If you’ve followed me for any long length of time, you probably know I love NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). It’s a fun challenge with loads of people all over the world coming together to knock out fifty thousand words in a month. A month that has a holiday and might typically be busier than other months.
For some writers that’s business as usual. I’ve been averaging about 52,000 words a month for the last 3-4, so I know that I can do the words. The difference is that this month, I choose to focus on one book instead of writing on two or three different projects. This is where the challenge is for me. I’m stupid unfocused most of the time. I jump from project to project, and I never really manage to settle on one until I somehow miraculously get one into that part of the project, past the Swampy Middle, where I really zone in on a story.
I’ve been jumping from a Seekrit New Shiny to the second Reapers book a lot, and I’m not really getting much done on the Reapers book. I have time, but I really don’t like the last minute things, so Her Last Kill is going to be my NaNoWriMo project for the month. I had about 17,000 words on it, but after finishing His Last Breath, I realized I hated those words and they didn’t really fit in with the tone of the first book, sooooo…. I trashed them, or rather, I pulled them out of the main document and put them into my cut files, where they will sit until I think I can recycle some of them.
It used to be that I really hated throwing out words, but I’ve gotten to the point where I throw out so many that it’s nothing for me anymore. Plus, I reuse them a lot, so most it really doesn’t go to waste.
Anyway, my plan for the month is to focus completely on Her Last Kill and getting that story written. I’m also prepping for the release of His Last Breath in December (less than a month away!! AHH!) and for Readers ‘n Ritas next weekend. I got the paperbacks in for His Last Breath in yesterday and they are so awesome! I found some errors so I need to do some corrections but these will be ARCs for people that come to RnR. I don’t know what other kind of prizes and stuff I’m going to do for the event but I’ll figure it out over the weekend so I can do all the last minute shopping for it.
I also need to record a couple podcasts and get those ready to go. But writing first. I’ve got about 6800 words for the day, so I’m gonna try to go for another 2000. It’s only that high because I did reuse some old words. I’m going to try for 2000 words a day for November and see how it goes.
I’ll try to update here as I go along too. Not sure if I can do what I did for the Fast Draft thing, but we’ll see. Maybe a once a week thing might be good to try for. You guys were awesome with the encouragement while I was Fast Drafting, and I think that’s a big part of why I was able to finish His Last Breath when that book had given me fits for two years. So let’s keep that going, and if you’re participating in NaNo this year, I’d love to support you too!
But first, I’m ordering pizza. A girl’s gotta eat, after all…
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