Well I did it.

This was one of the most difficult NaNoWriMo's ever. Even last year I had more direction and far less inner critic to block my path. And to make it worse, I was busy as all get out and easily distracted. Somehow in the final week, I managed to buckle down and write my butt off to make it to 50k.

My story is far from finished, but I'm honestly too tired to care. In a few weeks or maybe a month I'll look back at it all and figure out what I can salvage. But not now and certainly not tomorrow.

A few things I've learned from this year:
1. Write and don't worry about how good or bad it is.
2. Plan in advance, it's really really helpful.
3. It's never too late to finish (well...until Midnight November 30th).
4. This is just the first draft, the goal is simply to get it out of you head and onto the paper.

Alright...I'm done thinking about NaNo right now.

G'night.

Am I insane? Yes. Will I make it to 50K? Hell yes.

This has probably been the craziest NaNo of all time for me. I started 7 days late with one story and then 20 days into it, decided to start another one. [Hey, those words count dammit, no matter what the end result is].

Yes, that's right, I'm no longer writing a story about the roaring 1890s. Now it's something more of a insane tale about a girl cursed to calamity if she leaves her home and a boy doomed to eventually blow up working together to find her brother who has been kidnapped by a robotic Pied Piper along with a slew of other children.

It's pretty crazy, but I'm loving it so far. I think I'll even try to finish it in NaNoFiMo and then polish it up during March.

Tonight I wrote 8k. And that's after a full day of work at the job (which is partly why I've gotten so damned far behind).

I earned some cheesecake and sleep.

Goodnight.

I was much further along this time last year...

So while I may have gained a brief lead, I've been swiftly falling behind. At the moment I am 15k+ behind the requirement. Thanksgiving proved to be much busier than planned and many other things keep getting in the way.

But I've started writing again today and I intend to catch up before this long weekend is over. Come hell or high-water, I'm hitting 50k on or before the end of the 30th.

Back to writing.

Nothing...nada.

So I wrote nothing today. It's not even worth doing the little write up because I've made no progress. Oh well.

Currently 8k behind. I have a lot of writing to do this weekend.

Monday...

I was distracted again today, but managed a very nice 4k for the day. I could be writing so much more, but I've been dealing with some writer's block lately.

Word count:
20,226. Only a bit over 4k from catching up to Tuesday's 25k.

Inner Critic:
Appeased, but I haven't written enough for her to critique.

Actual Novel:
11,192, which is pretty good considering the whole situation. Woo.

Characters Dead: 1
None.

Where are they?
She's about to go to the circus. [I really need to rewrite this all in editing...it's so damn sluggish.]


Bed time.

Weekend of Falling Behind...

Ugh...I was bad this weekend. Basically I didn't catch up. Instead I spent time watching movies, hanging out with friends and snuggling with the boy. I'll have to make it up tonight and Monday and really haul it next weekend. I need to do more plotting though, it's been setting me back.

Word count:
16,258. Far far far behind the required 23,333 for Sunday. Basically, I need to catch up now and the easiest way to do that is to do a little more plotting before I write.

Inner Critic:
Pretty quiet this weekend, but she was sated with movie watching, pie eating and various other weekend activities.

Actual Novel:
As I'm still very much behind, the novel itself is probably still under 10k.

Characters Dead: 1
None to add.

Where are they?
Barely moved. In the scene before she goes to meet her magician. Not good.

Alright...back to writing!

Almost caught up...

Here's another update. To make things easier this Nano I'm going to use the following format from now on.

Word count:
As 2am this morning I'm at 14,869 words - a little over 3k away from the required 18333. Woo! Completely doable. The story itself is only 3 scenes in and clunky but slowly growing on me. Clearly another reason why it's good to plan/plot/character develop before NaNo, but I'll get the hang of it as I go along.

Inner Critic:
Still loud and very annoying. I've decided to appease her by letting those nasty comments become a part of the story - either through the snarky narrator or as notes that will inevitably be removed.

Actual Novel:
My goal this weekend is to try and get the novel itself caught up to the required 18k, but that means that I'm really at 7,811 a much more depressing 10,522. Blegh.

Characters Dead:
1 - The Great Vincenzo - Fell ill and died (in exposition)

Where are they?
The lovers are introduced, sort of and my MFC is about to sneak off to see a magic show.

Alright...back to writing!