Month: November 2023

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NaNoWriMo 2023 — Day #2

Today’s stats: 4 pages, 914 words
NaNo Totals: 12 pages, 3134 words

Today was a frustrating day, which left me unable to really focus on my writing. One of my motivators during NaNoWriMo is a bit of “friendly competition”. In other words, I track the progress of other writers — as a way of telling myself: “If they can write so many words, then so can I!” I can’t remember when I began this “friendly competition” habit or how many years I’ve been doing it, but I’ve found over the years that it definitely keeps me writing and (most days) “meeting my quota”.

Well… Due to “real life” distractions, I wasn’t able to “meet my quota” today — writing a measly 912 words. Yesterday, my total word count of 2222 put me in 2nd place (out of 15 other “competitors”). Today, my rather dismal word count dropped me down to 5th place.

So, yeah… I’m a bit bummed, but something Mark Oshiro said in a pep talk that I read after updating my official word count gave me hope. Here’s what Mark said:

“You don’t have to write every single day in November to accomplish your goals. I did not have consistent word counts each day, but I remained consistently engaged throughout the process by reminding myself of what I loved: the story and the joy.“

I think I’m going to turn this quote into a poster that I keep within sight while writing — to remind myself that I don’t have to write every day OR have consistent word counts each day. Thanks, Mark!

Anyway… Please keep checking back to see more updates. Oh! If you’re a “WriMo”, I’d love to hear about your experiences, progress, and/or progress, so please post a comment!

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NaNoWriMo 2023 — Day #1

Today’s stats: 8 pages, 2222 words
NaNo Totals: 8 pages, 2222 words

For NaNoWriMo this year, I decided to be a REBEL by working on “Curaçao Eyes”, the historical romance novel that I began at the beginning of this year. It’s a story that I am bound and determined to FINISH — and SUBMIT for publication eventually. However, I won’t think about that part of the process until after I’ve written “The End” on the first draft of the manuscript for this novel! One thing at a time, and right now, that “one thing” is NaNoWriMo — 50,000 words of the first draft!

My original goal for NaNoWriMo 2023 was to use a “reverse word count chart” — in which I write the most words at the beginning of the month (i.e. 3,000+ words during the first week) and then slowly decreasing until I’d only have to write 1 word on November 30th. I’ve been trying (off and on) to approach NaNoWriMo in this manner, but it’s never worked out for me. Now that I’ve discovered GWIC (Global Write-in Crawl), an international event that features days and days of sprints designed to help writers crank out the words in 15- to 30-minute intervals, I’m hoping to make easy work of those initial days of 3,000+ words. Once I’m able to get past that word-count hurdle, the rest of the month SHOULD be fairly easy since each day’s quota will go down every day.

Anyway… Please check back as I will be posting regular NaNoWriMo progress updates — which I’m hoping will lead to other non-NaNo posts as well (i.e. my “7th of the Month” and “Tasty Tuesdays” posts), especially after this year’s “competition” becomes history.