Nanowrimo week 2 update!

We’ve reached the half way point in Nanowrimo, and this is my progress so far, as of last night!

As you can see, I’m killing it if I do say so myself. Is it any good? No! But it’s words. I’ll make it good later. This is the third book I’ve written set in the same world and while I liked the other two a lot I think this one is by far my favorite, so I’m happy about it.

Today my plan is to write 5k words, putting me at 45k. Then I plan on finishing up the last 5k during this week so I can be done before the 21st, which is when I’m starting blogmas this year. My goal is to only have one time consuming project going at a time. Pbtbt.

If you’re participating, lemme know how you’re doing! Happy writing!

Nanowrimo week 1 update!

It’s one week into Nanowrimo, and this is my progress so far, as of last night!

 

I am currently at 21712 words, meaning I’m almost half way there in a quarter of the time. I am so pumped about it. In the second image, ignore the ‘no word for Nov 8’ thing, because I haven’t written anything yet today!

My goal today is to hit 25k, the half way mark, if not 26k.

So, so far I’m doing pretty well. My story has already kind left the outline I created, but that’s ok. I’ll compare it during the second draft and try to merge the two.

If you’re doing Nanowrimo, do let me know. Happy writing!

Nanoplanmo 2020 Update 2!

Hi! It’s been another couple weeks or so since the last time I updated on my nanoplanmo progress.

At this point, I think I’m pretty much ready, at least to start. I have the first four chapters planned out, along with the three major POVs and major conflicts. I do plan on adding in subplots but I might wait until after the first draft to do it – pick up on hints I accidentally made while writing to branch off from, stuff like that.

I’ve been doing worldbuilding as well, and have decided to completely change how I’m doing the social conflict between species from the last time I updated. I think (I hope) it’ll work out.

But yeah that’s it, really. Like I said, I’m about ready to go. I have three more days of work, then it’s Halloween, then it’s NANOWRIMO! I took off work November 2nd and 3rd so I can dedicate the first three days of the month to writing. My goal between the three days is to get in at least 15k words. I’d really like to have a cushion in my word count.

If you’re participating, let me know! Happy writing!

Preptober/Nanoplanmo 2020!

It’s that time of year again!

The weather has started to get chilly (it was 40F this morning!) and we’re all gonna break out the blankets and hot chocolate soon. That means it’s time to go into a writing frenzy for thirty days.

To do that, I need to do a bit of planning, so I’m going to be participating in Nanoplanmo this year, starting October 1st, and by Nanowrimo Eve, I should be ready to go.

For those unfamiliar with Nanowrimo, it’s an online event that happens every year, where writers of all levels try to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. Check out their website if you’re interested! I’ve been participating every year since 2008 or so, and it’s always a fun time.

The last three years in a row, I’ve won – hit the 50k word mark by November 30th – so this year the bar is high for me.

This year’s project will be another fantasy (shocker) set in the same world as my previous two novels. I have a whole planet mapped out with various magics and cultures and species, and each novel takes place in a different part. At some point I’ll loop them together, but that’s a ways off still.

During October, I’ll be making posts about my planning progress, or covering writing-related topics. I’m no expert mind you, I literally only tend to write during nanowrimo, but hey, that’s ok.

If you’re participating in Nanowrimo, do add me as a friend! And lemme know you’re participating! Happy reading writing!

Camp Nanowrimo – Week 2

I’m telling ya, all the days are blending together. I feel like I just wrote week one’s post yesterday and it’s already been another seven days. Where has my mind been.

My goals:

• Create a second draft of Basil – In Progress
  
• Rename Basil to an actual title – Complete
• Revise for a total of 30 hours – In Progress
  

This week wasn’t great for writing. I’m sitting at 14.75 hours as of writing this (Friday night) when I should be around 17. The quarantine mentality is setting in and I’m afraid it’s really killing my motivation.

But while I’m being hours-wise, I did meet some milestones:

• I finished reading and leaving notes on my original draft of my 2018 project
• I did some world building surrounding areas that I found lacking
• I started actually writing the second draft
• I moved my original prologue. It’s going to be in either book two or three, haven’t decided.
• I wrote a brand new, original prologue for this book.

As we speak, I’m in the middle of writing chapter one. Seventeen days into this, I’m realizing I’m not going to finish draft two, not by a long shot. But, I do plan on getting a good chunk of it, and if I have the motivation I’ll continue it into May, but if I decide I need a break, I’ll pick it up again in July during the next Camp Nano.

And that’s it for this week! If you’re doing Nano, lemme know how you’re doing!

Camp Nanowrimo – Week 1

Well more like ‘first ten days’ but you get it.

As I mentioned in my announcement post, I’ve been working on a second draft of my 2018 Nanowrimo project, which up until yesterday had a temporary title – the main character’s first name. But I’ll get to that.

So the goals I originally listed were:

• Create a second draft of Basil
• Rename Basil to an actual title.
• Revise for a total of 30 hours

Second draft is… obviously in progress.

The renaming is complete. I actually came up with a title that I think fits really well and I actually have tentative titles for the following books in the series. At this point I don’t think I wanna reveal much, at least not until I’m at a point where I feel comfortable having others read what I’ve written. And that’s a while off still, I think.

For revising, what I’ve done up through April 9th (I’m writing this on the 10th and as of right now haven’t written today. I’ll do that later tonight) is a total of 9 hours of revision. So so far, I’m right on the money. This weekend I hope to get ahead. I find myself a bit dreary after working from home on a computer all day and getting back on a computer sometimes is the last thing I wanna do.

So this weekend, I hope to get it at least 4 hours, not including tonight’s time!

Wish me luck!

 

 

I’m doing Camp Nanowrimo!

Happy Sunday! I’ve decided to join in on Camp Nanowrimo this year. I’ve been doing the regular November Nanowrimo every year since about 2008 or so, but I’ve never done camp. And because the past two years I’ve actually developed stories during Nano that I liked, I figured I’d participate in Camp to edit them.

To those unfamiliar: Camp Nanowrimo is an event that happens every April and July. Unlike its main counterpart, Nanowrimo, which occurs every November with the goal of writing 50000 words in a month, Camp Nanowrimo allows you to select your own goal. You can choose to write something new and set a word count goal, or you can choose to edit and set a time or page count goal! This year I’m editing.

Camp Nanowrimo 2020 Project:

• Create a second draft of Basil, my 2018 Nanowrimo project that has been sitting in the dark for a year and a half
• Rename Basil to an actual title. ‘Basil’ is just the name of the main character and has been acting as a place-holder title until I come up with one
• Revise for a total of 30 hours, hopefully completing a second draft in the process, but if I hit the 30 hours, I’ll consider it a success.

 

Some things to note, if you’re new or just returning to Camp Nano:

• The Camp Nanowrimo site has been taken down and now all Camp projects are hosted on the main Nanowrimo site
• Cabins have been replaced with ‘groups’
• ‘Editing’ is currently not a functional option when creating your Camp Nano goal. They currently only have ‘writing’ goals implemented
• Because of this, I chose 30,000 words as my goal, with the intent that 1000 words will represent 1 hour of editing
• This is nitpicky and me arm-chair coding but: As a software developer myself, editing goals – counting hours/etc instead of words – could be implemented and running within a week. I know it could. They’ve had months to do this and why they didn’t is beyond me. But that’s not my business, I guess

Can you tell I’m a little salty.

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Regardless of my not-so-positive feelings towards the new Nano site’s functionality and lack thereof, I’m really looking forward to this project. I’ve never actually had a fully finished draft to edit before, so this will be a new experience for me!

If you’re participating in Camp Nanowrimo, do let me know! Hell, add me! Happy writing!

I won Nanowrimo!

Happy December and happy End of Nanowrimo!

This year, I won! I hit 50,000 words back on November 23rd, so this last week I’ve been coasting, pre-writing blogmas posts, etc. It’s been a nice relaxer.

Is my draft any good? No! It’s awful! But it exists, and that’s the important part.

Here are my stats:

Obviously for the last week I just chilled. Once I hit the 50k, I went ‘this is heinous’ and stopped. When I start up again, I’m actually going to dive right into draft two instead of finishing draft one because man, it’s really bad.

Otherwise, you’ll see spikes in daily word count – those are weekends, mostly. My buddy Ashley and I had write-ins every weekend, it wasn’t unusual for me to get out 5 or 6k during once session. It was really helpful (and she ended up winning too, for the first time!)

So, Nano is done. I’m going to give myself a bit more of a break, then I’ll pick it up and try fixing it to be like… a comprehensive narrative.

And that’s it! Until tomorrow!

Blogmas (and then some!) 2019 Tentative Schedule

The time has come! This year, for the fifth year running, I will be participating in Blogmas. And this year, I actually plan to start early and run late: I’ll be posting every day from, well, today, until January 8th! I just have so many ideas and things to talk about, man. The end of the year really has some great posts going around.

For anyone participating in Blogmas and looking for ideas, feel free to steal these. They’re not proprietary by any means.

So if you follow my blog, you will see these things from me in the next month and a half, more or less. I might switch things around or sub out things, but as of writing this, this is what I’m gonna do:

November

• 27th: This post!
• 28th: Thanksgiving book tag
• 29th: Christmas music crazy person post
• 30th: November wrap up

December

• 1st: Nanowrimo wrap up
• 2nd: November book haul
• 3rd: December currently reading
• 4th: Holiday scents
• 5th: Christmas decorations 2019
• 6th: Christmas movies to-be-watched
• 7th: Christmas music playlist
• 8th: Baking cookies
• 9th: The gifting conundrum
• 10th: Seasonal favorites
• 11th: Top books that make me think of Christmas
• 12th: Slow cooker hot chocolate recipe
• 13th: Ultimate Harry Potter tag
• 14th: Blogmas/vlogmas shout outs
• 15th: Series I won’t finish
• 16th: Unfinished series 2019
• 17th: Updated coffee mug collection
• 18th: Fantasy bingo update
• 19th: TBR Highs and Lows
• 20th: Christmas vacation TBR
• 21th: Fate of my book haul books
• 22nd: Books I hope Santa brings
• 23rd: Christmas wishes and rambles
• 24th: Christmas Eve book tag
• 25th: – No post today, time for Christmas –
• 26th: Top 5 books I didn’t get to in 2019
• 27th: 10 in 2020
• 28th: December book haul
• 29th: Bookshelf tour 2020
• 30th: New Year’s book tag
• 31th: December Wrap up

January

• 1st: 2019, a year in review
• 2nd: Reading resolutions 2020
• 3rd: Bottom books of 2019
• 4th: Top books of 2019
• 5th: Top books of the decade
• 6th: January currently reading
• 7th: 2010-2020, what is my life
• 8th: Bucket list update

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After Wednesday, January 8th, I’ll be resuming my normal posting schedule, so the next one after this whole thing will be on Saturday, January 11th.

I’m very excited, and after Nanowrimo, man, this’ll be nice and relaxing.

If you’re doing Blogmas, let me know so I can read all your stuff! Happy reading!

Nanowrimo Week 3!

This is the last weekend before Nano, and if I’m being honest folks, I think I’m going to win today.

As of this moment, I’m sitting at 45030 words. I have fewer than 5k to write, and I feel like I can do them all today. All of them. I’m so excited for it.

I’ve won Nanowrimo a handful of times before this, but I’ve never done it this early –  a whole week ahead of schedule. So unless something happens today that I get no chance to write, I’m winning. If not today, tomorrow for sure.

This is where I was as of Friday evening, the 22nd:

My highest writing day was Sunday, where I wrote over 7k words. With that in mind, this last 5k is gonna be easy peasy lemon squeezy.

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If you’re doing Nano, lemme know how you’re doing! Happy writing!