Category: NaNoWriMo

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.

It’s all going a little slower than I would like but I did make progress today. Did not start writing yet but scenes and characters are beginning to accumulate. Not far to critical mass, I’d say,

I’m still a little under the weather, and there has been quite a bit of drama all around which is also to be considered.

I do know who the murderer is now, which is really exciting.

I know the beginning which is always where it all starts, I am slowly developing a feeling for the end and the middle. I don’t think one can rush this, unfortunately. And sine this is mostly a murder mystery I don’t think just writing by the seat of my pants would be a good idea.

Tomorrow will be a really full day but I’m hoping for the weekend.

I had another rather derailed day with a doctor’s visit, and some other things that filled my mind to a point where there wasn’t much space for the novel. I do have a bit more of a feel for it, which is good, but not quite enough.

I’m still hoping to start writing tomorrow, or maybe a little later tonight. There’s still ninety minutes until bedtime.

I have to say that this has been my least productive NaNo ever so far.

Not giving up yet.

I had high hopes of finishing all the planning today.

Well, I had a good start but then the day got away from me.

Still, I decided to count the words I’m writing in my character sketches, plot idea, and settings towards my NaNo-goal as well. It is a mild cheat. I’m still hoping to crack the actual 50,000 words this month with novel words only but if I can’t I’m good with this as well.

So tonight I wrote 578 words.

Mind you, this is the day I should have had 10,000 but then the month isn’t over yet.

In all my waffling over process I turned to Rachel Aaron’s book, „2K to 10K“ again, and am now following her very sensible suggestions. Today I finished Step 1: Get Down What You Already Know, and got started on Step 2 which is the basics of plot, character, setting, and genre. I’m fortunate that worldbuilding on this one will be very light, I’m going with now and here with a little magic thrown in.

I’m hoping to write a little more tomorrow but I’m still in the walk-around-and-think stage of the novel, unfortunately. Which has to be followed by the writ-things-down-and-think stage.

I am at that point in the process of dreaming up a story where it’s hard to gauge if I’m productive or not.

I spent some more time reading about story structure and character, and I had planned to start doing the exercises in Holly Lisle’s „Create a Character Clinic“ (affiliate link) but then I found myself dragging my feet, and procrastinating like crazy.

Let’s just say that I have now taken care of all the admin stuff for my day job, and some household tasks that had been due for days.

And I found that I was stuck yet again in the whole novel-writing process because I couldn’t decide if I should plan or not, and how. I am pretty sure that planning and outlining is a very good thing – up to a point. But I will never be the person who invents a whole new language and several worlds with back history for centuries. That’s not how I tick. I usually make that kind of thing up as I go. For me more planning is definitely the way to go for now.

And I really wanted to do the planning just so because I’d like this to be the start of a new series, and one that will stay interesting for some time, and so I want to get it right. I also would love to write a novel that does not need two years of revision. I want to write fast and well, and have a finished thing after a reasonable amount of work.

The thing my husband reminded me about, the one I keep forgetting, is that I’m not a complete newbie. I’ve been writing for quite some time now, and the manuscripts where I made my really stupid beginner mistakes are sitting right over there in a desk drawer. So maybe, just maybe, there’s a reason why I tend not to do the exercises in the writing books I read. I know I could. No problem. It just doesn’t feel like doing that exercise will help me in finding the story I want.

So I’m thinking that maybe the detailed outline is not my thing after all. I have an idea of my main character, and today while doing the dishes after breakfast I got an inkling of the murder victim. And her daughter. And how the paranormal element might come into it.

I’ll sit down tomorrow morning and write some of it down. And then maybe I can get back to writing first draft soon. Without having to put myself through a ton of exercises, and worksheets and such.

Still pretty exciting this.

Well, a funny thing happened this morning.

When I woke up around 5.30 I had dreamed a new character for a novel. Which does happen.

Since I was so behind on writing – what with the zero words yesterday – I had my laptop sitting next to me so I could start writing right away, first thing in the morning.

And then something in me snapped.

And I decided not to write the novel I had planned.

Oops.

Now normally I won’t advise doing this. Every story feels like crap occasionally when you’re writing it but this time I was not feelint the love at all. I had researched a few more novels in that chicklit/ weight loss/ midlife crisis genre (if that even is a genre – it should – but it might not be), and I had zero motivation to read any of them.

I still think the idea works, and would be fun, and the main character is cool, I only just don’t want to write this kind of book.

So. Change of plans.

I spent the day mostly sitting around thinking about an idea for a new series. And I read „Story Genius“ (affiliate link) some more. And bought Holly Lisle’s „Create a Character Clinic“. Over the next few days I will, um, develop (yeah, that’s the word I was looking for) a series of paranormal cozy mysteries. This time I’ll actually start by creating characters and a world, and an outline first.

And then I’ll write it.

And if things go really great I might even win NaNo but then I tend to be rather optimistic.

Getting a book I love to write out of this might just be a little more important to me than „winning“ NaNo.

Still. I haven’t given up yet. I can always do that later.