My buddy Ouranose, who is participating in Nanowrimo with me this year, should be updating her blog soon about her first full week of writing in Nanowrimo. We are planning to do weekly updates on our progress to reflect on what it’s like to do this, and maybe help others who are hesitant to participate see that it’s really quite wonderful. Every writer should do Nanowrimo at least once. You learn a lot about your writing, and you’ll learn just as much about yourself too.
So – here goes nothing – my second week of Nanowrimo Recap:
Week Two: November 4th – November 10th
Nanowrimo Week One Projection: 16,670 (Based on the daily 1,667 to finish in 30 days)
Word Goal: 19,826
Word Count Achieved: 20,174
One thing I learned: I just need to talk things out loud with someone I trust when I’m getting lost in my story. Since I’ve been throwing my original timeline of events out the window, I’ve found I am hitting walls hard when I need to switch character perspectives. Thankfully, Ouranose has been delightful in letting me soundboard off her constantly.
I also found that between last year and this year, I’m writing way more in a sitting that I was last year. I’m a fast typer and when I know what I’m writing, I can do a few thousand words in one hour. However, with the changing directions constantly nature of my writing this year, I’ve felt slowed down. This is in, in part, due to the fact that I’ve been trying to do one-hour sprints like I did last year – last year when I wrote everything exactly the way I planned it. This year, I’ve switched to half-hour sprints because I’m so tired and busy, and I’m finding that I can actually do better. So instead of doing one-hour sprints for this month, it’s going to be thirty-minute chunks with high word count goals.
One thing I want to improve on for Week 2: Much like last week, I keep getting into this unhealthy mindset that because people are further along than me that they are better than me. I actively know this is not true. The confidence I have in my novel is kind of ridiculous, but I know that it is something that I want to read and that others will surely enjoy. At one point this week I had a massive meltdown due to personal issues at home and actually was going to quit and destroy whatever friendships with writers I had, which was a wildly childish thing to say I was going to do because, at the end of the day, I’m a writer.
I can’t be anything else. I just am this thing – writing is what I do.
One thing I did really well: I think I did a fantastic job of hitting ‘AHA’ moment after ‘AHA’ moment in my writing this week. After I had my early week meltdown, it’s been one puzzle piece pushing together with another, making this story weave itself into this beautiful tapestry. Ideas swarm my mind constantly, and to squish my writing process into 30 days rather than 60 or 90-day chunks, it helps me see those cogs working again, and I’m always proud of the stuff I can do. I’m glad that I continued creating at the expectation I have for myself this week, and I look forward to the stuff I can put together next week.
Week Two Hopes, Recap: Last week I declared that I wanted to write every day, even when it was hard to do so, and then to continue adjusting to the scenarios with which I would be faced throughout the week. It was really difficult to write every day because this was a week that I knew would be unforgiving. However, that said, I did end up writing every single day: 3,331 (Sun), 1,654 (Mon), 499 (Tues), 513 (Wed), 586 (Thur), 243 (Fri), and 6,332 (Sat).
I didn’t write a ton every day, especially when the target word count is 1,667 every day to finish on time. However, there are days where I can sit down and power through with high word counts. Saturday’s word count is the second highest word count I’ve hard between last year and this year, which proves that I need only have the time to write. Even if it is just 15 minutes, even just one or two words is better than zero. I was happy to get my “10 Day” update badge on the website, as I had lost it last year because I forgot to keep track of the time and didn’t get updated before midnight. None of that will be happening this year. None – of – it.
And I’ve already said that I did really well adapting throughout the week. It was one of the things that I did way better at than I expected. It was nice being able to, once over that massive depressive hump, just work on what I wanted to work on and write this story that I care about so much.
Week Three Hopes: This week should be easier in terms of getting my writing done. I only have a couple of things going on in the week that will get in the way of what would usually be my standard writing times. If I have to hope for something this week, it’s just the ability to blow my target word count out of the water. In order to do that, however, I know that I’ll need to sit down and sketch out the amended timeline I’m working on so that I’m not going into each writing sprint blind. The goal for Nanowrimo is only 50,000 but I want to hit 65,000 myself. I did 61,000 last year, so the ideal is that I will improve this year. The circumstances are not the same, but I know I’m talented enough to make it happen. So, yea, it’s one of those challenges that sounds easy on paper but is far less so to apply. Looking forward to it 😉
Week Two Goal: 14,815 (I want to hit 35,000 by the end of the week)
Nanowrimo Week One Projection: 28,339 (Based on the daily 1,667 to finish in 30 days)
Please, I urge you to share any Nanowrimo experiences you’ve had this year, or share your hesitations about participating. You can ask for advice, give advice, whatever have you! Quotes, thoughts, anything, I want you to feel engaged and like there is a community here. Though, if you just drop a like, I get it, cause I’m pretty shy too. You are loved, you are appreciated, and we are warrior together in this crazy story we call ‘life.’
Thanks for stopping by my silly blog.
–ab
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