NaNoWriMo Weeks 1-2 Update
*bangs head on desk* I have fallen so far off the rails with blogging this month. I’m sorry. I’ve been too absorbed in NaNoWriMo to actually… write about NaNoWriMo. So I’ve missed seven excerpts, an update, a poem, and a character interview. Aren’t I just doing fabulously? I plan on getting back on track from this post onward, and this time I’ll work harder at keeping up despite NaNoWriMo.
November 1 – 6,583
Boom, things are off to a great start! I’m half a thousand words ahead of my goal and things are looking good. I saved a couple of favorite lines, too:
“She’d paid some attention in her history lessons, she realized. Or she’d taken them in through osmosis. She’s certainly fallen asleep on her books enough for that.”
“Before too long, the stars began to twinkle and the city lights came on, burning as if reflections of the starlight in a massive pool.”
In addition to my work on The Shadow Raven, I also got House of Mages back from the editor and started applying her edits.
November 2 – 1,325
And we’re already behind. Lovely. And in addition, I didn’t make any notes of what I wrote or my feelings about it or anything. The only thing in my bullet journal for that day is a list of three possible names for a new character who came in, a maid for Nissa. (Her name is Maria, by the way.)
November 3 – 3,393
Well, that’s a little bit better. I came up with a secret basement in the castle and decided what rooms it would hold. I also played around with some possible fonts for the final printed version of The Dark War Trilogy.
At least I was really happy with what I wrote on the third. In addition, a random character showed up, as did an ancient magical artifact.
November 4 – 3,293
Ah, wishing I could get to the “turning point” in the book. Yup. There was a week of story time between the beginning and the first huge plot point. A plot point which I was greatly looking forward to writing because I knew it would be a lot richer and deeper than when I first came up with it and wrote it months ago.
November 5 – 1,760
At two a.m. the morning of the fifth I was working on worldbuilding for a completely separate story, and once I got into the day I did very little. Little writing on The Shadow Raven and no editing on House of Mages.
November 6 – 2,673
More moaning that I’m not to the turning point yet.
November 7 – 7,026
Woah! An impressive word count for the first time since the beginning of the month! Ah, well that explains it; I got past the turning point, as well as past 25k. And I got to write that richer section, which turned out almost exactly like I imagined. I wonder… will readers be able to tell which POV is my favorite?
November 8 – 2,829
19k behind schedule. However, I (thought that I) solved the why behind my slow writing: I’ve been too focused on the end product to enjoy the here and now of the writing. Unfortunately, I’m still writing slowly…
November 9 – 3,797
Today I was more excited to write death scenes from The Last Assassin than to write The Shadow Raven. Which isn’t quite as bad as it sounds, because the death scenes in The Last Assassin are exciting. But still. I also put together character boards for Charette Audrian from The Last Assassin and Ammadeus Maste from The King’s Paladin, and made character profile cover pages for them, and Toril Valda from The King’s Paladin, in my story binder.
November 10 – 2,150
Up to 34k when I should be up to 60k. Nice. And I’d rather be worldbuilding for one of two entirely separate planets. Yeah, NaNoWriMo’s not going too well.
November 11 – 1,143(ish)
Yesterday was spent working on short stories, since I’ve decided that’s what I’m doing for Christmas presents this year. I put together two and a half full covers and started one of the stories, and that’s mostly what I did yesterday. I had a lot of fun putting together the covers. Here’s one of them (I can’t share the other one because I know the person it’s for follows my blog. ;) ):
Total word count so far: 35,189