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NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo 2017 – Day 15

Halfway. Well, the month, not my novel.

I did spend another two hours putting together IKEA furniture today, and then there was the day job but I also a lovely 30 minutes writing after dinner. And it’s still pretty early so I will write some more.

At least I will earn my 10K badge today.

I am starting to make peace with the fact that I might not reach 50K this month. There is a lot going on. And I don’t want to fell all stressed all the time because I was sick, and also because I decided to write a different book than planned.

Writing a murder mystery is really interesting. And writing it without a detailed plan (or any outline of sorts) is even more interesting.

At least I know the ending, and also talking with my son tonight after dinner while he helped me with the dishes made me find out what happens next. So I have ideas for the next three scenes. That should tie me over until tomorrow or so.

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NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo 2017 – Day 14

On the plus side we do have new furniture for our son’s room now, and the dresser is already put together. Somehow that meant that I didn’t have quite as much time to write as I hoped to. Again.

I also did something I never do. That scene that had been bugging me because I set it all wrong? I went back and fixed it. I striked out everything that I didn’t want to keep instead of deleting it so that I wouldn’t actually lose any words but still.

But there is another hour left in the day until bedtime so I’ll try to write some more. Today I’m just regular tired, not as tired as yesterday. So far I have managed 246 words. (I probably should not write these blog posts so early but as I explained before wifi is turned off at 9 pm.)

I thought you might like a snippet from the work in progress. This will probably change until the whole thing is finished but at least you get to read something else but me whining about the lack of progress. Here’s the moment Karen finds the body:

I knocked on the door while opening it. If it was open Ms. Swinton was probably right around the corner and hadn’t closed it properly. Or she had a visitor who was supposed to leave soon but then I would have heard her talking. I wondered if I should have looked through the windows from the outside. I couldn’t just walk into someone’s house, couldn’t I?

But I really didn’t want to come back another time. Giving that necklace back would sit in my mind all day, until I could actually cross it off my list, and I was rather reluctant to have to even write it on a list.

I stepped back from the door and walked along the path that lead around the house. I could see into her kitchen windows from outside. Not something I should do, I knew but then something was definitely off here, and peeking into the windows was definitely better than just walking into her house.

The kitchen was rather dark form outside. It looked pretty old-fashioned but normal. Something was lying on the floor next to a small table in the middle of the room. Something big. Like a sleeping bag. Or a person.

Maybe Ms. Swinton was on her kitchen floor unable to get up again. Old people do fall all the time, don’t they? I decided that that was reason enough to enter the house. But why was the door open when she was in the kitchen? Maybe she had put something away and had planned to go out again right away, and hadn’t bothered to close the door.

She probably had already heard me with all the ringing of the bell. I strained listening, if she needed help she would call me, wouldn’t she? But then maybe she was unconscious.

I entered the dark foyer of her house. There was a staircase going up on the right, a door to the left that probably held a small bathroom, a coat rack and closet next to it, and then a hallway leading left. The kitchen must be going off that hallway. The first door couldn’t be the kitchen because there had been a frosted window right next to her front door.

I stepped in as softly as I could for some reason and called out, “Ms. Swinton? It’s me, Karen Cross. Is everything alright? I found something of yours.”

No answer. I followed the hallway and reached the kitchen door. The door was standing partway open. I went into the kitchen which smelled of dish soap and cake. Ms. Swinton still wasn’t saying anything.

“Ms. Swinton?” I walked over to her, and when I touched her arm she seemed oddly lifeless. A little cool to the touch but not cold. She lay slumped over on her side, and I couldn’t see her breathing. She must be unconscious. Her eyes were closed, she was not reacting to me in any way. I had never seen anybody lie that still. I felt for her pulse and couldn’t find any. This was not good. I listened for her breath, nothing. And she was a little too cold too.

I sat down on the floor hard. It seemed Ms. Swinton was dead and I was the one to find the body.

I really should have left that necklace alone. I should have called her on the phone. This was not what I had envisioned the day to be.

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NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo – Day 13

Yesterday was surprisingly wordy. I ended up with 3,907 words total. Which made me really optimistic for today.

I even started writing right after breakfast. And thing went slow like a snail’s pace. Half an hour later I had 770 more words, and just knew that my second scene was wrong.

Since then I have been running, working the day job, and taken care of my kid. 90 minutes until bedtime. Somehow I’m thinking that I might not be able to write another 2,000 words in that time.

Meh.

I’m so tired I can barely keep my eyes open. Maybe I should go to bed right now, and get up early tomorrow.

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NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo 2017 – Day 12

After yesterday’s disaster I had high hopes for today. Again. The disaster was not quite as disastrous as I had feared because I managed to write another 500 words late in the evening. But then my son wanted to talk about stuff like music, and computers, and such, and since he is a teenager and rarely communicates I was happy to talk to him. A little less long would have been better for my novel, though.

So I was very resolved to write a lot today, and start a little earlier than late afternoon. And I did. But it didn’t make as much of a difference as I hoped it would. I’d say my process does leave a little room for improvement.

On the bright side I have written 2,336 words so far, and it seem I will write some more tonight after finishing this.

On the not so bright side I spent less than an hour actually writing. It seems that every hour of writing requires three hours of procrastination which makes the whole thing rather time consuming. I might have to work on that.

I’ve been thinking about this all month. If I could just sit down and write fiction the way I sit down and write blog posts things would be peachy. I’d tell myself, „I need to write a chapter of the novel today“, open the laptop, start typing and would be done an hour later.

Well, things could be better but if I can manage to eek out 2,600 words per day I can still make it.

Which means I only have 300 more words to go for today with an hour left before bedtime.

I hesitate to say that that’s doable because of past experience.

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NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo 2017 – Day 11

So today was the day I was supposed to write something liek 10,000 words or so.

I woke up too early, and read for half an hour, then I had breakfast, and wrote my regular daily blog post, and was on the internet, and talked with my husband, and then I waited for my son to get up for an hour or two, and then I did the breakfast dishes, and then I cleaned most of what I hadn’t cleaned yesterday, and then I helped to make lunch, and then I just sat around and read a book, and then I was just about to start writing (at 4 pm) and my husband enter the kitchen where I was hiding with my laptop to tell me about a problem he had with his new electric guitar, and then I was rather cranky, and took and shower, and gave myself a pedicure with really nice green nailpolish that I hadn’t tried before, and then the three of us watched Beethoven’s violin concerto because our son had made the mistake of expressing an interest in learning about classical music, and then our son and I sat down and watched two episode of „How I Met You Mother“ while eating potato chips, as one does, and then was now, and the wifi will turn itself off in eight minutes.

I did write a sum total of 39 words so far.

The good thing is that I wrote 1,278 words yesterday but the fact that I can write that many words in 27 minutes doesn’t really mean a thing if I don’t sit down and write.

This NaNo might be doomed.

Or I might manage to write some more tinight. Not 10,000 words for sure, though.

Worst NaNo ever.

But at least I have started the new novel?

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NaNoWriMo

NanoWriMo 2017 – Day 10

Well.

It is forty minutes until bedtime and I still have to do a huge pile of dishes. I haven’t written a single word today. And haven’t done any planning. I do remember thinking about the novel for a few minutes while trying to clean the house but I didn’t actually finish the cleaning as well.

I changed the sheets. I cut my husband’s hair. I made pizza from scratch. I talked to my mother-in-law for twenty minutes. I played the piano, and the ukulele, and I worked all afternoon.

No words.

I really hope tomorrow will be better. I’m still a little sick, though, and a free Saturday might mean that I just plunk down in a chair and do nothing because I’m tired and need rest. I also need to finish cleaning the house because I was too sick to clean it last week.

Part of me wants to do some writing, and do the dishes, and clean so I’m done but that’s a really bad idea.

I will do the dishes, get ready for bed, and got to sleep soon. And tomorrow I will start writing. Even if I haven’t finished my outline or anything.

I’m feeling that if I don’t start writing tomorrow I won’t be able to write 50,000 words in November. I have all but given up on finishing the whole novel until the end of the month.

But then when you’re sick, and there is drama, and crises the writing schedule has to give.

Funny enough I have been writing my blog posts all month, faithfully every day. If only writing fiction would feel so easy. I might have to do more of that but then it might never feel easier. We’ll see.