So Long, Farewell... TGIO Party

Today was our region's TGIO party - "Thank Goodness It's Over," meaning NaNoWriMo, of course.  We have a party to celebrate the completion of NaNo every year.  Whether you reach 50k or not, getting through the month is a big thing, and well worthy of celebrating.

One of the things we nearly always do for our TGIO party is to bring books and do a book swap.  The thinking is, of course, to celebrate having time to read again now that the month of frantic writing is over.  I am not actually sure how much reading time I sacrifice in order to write, though, so I suppose that might not apply to me.  But it's a fun tradition for our party.

We had a good turnout this year, which was surprising considering our attendance was a little down elsewise throughout the month.  Usually we only have maybe 7 or 8 people come to the TGIO.  But today we had 17 in attendance, which was probably our second busiest TGIO in years.

I'm a little sad NaNoWriMo is over, as some of these people I won't see again until next November.  But I'm also glad to have a little of my time back.  I'm still planning on working on my novel regularly, but I won't have to be present anymore at 2-3 hour write-ins 5 days a week anymore, plus the commute time back and forth to each.

NaNoWriMo 2022, Day 30: WINNER at 50,243 words!

I'm pleased to say that I "won" NaNoWriMo last night while at my final write-in of the year, reaching 50,243 words. 

I'm happy with how the month went, partly because it didn't feel as difficult as it usually does to write every day, and partly because I'm hopeful that this time I've created a daily writing habit that will stick.

I think my graphs are pretty interesting.  This is the overall word count graph, where you can see that I had some big jumps and some small jumps, but overall kept steadily writing all month long.

This graph breaks down my daily progress to show what I accomplished every day, and how individual days stacked up to other days.

NaNoWriMo now also awards you badges throughout the month.  I was going for the daily update badge, but since I didn't write on Thanksgiving, I didn't get that one.  The other one I didn't get was the daily par badge.  It says you would have had to meet par, which for NaNoWriMo is 1,667 words every day, but I don't know if I could have gotten that one by meeting the lowered par each day after some of those big writing days.

All in all, I'm pretty pleased with my achievements for this year's NaNoWriMo.

Stay tuned for more as I revise my word count goals for the novel, strip away some word count that I counted for NaNoWriMo and don't plan to in the actual novel draft, and make some changes to my blog.

NaNoWriMo 2022, Day 29: 49,106 words

***I wrote this post Tuesday night before I stopped writing for the evening and forgot about it.  Since I didn't want to erase everything to write my winner post, I'm posting it and then will add my winner announcement separately.***

I feel like I've been slowly chipping away at my word count in the last week or so, and not writing anywhere near as fast as I know I can.  Part of it is that I've still been reading up on the vampire literature that would have been in print in 1923.  It might ultimately not matter to be this familiar with it, and I may not keep all my descriptions of Ruby's research on vampires, but I wanted to at least start with a fresh familiarity of the three main sources that would have been available at the time (more on that in a later post).

I expect once I'm done with the last one (which I'm reading now), I will go back to writing more quickly.  I have a lot still to do, as I feel like I'm still toward the beginning of the story.  Originally the book was somewhere around 85,000 words, but I think this rewrite is going to be significantly longer (which is good, as that was rather short).

On December 1st, I will edit the word count shown in my sidebar to reflect the actual novel's word count so far, as my NaNo count includes a word count estimate for some time spent on reading and revising, as well as some words written for things like weekly regional emails.  I'll also edit the goal word count to reflect my goal (or estimate) word count for the entire novel, rather than the NaNoWriMo goal of 50,000.

Right now, though, I'm sitting pretty at 49,106 for the month.  I know I could have reached 50,000 days sooner, but I'm not sorry I took my time to read the books and write about Ruby's research experiences as I read.  What's important is that I made it to 50,000, and also that I've hopefully developed a habit of daily writing that'll continue into December and beyond!

Watch for a post about Ruby's research sources, coming soon!

NaNoWriMo 2022, Day 28: 49,044 words

I guess I accidentally missed a day of updating, which makes the jump look more impressive than it is.  On Sunday I wrote just under 1,200 words, and yesterday I wrote just under 300, so I definitely felt like my progress was flagging yesterday.

Several things were going on yesterday that caused my progress to slow.  One, my dad's girlfriend went into the hospital, and isn't expected to make it.  So I spent a lot of my afternoon helping my dad and visiting her in the hospital.

The other thing was that I got some last-minute writing work, and started on that.  I meant to only work on it for a little bit, but I ended up getting caught up in it and worked quite late last night.

So all in all, I really didn't work much on Ruby last night.  But I'm hoping to get some more done today, especially since I am less than a thousand words away from 50k!

NaNoWriMo 2022, Day 26: 47,575 words

Yesterday was a bit of a short writing day as I only added about 400 words.  I'm still working on getting through Dracula, but I'm almost done now, and then should be able to make quick work of Carmilla.

I have two goals on my mind right now: Ensuring working on Ruby remains a daily habit, and also ensuring I get to a point where I can publish this next year.  When I think about it, it seems like it would be pretty easy to ensure I continue writing every day.  I can even visualize the progression of getting it to publication.  I need to finish this draft, let it sit a bit so it's not so fresh, and then revise the parts I'm rewriting now.  After that, I'd probably need to do a final revision/polishing of the entire thing (although in my opinion the first couple scenes have already been tightened and polished quite a bit, and may be ready the way they are).  I might consider hiring a freelance editor to do a final edit of the entire thing, and then I'd need to create a cover and do the final formatting.

Easy peasy, right?  Until I think about also trying to make time for all the other projects I'm working on.  If you know me, you know I have a lot I'm trying to juggle.  I've been working on a new scheduling method to see if that'll make it easier to ensure I make time for everything I want to do.

Hopefully I can pull it off.  The big test is whether I'll still be able to keep up the daily noveling habit after NaNoWriMo ends.  Theoretically I should have more time post-November, since I won't be spending time going to write-ins and doing ML things, so hopefully I can put some of that time toward other things and still set aside an hour or two every day to work on my novel.

Fingers crossed, anyway...

NaNoWriMo 2022, Day 25: 47,152 words

It's been a busy few days and I'm not going to even try to catch up with daily blog posts.  Instead, we'll just skip to where I was at the end of yesterday, day 25, not having written today yet.

I had a reasonably good day on Wednesday, with about 1,300 words written that day.  We had a write-in at Barnes & Noble and I got more done than I expected, even though (or perhaps because) my husband and I were the only ones there.

Thanksgiving Day was a whirlwind, between barn chores, my mom coming up to visit, and Thanksgiving dinner at my in-laws' house, and I didn't get anything written that day.

This is a huge deal for me, because I was gunning for that daily writing/update badge on the NaNoWriMo site.  I was even going to try to write a single sentence so that I could update my word count and claim the badge.  I have the 7 day, 14 day, and 21 day badges, and I was well on my way to getting the 30-day badge, too.

Ultimately, though, I decided (at the end of the day) that writing just a few words to say that I had wasn't really in the spirit of the badge.  The badge is about creating a daily habit, not just writing a few words to keep the daily update record going.  And I do think I've created a solid daily habit.  But Thursday was a holiday, and I shouldn't make myself guilty for not writing on a holiday, especially one where we end up with a lot of plans for the day.

So I'm mostly okay with my decision.  Sometimes I think I probably should have just written a few words anyway, but I don't regret making the decision I did.  I'm still well on track to reach 50,000 words for the month, which is the "winning" part that I've really been going for.  The badges are just treats along the way.

Yesterday we did our annual museum write-in: I rent a conference room at the museum, we tour the museum in the morning, eat lunch, and write in the conference room all afternoon.  It went really well and we all had a good time.  It's one of our more popular write-ins, so we had 18 people at one point.  I also got 2,175 words, so it was a fairly successful day for me, too.

We're at a write-in right now, as I write this.  I'm not going to work on my novel at the moment, though.  I have a bunch of reading still to do, as I haven't had much time for that the last few days.  But I do hope to work on the novel a little bit later this evening.

NaNoWriMo 2022, Day 22: 43,632 words

Even with my research taking up the majority of my writing time still, I managed to get a little writing done today: a whopping 794 words, for a running total of 43,632.  I finished out one of the scenes I was working on, and have another scene or two to write based on the available vampire literature of the day, and then I will write the rather difficult dinner scene where Ruby gets to ask Victor her questions!

I don't know if all of this material I'm writing right now will make the final cut, as it may be too pedantic and boring to read about someone else reading vampire literature... but I also feel like it's important for my own story and background development, to have a fresh reading of these stories under my belt.

Well, I'm off to read a little more of Dracula before bed!

NaNoWriMo 2022, Day 21: 42,838 words

Yesterday was another low writing day, but on the flip side, it was also a high reading day.  I'm now more than halfway through Dracula, and after that, Carmilla will be a fast read.

I'm glad I'm rereading these, because I'm picking up on things I wouldn't have remembered from my last time reading them - things that it would make sense to note in my novel.

Yesterday I wrote 790 words, so I kept up with what I need in order to finish my 50,000 by the end of the month, and also accomplished another day in a row of updating my word count.  So it was still a win, even if I didn't write very much.  But I'm looking forward to finishing reading these books and getting back to work on writing.

NaNoWriMo 2022, Day 20: 42,051 words

I finished out today with 42,051 words, with just 653 written today.  It means I didn't make it to 50,000 this weekend, but of course I knew by Saturday evening that I probably wouldn't.  I decided it was more important to do my research and write everything in the proper order, and ensure I didn't make mistakes that I'd later have to go back and fix.

I'm going to do some reading before I go to bed, and hopefully get through quite a bit of Dracula, so that I can do more actual writing tomorrow.

NaNoWriMo 2022, Day 19: 41,461

Well, I won't be getting to 50,000 words this weekend, I'm afraid.  I only got another 991 words written yesterday, for a running total of 41,461.

Part of it is that I have been working on research, as I indicated in the last post.  I read The Vampyre yesterday, and last night I started on Dracula.  I've read it at least twice before, so I was planning on just skimming it, but it's hard not to get caught up in the story.  I feel like I need to have a fresh reading of the book under my belt while I'm writing about Ruby's reactions to the vampire literature of the day and the questions she would have.  I also need to read Carmilla, which I read years ago but also want a fresh reading before I write these next couple scenes.

Wish me fast reading!

NaNoWriMo 2022, Day 18: 40,470 words

Yesterday I realized that I am close enough to 50,000 words that I could feasibly make it there this weekend, if I wrote 4,000 words a day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  It seems like a lot, but I've actually had several days where I got that many words a day or more.

Unfortunately, I "only" wrote 2,844 words yesterday, for a running total of 40,470.  So my new goal is to make 5,000 words today and tomorrow, which will still get me to 50,000 this weekend.

The tricky part is that I'm currently at a point where I want to do a little reading research before continuing.  I need to have a familiarity with the vampire literature of the day for the next couple scenes I am writing.  Fortunately, besides the lengthy Dracula, the other two pieces of vampire literature in existence in the 1920s were short pieces: an 84-page novella called The Vampyre by John William Polidori, published in 1819, and of course  the short story Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, published in a magazine and also a book of the author's short stories, all in 1872.

So I think I'm going to break a cardinal rule of NaNoWriMo and do research when I'm supposed to be writing.  (gasp!)  I'm hoping I can finish reading both this afternoon, and get back to writing this evening.  That would still leave plenty of time for me to make my goals for this weekend.

Wish me luck and many words!

NaNoWriMo 2022, Day 17: 37,623 words

I had another phenomenal writing day, although much of the writing I did was after midnight.  So currently it looks like I wrote 2,444 words yesterday, and 4,778 words today.  But I just kept writing until about 4am last night, so I'm counting all of that as yesterday's words (because it's not tomorrow until you sleep) for a grand total of 7,222 words.

I'm pretty pleased with my progress.  I got really into a scene and just couldn't quit, and then got into the next scene, and the next.  I also totally rejected some client work I needed to do in order to work on the novel, so I'll be catching up on that today, but that's all right.

Today we have a write-in at Panera.  It's historically an unproductive write-in for me, because of the fact that we eat our dinner there too, so that takes away from writing time.  Plus the write-in is with friends so we talk a lot.  But if I can at least get a little done there, I feel pretty confident about the progress I made last night counting for both days.

And then too there's the fact that the whole weekend is ahead of us.  We have at least one write-in tomorrow (possibly two if it gets set up in time), plus I'm babysitting tomorrow evening, which may afford some writing time after the kids go to bed.  And Sunday we have our usual write-in as well.

With any luck, it'll be a productive weekend!

NaNoWriMo 2022, Day 16: 30,401 words

Yesterday evening we had one of our Barnes & Noble write-ins, which have proven to be one of the best write-ins for me getting stuff done.  I was able to get 1,450 words last night for a running total of 30,401.

I found it a little tough to get started yesterday, because I had finished a particularly compelling scene the day before.  I think it's always tough to get started when you're between scenes, partly because the end of the last scene feels so much like an ending, and also because sometimes you're not sure what's going to happen next.  It was a little of both for me this time, because finishing that scene meant I needed to go back and refresh myself on what I originally had happening next, remind myself why I didn't like it or why that didn't fit with my reimagined plot line, create a new plan, and start writing.

But I did get all that done, so I have a plan for the new scene, which I was in the middle of writing when the write-in ended.  I worked a little more on it on the way home in the car, but I have plenty more to write at tonight's write-in.  More importantly, I have a plan for what is going to happen next, after this scene.

I miss my big writing days, like the phenomenal 8,000-word day at the beginning of the month, but I've had a lot I'm juggling this month.  For instance, I'm still trying to keep up on my freelance work, and although I didn't have much to do at the beginning of the month, my main client sent out assignments early this week.  So I've been juggling that, plus doll repairs for my doll business, plus taking care of my horse and occasionally riding, plus cleaning and organizing my house as I'm also in the middle of a big reorganization project.

Despite all that, I've been moving along on my novel, and I'm quite proud of that.  Even if some days I only write a few hundred words, the point is that I'm writing.  In past years, NaNoWriMo has burnt me out a little, usually due to scrambling to get the 50,000 all at the last minute.  This year though I have a comfortable lead thanks to my early 8,000-word day, and with no feelings of burnout brewing, I'm reasonably confident I should be able to keep the habit up into December and beyond.

NaNoWriMo 2022, Day 15: 28,189 words

Today I got sucked into a project that took most of my time, so I didn't actually get a big chunk of writing done as I'd hoped.  Nor did I join the virtual write-in on Discord.  I did, however, get myself to write for a 15-minute sprint that turned into 20 or 25 minutes and yielded me 762 words.  I also finished the scene I was working on, which means I need to consider how I want to rewrite the next scene or scenes as I progress in the revised plot line.

It wasn't the day I was hoping I would have, but it also wasn't too bad, so I'm not unhappy with it.  Tomorrow evening we have a three-hour write-in, so hopefully I'll be able to get a good amount of writing done then!

NaNoWriMo 2022, Day 14: 28,189

So, after I wrote my blog post last night, I actually went back and kept working on my novel.  I would write a few hundred words and update my word count on nanowrimo.org, intending to quit and go to bed, and then I would have another thing that had to be written down immediately so I didn't forget, so I'd go write a few hundred more words.  Before I knew it, I had actually met par for the 14th.  If you count the time after midnight as just part of yesterday, all said and done I wrote over 3,700 words yesterday.

It was definitely the boost I needed.

I wrote a little more on and off throughout the day, ending at 28,189 words for the day.  If you count the additional words written last night as yesterday's words, my word count for today is only around 700 words, but on paper both days are a little over 2,000 words each.  I'm okay with it.  I know not every day can be 8,000 or even 2,000 words, but I'm hoping to be able to maintain the habit of working on my novel every day, even after November is over.

Tomorrow we don't have any in-person write-ins, but I might try to join the virtual Discord write-in and see if the sprints feature can help me get another good chunk of writing done.

NaNoWriMo 2022, Day 13: 25,890 words

Well, I did say I needed a couple thousand words, didn't I?  With some good focused writing time at tonight's write-in, I definitely got it!  I ended up with 2,149 words for the day, all written at the write-in.  Although I had intended to write some more when I got home, I didn't end up getting a chance, but that's okay.  With more than 2k under my belt for today, I'm feeling better about my progress.

I was worried about tonight's write-in being noisy and talkative, since Zac said that one of the people from the Saturday write-in was there last week, and it was a little noisy.  But there were a few less people there this week, seven of us total instead of last week's 12, so maybe some of the other talkers weren't there.  The one from Saturday's write-in was the only one I think of as particularly noisy, and without anyone else to talk to, he was relatively quiet tonight.

I was pleased, because I was able to focus pretty well nearly the entire time, with a couple of short breaks for minor chatting and eating a sandwich.  I was able to get well into a scene that I was having a hard time getting started.  I have more to write on that scene tomorrow, but I'm in a good place with it now.

I was going to write a little more tonight, but I ended up planning out my week instead (an activity I think I'm going to start doing every Sunday night), and I'm not sorry.  Besides, the scene is at a good place to be resumed easily tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow, there isn't a write-in, so when I was planning my week I made sure to mark off time for writing.  I'm pretty sure if I didn't, I wouldn't get any writing time done.  Hopefully marking off a couple of hours in my calendar will help ensure it gets done, as I still want that daily writing badge for the month!

NaNoWriMo 2022, Day 12: 23,741

As I mentioned in the last post, I went into this weekend hoping it would provide a chance for a big word count day and some catch-up.  So far it has not provided that, although we'll be leaving for a write-in soon, so who knows.  Maybe tonight will be the night!

I ended yesterday with 23,741 words.  We went to a write-in at a coffee shop in the morning (or early afternoon), but it was the noisy one, and this weekend wasn't much better.  We did sit at a separate table instead of joining the big communal table, so that helped, but they still tried to engage us in conversation, which was frustrating.  We didn't end up staying at that write-in very long, either, as we had a lot to do yesterday.

It was enough to get a few hundred words written, though, and I wrote a tiny bit more later in the evening, too.  I do need a nice extended period of time where I can really hit my stride and pound out a couple thousand words, though.

We'll see if tonight's write-in will give me that.  It's a three-hour write in, so theoretically it should.  However, my husband tells me (as he was there last week when I couldn't make it due to babysitting) that some of the same people go to that one as the Saturday morning coffee shop write-in.  I may need to encourage people to do writing sprints so that people (like me) can actually get some work done.

NaNoWriMo 2022, Day 11: 23,154 words

I'm playing a little bit of catchup as I realized I forgot to report my progress Friday night.  I ended the night Friday with 23,154 words.  I didn't really get a lot done at the Friday night write-in.  We always eat at the Panera while we're there, so it means we don't get writing done until after we're done eating.  And since that write-in is with friends, we typically chat a lot there, too.

I got into a groove toward the end of the write-in, though, so when we left, I wrote a little more in the car on the way to see our non-writing friends, with whom we get together every Friday night.  I did wish for a little more writing time that night that I unfortunately didn't get.

I went into this weekend hoping it would be a chance to do some catch-up, although as you'll see in the next post, it hasn't provided that so far.  I haven't been meeting par each day since my huge word count day, and it's been a little disappointing.  I do have a lot else going on, which is part of it, and honestly, it's an improvement over past years that I'm making sure to write as much as I am, even when I don't have a lot of time.  But I'd like to do another big word count day here soon to catch up on some of what I've let slip.

NaNoWriMo 2022, Day 10: 22,760 words

Yesterday I made it to 22,760 words.  It wasn't as much as I needed for the day to maintain my lead, and I've been slowly losing that lead every day.  I'm hoping to have a big writing day soon, maybe this weekend, to catch up that lead again.

I'm excited because I think 10 days of writing and updating every day - even if it's only a little - might be a record for me, at least in recent history.  I can't remember when the last time I wrote every single day was, although I probably did during my early NaNoWrimos.  But I know that since NaNoWriMo started offering the daily update badge, I've always made it only partway through the month before missing a day.

Right now, though, I don't see many opportunities to fall behind on that particular badge.  Is it possible that this year, 2022, will be my first year getting the badge for updating every day all month long?

I'm really hoping for this.  Aside from the obvious goal of getting this round of revisions done this month (or at least mostly done), it's one of my primary goals for NaNoWriMo 2022, simply because I've never managed to accomplish it before!

NaNoWriMo 2022, Day 9: 21,861 words

Today was not very prolific.  I met my friend at the barn to ride, for one thing, and I just never seem to get much done on riding days.  I also had some client work to do, so I spent half our evening's write-in working on that.

I'm trying out a new way of managing my calendar and my task list, too, and it's making me realize how much I overextend myself - or my wish list, anyway, since there's no way I'd be able to get it all done.  I'm hoping the new calendar approach will help me to have more manageable expectations of myself.

So, all said and done, I wrote less than 500 words today - more than yesterday, but still less than I would have liked.  Hopefully I'll get more done tomorrow, though, as I'll have a couple hours to kill while I'm babysitting.