NaNoWriMo: Achieved!

It’s the 29th November, and I finally hit 50,000 words. Whoo-hoo!

It’s such a relief. I have been struggling all week, and my wordcount graph reflects that. Work has been nuts, with the new guy starting – I had to be in charge of inducting him and training him – and interviewing another candidate for the new vacancy we’ve been allowed to recruit for. And I had a deadline to meet on Friday, which involved much squinting at complicated spreadsheets and trying to work out if all the figures were correct.

On top of that, I’ve been out a lot and, of course, the CFS has been biting down hard. I wound up collapsing on Friday night and giving myself the night off, even though I had barely written anything the day before (due to an unplanned evening at the folks’ place, thanks to breaking trains and a dad who needed a lift home).

Luckily, the write-ins have been great for my productivity. I entered the weekend with 8k to go – not exactly ideal, but not horrific either – and wound up doing almost 4k at yesterday’s write-in. Today, I managed to get my head down and push through those last few posts to hit 50k just after 6pm.

Aaaaand, relax.

In all of my previous NaNo adventures, I have hit the target with a week or more to go. The first year, I petered out and coasted through the last week, ending on about 56k, just glad I got through it all. Last year, I was determined to get to the end of the story and powered on through to almost 70k. This year, I’m just glad I made it at all. This really is a lot closer to the bone than I like to cut things!

I guess it’s a symptom of how my year has been. More than once I’ve been up late, desperately trying to focus on an Apocalypse Blog post properly so that I can get it edited, and then post it before I fell into bed. Once, I had to backdate the time slightly to squeeze it into the previous day, as it was almost 1am when it was finally going up. (One lovely reader noticed! Despite my sneaky fiddling with the posting time. It’s so good to know people are paying attention!)

I wish I could take a break now. But not yet! NaNo might be finished, but AB isn’t, not quite.

I’m about halfway through December. Only a couple of weeks’ worth of posts, and then I’m finished. I have tomorrow off work, to rest and recover from everything, so I plan to spend that editing the first half of December. Then I can focus on getting the last half of the month written, polished up and posted.

Almost there. Almost done. I can’t wait. I want to see the whole story, hold it in my hands as a complete thing. I’m looking forward to telling everyone: I did it. I got to the end, I got through a whole year and a long, winding story.

For tonight, though, I’m going to put my feet up, feel good about myself, and look forward with hope. It has been hard work, but it’s all working out nicely. That makes it worth it.

NaNoWriMo: Into the last week

I had planned to update this every week during NaNo at least, but once again, time has run away from me. Good intentions and all of that. Bah!

NaNoWriMo is going better and worse than expected. The ML side of things is going fantastically – we have three to four events per week, and people turning up to all of them (!!!). It’s much better than last year, and I can’t say enough how grateful I am to have help this year. I couldn’t have done a lot of this stuff without my fellow MLs.

The best part is the the wrimos have noticed and are also grateful. I’ve had lots of comments about the write-ins and other stuff we’ve got going on, all of them positive. It gives me such a boost to hear stuff like that; it’s always nice to know that your work is appreciated and that you’re getting stuff right. We do all these events so that people come together, write, socialise and, most importantly, have fun. If that’s happening, I’m a happy ML.

I am, however, rushed off my feet. There were two write-ins this weekend, and I was due to be at both of them. I wound up pulling out of today’s, knowing that there would be other MLs present to pick up the stuff I usually do there. The Chronic Fatigue is biting pretty hard at the moment, which isn’t a surprise considering how much I’m running around at the moment. Also, I wanted to get my head down and do my own writing; it’s very easy to let all the ML duties distract me from NaNo itself and writing my own novel.

My writing isn’t going to plan. I’m getting plenty done on the weekends – especially since I started taking headphones to write-ins so I could zone out and write, rather than monitoring the meeting and joining in with every conversation (I’m a social butterfly, what can I say?). However, during the week, I’m not getting as much done.

The thing I was afraid of is happening. I’ve been in such a routine with my writing this year - writing a post a day, editing, and posting it up - that it’s hard to step up the pace and write more. I should be doing two posts per day if I’m going to hit my target of getting everything up until the end of December written. Couple that with a crazy work situation – the Team Leader stuff continues, quieter than before but still busy enough that it’s sucking up a lot of my mental energy – and it doesn’t leave me with much impetus to write more per day.

My attempts to make writing time have frequently been thwarted. I managed to get out of work a little early and hoped to get in a couple of hours’ writing when I got home, and I got to the train station to find that all of the signals in the city centre had broken. I waited nearly an hour for a train, and it crawled all the way home, stuffed to the gills with frustrated commuters. By the time I got home, I was so tired and hungry that I wound up just editing and posting, then cooked and zoned out in front of the TV.

I’d hoped to have a full day to write today too, but I was so tired after being out all day yesterday at a write-in that the morning was mostly pottering around in a daze. Plus I had to sort out all my weekly chores so that I have clean dishes and clothes and food and all those small, essential things that get missed when you’re out all the time.

I swear, I need a maid. A very cheap, invisible maid. …hmm, maybe that’s an idea to shelve for a future short story.

So, it’s been a struggle. I’ve been playing catchup half the time, which is a stressful situation I have managed to avoid in my previous NaNo ventures. However, it’s not all bad news.

I’m on track with my wordcount. Almost 39,000 words now, which puts me a day or so ahead of target. If I keep going as I am, I’ll make the required 50k, probably by the skin of my teeth.

I’m not doing so well with the post count. I should be halfway through December by now, but I’m only up to the 5th. I might wind up having to write post-NaNo to finish things up. That’s not a disaster, but it leaves me with less of a break before I start the next blogfic. Or possibly no break at all – it’s hard to say yet.

What this means is that the posts have swelled – as NaNo kicked in, I became more verbose, and it has been a struggle to keep the post lengths down to a reasonable level. I’ve had to split a few of them up into more manageable chunks, which isn’t ideal but it has helped fill in the posts. My rough average for a month’s posts is about 25,000 words, but November finished up at over 33,000. Whoops. Not exactly what I had intended to do!

Yesterday, I finally got to the end of November’s posts. That was such a good feeling – I could breathe again. I knew that once I started on December’s posts, I was on the downhill run – that was my own personal halfway mark. Today, I spent the afternoon writing out the first few posts for December, making a dent in the backlog. It still feels strange to finish a post and then move straight on to the next one; I keep wanting to pause and edit. While it is a good habit to write every day, it has its down-sides too!

This evening, I went over the posts for November that haven’t gone up yet. This is one bit of really good news: they are all edited and scheduled. I don’t need to do any of that over the next eight days. No more stopping to sort out the day’s post; I can concentrate on writing now. I can’t say how freeing that is (partly because I’ve only just finished and haven’t enjoyed an edit-free day yet) but I am looking forward to it! With luck, I can get my head down and make some decent progress through December’s posts between now and the end of NaNo.

Also, I think the plot is on-track to get where it needs to go. I have a good idea of where I need the group – and the story – to get to, and I know roughly what the last post will look like. So far, it’s lining up (allowing for the ridiculously long travel times that happen in the Apocalypse Blog). It’s hard to judge exactly how it’ll pan out, but I think I have given myself enough leeway to make it fit. Fingers crossed!

Right. I’m tired and have to be up early for work tomorrow. My brain is shutting down (it’s possible it did that before I started this post, but shhh, don’t tell anyone). Time to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything and hit the sack. Oh, and I have another milestone turning up soon – I must look up when that is. Whee!

Another crazy, event-heavy week coming up. Catch you all on the flipside. Wish me luck!

Week One: Survived

The first week of this year’s NaNoWriMo challenge is done. Wow. It feels like it has been so much longer than that already!

I usually take some time off work at the beginning of November to give myself a bit of a headstart. I love to dive in headfirst and just go for it, get that initial rush of creativity out without impediment.

This year has been different for a few reasons. Firstly, I had to use some of my week off work for family stuff before November. Secondly, we were all organised with the write-ins before NaNo started and kicked off with them as soon as November popped up on our calendars. So I went from family stuff straight into events and… haven’t stopped since.

I think out of a full week, I had one clear day to just sit and write. If you look at my pretty wordcount graph, you can guess which day that was (under NaNo Stats).

On Wednesday, I had a write-in at my house. Awesome turnout – I think we had about 15 people there at one point. I had borrowed an extra table and outdoor chairs from my folks, and wound up having to take my dining tables and more chairs outside too. My gazebo is fantastic and everyone had a good time – I had lots of bouncy responses on the NaNo forum about it.

On Thursday, I went back to work. I was so tired. Got some bad news there (those of you who follow me on Facebook probably heard about it – I won’t go into it here) and spent the day catching up and trying to sort out fallout.

On top of all that, I have spent the last few days struggling over a particularly gnarly plot convergence on the Apocalypse Blog. Finally, the threads I’ve been spinning out for the past few weeks are coming together and Stuff is happening. It’s been a struggle – there was a lot to get in there, so many pieces to fit together and balance. A single event has taken 4 posts to get through, and I still haven’t got to the end of it. Almost!

Not exactly the most conducive way to start NaNo – I like to get myself ahead of the game in the first week, so I can breathe a bit easier for the rest of the month. Gnarly plot wrangling means writing slower, which means I’m not as far ahead as I’d like. Last year, I was up to 20,000 words by the end of the first two days. This year, I’m at 15,000 words after the first week. Still ahead of target, just not as much as I’d like.

I shouldn’t forget that I have some additional challenges this year as well. All up, I’m doing good!

I am on track with posts. I’m aiming for two a day (so I can get through November and December’s posts in NaNo), and I just finished next Saturday’s posts. I have a buffer again. Wow that feels nice! It’s been so long that I had forgotten what it was like!

Another big write-in tomorrow. I’m past the really tricky plot stuff now, so hopefully the posts will flow a bit easier now. With luck, I’ll be able to hit some kind of groove in the coming week.

In the meantime, I have to return the table and chairs to my folks. Then edit and post today’s fun-filled AB instalment. The fun never stops here!

Kicking off NaNoWriMo

Wheee. Well, it’s 2nd November and I’m way overdue with a post about this. My poor chronicle of my writing activities is sadly lagging behind my reality.

As many of you will know, November means NaNoWriMo for writers. Crazy wordthrashing for one month out of the year, possibly resulting in a manuscript to spend the following 11 months editing before you start it all over again. It’s nuts, it’s fun, and there’s a great community that get involved.

Needless to say, I’m doing it this year. And as for the past two years, I’m also MLing (ML = Municipal Liaison = crazy person who not only tries to write a novel in a month, but also organises events and competitions for the local writers also involved). Thank goodness, I have some solid help this year and don’t have to do it all myself.

So, of course, we got all ambitious and have arranged all kinds of things. Goodie bags for giving out to writers. Sponsorship from local business to get prizes for the competitions we want to run. Two (or more!) write-ins a week. I was even interviewed on the local radio! (Terrifying, by the way, and thankfully not live.)

That’s one reason why the last couple of weeks have been nuts, as I’ve been trying to do my part in getting all of the pieces together. That, and a family reunion at which I was expected to show my face a lot around work and other commitments. Oh, and I had to keep up the Apocalypse Blog posting.

The good news is that it’s all working fine. We had the big Kick-Off Party on Saturday (I had to do public speaking and wrangle 50+ slightly loony writers) and an astounding write-in yesterday. Everything seems to be falling into place. I haven’t missed an AB post and am set to never miss another one again.

I paused and pondered this year’s NaNo a while ago, and knew that I would never be able to handle another writing project this year, especially not one as concentrated and life-sucking as a NaNo novel. NaNo is all about diving in and running with something, and that doesn’t work when you have to stop and write 700-1200 words a day for something else.

So I looked at my stats for AB and the goal I set myself when I started it. It runs to around 25,000 words per month (and more than that lately – I think my posts are creeping longer again), and I have two months to go. It’s not rocket science to work out that I have a NaNo novel left to write right there. So why make things difficult for myself?

This year’s NaNo effort is therefore going into writing the final instalment of the Apocalypse Blog. I’m going to steam through November and December’s posts and bring the whole thing to a sweeping (and hopefully half-decent) conclusion. Whee! What could possibly be better than that?

Of course, I didn’t realise until after I was committed to it that there might be a flaw or two in my plan. First of all, I’m in a rhythm with the blog – one post a day, lalala, off I go. I have to double that – okay, I can do that. No problem.

Secondly, I have to edit. I realised this yesterday, and this presents a couple of extra NaNo-related challenges. You see, you’re not supposed to edit during November – it’s all about pushing past the urge to edit and just writing anyway. Whoops.

Editing reduces my actual writing time, as I have to read over and edit posts before they go up (I always do this, of course, I had just forgotten that it would also apply during November). I often cut things out when I edit, which will impact my wordcount.

Because these posts are going up live (as ‘finished’ articles), I can’t pad them out with extra babbling and tangents. I also can’t use other NaNo wordcount-raising tactics, like throwing in extra adjectives or avoiding the use of contractions.

Not only do I have to write 50,000 words, I have to make it coherent and of a quality decent enough to post. And I’m pernickety about these kinds of things. It’s possible that my attempt to make NaNo easier for myself this year has, in fact, made it a rather different challenge. Whoops.

Oh well! I’m off to a good start (today wasn’t so great, wordcount-wise, but I’m ahead of the target so far), and hopefully things will fall into place more solidly soon. I know where I’m going (mostly) and have a couple of days to get my head down before I have to deal with work again.

Wish me luck! And good luck to all of you out there also attempting this wonderful challenge.