, I am now 47.88% finished.

This is no allergy attack!

I thought last night that what I had was just an allergy attack, but now it's quite clearly more than that. I'm pretty sure that I caught a cold from the sick baby I babysat last Saturday night.

I feel pathetic. I got some decent freelancing work done today, but I'm wiped out from the effort - even though all I did was sit on the couch all day, all bundled up in blankets. So, I'm crying off of NaNoWriMo tonight.

Here's my plan: tomorrow I am going to get all of my freelance work out of the way (which shouldn't be hard, since I don't have any really serious deadlines looming over my head right now). Then I'll be free to catch up on my novel over the weekend. In order to get totally caught up, I'll basically need to write about 8,000 words by the time I go to bed Sunday evening. I think I can do that, though, with all my freelance work out of the way.

In any case, I'm heading to bed now to get another good 10 hours or so of sleep. It helped quite a bit last night, so I'm hoping that another night of it will completely kick this cold.

Under the weather

I had another unproductive night - my second in a row. This time it was because I started not feeling well, and ended up going to bed early. I think it was an allergy attack, and not a cold coming on, but I'm still a little congested this morning, so it may be too early to tell. In any case, I have a feeling the 10 hours of sleep that I got last night probably helped speed my recovery - even if it also helped me fall behind on both freelance work and NaNoWriMo.

The situation is this: I have 13,721 words of my novel, but as of today I should be up to 15,003...and by the end of tonight (I usually work after midnight) I should be up to 16,670. In other words, in order to get back on track I have 2,949 words to write tonight.

Unfortunately, since I'm also behind on my freelance work, I'm not sure it'll happen tonight. However, I'm hoping to get all my freelancing work done before the weekend, so that I can spend Saturday and Sunday catching up on my novel (kind of like I did last weekend).

On that note, I guess I had better get to work!

Fits and starts

It seems I am working on my novel in fits and starts now. I was a little behind on my freelancing work this evening, so that had to take precedence over NaNoWriMo. I was still going to work on my novel anyway, but just a few minutes ago I gave my eyes a good long rub, and realized I was tired. So I am going to bed, but I am hoping to write enough tomorrow night to maintain my lead.

13,721 words

In my least productive night yet (not counting the night when I didn't write at all), I wrote only 1,810 words tonight. However, that puts me at 13,721 total words, which is still about 2,000 words more than the goal for the seventh day of NaNoWriMo.

I'm quite pleased with my progress. I've noticed that writing is getting easier as I go along - I'm writing faster and better, and one by one the pieces of the plot are falling into place.

I woke up as Michael was getting ready for work this morning, and he asked how many words I was up to. Amazingly, even though I was half asleep, I remembered and was able to tell him. And although I didn't remember this until later in the day when he told me again, he said he was really proud of me for my progress. I can't begin to describe how good that made me feel.

This truly is a major accomplishment for me. Although I wrote three novels in high school - and was halfway through my fourth when I stopped writing - the most fiction I've written since then is a few short stories, and a few half-hearted attempts to start a novel here or there. I'm hoping that I will continue devoting time to writing fiction, even after NaNoWriMo ends on November 30th - perhaps becoming a published novelist isn't as far away as I'd thought it was.