How are your 2015 NaNoWriMo efforts going this year people? Already heading into the 10,000 word mark? Or, like me, are you struggling to churn anything out? Salmonweird is inching along at the moment, but I do have an excuse. This year, like last year, has presented me with another busy run up to year end.
I think it is always going to be this way; October-December will always be my busy time, it has been now for the third year on the trot, and that’s perfectly fine.
That’s not to say that I’ve done nothing with my WIP. On the contrary, it has inched along a little in the last few weeks but the major development is that I have come up with a sub plot that may eventually have its own spin off story. At first, when I came up with the premise, it was going to be another novella but now I’m not so sure as it doesn’t seem to have much distance on its own (as it presently stands). Yet it might if it is allowed to grow within the weird embrace of my WIP where it might pick up enough momentum to outgrow it.
I don’t want to say much at this stage, but it is to do with how the afterlife is managed by the powers that be. When I told my girlfriend, she said it “sounds the sort of thing Tom Holt would write” which aside from being a compliment is a good comparison.
Anyway, I will leave it there until I have a sample to post. I’m going to be away for the next few days. When I come back, I want updates from all of you, no excuses!
Not strictly Nanowrimoing (is that the verb?), and I have no idea of word counts (it just isn’t the way I work), but I have edited half a Cthulhu/Thriller hybrid novel in the last two days and drafted a first chapter of a Modern Fairytale/Computer primer kids novel…
Does that count?
I would say that counts 🙂
I love it! sub-plotting is such fun. that’s how I ended with so many volumes of the sci fi series I wrote for my son. This year, I’ve chosen to take a different approach and clean out my unfinished wip file by completing past nano’s. So far, its yielded me over 25K. I set myself a daunting goal of 200K this year, 50k more than last year.
Wow. best of luck with that!
I’m glad to see that I’m not the only person struggling due to being busy! I think that if I wasn’t currently working on a long short story and well, starting from next week (again) writing the other short stories of my blog (I post one story every day) that I’d have more time, energy etc to work on my novella.
Though, I shouldn’t complain since I had all ready written 30,000 words of it. I wanted to use NaNoWrMo in a number of different ways and right down at the bottom is finished novella. According to the graph I’m averaging about 700 words a day and though I know that’s under the target and it does bug me, I realise that I’m trying to fit it in around everything else – my job, home life, social life etc- and I’m sure everyone’s in that boat too.
However, what I realized tonight as I finished my 800 odd words after rushing home from playing Dungeon and Dragons to write them, was that it doesn’t really matter the word count or meeting the goals, what actually is happening is that my mind is forcing me -though not too hard! – into finding the time to write and I didn’t have that motivation before to juggle two or three different stories all at the same time. Now, that was one of the high things on my list, to spend more time writing and less time procrastinating!
And since this is my first NaNoWrMo and like my third novella, I’m going to keep those thoughts in mind and just see how far I get without stressing over it. And I’m not sorry this post is so long because it give me some time to reflective on all of this.
I think the point of NaNoWriMo is quantity over quality and to use the period after November to clear it up and make it coherent. You’re making more progress than I am, though.
I’m super close to 8k! Which is great considering how spur-of-the-moment the decision to do it was.
Fantastic stuff! I’m now back from my break and have a busy work week coming up. I had a brilliant sub-plot idea while I was away which I hope to work into the main narrative soon.
I went away this weekend, so no progress there. We’ll see what happens this week–I’m behind on schoolwork.
That time of year I suppose
I’m super busy too but have just reached 6000 words which isn’t too bad. 🙂
Well done, Tom!
Spur of the moment decision for me to participate. Have written 5000 unsatisfactory words so seriously thinking of changing tack and starting over with a completely different story. Will decide by 5am.
And what did you decide?
Yes, will definitely abandon the story I started, but glad I did as it got me going and writing 1000 words per day. Will now start off again with the original idea that’s been kicking around in my head for over two years.