Finished!

Well it’s over at last, 50,122 words verified by NaNoWriMo and I’m exhausted, mostly due to getting up an hour and half earlier than usual every day to slog out some words before work.

I’ve uploaded a screenshot of the stats from my page, courtesy of the kind and useful people at http://www.nanowrimo.org:

My November, in a nutshell

The anomaly on day 16, when the word count dropped to 1,704 was a mistake, I was aiming for 17,040 but hit return before hitting ‘0’ in a fit of NaNoWriMo-based excitement – the word count and stats were the only thing that got me through this.

It was a fantastic experience and quite a marathon, towards the end, when everything was looking a tad bleak, I was aiming for 500 words before work, 500 on the bus to work, another 500 over lunch, 500 on the bus home and then 500 in the evenings.

The organisers of NaNoWriMo hold another event in April called Script Frenzy which is a script writing equivalent of NaNoWriMo, 100 scripted pages of the script of your choice, I will definitely be entering in April.  I may try to write a play, like the novelling, it’s something I’ve wanted to try for a few years but never had a spare month to commit.

Anyway, that’s enough cyber-self-backslapping for one month.

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Last day of NaNoWriMo

Less than 24 hours to go and I’ve actually run out of plot, the story’s written, I know there’s always something that can be added, but right now, after 30 days flat out on it, I can’t think of anything.  Mind’s gone blank.  I have another 1,800 words to write.  I was 2,500 words short when I woke up this morning, so I wrote a quite unnecessary scene about my protagonist going for a walk to clear his head.

The only thing I can think to add right now are more descriptions of locations, so I’ve listed eight of the main settings of the novel and hope to write 250 words about each one today, which should bring me well over the 50,000 before midnight tonight.

44,000 words…

The 50,000 word count that marks the end of NaNoWriMo is so close now I can almost smell it!  Well there is a lot of leaking Victorian plumbing, mild cannibalism and a geriatric in need of a good wash, so it ought to whiff a bit.

31680

I finally broke the 30,000 mark yesterday, very pleased!  I actually just wrote the final scene as well, but thankfully there’s a huge pile of empty space and notes between scenes still – lucky as I still need to find 18,320 words to fill the gaps.

NaNoWriMo update

Well it’s official, NaNoWriMo is Very Difficult.  I haven’t given up yet, but at 23,702 words, it’s beginning to look unlikely that I’ll hit the magic 50,000 by the 30th November.  Still it’s been a fantastic experience, I wouldn’t have imagined writing this much in such a short space of time and the story I’ve been working on will make a great screenplay.  I’m still trying for the 50k, but right now 30k would be a more realistic target for me.

A week of early mornings, long lunch breaks and evenings in front of the computer await…

18006…

It’s coming along, NaNoWriMo is incredibly fun, a great excuse to just let a writing project take over.  18006 words puts me currently 11,994 behind target, but I’m finding it gets a little easier every day as the story comes more alive and the characters begin to do their own thing.  Plus breaking it down into short 500 word sessions helps – first thing in the morning over breakfast, once over lunch and another on the bus home on the phone has been helping.

Here’s to a weekend in front of the computer!

Good luck to all fellow NaNoWriMos…

NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo – one month to write a 50,000 word novel, well, to write 50,000 words of a novel, or of a first draft of a novel. This seemed such a good idea on October 31. Currently at word count 11,115 and should be around the 25k mark by now, but it’s been fun so far. I’m still quietly confident that I’ll finish on time, even if the next 38,885 words may be ‘and then I’ repeated 1,295 times…

Actually, all joking aside it’s a great chance to try my hand at novel writing. I’ve spent most of the summer turning the garden shed into a writing space and finally I’m back in there scribbling, not as fast as I’d like, but scribbling all the same.

I’m still hoping to meet the 50k by November 30th, but if I don’t, well, I’ve written more in 15 days than I have in the last few months and that can’t be a bad thing.