Karen Duxbury - NaNoWriMo Journal 2013

Crying uncle...

11/14/2014

I’m sorry to say I’ve decided to give up on completing NaNoWriMo for 2014. There are too many things going on in my world to let me settle my mind into a big project. When your heart isn’t into it, it’s really hard to face those blank pages every day.

I do have a few more short stories from last year’s NaNo that I need to polish for various contests and publications, so I plan to concentrate on that instead.

I’ll be back in 2015 with a new outlook and a new novel. For now, let’s polish off that last bottle of wine and plan to meet here, same place, same time, next year. I look forward to seeing you then!!!!

Little victories

11/12/2014

Thanks to figuring out some very important scenes last night, I was finally able to do some writing today that didn’t feel forced and miserable. For the first time this month I didn’t feel like I had to drag myself kicking and screaming to my keyboard. Yet again it has been pounded home to me how important it is to be prepared for NaNoWriMo. I don’t believe you have to have a complete plot in place before starting. You just have to make sure you have the bare bones of enough scenes in place so that you never have to stop and think about what you’re going to do next.

Total word count to date: 11481

Veteran's Day

11/11/2014

Things are looking up on the NaNo front. Even if they weren't, it would be tough to grouse about my word count on a day that celebrates the victories and unfathomable losses of so many.

I’ve written over 1000 words today and I have a bit more of a roadmap to guide my way tomorrow. It’ll take a miracle for me to reach 50k by November 30th but I’ve decided to keep trying at least for awhile.

Total word count to date: 9551

NaNoNoGo?

11/9/2014

It is looking more and more like NaNo is a NoGo for me this year. I accomplished nothing this weekend. I could have. I should have. I had every opportunity to write but, other than more notes on scenes and some plot development, I didn't make proper use of my time.

I can’t even blame this on the normal week two panic. I just didn't do anything. I’m not completely throwing in the towel (yet!) but I do need to decide soon. Unfortunately, I already have a commitment for Monday so it will be the following day before I can even try to make up time. Oh well, sayonara till Tuesday!

Total word count to date: 8469

What was I thinking...

11/6/2014

Today was a planned no-word day. I need to pin down my timeline and reorder all my plot points before I can truly relax and start writing. These are all the things I would have done before NaNo if only I’d decided to participate sooner. I hope I've learned my lesson and I never try to do this without some preparation ever again. I'm really starting to doubt myself and I'm thinking about giving it up for this year. Only problem with that is that this story really wants to finally be told. Oh well, with a little luck (okay make that a whole lot of luck!) I’ll get my words caught up over the weekend.

Total word count to date: 7814

Who died?

11/5/2014

I have a big problem with my story – I have a dead guy on a pool table with a cue stick down his throat and I can’t decide which of two characters he should be. They both deserve to be killed, one more than the other, they both have plenty of people who want them dead, again one more than the other, but I can’t make up my mind which one to bump off. Even worse, I can’t decide who did it. I have a LOT of scenes to write before I get to that point so I don’t have to know right this minute. But soon, very soon, I need to figure it out.

Total word count to date: 7814

Whew!

11/4/2014

After wasting hours searching through old files on my PC, I found the notes I was so sure I’d written for the big finish of this story. They were in a manila folder marked Save These Notes and written on the pages of a yellow legal pad and never transcribed into my computer. AAAKKK! So today I finished up my review of the story so-far and tomorrow, now that I have my notes, I can set about making this story work. It was a good day.

Total word count to date: 6641

Progress at last

11/3/2014

Finally, I did some actual writing today! I’d forgotten how much I liked this story I’m working on. The characters have all come back to me and, since I’m writing this one in first person, I feel very connected to the main protagonist. My only problem is that at one time I am absolutely certain I wrote an outline of the BIG FINISH scene. I have dug through all my notes and I can’t fine it anywhere. I have a fairly good idea of what happens but I’d really love to find the detailed notes I know I made. Oh well, hopefully they’ll turn up somewhere before I get to that scene.
I can't believe my word count widget still doesn't work! So I'll give my count: 5111

whine whine wine

11/2/2014

I didn’t realize how much I had forgotten about the book I am trying to finish up this month. Finally decided I would have to read through everything up to this point before I can start writing. I have made a lot of notes so far and will finish up my review tomorrow. While I didn’t really earn my wine today word-count-wise, I’m having one anyway. This is hard work… whine whine whine

Oh yeah, ignore the zero on my NaNoWriMo word count widget to the right. It gives my count on the NaNo website but not here for some reason. Guess I'll waste some more writing time playing around to fix it. So for the record - I have grand total of a measly 645 words.

It's baaaaaaaack!

11/1/2014

I can’t believe November is here already. I signed up for NaNoWriMo again this year. I made my donation to keep me honest and to get that nifty little golden halo on my NaNo writer page and here I am half way through the day with no words to show for it. Hmmm, I suppose that is pretty much how I start every November 1st.

Life has been throwing me a lot of curves this year so I have given no thought at all to the planning of a new project but since I still desperately need to write, I've decided to pull a former NaNo project out of the ether and finally complete it. It’ll probably take 50k new words to finish it. I have gone in and deleted all the words I should have erased long ago so now I have a clean but very short draft to work on. (don’t worry all you seasoned NaNoers out there – I will only count my NEW words not the old ones!) If I can’t get the full 50k on this novel, I have a couple of non-fiction projects I've been playing around with that I can also work on.

So there you have it. November 1st is here and I will start to work any minute now – well, after I play some games, dust my computer screen, have another cup of coffee….
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Not as bad as I expected - at least I wrote one page worth of words. Oh well, it's an empty glass for me today.