Winner winner chicken dinner!

50,027 words! Officially validated at 10:24pm on November 25!! After my victory lap of screaming "50k 50k!!" I downloaded all of my winner goodies to be able to put that pretty little picture over there <--- on to the blog.

This is the earliest I have ever completed NaNoWriMo, usually I'm hitting 50k around the 28 - 30th. I have been trying to compose this for over an hour since I validated and I'm still at a loss for words to fully describe how excited I am to have averaged 2k a day. And I did not have a single 0 day!

Hopefully I can capture this excitement and continue the momentum to hit 60k by the 30th and finish the story! Then the editing can begin!

But for now I'M A WINNER!!!!

Kiddus Interruptus

Spent a good portion of my evening in RediMed with my kiddo :( Turns out he has a double ear infection and that's why he was spiking a 102 fever! We got home around 9:30 and it took me about an hour to get him finally settled into bed and comfy. At which point all I had recorded for word count was the 600 words I had written after midnight and before I finally went to sleep at 2 last night. Thankfully, the story is getting to the good part! A few conversations and poof total daily word count of 2273! My total word count was 47399 at midnight. But I kept writing and currently sit at 48217. It is tempting to stay up and try to finish but kiddo was just up vomiting and his fever is up again. So going to sleep while he is asleep in case this turns into a long night!

Gobble Gobble!

Turkey day has come and gone here in the United States, the food was AMAZING, as always. My Mom is a fantastic cook. Miraculously, my writing did not suffer the holiday. Usually, Thanksgiving results in a huge drop in production and then a massive scramble/panic attack to get caught up and finished. This year Thanksgiving is more than a week away from Dec 1 and I stayed above pace!

Thanksgiving word count: 1854, overall 43104
Black Friday word count 2022, overall 45126

Last year at this time I was about 100 words over pace. I barely made it and when I broke 50k I could not wait to stop writing and get away from the story. This year I am almost 7k above pace and hoping to not only break the 50k but finish the story. Then the real work will begin. If you look back or have been following the blog this year, about halfway through I was disenchanted with the story and almost resigned to simply hit 50k and give up. But now, a week until the end I am back in love with my story! The end is shaping up perfectly! If not for NaNoWriMo, the desire to "win" the silly certificate, the ego boost of updating my word count and seeing the graph rise every day, I would have stopped writing and given up. And I would have missed this fantastic ending!

Take home message: If you are struggling don't give up! Keep writing, keep going, and wait for the inspiration to hit. Never know what twist might surprise you.

Movin' Right Along

Footloose and fancy free.. ready for the big time is it ready for me.. oh wait I digress! Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the United States of America. The house smells amazing, pumpkin pie, apple crisp.. and tomorrow will be even better when the turkey goes into the oven! Mmmmmm!

On the writing front, the past two days have been great word count! There was finally some interaction between two of my favorite characters who had yet to be in the same scene yesterday. Today I finished off that sequence and right now I am at the end of a scene and not quite sure what scene to do next. I'm not ready to run straight to the conclusion but it might be time. I want to finish the story off before I start editing and I'm itching to edit! I don't even want to post an excerpt anywhere because of the massive editing this needs before allowing anyone to see it!


Day 21 word count1969, total 41250

Character Interactions FTW

 Had a productive evening today! I brought two characters together who had yet to interact in the novel. Dr. Traviston interviewed Rodger for a solid 1500 words. I am getting close to the big reveal of why the patients on the plane versus those on the ground are reacting differently to the disease. Once they figure that out, I can cure the ones in the hospital and then let Dr. Traviston prove it in the lab.

I am tempted to start looking forward to the editing. I need to keep reminding myself that first step is to finish the novel. THEN edit it! I would love to have this first draft completely finished by the end of November. I was aiming for 60-80k total word count for the novel. The big problem, of course, being the massive rewrite I know is coming to change Dr. Traviston from a well seasoned doctor to a younger, inexperienced and more likely to cave to those around her doctor so that she can become the well seasoned version through the course of the novel.

Word Stats: 2124 today, total 37126

PUSH... PUSH!!!

PUSH! That could be the title of my weekend's writing endeavors. If you or anyone you know has ever had a baby, you know there comes a point in the labor where you just have to push. You've probably seen one of the dozens of television shows where the doctor is yelling push So-and-So push! And the Mom (who has a little bit of sweat on her brow but other wise looks fabulous) goes GRRRRR and pushes and POOF out pops a baby. That is absolutely not how it works in the real world, pushing 2 or 3 times and a gigantic healthy baby just falls out is unrealistic. Try pushing for at least 20 minutes to several hours and it hurts like you cannot believe to get that baby out. But then you have this beautiful baby.. the doctor hands it to you and it's perfect and beautiful. That is how writing can be at times. And is pretty much how NaNo feels ALL the time. PUSH.. PUSH!!! If you push hard enough and long enough you hit that magically 50k mark, even better is when you finish the first draft. And you can suddenly hold in your hands a novel.. written by you!! Then just like with kids you realize you still have a LOT of work ahead of you.. and the polishing and editing phase begins. But still you pushed through and caught a novel!

This was a big push weekend for me. At 8 o clock tonight I would have sworn that there was no way I was making my goal as I was 2k shy and still had to get the kiddo in bed. First I have to admit I am a huge football fan, mostly NFL but this year being taught the beauty that is college football. So weekends have not been my best time of productivity, yet I still set above pace goals to try and a reach. Friday night I was at 31k and wanted to hit 35k. One would think no problem! Then Saturday was at 32037.. ok not bad not quite where I wanted either. At 9:30pm tonight I was sitting around 33k and I was struggling to decided where to go with the story. I was stuck in a sea of technobabble and unsure of how to tame the tide. I stared and stared and watched time tick by with no words adding to my score. Then I suddenly realized that I was not the only one who was stuck in this sea of technobabble, but my main character was as well! So we took a brain break.. I had her stand up walk around her desk and do some yoga. I wrote 350 words about the yoga she was doing in her office. Critical to the story, not at all.. did it keep me writing and pushing towards my goal YES! By the end of her tree pose I got an idea of how to get the story rolling again and had one of her coworkers burst in on her yoga break. Over the next hour 1100 words flowed through my fingers and onto the computer screen and I edged past 35k. At 12:02 in the morning I hit 35002. I used the new edit daily word count and counted it as Sunday writing since I was so close when midnight hit. It might not have been perfectly on time, but neither is delivering a baby. I still made it. Just keep pushing.

Quantity Not Quality

I described my novel earlier today on Twitter as "in a chaotic state of crap slinging right now ;)" That sums up the feel of my writing the past 2 days. I'm just throwing words at the project, hoping to find some sense of order or purpose behind them. I, like many before me, have hit that point where my idea for the novel is solid, but the details are sketchy. In a world before NaNoWriMo, I would have stopped and given up. Instead the quest for that silly winner's badge spurs me onward. The year of my first NaNo I saw a web video interview with the the great Wil Wheaton who said (and I paraphrase as I can't remember the exact quote) it's easier to fix than to create. That has become my entire mantra of NaNoWriMo. Quantity not quality, it's ok for it to be god awful, in fact it probably WILL BE god awful at first. This is the first draft, it's called "rough" for a reason. Clean up in aisle 2 happens after November 30.

This year, however, feels like it has gotten an extra large dose of suck. Perhaps that is because I am so in love with my idea for this series of books that I want book 1 to be especially perfect. As those of you who read this blog are aware, even before I hit 25k I was feeling disenchanted with the novel. I still have full faith in the idea but I was floundering on how to make it work. Today, after crossing the 30k mark I finally figured out how to bring a more human element to the story. And it involves rewriting my main character extensively. Part of me wants to start the re-writing of Dr. Kathy Traviston, go back to the beginning and recreate her as I now see her in my mind. The other part says just give her the new personality now, at the little over halfway mark, and you can fix her first half in December. The latter part is currently winning. I have made so more highlighted notes about things that need to be more fully flushed out or flat out changed in this novel than any of my previous ones. But that is the point of NaNoWriMo.. keep moving forward. CREATE not edit.

Today's creation 1709 words, total word count 31,005. Goal for the weekend: 35k by Monday morning.

laptop snuggling!

Once again I fell asleep with my laptop on my lap! I only had 1873 words written yesterday, was hoping to break 2000. But I was sitting pretty at 27627 so still above pace. My goal is to not have a 0 day this NaNo and so far I have had some less than 1k days but no zeros! Write some everyday!

Today has been a 0 day but the day is young! I get most of my writing done after the kiddo goes to bed at 9 anyway :) The new NaNoWriMo site lets you add word counts to previous days!! That's awesome so when I do fall asleep I can add the numbers that it shows to the right day and not inflate my current day :) Ok time to write!!

Ahh there it is!

Goodness knows November cannot pass by smoothly, there has to be some kind of bump. Last year it was the killer Strep throat, this year it's a massive family debacle. I cannot go into details here on a public forum but suffice it to say life as we have known it is pretty much over. This has added to my stress immensely and killed my writing mojo for the day. I managed to eek out a measly 749 words on day 13. Hmmm.. just realized it was day 13.. that should have been a clue that shit was hitting fan last night. Thankfully on the NaNoWriMo side I am ahead for total word count sitting at 25754.

Today I have a single appointment so I will try to write and write and make up for yesterday. Though my writing mojo is still off :( We will see what today can bring!  

Half-way Point

Hit 25k! Woohoo!! And 3 days early!! 30 second dance party!!

Now that the dust has settled, I am still disenchanted with my story and having to FORCE myself through it. My first issue with it is one easily solved in December after NaNoWriMo has ended. The timeline is massively screwed up. But to fix it I need to sit down with paper, re-read everything I've written and take notes on what times I randomly made up for each thing to be happening. And then get them into a more realistic timeline and fashion for science to unfold. Not worth the time it would take during NaNo.

Secondly, I wanted to write a book that merged adventure and science and right now I've got the science down but I'm not feeling the adventure. The characters are flat, no one is learning or changing and quite honestly I don't see how they could. If you have a bunch of experts investigating an outbreak they are going to be just that, experts. They love the challenge of the puzzle but this is not a life altering experience for them. How many of us are changed by a day at the office? It would have to be one hell of a day! There is no coming of age story to tell, they are all M.D.s and Ph.D.s, they are of age! I'm intentionally leaving romance out, so there is no falling in love arch. I'm not sure how to fix the story so it is still science and adventure. I can add a human emotional component with the patients and/or family members but then the science gets lost because they are not doing any science, they are just coughing and dying. This issue is one I am not sure how to fix.. hopefully I can figure it out or this idea may be dead before it ever truly gets started..

Another Day Bites the Dust...

Day 11 have passed, taking with it a daily word count of 2121 (woohoo a palindrome!) and bringing the total tally to 23,335. That is 3 days above pace! Not quite the 25k I was hoping to have by the end of the weekend but a vast improvement over yesterday's worries.

I should sail past 25k tomorrow and considering a story excerpt to go with it. But I feel the story is really, really unpolished at the moment and needs a LOT of editing. Since I locked my inner editor in a closet in the basement, there is no way to polish it up enough where she would not break out with a sledgehammer to destroy any hope of the necessary continued crap slinging to get through NaNo!

Though on the other hand, I might not hit 25k tomorrow. I'm supposed to go to that job I interviewed for last week. I had emailed a bunch of questions but never heard a response. So my plan is to get up and go over there and talk to the lady who owns the company. See if I can get my questions answered, and feel her out on a few things. So I will either have a job by the end of tomorrow, or not. A job at the moment might eat into my NaNo time.. but it would also expand my Christmas gift buying powers. There are many, many pros and cons for this job. It's a lot to think about. With that, I shall retire for the evening.

If anyone is out there, comment if you want to see a story excerpt or not.

Little bit of catch up

This has been a rough few NaNo days :( I was hoping to be at 25k by the end of the weekend, with Saturday's writing window almost over I just broke 20k. It's been a long time since I had a 5k word count day and with how I feel about the story I'm not sure tomorrow will be bringing it back.

Quick updates:
Day 7 word count 1671, total count 15,052
Day 8 word count 2031, total count 17,083
Day 9 word count 773, total count 17,856
Day 10 word count 2172, total count 20,028 as of right now, hopefully this will go up! But Notre Dame plays tonight so I doubt it ;)

Right now I feel like my story needs more research. I keep finding things that change previous scenes details and I want to go back and fix them cause my little internal editor does not like plot inconsistencies! I know they are part of the NaNo process, especially when I did not have my entire story plotted out and researched. I also can not figure out what my protagonist is going to learn. It is more about how they react and research the problem, no one is really changed through the course of the story. I think I need to re-assess things but the middle of NaNo does not seem to be the time to do it. Not quite halfway through the word count and the plane has already landed.. maybe I should go back and add more details to the plane section. I am full of uncertainty at this point.

Votes are In! NaNo Loses by a hair!

Today was voting day across the USA, the coverage has been insane and is slowly driving me insane! In addition to voting, I had an interview for a real job today. I say real because it is a full time with benefits job in an office setting. Been a very, very long time since I had a job like that. It's for a small local company and she pretty much offered me the job can you start tomorrow type deal. Which is cool in a way because who does not want to feel wanted. But it's scary in another way as it is something completely different from what I have been doing for the last decade! Plus I am waiting to hear back from another interview for a job as a writer that pays more, so I'm not wanting to rush into a sure I'll start tomorrow situation. I also don't want to close the door on the new offer.

So why do I bring this up on my NaNo blog? Because it has eaten into my writing today. Between voting, getting ready for the interview, the interview, and then obsessively stressing over what to do with the job offer, I only was able to write 1352 words. This is the first day I have not hit the NaNo standard pace of 1666 words/day. This, of course, is not helping my stress!! Thankfully my total word count is 13,381 which is still 2 days ahead of pace. It's after 1am now and I should go to bed as I have to get the kid to school in the morning. But as I'm still stressing I think I'm going to try and apply my stress to write about my character's stress on a plane full of infected people coughing up blood!

Squeaking By!

Day 5 is almost over and I'm just over 2 days ahead of pace! I managed to get another 2k day of words created today (actually 2,001 ;) ) bringing my total word count to 12,029! I did not start writing today until after the kid went to bed, so around 9pm. And even then I struggled to stay focused for more than 10 minutes at a time. Being ahead of pace seems to be having the laddy dah effect on me. I know I have plenty of back up so if I don't get all 2000 words in that I aim for what's it matter... this must end! I need to get the fire under my butt again! I still love my story and I'm just getting into the really good, exciting parts and yet I'm struggling to find the desire to write. Anyone out there have a suggestion? Is there anyone out there?

Breaking News! Word Count Survives Weekend Away!

As I wrote previously, my boyfriend and I went out of town Saturday night to hang out with his family. It was a fun trip, we went to a casino in MI and he won over $1000 on one poker hand! That was impressive!

On the writing front, I wrote quite a bit in the morning before we left and managed to compose a 300 word scene on my phone while we were driving west. My total word count yesterday was 2,109 with total sitting at 7256. That was just slightly below my goal of 7500 but close enough and I was still able to enjoy the trip!

Today I was worried I wouldn't make it to my 10k goal as I had not written a word before 3pm and I got a few hundred words. Then between football and taking the kid to see Wreck It Ralph (which was pretty cute) it was after 9 by the time I sat down and seriously started writing. With some help from my local Fort Wayne group, who gave me a few prompt suggestions to boost my word count on the plane I was able to crank out about 2.5k!

My total word count for the day was 2772 and the novel currently stands at 10,028! I think this is the earliest I've broken 10k so I am feeling really good about this year.Though all that really means I have 2 days of backup built in for when something goes crazy, cause we all know eventually something crazy is going to happen! Hoping the word count jumps up even more tomorrow as I'm getting to the laboratory portion! I love lab work :-D

Day 2

Word count update: Daily 2074, Total 5149

Comfortably hit my goal of 5k before November 3. Now I have to decide upon a more realistic goal for the weekend. I am supposed to be going out of town with my boyfriend and my current laptop is not in travel suitable condition. I can't close the lid and the screen is being held in the casing by a large paper clip. Writing on paper can be done but it takes twice as long, plus then I have to copy it into Word after I get back to my laptop. Writing on my phone has been done (56 words) and can be emailed to myself then cut/paste into Word but it takes me forever to type on my phone. So writing will be slow, new goal seems reasonable.

Original goal was 2500 a day, so 10k by Monday. If I work some more tonight and tomorrow morning before we leave, then cram Sunday night after we get back it might still be possible. I guess it depends on how much I can get done before I go to sleep. I still haven't packed anything, though with the new information about the trip I don't think I need much. 

I have hit my first bump of writer's block, starting to over-analyze exactly how to get one of the main characters involved. She is critical to the middle and end of the novel but getting her started has proved to be more challenging than I originally anticipated. What is hanging me up is trying to make it believable.. I need to remember this is NaNo! NaNo means writing and throwing caution to the wind. Can tighten the plot gaps in December!

Day 1, 2012

That was a successful first day of NaNo 2012! While I only got 1k written prior to passing out last night, I was able to write about another 2k to bring my total up to 3,075 at midnight. I even manged to sneak in about 50 words while on break at work. The addition of a smartphone has made it easier to novel on the go, I can simply type it into an email to myself, then cut and paste the text into my Word document when I get home.

Writing will continue into the wee hours of the night!


LOL Orrrrrrrr I could fall asleep while writing this and wake up at 4am with my fingers on my keyboard and a few dozen words typed (the last 2 were nonsensical!). So the cuddling my laptop all night portion has begun early this year!

Hello NaNoLand 2012!

We have officially entered NaNoLand here in Indiana! I spent the first hour of NaNo trying to sprint, started to nod off after about forty minutes. Tomorrow is my one early day where I have to get up and teach at my real world job and as much as I'd love to grab another Pepsi One and dive in farther I will attempt to be responsible.

First hour brought 1,031 words to the party. Not quite the full first day word count I was hoping for prior to going to sleep but it is over halfway. The goal is to hopefully be at 3k before the calendar day rolls over to November 2 though that is very lofty with everything I have to accomplish tomorrow. Thursdays are my extremely busy day in the non-NaNoLand real world. Wish me luck! Night for now :)