Day 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 NaNoWriMo

I've been busy, busy, busy.I noticed my little counter thing is still not working, so tomorrow if I get some time, I'll see if I can download another one.

Day 5 - Today was my critique group. No I didn't dare take in what I've been working on for NaNo. I do have some pride. I managed to crank out about 1500 words today.

Day 6 - Headed to the lake for a little peace and quiet. It's always easier writing in an atmosphere conducive to reflection. It doesn't hurt that it's in the middle of nowhere and there are no kids running up and down the roads on 4-wheelers. The only sounds are the rustling of the wind through the leaves. Oh wait, the leaves were all on the ground. The sound I heard was actually acorns falling on the metal roof --ALL NIGHT LONG. Due to travel, eating out with friends and the fact that my eyes were sagging by 8 p.m., I only managed a little over 100 words today.

Day 7 - Got an early start today. Had almost 1000 words before 8 a.m. Hubby went to coffee with the old codgers, so I hopped up and went to work. The afternoon lagged a little because my neighbor invited me to lunch. But I picked it up again in the late afternoon while hubby was raking leaves. YEAH for NaNo, it gets me out of raking leave. I did feel a tad guilty, but not for long. Grand total today 2300.

Day 8 - Neighbors went out of town, so we had no interruptions until hubby climbed in the attic and began tearing up the floorboard. His hammering and prying nearly drove me insane, so I read. Seriously, he should have been out raking leaves. When he realized I'd quit working on the novel, he went out to the barn to work. YEAH! I managed 4009 words today.

Day 9 - Neighbors still out of town. I fixed and awesome breakfast then gave hubby the rake and told him to get to work. I moved out onto the porch with my laptop and cranked out 4025 words. Hubby rewarded me with a bonfire and s'mores that evening. He must like me.

Day 10 - Travel day and bunko night, plus had a pukey puppy at home. Between all that and a visit to Crane's Country Store, where I swear I have never seen so many Carhartt items, I managed to get in 1615 words.


My grand total for 10 days is 23,765.

I did stall a couple of times and resorted to writing a few scenes out of sequence. I highly recommend this in the event your plot is stalling. If you know there are scenes you need, go ahead and write them, you can always go back and write the linking scenes when time permits. I managed 5 of these scenes this weekend, and it helped me to examine my plot and get a better understanding of where I was going with it.

Day 4 NaNoWriMo

photo courtesy of Hilarywho

Yes, Virginia there really was a Day 3. However, I barely made my word count. Needless to say I did not blog.

Day 3 was torture. My character is boring! It's hard to be funny in the face of murder, but she needs to lighten up.

Yesterday I worked for every word I put on the page. I struggled, but true to NaNo, I did not edit. Me thinks that is why I struggled. I know my character too well. As I would type a sentence, my internal editor screamed from inside the desk drawer, "she would not do that. Make her stop. She is not that stupid. Give her a funny line. Make the cop kiss her, you doofus."

I threw chocolate in the drawer, she shut up and I continued to type. I made it through Day 3.

Day 4, a tad better. I got to the point in the story where my character's personality is starting to shine through. (The only sounds that came from my desk drawer were moans of pleasure. I'm hoping it was the chocolate or it could have been the Chippendale calendar I threw in there. Whatever! At least she isn't screaming at me.)

My word count...are you ready (drumroll sounds) 10,140. k9friend1 and maryji are still beating me. But as my professor daughter pointed out, "They are probably writing crap. It's much easier to make your word count when you throw down a bunch of crap." Did I say how much I love my professor daughter. Little does she know how much crap dear old mom is writing.

Ah, but that is what NaNo is all about.......writing. Letting the words flow onto the computer screen. Foregoing contractions. Adding every adverb and adjective in the dictionary and never, ever hyphenating a word. I can clean all that up in December :)

I promised a little widget on the side so you could keep up with my word count. . . it's broken. Rest assured the brain trust at NaNoWriMo is working on it. So when you see it, you'll know it's fixed.

Oh, I need to give a shout out to my friend Barb, for taking me away from the computer today and listening to me carry on and complain. That's what friends are for!

So, how's your day going?

Day 2 NaNoWriMo

photo courtesy of Rootytootoot

TODAY IS: PLAN YOUR EPITAPH DAY (No I did not make this up.) What do you want on your tombstone?

Took a shower this morning. I'm not one of the NanoWriMoers who can go without the basic necessities like clean clothes, brushed teeth and clean hair. I'll give up word count for personal hygiene any day.

Apparently, I'll give up word count for a good shopping spree, too. My daughter's been gone a week, and today was her first day home. She asked me to go shopping today for goodies for her new house. Could I say no? No. So a shopping we did go. But I did use the time wisely. While we were driving to our destination, eating our lunch and agonizing over which curtains would look nice in her living room, I plotted.

I'm sure the lady who overhead our conversation at lunch was ready to whip out her cell phone and call 911. It went something like this.

Me: If I murdered someone at school, say in the maintenance shed out back, would the cops shut the school down?

Daughter: Depends. Is school in session?

Me: No, the principal canceled classes due to the flood.

Daughter: Did you leave any clues in the actual school building?

Me: No, the murder weapon is in the maintenance shed right next to the body. Easy to find, right out in the open.

Daughter: You should be good to go. They might close it down for 24 hours or so while they investigate, but you should be back in after 24 - 35 hours.

Me: Great, cause I still need to clean up after the flood.

Now to put that all into perspective. It's been raining here for about 40 days and 40 nights with all kinds of flash flood warnings.

Anyway, that's pretty much how my day went--mulling murder and mayhem while shopping for curtains, rugs and utensil containers. What can I say? Just an ordinary day in the life of a writer. Create a scene and buy some pots and pans.

So... I didn't get back to the computer until after six, and I've been slaving away over the keyboard ever since. Except for the side trip to the kitchen for a bowl of pretzels. Oh, and after I started eating the pretzels, cough, cough, cough. I needed a Diet Coke to wash it down.

Next year I am seriously considering buying one of those little refrigerators for next to my desk. I figure if I don't have to go downstairs for caffeine, I can add about 100 words to my word count. And diapers, if I drink all that caffeine...well you know what happens. It's not that the bathroom is that far away, but the time it takes could be more wisely spent adding word count.

Now for the word count you ask? How many did I get? Well, you all aren't cheering me on, so I only managed 2018 today--482 short of my goal. If I'd had that fridge and the diapers, I could have easily made it.

Keep your fingers crossed for tomorrow. NO SHOPPING, NO CAFFEINE, NO POTTY STOPS.

Oh and my writing buddies... K9friend1 topped 8300 today. I think she is so wearing a diaper. Maryji is at 4699. Not sure what's happened to Maryji today. She hasn't checked in that I know of. She's probably out buying diapers, so she can push the word count tomorrow.

Till then, keep rooting for me.

P.S. I don't know what's wrong with the little word count widget I added. I'll keep working on it. I need something to procrastinate on anyway.

Day 1 - NaNoWriMo

image courtesy of Duncan

Woohoo! I stayed up until midnight last night. Being the rule-abider that I am, I started my novel at 1 minute after zero hour. I didn't last long, and was in bed by 12:45. But I had a start.

After a leisurely breakfast, I read the newspaper and scoured the ads for sales. Nothing of interest, so I climbed the stairs and pounded out 2500 words finishing just before supper. Kind of slow for me, but I took several breaks and checked in with my writing buddies K9friend and Maryji. I am not happy to report that both ladies have exceeded my goal and are making me look bad. Though I am glad they are doing so well. I just hate that they're making me look like a slacker. But I did manage to meet the daily goal I had established and the night is still young. I'm hoping to end the day with about 3500 words. I'll be happy at that pace.

I have kept my promise to stay off Facebook. I might use that as a weekly reward, but only if I meet my weekly goal. It's just to tempting to click on it and check on everything. Oh, Facebook, I miss you.

Keep your fingers crossed. I need all the luck I can muster.

Off to the bat cave!

Tips and Tricks for a Successful NaNoWriMo

Courtesy of NaNoWriMo

Can you believe it is a little over 24 hours before NaNoWriMo starts. I am stoked this year. I have two wins under my belt and ready for another.

It's only 30 days, but it can be a frustrating 30 days as I have found. First of all November is a short month, and it has Thanksgiving and Black Friday--two days where I am totally worthless when it comes to writing.

Here are my tips and tricks for completing NaNoWriMo.

1. Start with an outline, idea or basic premise. Don't wait until zero hour on November 1st to start thinking about what you want to write. The only given with NaNo is that you cannot start writing the novel until November 1st, but you can outline and do character sketches to your heart's content.

2. Have a beginning, middle and end in mind. You may not make it to the end before you use up your 50,000 words, but at least know what the end is. How can you get there if you don't know where you're going?

3. Turn off your internal editor. This really goes without saying, but I'll say it again. Shove your internal editor in the drawer along with copious amounts of chocolate. Let yourself write crap. You can clean it up later when you aren't on deadline. So you miss a comma or split an infinitive. Who cares? Get the story down and worry about cleaning it up later. Focus on the big picture, not the little details.

4. Draw up a schedule. You have to write roughly 1666 words a day in order to reach 50,000 by November 30th. If you know you're going to be cooking the turkey on Thanksgiving and have 50 belligerent relatives coming over, chances are you aren't going to be writing 1666 words that day, so spread them out across other days. Plan for it and then spend turkey day with your family. I have an Excel spreadsheet. I know I'm obsessive-compulsive, get over it. I set a daily goal for the entire month and then track it each day. If I lag behind, then I smack myself around and catch up.

5. Front load your schedule. You're going to be fresher in the early days in NaNo than you are coming down the home stretch. If you can write 1800 or 200o words a day the first couple of days or the first week, you'll be ahead when you start to feel like your dragging. Or if you are employed (some of us aren't) then plan to write extra words on your days off. I always plan to take Thanksgiving and Black Friday off, so I divide those 3332 words up and write them in the beginning of the month.

6. Do not allow yourself to get behind. Some days it's hard enough to come up with 1666 words, but if you get behind, especially in the waning days of NaNoWriMo, it is almost impossible to keep up your momentum. That's where the schedule comes in handy.

7. Get a Writing Buddy. It helps to have someone encourage you through the event. Misery loves company, right? So get a writing buddy and track your progress with each other. Don't get bogged down in emails and drivel, just check in periodically and give each other a kind word of encouragement.

8. Log on to NaNoWriMo. Speaking of support, NaNoWriMo provides it. Whatever you want. They have forums of every sort, cool widgets to take your progress, buddy lists, encouraging pep talks, word count tracker, Municipal Liaisons who organize and support local write-ins. You name it they got it. So go check it out. And while you're there, consider making a donation to help keep the site up and running. (Thanks NaNoWriMo for all you do.)

9. Use a timer. Raid the kitchen junk drawer, and get out that timer you never use. Or download a timer from Harmony Hollow Software. Set the time for one hour and write non-stop. If you need to take a pit-stop or caffeine break, stop the timer, do you business, then come right back and start the timer. No fair sitting in the bathroom until the timer goes off. Once you finish your hour, set the timer for 10 minutes and take a break. Get up and leave your writing space. Grab a coke, stretch your legs, deep breath, put the laundry in the dryer--whatever. When your ten minutes is up, set the timer for another hour and continue. Repeat with 10 minutes breaks until you've written your daily goal.

10. Don't give up the fun stuff. Are you addicted to email, Facebook, Farmtown, or any one of a number of online distractions. Use them as rewards. When your hour timer goes off and you get your 10 minute break, use it to check your email or play a quick game. But when your break is over, go back to work. NO EXCEPTIONS!

11. Reward yourself. Once you've written your daily goal, do something fun. Kick back and relax, take a bath (you know you need one), go for a walk, call a friend, eat a healthy snack.

12. Backup your work frequently. You do not want to lose even one single word you've written during NaNoWriMo, so back your work up onto a flashdrive, an external drive or whatever means you have to backup your documents. Don't just back it up on the PC or laptop you're using. Make sure to have an external source. During NaNoWriMo, I back up my to 2 flash drives and if I leave the house, I take one of them with me. Paranoid, I know. but it saves having to re-create a file that you've slaved over.

13. Select writing music. I have several mixes I use to write with, depending on my mood and the type of scene I am writing. If you haven't tried writing with music, give it a try. If it's distracting you can always ditch it, or change up the tunes.

14. Don't be afraid to lock the door and turn off the phone. Most non-writers do not understand the the need we writers have to dive into such a project. Heck, some writers don't even understand it. Send an email prior to NaNoWriMo and tell your friends you love them, but you want them to leave you the hell alone until December 1. I would say do this to your immediately family, but you live with them and may have to depend on them to slide your meals under the door or toss in clean underwear periodically.

15. Emerge periodically from your office. You need sunshine so you don't get rickets or scurvy or whatever that horrible disease was that sailors use to get from lack of sunshine. At the very least eat an orange now and then.

16. Finally, and foremost, remember why you are doing this. Can't help you here. I have my own reasons and they probably differ from yours, so insert yours here________________________________________________________.


Go forth and have fun. See you at the finish line.

Tricia

P.S. Come back here often and cheer me on. I'll have a little counter shortly so you can see my progress.

Hello World

photo courtesy of viewmaker

Ready or not. I am back. It's been a few months since I've updated the blog. What can I say? Life has a way of getting in the way. Actually it was my novel. I'm on the downhill slide of editing. It's going out to a couple more readers (thanks Kim and Ashley) then that puppy is going to be making its rounds to various agents and editors. So if you have any suggestions, send them my way. It's women's fiction with a cozy bent. But not too cozy.

I'm ready to take on Novel #2 which was written during NaNoWriMo last year. It's the sequel to the one I just finished editing, and I am looking forward to digging into it and getting back in touch with the new characters I added. It was really hard to go back to editing Novel 1 after I had written Novel 2, because my character had grown, but I had to remember not to include the growth. hard to do. Plus I added some depth to previous characters and had to leave them shallow. Aargh! It was hard.

Actually working on the outline for Novel 3 which I will discuss a little next week.

So for now, keep writing and if you have agents/editors who are looking for women's fiction, feel free to name drop. All suggestions accepted.

Too Many Miles

photo courtesy of Punk27fay

Sorry I've been out to lunch lately. In truth, I've been on the road. Logged more than 300o miles in the past two weeks. (I'll tell you about the rest of the trip another time.)

Started my trip in Norman, OK at OWFI. Now if you haven't been to OWFI, you haven't been to a writer's conference. OWFI stands for Oklahoma Writers' Federation, Inc. Those folks really know how to throw a great conference. This is my second year. I didn't think they could top last year, but they did.

The keynote speaker was New York Times Bestselling Author Tess Gerritsen, and she was amazing. Her speech was motivating and peppered with personal anecdotes about her writing.

My new favorite author Jodi Thomas was there and I attended every one of her sessions. My only downfall was not getting her to sign the book I bought. I got so wrapped up in conference, that I got away without asking. There was even an autograph party, but I wasn't able to stay. I did get Tess to sign hers.

Jodi was also motivating and very personable. Her willingness to talk to people just stunned me. Several times she gave out her phone number and told people to call her, especially if they got stuck or felt like their writing career was stalled. (Sorry, I won't give it out, but bet if you check Jodi's website, she'll have a way for you to get in contact.) Jodi, if you read this, I heart you. All the advice you dispensed will be taken to heart by me. And I sure hope to see you in Amarillo next year. Can't make it this year, but I've got my fingers crossed for next year.

The Book Doctor Robyn Conley did two great talks that I attended and also reviewed the first five pages of my manuscript. I received a glowing report and she only found a couple of things.

All of the sessions that I attended were excellent, the speakers professional and approachable and the buzz of excitement in the air was exhilerating. And they had a great crowd. I met several writers and had a great time. I also took tons of notes.

Oh, oh, oh... The best part. An agent asked to see my first three chapters and a synopsis. Now the waiting begins.

Oh, and Ody got hailed on again. Not sure what it is about Oklahoma and my van, but this is the second year in a row, that it has hailed on us in Oklahoma. I'm beginning to believe that it hails every day down there. Thank goodness it was only pea-size. Last year it looked like golf balls. Several vehicles suffered broken windshields. Ody just had hudge dents. This year I couldn't tell, because I never had him fixed from last year. Good thing. Next year, I'm flying.