Quick writing update - includes tonight's writing progrss

-

I had planned to do an informal NaNoWriMo for this November.
For anyone who doesn't know NaNoWriMo stands for National November Writing Month (I think). It's basically a writing challenge, the idea being write 50,000 words in a month - this month. It's a kind of challenge to get you actually writing.
Well I tried this a couple of years ago when I was writing my bawdy space opera detective noir novel (yes, I know it's a crazy mash-up) and fell two thousand three hundred words short. But writing 47.7K in a month was a result I will settle for.
Anyway for one reason after another I have not been able to write ever night (something you need to do to have a chance of getting to 50K). And so on the 12th I find myself at a mere 8,585 words on the month - 2,306 of which were added tonight. That's an average of 715 words a day as opposed to the 1666 the schedule demands.
Can I get it back? Well, maybe; but do I want to if it means not writing as well as I could. 50K of rubbish isn't worth anything. I need to get this book in good enough shape to send to my publisher after all. I'm sure she wouldn't be happy if what I sent was drivel.
So, instead I'm going to be happy that the book is 8,585 closer to this draft being finished. And if you wanted an update on how it's going beyond just NaNoWriMo consideration the book is now 24,322 words long.
I'm aiming this novel at 90K so I'm still short of a third through. But with more time available over the next couple of evenings there is a definite change I'll make the 30K mark by next weekend. As I would like to have this draft done by the end of the year I could do with at least that kind of progress.
Wish me luck

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review of Ray Garton - Bestial

-
In horror movie-land sequels are pretty much a par for the course. You make a good horror film, it seems it only makes sense to go back and milk the idea a second time. In the world of horror books (note - not dark fantasy or paranormal romance, I mean HORROR) this has been less common. I'm not saying they don't exist - Graham Masterton's Manitou and James Herbert's Rats both started series - and sure you get books set in a repeated environs - take Gary Braunbeck's Cedar Hill short stories and novels, and Stephen King's version of Maine. But straight sequels, picking up the action from the end of the prior book or soon after, haven't filled the shelves in bookstores. I guess part of the reason for this is the rather final end that most horror books have. Zombies are destroyed, vampires staked, demons exorcised, witches burned etc, etc. Okay, Dracula can be resurrected over and over but mostly you get to the end and that's it. Recently though this seems
Read more

Attempts at regaining the writing saddle

-
Image
Anyone who has been reading my earlier postings here and on twitter knows I have been going through a difficult patch in my writing over the past few weeks and months. When my wife had her mini-stoke earlier this year writing was irrelevant. Everything was. Now she is recovered I have chance to pick it up again only I'm finding I'm a different person to this time last year. The novel I was writing back in December/January that is maybe three quarters done does not interest me . Maybe this is because that's what I was writing when... I don't know. All I know is try as I might that is not happening. So I needed something else to try. And then when that failed something else...and something else...and something else again. Being honest the only thing that has gone okay since January - at least okay enough to see my type "The End" - was another Ben Williamson novella, called Room 1B. Now this is not a bad thing as I have had the first two of these publish
Read more

Monday musings, ramblings and nonsensical utterances (includes a lot of writing stuff)

-
It is the last day of the month and so the last day or NaNoWriMo. I'm not going to make it to 50K and I'm happy with that. At the time of writing this I am on 47,737 for the month so within touching distance. The only thing is it's gone 10pm and I have no desire to pull an all nighter and use the difference in time zones between England and wherever it is the NaNoWriMo servers are to justify making it at 4am or something like that. I'm not a young man anymore and the days of being able to work to stupid hours and be in the office bright eyed and bushy tailed are long behind me. No I'm done for the night. I guess that mini-block in the middle of the month really did me in. So I am going to learn from this. I went in to the month thinking 50K should be easy. After all I'd written an 88,000 word novel from scratch in not much more than that. Well I am going to learn not to be so confident about it. Each project is different and takes the time it takes. I guess
Read more