NaNo Report 2019

If you were watching the word meter at all, you'll see I only wrote about 4.9k words for NaNoWriMo. November seriously never seems to go as planned!

I actually spent a good week of the month doing one final editing pass through Thorns Entwine the Blade (Trinity Torn, 2). And then... release week... I got sick. Which meant all of my release plans were slow to roll out and pretty delayed. That darn NaNo Crud, it never fails to fell me.

After being sick through the Thorns release, I was looking forward to a nice quiet weekend with Hubbie, kids at grandma's. Unfortunately, the kid-free weekend started with us hitting a deer on the way to dinner. =/ Dealing with that, of course, tumbled into the next week. We likely won't even get our car back until mid to late December.

Needless to say, stress and sickness and what not found me up against a mental wall and I also felt completely scattered. I decided I needed a break from writing - drafting and revising - until 2020. So, progress on Downward Spiral and NaNoWriMo 2019 came to an end for me about mid-month.

I still have plenty of writing tasks that I need to clear off my to do list, so I haven't been completely idle. You'd think the bulk of the work would be drafting and revising, but sometimes it doesn't feel like it! I'm looking forward to planning 2020, though. That should help with my scattered feeling. Though with my current thoughts Spiral and its sequels may be put off for a few more months just so I can complete a couple other projects instead of worrying about them not getting completed.

One of the things I worked on last week was formatting the paperback for Thorns Entwine the Blade! My cover artist also got me the paperback wrap rather quickly (so awesome - AMDesign Studios), and the proof arrived swiftly as well, so... it's now available to purchase on Amazon!

It feels great to have Thorns done now, and quite frankly, I think it's a better book than the first in the series, Mind Behind the Mind. But my opinion doesn't really count, does it? I hope anyone who reads it enjoys it!

Anyway, pushing on with December, not getting too upset about the NaNo flop, and next post will be looking back at my progress for 2019. Happy reading, all!

NaNoWriMo 2019

Oh, no, it's already NaNoWriMo time! Man, that sneaked up on me. Shouldn't it still be the beginning of October? Actually, I keep thinking it's December now since Mother Nature dumped a bunch of snow on us on Halloween (way too early for it). My mind is seriously confused.

I guess that's as good a way as any to start out NaNo this year. Better off that than sick (OK, I'm knocking on all the wood, seriously hoping the NaNo Crud doesn't descend on me - stay away until December 1, please).

Anyway, part of me really wants to shoot for the 50,000 words this year. I originally had planned to, since Thorns Entwine the Blade was supposed to release in October. But now that the release date has been moved to November 13, I have a lot of things to do for that this month as well.

I'll just say, I'd be insanely happy to reach 25,000 words. If I get further, even happier. One of these years I'll have the whole month of November clear of other obligations, including the mini humans, really I will.

This year, I'm working on Downward Spiral (Urban Unicorn, 1). I started this novel a while back during another NaNo, and I've decided I'll be working on this series next. I'm going to draft them all, then revise them all, and then finally publish them (which means publications will be pretty sparse after Thorns for a while).

I'm being a bit of a NaNo Rebel, of course. Not only am I not starting a fresh project, I'm also rewriting what I'd already written on Downward Spiral. I've had several new ideas since I first started writing it, and I want to incorporate those before I move on. I only had 10k words written before, so I'm not rebelling too badly - lol. And it'll probably take me longer to rewrite than fresh drafting anyhow, as my brain is still stuck in editing mode. Heh.

Without further ado, here's my word meter for the year. You'll notice, I've already started writing (well, rewriting), even after doing some editing on Thorns today, too. I'll try to update the word count daily. Happy NaNoing, everyone!

Aw, Crud - NaNo Crud, That Is

It's inevitable. Every November when I plan to dive into NaNoWriMo and up my productivity, a monster rears its ugly head and bellows, "Nooooo!"

Most of the time that monster comes in the form of what I've dubbed NaNo Crud. And that's the very monster that loomed over me this month. Shortly after my last blog post, I got a cold, and right when I thought I was getting better, I got a worse cold (could have been bronchitis, it was that bad, but I didn't go in to the doctor to find out).

So, I missed blog posts and my writing progress froze because just moving off the couch was difficult. I was hopped up on Mucinex DM so I could breathe and sleep, and cold meds make me whoozy and loopy as all hell.

I'm starting to feel a bit better now, though I'm still hacking up a lung between typing sentences.

12,963. That's what I'm ending NaNoWriMo at this year. Progress is progress, and that's almost 13k words more than I had before the month started. It doesn't earn me a NaNo Winner banner, but that's OK.

This sick has also made me realize that I need to take a step back and reassess my writing output. I think I've been expecting too much of myself, especially since I want to get the editing business in a good place as well, and I still have a kid at home most of the time who needs my attention!

December, a low writing output month to begin with due to the holidays, will be planning and reassessing month. And organizing. Oh, and I'll likely be reformatting a few books since I ordered a Macbook and I'll be buying Vellum!

It's not like I'll be idle. I just think I need a month worth of no pressure for writing and revising and figuring things out. And some family and holiday time. I've been neglecting several other things while tackling writing tasks. I'll be back to revisions of Thorns Entwine the Blade in January, though!

And don't worry, I still have some fun blog posts planned for December. After all, I saw Thor: Ragnarok and watched the first half of the season of Star Trek: Discovery. I have many thoughts on both.

Never stopping, just slowing down a little so I can enjoy the scenery. Live in the moment, right?