2010 NaNoWriMo Week 1 - So far, so good.

Five days in, and so far, so good. I've been toploading, if you will, this week, writing more than the minimum 1667 words per day to build myself a little padding for the days when I don't meet the minimum word count.

Which might happen this weekend as I play hookie by going with the family to the local Highland Games and Celtic Festival. And there's a birthday party on Sunday. And next week the husband is going out of town, so I'm on my own with the kids for a few days. While I'll try to fit in as much writing as possible during that time, I'm not holding my breath about it. Probably just a little of gritting my teeth. ☺

As this is my third year participating, I've set a writing schedule and process in place that is working so far. As far as how I feel about the story ... again, so far, so good. Later during the revision process, I'm sure I'll find lots of not-so-great bits and pieces. Such is the nature of writing to my chagrin.

On the left sidebar, I have a gadget that displays my total word count. If your interested and not participating in NaNoWriMo, that's a good place to see my progress. If you are NaNoWriMo-ing, find me as AnneV on the site.


This year the two older children are playing along with me again via the Young Writers Program at NaNoWriMo. Before November started my 9 year old son set up his story file in Scrivener (yes, he is his mother's son when it comes to technology), but as of today, has yet to type a single word of his story. My 7 year old daughter, who didn't sign up until Halloween, has over 150 words towards her 301 word goal, typing them in before breakfast and after school.

So ... I'd say so far, so good all the way around.



Aside #1:  Why the Celtic Festival this weekend? No, to my knowledge neither myself nor my husband have any Scottish, Irish, Welsh or other Celtic blood running through our veins or hiding in our DNA. I'm just a Scottish enthusiast who drags her family to the event. ☺ Fortunately, they are good sports about it.

Aside #2: If you were curious as to what my story is about, here is my one sentence summary.

A surprising bequest forces an engineer to find and love

the artist within herself with the help of her deceased grandmother.

2010 NaNoWriMo Outline

 

A visual of my 92 scene working outline for this year's NaNoWriMo.

500 page Stack

I did it!! I finally finished the write-in step of my revision.

Yep, that's a pic of my creation. All 500 pages of mostly handwritten, double-spaced, crossed-out, arrowed, sticky-noted words.

Now to type all those words into my word-processor of choice, tweak, line edit and prepare them for agent queries. Sounds like a daunting task, trying to figure out what all those loops and arrows might mean. But after toiling to this stage of rewriting with a binder full of worksheets and analysis, frankly this next step seems like a cakewalk.

I plan to celebrate this milestone by taking a mini-break from this revision and participating in NaNoWriMo, purchasing new software, attending a celtic festival and enjoying all that November brings. For when December starts, I'll dive into that sea of words and race to the finish.

Busy and a Finish Line

Lots of writing going on around here. I'm SO close to finishing the first pass revision of my first novel. It's only days away from completion.

If all goes according to plan, I'm keeping my fingers crossed, I'll finish this first pass and take a break before typing nearly 500 handwritten pages on the computer. During that break, I'll outline a third novel and participate in NaNoWriMo. I'm still waiting for lightning to strike so I can settle on a novel idea; I have a few ideas floating around. I'm cutting it close as NaNoWriMo starts 1 November.

All this despite dealing with a broken shower stall, parent-teach conferences, the kids' elementary school Fall Festival and my 20 year high school reunion on top of everyday tasks.

So, please excuse the sporadic and short posts.

Waiting

It's a part of life, nearly every day is plagued with it. You know what I mean: waiting. Waiting for the mail to come. Waiting until the latest Amazon order arrives. Waiting for the savings to build up again so you can afford the next big purchase. Waiting for something to happen.

I've never been good at it; I'm an instant gratification type of person. If I see something that I want, I want to buy/have/use it immediately. Not when the budget may allow for it, whenever that may be, but NOW.

And writing a book requires a lot of waiting. For instance ... waiting to finish my revision. Technically, I'm not JUST waiting as I'm rewriting the story, but with the current schedule, it's taking forever. Which leaves me waiting, waiting to get it done, waiting to send query letters.

And like a glutton for punishment, I recently volunteered to wait for feedback.

In my last post, I mentioned that I'd planned to submit my work in a contest. Before I submitted my stories, I figured it would be good to get some feedback, so I asked a few friends and my husband to read the beginning of my stories.

As my husband lives in the same house, I recieved his feedback immediately; that left only my friends' comments. I didn't expect them to drop everything and read my stories, they do have their own lives to manage after all.

You do see where this is going, don't you?

To keep myself busy while waiting, on top of all the other household chores and writing activities that I have, I constantly checked my email in-box from my alpha readers. I checked as I walked by the computer. I made detours to the computer to check. If I heard the new email chime, I checked. I obsessed over checking for their comments.

I'm impatient, what can I say?

Sure enough, the comments arrived, and I breathed a sigh of relief, nothing too terrible. (Or maybe I should have been worried?)

The comments have been incorporated, and I submitted my two stories, hoping for the best. When will I hear back? No idea.

So, now I'm back to ... you guessed it ... waiting. Again. (sigh)