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!

NaNoWriMo and Halloween 2018

Combo post! For me, the start of NaNoWriMo and Halloween go hand-in-hand, anyhow. I mean, by the time I get to the end of October and the start of November, everything's just melded into one huge lump of mushy memory. October can be a little rough for me, some years, and this year especially since the flu screwed up a lot of my plans.

Anyway, NaNoWriMo!

Nope, I'm not aiming for a full 50k this year. Not even going to consider the idea. I probably won't really be posting over in the NaNo forums at all either. A low key and quiet half-assed half-goal NaNoWriMo sounds perfect to me.

I actually have several tiers of goals this year and then a bonus goal. And yes, I'm continuing revisions of Thorns Entwine the Blade (Trinity Torn, 2) for the most part. So...

❦ Low - 8,000 words of revision
❦ Mid - 15,500 words of revision
❦ High - 19,750 words of revision
❦ BONUS - 6,000 words of a rough draft (of what is still to be determined)

The low goal is pretty much my normal monthly goal. My normal goal last month was destroyed due to the flu and post-party prep exhaustion, so I would like to catch up a little to the backlog if possible.

So, we'll say the overall goal for this year's NaNoWriMo is 26,000 words. I'll still use the potato buddy counter, but I'll also use one of the official NaNo meters on the left side. Don't expect to see this climb until November 5, though, as I have a beta read job that needs to get completed, and it's top priority.

That's enough of NaNo. Simple this year -- and I won't report final progress until the first week of December! Let's hope the NaNo Crud stays far away.

Onto Halloween. It was a bit of a scramble this year, and I didn't take too many pictures during the Halloween party because of this. But I'll wrap up this post with a couple at least. None of me this time, since I decided I'd be lazy and just throw on a Pusheenicorn hoodie. =D I hope everyone had a Haunting Halloween!

NaNoWriMo - Slight Change of Plans

I know, I'm only eight days into NaNoWriMo, and I'm already changing my plans!

It's nothing earth shattering, but this plan takes my NaNo Rebel status a bit farther.

Are you dying to know? No? Oh, well, I'm going to tell you anyway.

Since revising Thorns Entwine the Blade has been taking as long (or longer) than drafting fresh words, I've decided to count my revisions toward NaNoWriMo!

Some of you may think I'm taking the whole Rebel thing too far, but honestly isn't the core goal of NaNoWriMo to push yourself to complete more than you normally would in a month? I'm still reaching for the stars with a goal of 50,000 of combined revised and drafted words. All the work counts!

And maybe, this year with that combined goal, I'll actually reach 50,000 words for the first time! Unless of course the month explodes on me. It's a possibility. My eldest just clocked a fever on the thermometer (eep).

So, here are the edited goals to reach 50,000:

❦ Thorns Entwine the Blade (Trinity Torn, 2) Revisions - 20,000 words

❦ GSD vs. Everything Complete First Draft - 15,000 to 18,000 words

❦ Blood Stains the Soul (Trinity Torn, 3) Pretty Shitty Beginning Draft - 12,000 to 15,000 words

This removes my last goal of wandering wherever my whims drag me, but that's OK. The renewed decision to aim for 50,000 is spurring me on.

As of this blog post, I'm at 9000 words, 5134 of Thorns revisions and 3866 of adding to the GSD vs. Everything draft. I'll tweak my counters on the left side a bit due to the shift in goals. The original NaNoWriMo post counter will remain at 9000, while the one below will keep counting up as I write and revise more (until I post another update, if I do). We'll start it with the Potato Dude watching TV, in honor of the next GSD chapter ahead -- GSD vs. Entertainment.

Reaching for that 50,000!