So you think you can NaNo... Day 13, 2013

Another successful NaNo day to brag about on my blog!

Except... I'm annoyed with the folks at NaNoWriMo. I started a thread to promote Morning Rain Publishing, but they pulled it.

Why would they do such a thing?

I have been an active NaNo participant for the past four years. I spend countless hours promoting the organization, and often encourage others to join. Before starting the thread, I read the rules, and was careful to place it in the appropriate forum section. Unfortunately, I'm not a forum frequenter. So, because I didn't comment or participate in another thread before starting one of my own,  I'm not allowed to join the Thread Creator Club. All I wanted to do was promote a small Canadian publisher who wants to help NaNo participants achieve their dreams, at no cost whatsoever.

I must be evil. 

I'm irked enough that I want to quit NaNo. I need to be convinced that promoting them is worth my time and energy.

In other news, I also got a lovely manicure today. It's fitting, because the design works with the whole Pinup Girl / Burlesque Dancer theme I have going on in my current project.

Image compliments of Spa Elegant Nails

Today's word count amounted to 1788, making the total to date 23 029

So you think you can NaNo... Day 12, 2013

There is nothing exciting to report today. I got up, I worked, I edited, I wrote, and I did not make dinner. Well - I tried to make dinner, but it helps if you put the food in the oven... so we ate leftovers. That's the highlight of an otherwise uneventful day. 

I typed up 1 731 words, for a total of 21 241. A rather acceptable writing day. 

Oh - one awkward thing did happen today, after I drafted the first half of this blog. While watching an episode of Supernatural (Season 5, episode 6 - I Believe the Children are Our Future), I had to explain to my 13-year-old why Dean had hairy palms. It was funny, but then, all of a sudden, not so much.

Image from walldime.com    

 

So you think you can NaNo... Day 11, 2013

I'm still battling the plague. It's probably nothing more serious than a lingering cough, but it's interfering with my mojo. This morning I expected to hit the gym after three weeks of inactivity... instead, my body decided to cough up a lung, a pair of socks and a screwdriver - who knew there was so much stuff in there?

After driving my son to school and picking up some much-needed groceries, I headed home to start my writing and editing day. Waiting for me, in my email, was a reminder that I still had a school volunteer newsletter to complete - today - so it could go home with the kids in their report cards.

That done, I settled in to write my first 500 words of the day. I have discovered that if I break the writing into bite-sized bits, it doesn't feel so intimidating. Following the NaNo sprint, I edited 3000 words of a terrific epic fantasy novel, took care of some marketing, and then settled in to write another 500 words.

Those 500 words easily morphed into 1200 as one of my characters transformed into a beautiful black woman with attitude (she had previously been a blue-eyed blond). After that surprise, my characters launched into a weird and wonderful discussion - stemming from the presence of a fluffy white bunny - on monster erotica. There are a whole lot of fun times ahead in this book!

By suppertime, I had written 1738 words, which makes my NaNo total 19 510.

Image from 4freephotos.com

So you think you can NaNo... Day 10, 2013

For a moment, I thought today was going to be a repeat of yesterday, minus the basement clean-out. Somehow, I managed to write my character into the kind of lingering depression that made me want to throw her out the window, just to shut her up. I'm writing a sequel to Money, Masks & Madness - the book is supposed to be all stuff and fluff, but I somewhere along the line I managed to take a wrong turn.

Lucky for me, and my MC, the day was broken up by a Remembrance Day parade and service, followed by a kid's hockey game. The break did us both a world of good, and I managed to introduce a plausible distraction, complete with a tiny romantic interlude...

Today's word count totaled 1722 words (not quite making up for yesterday's slump), and left me sitting pretty at 17 772 words. I'm not ahead, but I'm not behind, so it's all good.

So you think you can NaNo... Day 9, 2013

Saturdays are for cleaning house, running after kids, and staying in pajamas as long as possible. They should also be for writing, but the writing groove didn't happen for me today. I did, however, manage to clean out a storage room in the basement that was beginning to look a lot like an episode of hoarders.

That was pretty much my day. Emptying bins, sorting through bits of my life that had been tucked away, and resenting that I had left it for so long. There were plenty of opportunities for writing breaks, but instead I chose to indulge in mindless rounds of "Candy Crush", and internet surfing.

I wrote a measly 1018 words, bringing my total to 16050. I know I'm still on target for completing the 50 000 words by November 30th, and I know that it's okay to have a less productive writing day, but I'm still a tiny bit disappointed.

I also wrote my character into a corner... and now I need to find a way to dig her out of her melancholy, before she ends up throwing herself off a bridge.

So you think you can NaNo... Day 8, 2013

Today was easy enough. I did some line edits, wrote some letters to book bloggers, and worked on my NaNo project. The sick boy is getting better - I'll miss the morning movie, and bowl of Hickory Sticks he discreetly places at my elbow while he munches on something yummy himself. It's a good thing he hasn't been dealing with a stomach bug.

My evening was a little bit different. I spent it at a NaNoWriMo Write In. Since I haven't been to one before, I had no idea what to expect. We were to bring little stuffed animals so people could identify us as NaNo participants. I couldn't decide which one to bring.

So I brought both...

The good thing about the write in was that I wrote... I wrote an extra 1000 words. The awkward thing - well, I didn't meet any other writers. Everyone there seemed to be studying physics.

Today's word count total was 2 582, which brings my NaNo total to 15 032.

So you think you can NaNo... Day 7, 2013

This NaNo thing really isn't so bad. I cranked out 2032 words throughout the day, plus managed to do some laundry (when boys are complaining about laundry - you know there's a problem!), edited about 5000 words, prepared some snail mail, and was only marginally distracted by my (still sick) boy watching Pirates of the Caribbean - On Stranger Tides.

Today is the end of the first week of NaNo and I'm sitting pretty at 12 450 words. I'm hoping that when it comes time to edit, they will be 12 450 usable words.