NaNoWriMo winner - what next?

Last night I finally hit 50,000 words for the month of November!  I say "finally" even though it's a little early, because I probably could have made 50k a week ago, if it weren't for all the yellow, orange, and red days you see in my calendar widget in the sidebar.  I had a period of about a week when my word count really started flagging — I had a good lead, so I never actually fell behind, but there were a couple of days where it was a close thing to stay ahead of the game.

I don't have much left to write in the novel.  I think a few thousand more words will finish it off, plus a thousand or two for a scene earlier on in the novel that I skipped over a couple of weeks ago, primarily because I didn't know what to write.  I'll have to figure that out now, I guess.  I'm hoping to finish the first draft entirely by Wednesday night, so that I can set it aside for a month or so before I edit.

What I'm struggling with now is whether I should get right to work on the next book in the series.  I've been coming up with some good ideas for it while I've been writing this one, so once I finish the first draft I could feasibly start outlining, and then start writing.  The best thing about that is that the characters and story are fresh in my mind right now, and I'm still excited about it, which is a good thing.  Also, it might make for a more seamless transition into the second book.

I also see a couple of problems with this approach, though.  One, if I start writing the second book before I finish revising and editing the first, I may have to make changes to the outline and/or what I've written if I make any major revisions to the first book.  Two, am I going to be able to revise the first book objectively if the characters and story is still active in my mind from writing the second book?  It might negate the benefits of putting your work away for a month or so before starting revisions.

Maybe I should restrict myself to just making outlines until I finish at least the first round of revisions on book one.  What are your thoughts?

Updates and lofty goals

I've been dragging somewhat with my word count for the past week — a busy weekend and a really busy holiday week has kept me from having as much time as I wanted for client work and novel writing.  I've skipped several days altogether lately, and on the days when I have worked on my novel, I've failed to reach the NaNoWriMo minimum daily word count of 1,667 (let alone my personal goal of 2,000).

Luckily I had, at one point, a full 5-day lead on my word count, so I have yet to fall behind, no matter what the yellow and red squares on my calendar widget might make you think.  And I have solid plans for getting my lead back again: I've set my word count goal for the day at 4,000, and since I've already written more than 1,000 words today, I think I have a pretty good chance of getting the rest of the way at our write-in tonight.  (Our regional 24-hour write-in, originally planned for this weekend, was canceled, so I plan on staying at tonight's write-in a little later than usual.)

This weekend should also be a little less busy than the first three this month, so with any luck, I'll be able to follow up with two solid 2k days — which will, of course, put me well above 50k for the month, and hopefully come within 10k of finishing the novel altogether.

2,818 words: Stops and starts

I had an extremely busy weekend, so my novel suffered as a result.  Instead of my usual of a busy Saturday followed by a day off on Sunday, I babysat all day on Sunday.  The end result was a fat check and an exhausted me, so I failed to write anything both days.

The good news is, though, that despite a busy day yesterday (my riding lesson was yesterday because of the holiday — my usual day is Thursday), I achieved the goal I set for myself of getting to at least 42k.  Although I didn't achieve 1,667 words for Monday before the clock turned midnight, by the time I stopped writing I had 2,818 words for the night.  That left me with 42,174 NaNo words, and 66,174 total words in the novel.  I'm drawing closer to the end, both in the word count and in the story, and it's very exciting!

Even though I'm about 3 days ahead on my NaNo count, I am going to maintain my original goal of 2,000 words per day.  If I can keep it up, I think I should not only "win" NaNo this year, but also be finished with my novel by the 30th.  Then I'll have to decide whether a break is in order, or if I want to start on the sequel, which I am getting many ideas for as I get closer to the end of this one!

As expected

In my last post, I anticipated not having as much time to work on my novel over the next couple of days, and boy was I right!  I did write a bit more on Tuesday than anticipated, getting 2,377 words down, despite a slow start.  Most of those words were added after midnight, so if the calendar widget and my stats graph on the NaNo site were actually working, you'd see them on Wednesday instead of Tuesday.

Unfortunately, though, the widget isn't working.  All my days are now red, even though anyone who has been following knows that all but one of my days were green before the widget broke.  I think this happened last year or the year before, too...

Anyway, as expected, I didn't get anything done on my novel on Wednesday.  In fact, I didn't get much of anything done, period.  We moved my new horse to my barn that morning, and I stayed there until I had to go to work in the afternoon.  And in the evening I went back to the barn to meet up with a friend and check on the new horse.

Yesterday was very busy as well, with a riding lesson and some horsey time with the new boy in the morning, and a book club meeting in the evening.  Those usually go quite late (we always go to Applebee's afterward), but I did manage to get some work done on my novel late last night, after midnight again.  Not much — I only added 599 words, for a NaNo word count of 37,055.

Luckily, tonight is the weekly write-in at Fireside, the 24-hour bookstore and coffee shop near me.  The past two Friday nights, I've gotten quite a lot written thanks to this write-in, so I have high hopes of getting "caught up" (although I'm actually still several days ahead on word count — so it'll be more like maintaining my lead) tonight.

How's everyone else doing?  I feel like so much has happened in the past couple of days, so even though it hasn't been long, I feel like it's been forever since I checked in with everyone last!

On the brink of change

I am so incredibly pleased to be doing so well at NaNoWriMo.  I can't say it enough, and it's all because I've failed the last four years (and only barely scraped by the very first year).

Last night I ended at 34,079, which meant that I put 2,980 words on paper (or on file?) yesterday.  I squeaked through a tough scene, and for a while there I thought I was going to quit with just a thousand or so words.  But then I caught the thread again, and kept writing until I had reached nearly 3k (and turned today's square on the calendar green, even though it was only about 1:30am).

I don't know whether tonight will be as successful.  I had a busy day — this morning I had to go out to the barn to check on my horse, and clean and treat a recent injury to his ear.  That and a bath nearly killed the first part of my day, and then of course I had my nanny job to go to in the afternoon.  That left only this evening for my client work, so as a result I am getting started on my novel a little later than the usual.

And tomorrow may prove to be the beginning of many changes.  I am bringing Rondo, the 2-year-old horse I've been working with down at my in-laws' place, up to my barn; he is tentatively mine now, assuming everything works out with him.  This will mean more time to be spent at the barn, of course, which may or may not interfere with my writing work.

On the bright side, though, I've noticed a marked improvement in my productivity since I started my part-time nanny job.  My time sheets, which had dwindled until I was marking down only a few lines' worth of activities every day, are once again full almost every day, right down to the bottom of the sheets.  (Yes, I keep handwritten time sheets — I started doing it a few years ago as a way to track how much time I spent on my work every day, how much my hourly wage worked out to, and so on.)  I'm getting more done now, even though I have less time than before.

I may be on the brink of even more changes to my routine, but based on the past two weeks, I have good reason to hope that they will make me more productive, rather than less so!

The 26-hour day

I've been moving along at a screaming pace (for me) on my novel — with 2,353 words on Friday, 1,695 words on Saturday, and a whopping 3,169 words last night (867 of those being after midnight), I had a 7k weekend and am now nearly 5 days ahead of schedule on my word count.

This is a dramatic difference from previous years.  The last 4 years I've crashed and burned, and even though I reached 50k the first year, I struggled to keep up nearly the entire month, and made it in just under the wire.

The difference?  I am, of course, sacrificing time usually spent on other activities.  I'm not reading my favorite blogs as regularly as usual, I have a little less client work than I used to, I haven't been riding Panama as much as I did during previous years, and my husband and I have been watching less TV in the evenings.  I think there's probably a little bit of sleep deprivation going on here too, but nothing too extreme, even for me.

But that of course isn't the only explanation, since I also have a new part-time job that takes a minimum of 3 hours out of each weekday, and I don't have much time to write at all on Saturdays, when I'm busy practically from the time I wake up until the time I go to bed.  And when you consider all the other draws on my time this month — vet appointments for our dog Grace, who is starting physical therapy for her hip dysplasia, and at least one morning ride a week — I think it probably makes up for all the things I'm sacrificing for writing time.

So why is it that I've been able to not just keep up, but stay ahead of schedule?  Dare I hope that my part-time job has encouraged me to be a little more efficient in the time that is allotted for client work and fiction writing?  I don't know if I'll go so far as to say that yet, but obviously I can't have added a couple of extra hours to my day, so it's got to be a good sign!

Moving write along

I've been hopeless at keeping track of my daily word count, I'm afraid.  I discovered that the graph of my word count on my stats page does show my current word count each day if you hover over the top of the bar, which would theoretically help me keep track — if I weren't writing after midnight every night.  Oh well.  I'm moving along at a steady pace, which is really all that matters, right?

I currently have 24,618 words on my NaNo count, which means I've written 4,104 words between Wednesday and Thursday combined (my word count Wednesday morning was 20,514).  I know I didn't quite reach 2,000 words Wednesday, so that means yesterday's word count was well over target.  My total word count for the novel is now 48,618, as well as the novel is moving along, it's looking more and more like the final word count will end up over my original goal of 80k.

It's a great feeling to be over halfway done with the novel, and to feel how well it's moving along.  I've had a few sticky spots, but I forced myself to write on through them, and I'm pretty pleased with what I ended up with.  Sometimes forcing yourself to push on through when you are stuck results in a bunch of crap you have to rewrite once you get unstuck, but this time I think it's all pretty usable.  I've felt all along that this novel is The One That's Meant to Be, and maybe that's because I'm so engrossed in it, but whatever the reason I'm glad it's coming as easily as it is.

I think I've mentioned before that I intend this to be the first novel in a series, and as I get deeper into the novel, it's not just this one that's coming easier — I can also see all the potential of the series.  I am even developing a pretty good idea of what is going to happen in the next book.  I am going to really love writing these, I can tell!

How is everyone else doing in NaNo this year?