So much for NaNoWriMo...

I had great plans for NaNoWriMo this year. Having "won" NaNoWriMo last year, I decided to aim for 80,000 words this year, rather than the minimum 50,000.

Unfortunately, it was not meant to be. Panama not only creates a demand on my time that I didn't have last year, but he also adds several hundred dollars (minimum) to the income I need to make each month. The end result is that I have more of a need to maintain my income during November, and less time to dedicate to something like novel-writing.

However, I've decided that I'm not going to give up on this novel: I'm going to write it anyway, even if I don't get to it until after NaNoWriMo ends. My plan is to get my current work to the point where I have an hour or two to spend on noveling every day. I probably won't finish the novel in one month, but that's fine. The point is to get it written, whether it takes one month or one year.

I'll let you know when I get started, and keep track of my progress here on my blog!

Not like I planned

When I blogged last week, I was in a frenzy to get all of my work finished before the end of the week so I could take this week off. Unsurprisingly, it didn't quite work out like I planned. In fact, the whole thing fell apart on Thursday and Friday.

I think part of it is that I went to the stables like normal on Thursday and Friday, whereas during the first half of the week I was limiting my visits. Even though I slept in those days, more or less canceling out the extra time, the transition between stables and work is usually pretty difficult for me.

It is particularly difficult when something happens at the stables that gets me all excited, whether good or bad. And unfortunately, something along those lines happened both Thursday and Friday, which kept me so fired up that I got virtually nothing done either day.

I'll write about what actually happened in future posts. For now, suffice it to say that I have tons of work to do still, and I still haven't started my novel.

NaNoWriMo progress compared to last year

Almost exactly one year ago, I had nearly 24,000 words on my NaNo novel.

This year, all I have so far is an outline.

I'm going to blame it on the holidays, on Panama, and on an increased need for income this year. I have lots of work that I'm doing to try to maintain the luxury that Panama is accustomed to (i.e. having a roof over his head, shavings on his stall floor, and a trainer to teach him to be a nice horsey). At the same time, I'm planning to take off the entire week of Thanksgiving, so I'm scrambling to get everything done in time. All that billable work just doesn't leave much time for noveling.

With any luck I'll at least get started on my novel before the month is out...

NaNoWriMo, here I come...at last!

I was beginning to think that I just would never get started on NaNoWriMo. After starting the outline at the local meet-up last week, I hadn't found time to do any more work on it.

After a highly productive day (I worked my butt off to meet an afternoon deadline), I decided to take this evening off from other work and work on my outline some more. To my great surprise and delight, I managed to finish the outline. Not only that, but I feel great about it! I am getting excited about my novel again, and for the first time in about a month I feel impatient to work on it.

Unfortunately, I can't divert any more of my time tonight to novel-writing: I need to clean and condition Panama's new leather bridle, and then go to bed so that I can be up for our 9:30 training session tomorrow.

I have a lot of work the next few days — amusingly, within 24 hours of posting about my freelancing famine, several jobs fell right into my lap — but I am going to try to get going on my novel as soon as possible. I figure if I stick with my initial goal of 3,000 words per day, I may not be able to reach 80,000 words, but I should still be able to reach 50,000 — technically all I need to "win."

NaNoWriMo meeting

Tonight I attended a meeting for local NaNoWriMo participants.

There are two basic kinds of NaNo meetings: write-ins, and social get-togethers. The meeting tonight was the latter kind. We met at Perkins to eat, chat, and work (a little). I stayed for almost four hours, and was far from the last person to leave.

JupiterStar (Sabrina), our ML, passed out stickers. I love mine:



Although I loved our meetings last year, I have to say that so far, this year's are better. Partly that is because we have more people who are willing to attend. I also like the fact that the other attendees are a little older — I think most of us are in our twenties. (Last year the group was half teenagers.)

For the last hour or so before I left, people fell to private conversations, and several drifted off to work on their own. I worked then, too, getting a little bit done on my outline. Trying to remember the outline I was developing in my head a month ago is difficult; I knew at the time that I should have written it down, but I never believe that I'll actually forget.

Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to finish my outline and get going on my novel, in between all the other work I need to do.

Heading for a slow start on NaNoWriMo

So far, it looks like I'll be getting a slow start on NaNoWriMo this year. I had intended to take Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week to start outlining my book, but with fielding a couple of rush projects last week and then getting sick over the weekend, it just hasn't happened.

And yes, I wholeheartedly believe that having a good outline is the secret to being able to write quickly (and without major episodes of writer's block). When I do get around to starting my outline (hopefully tonight), I'll be using Cyn Mobley's suggestions from BAM: Book A Month, an ebook I reviewed on my Reading For Writers blog about a month ago.

Wish me luck!

Lost time

One of the most unfortunate things about being sick is that when you're better, you end up feeling like you've lost a day (or two or more — however long you've been sick).

I awoke feeling much better today, but with this sense that there is a hole where yesterday was supposed to be. I guess that comes from only being awake for 8 or 10 hours of the day.

At any rate, there is a lot I need to get caught up on, and October is almost over ... which means NaNoWriMo is almost here! I'm taking it easy today, but starting tomorrow I'll need to be back up to speed — and then some.

Here's what I've got going for the week so far:

* 7 articles
* At least 1 press release — maybe 2 or 3
* Finish my website revisions — an overhaul of my portfolio and services sections that I have been working on for some time, now
* Start trolling the markets again, once my website revisions are live — something I haven't done regularly in months
* Revise/prepare several contest submissions
* Outline this year's NaNo novel
* Start writing my NaNo novel on Thursday

I'm going to start slow, since I don't feel up to doing a whole lot today yet, but by tomorrow I hope to take on a full load of work, in addition to starting to outline my NaNo novel.

Sign up for NaNoWriMo 2007!

Signups for NaNoWriMo 2007 start Monday, October 1st!

For those of you who don't know yet, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. The challenge is to write a novel, or at least 50,000 words of one, all in one month: November. Unfortunately, you can't start on the novel until November 1st.

You can, however, outline, write character sketches, etc. Also, you can use an old project, just as long as you throw out -- and don't reference -- everything you'd written previously. The idea is to write 50,000 words (or more) in a single month, so no cheating!

I participated in NaNoWriMo in 2006. You can see all of last year's posts here. (Note: This link is different than it was, as I decided to differentiate in my labels between "NaNoWriMo 2006" and "NaNoWriMo 2007.")

I intend to participate in NaNo again this year. The only trick is that this year I have added obligations: Last year, I only had to maintain my regular freelance workload, but this year I also have the daily obligation of visiting and working with my horse. Since writing freelance and fiction monopolized my time last year, I'm not sure how it's going to work to throw another variable into the equation. However, I'm very excited about this year's novel, so I'm sure I'll make it work somehow!