It’s Day 15 as I write this – the half way mark. November is already half over, and Thanksgiving is next week. I cannot wait for all the food, especially the homemade mash potatoes and the stuffing, both smothered in homemade gravy…I’m already drooling just thinking about it.

Honestly, I could care less about the actual turkey.

Half way done and I’m at 43,364 words.

WHAT.

I honestly don’t know how I’m so far ahead – other than the obvious – I’m writing. I sit at my desk or on the couch, with a cup of coffee or Starbucks next to me, with my one of my two favorite candles burning (Frosted Cranberry / Spiced Apple Toddy from Bath and Body Works) and I write.

Though to be fair, I do spend quite a bit of time on Twitter tweeting about writing…it’s the main reason why I’m always up late getting my words in.

Daily Stats:

I haven’t yet made Day 15’s stat pic, so that will be in next weeks update.

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I did hit a snag this week though, and for two days I didn’t get many words down and the words I did write weren’t good ones. I’m not saying that all my words had been good up until that point, but the ones I was putting on the page were useless filler crap.

So, I ended up making the choice to skip ahead a few scenes. I realized really early on while working on this project that my characters didn’t want to play by the outline I set – this is why I rarely outline (in full) any of my projects. I’ve talked about this before, but I’m a pantser by nature when it comes to writing. I usually have an idea of the beginning, middle and end of whatever story I want to tell, and I maybe have a couple key points or scenes I want to include, but usually I just go wherever the story wants to take me.

Sometimes this means writing a lot of extra words that have to come out at the end. It works for me, even though on some base level it drives me nuts because it’s always easier to add more than take away. My writing method is backwards, what can I say.

As I was saying, my characters very early on started making choices that I hadn’t planned on. This could be because I didn’t really know my characters, didn’t know their voices or how they would react in any given situation. Since I’m now 40k+ into this story, I have a much better sense of who they are, and surprisingly the choices they have made have actually added a lot of twists to the plot and it think it works in favor of the story I want to tell. Granted this is only the first draft and it’s nowhere near perfect, and there are a bunch of inconsistencies, but it that’s okay.

So, I ended up skipping ahead to when my two MCs have started their journey/quest. My choices were to skip ahead a few scenes, or stay stuck, writing useless words in a section of story that needs to be completely overhauled before it makes any sense. The words started flowing almost immediately and my daily word count went from a few hundred a day, back into the thousands. I’ve hit the climax of my book, now it’s all about trying to save the court, get my antagonist to pay.

Strangely enough, my antagonist, villain character has been the easiest and most fun character to write. Her voice has come so naturally – I don’t know what that says about me – and I can clearly picture her in my head. I’m still a little fuzzy on her backstory, but it’s becoming more and more clear as I write her. Again, this all ties back into these characters making their own choices. They are proving to not be the characters I outlined them to be.

I’m excited to keep writing and working on this story, and with the next update I should have hit 50k. My plan is to keep writing until the end of the month even after I reach that mark. I really want to try and get as much of this story down on paper before November is over. My goal is 80-85k total, but I might try and shoot for 70-75k for this first draft, so I have room to add. I definitely don’t want to go too high over the 80-85k because I don’t want to have to spend massive amounts of time getting rid of words.

I could probably keep talking about how writings been going for pages, but I’m going to cut myself off here. This is already proving to be a longer post than I anticipated it being. And just like last week, here are some of the ‘peeks’ I’ve shared on Twitter and Instagram.

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How’s your NaNoWriMo progress going? Let me know below!

For me, NaNo has always been this thing that I do to allow myself the chance to work on shiny new ideas, separate from the WIPs I work on throughout the year. I cannot believe that it is already Day 8 and that I’m already 30,000 words into this WIP.

30,000.

I see that number and I honestly don’t know where it came from. Usually around Day 8, I’m on target, maybe a little ahead, maybe a little behind, but I’m never this far. I’m so into this world, this story, these characters that almost every day the words just flow. They might start off slow, but then they just pour out of me. Suddenly two, three, four hours pass, and I’ve added thousands of words.

It’s been so long since I’ve written like this – started a story from nothing, and just started putting words on the page. Whenever I do NaNo, I don’t spend my time writing a perfect draft, pretty prose or making sure all my words are carefully chosen. I’m just trying to get a rough fast draft of the story, that I can then go in and edit later. I know, it seems almost like a backwards way of doing things, but if I try to write that perfect draft, choose the right words, write the pretty prose from the get-go, I take forever to get words down. I don’t care if my first draft is a hot mess with the same word repeating twenty times on the same page, because once November is over, I can go back in from the beginning and edit all that stuff out, and make the story, the world really come to life. It’s the process that works for me.

Since I have such a clear image of this world in my head, I’m excited to go back through what I’ve written to edit it, to flesh it out, to make it the high fantasy I want it to be. Right now it’s very rough, very messy, and I haven’t quite figured out all the voices for my characters.

I spent quite a long time plotting out the story for these characters, and shocker, none of them are doing what I planned for them to do. It’s a little frustrating, and I’m not entirely sure how some of the choices they’ve made is going to affect the story in the long run, but the only thing I can do is keep writing and edit later if I have to.

I’ve been doing daily updates over on my Instagram Stories – which I’ll link here.

I’ve been sharing little peeks as well, and on Twitter. A few of them have had pretty good responses and it makes me excited that there are people who would be interested in reading about these two characters.

Here’s a slide show, depicting my progress.

• What chapters/plot points I managed to get through that day
• Total word count
• Daily word count
• Small commentary about how I was feeling that day.

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I’ve found that posting these little wrap ups over on Instagram is helping me put into perspective what I’ve done, and sometimes I go back and refer to them if I need a quick refresher about what I recently worked on. Rather than having to go pages back through the WIP.

As for the peeks, I’ve tried to pick ones that show off the character, but doesn’t give too much away.

I’ve posted the peeks in the order I shared them on Instagram and Twitter – I hope you enjoy them!

I was a bit nervous at first, when I posted the first one, because I’ve rarely ever shared my writing with random people, only people I know, but it feels good getting reactions and knowing people have liked what the read. It’s been a tiny ego boost that I didn’t know I needed.

For weeks I was feeling like I wasn’t good enough, that I couldn’t hack it at writing, so I barely did. I felt like there were a million people better than me, and it was discouraging. I rarely touched my keyboard, and when I did, I found myself just staring at my open word document, not really seeing it, refusing to see it. I had lost whatever faith I had in my abilities and was more than happy to get lost in the amazing worlds that others had written.

Then one day, I basically told myself “f*ck it” and I sat down and started editing my SF WIP’s first three chapters. It was like something clicked in my brain, and writing wasn’t so scary, it wasn’t so hard. I remember the moment when that negative mindset of “I’ll never be able to be a published author because my writing is crap” turned off, and possibility set in.

Was this the first time I had felt defeated? No. It wasn’t.

Sometimes I get too much in my head, constantly looking for where I want to be in the future, wishing I was already there, that I forget that as much as I wish I could just snap my fingers and make it reality, I can’t and there is hard work that has to be done to get there. There is no cheating when it comes to writing a book. Susan Dennard said it in one of her Instagram stories, you have to put your butt in the chair and put words on the page. There’s no other way to do it.

I’m happy to say now, that I’m not feeling that way anymore, and the words seem to be flowing, so I’m just going to let them flow…even if they end up being crap. I have a delete button and I’m not afraid to use it.

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If you’re participating in NaNoWriMo – how is your progress going? Are you on track, ahead, falling behind? Are your characters writing themselves, or are you meticulously sticking to your plot no matter what?

Would you share peeks into your WIP online? Does it make you nervous?

Let me know in the comments!

I’m still not really sure how it’s already November, but here we are. Halloween was last night and Thanksgiving is right around the corner, with Christmas just behind that, and then it will be 2019. This year has weirdly flown by, but before we get to any of those events, NaNoWriMo started today and I’m off to a really good start! It’s exciting!

But give me two weeks and I’ll probably feel drained, and skipping a day or two or three will become the bane of my existence and I will hate the past me for procrastinating. So I’m going to try to push ahead so if i do skip a day down the road, it won’t (hopefully) cost me so much.

Over on my Instagram – I’ll be posting these daily updates to my Story, and I’ll be adding them to a highlight on my page. I’ll also try and get some shots of me actually working and not spending all my time on Twitter…

But I’m really happy with what I was able to get written today, and I’m actually looking forward to sitting down and write more tomorrow!

(On a brief non-NaNo note – I also finished revising/editing the first three chapters of my SF WIP – they had been giving me a lot of trouble, and I wasn’t ever happy with the results, but now I am, and I was able to get rid of 3,722 words in total from those chapters! I’ve done all the writing today!)

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I also just wanted to pop on here real quick as a reminder that I’ll only be uploading on Fridays during November. Most likely I’ll be writing these posts Thursday night, prior to Friday morning’s upload, so with this being the first * tiny * update, the schedule will go like this

Update 1 – will cover Nov. 1 progress / posted on Nov 2

Update 2 – will cover Nov 2 – Nov 8 progress / posted on Nov 9

Update 3 – will cover Nov 9 – Nov 15 progress / posted on Nov 16

Update 4 – will cover Nov 16 – Nov 22 progress / posted on Nov 23

Update 5 – will cover Nov 23 – Nov 29 progress / tbd

I’m not sure yet if I will post Update 5 on Nov 30, or if I’ll post it the following Monday (December 3) as the final Update for all of NaNoWriMo, since that Friday will be the last day of the event. We will see.

**I’m going to schedule this post and do a little bit of reading! I’m finally on Empire of Storms in my Throne of Glass Series re-read, which means I’m one book closer to Kingdom of Ash!

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BONUS:

With Halloween was last night, and for the first time in three years I * wasn’t * a Zombie, or trying to be one, yet, apparently the way I did my make up confused a lot of children.

What I was actually trying to go for was a look inspired by this look that Mykie (Glam&Gore) did in one of her Haunted Halloween Series. I’m supposed to look badly sunburned, but apparently I just looked like the walking dead.

You can watch her Haunted Halloween Series  here.

I’ve been watching her channel for a few years now, and wouldn’t know how to do any of this stuff without her tutorials.

Halloween was fun, and now all the decorations are put away, but that just means it’s closer to making my house look like Christmas threw up all over and in it, and I cannot wait!

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If you’re doing NaNoWriMo – what genre is your WIP? Let me know down below!

I can’t believe that November starts on Thursday – where the hell has the year gone? With November come’s National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. The goal is to write 50,000 words in 30 days – roughly 1,700 words per day…no big deal.

I say that now, but I can guarantee I’ll get some form of writer’s block or get lazy about half way through and then have to struggle to make up counts. I’ve done this for enough years to know this about myself.

I’ve done a post in the past abut all my previous NaNoWriMo projects – all of them 50,000 words or more, and all stories that I loved writing at the time, but looking back, some of them are really bad. So, I’m not going to mention past projects again – even though my 2018 project will be the second draft of my 2016 project.

This High Fantasy (HF) WIP I’ll be working on is something that has been beating around in my head for a few months now, and I know I need to get in on paper. Surprisingly I have a pretty clear idea of where the story needs to go, and what I need to write in order for things to happen. It’s weird going into NaNoWriMo with a plan, rather than just an idea and winging it. It’s also weird to have a book actually outlined (I’m more of a pantser when it comes to writing).

The project I’m working on is (for right now) called KINGDOM OF GRACE, and it’s very, very loosely inspired by the Legend of King Arthur – and I mean very loosely. It’s set in a fantastical world that is pretty heavily inspired by my trip to the Isle of Skye, but other than the magic I found in Skye, it has no ties to Scottish history or lore. The world has magic, and only one person can wield it, until it’s stolen from her. The story follows her quest to save the land she grew up in, reclaim her birthright, and how her ancestors who set this all-in motion have impacted her present. It’s not an easy journey, and much and many will be at risk if she can’t reclaim her magic and end the needless fighting corrupting her land.

I’m so excited to work on this second draft of this story, and hopefully when the end of November comes and I read through whatever I’ve written I won’t hate it.

Each year I work on one or two projects, but like with any writer, shiny new ideas are always popping up. When this happens to me, sometimes the only way to move past them is to write some of the story – I usually give myself 10,000 words, and then I’ll set it aside. If the shiny new idea isn’t demanding I write it now, I usually write down the idea, and save it for November – the one month I give myself to work on new shiny ideas.

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How I prepare for NaNoWriMo –

Traditionally I don’t. Usually I have some vague idea of what the story is and what needs to happen and then I write. This year though, I’ve spent hours mapping out and plotting this HF WIP because I didn’t feel I could make it all work if I didn’t have a clear outline of what needed to happen. I’ll be spending the day before November 1, doing some last-minute prepping – downloading some music, printing some inspiration pictures, and making sure my map of my world is exactly how I want it.

While I do have a pretty clear image of the world, the castles, the people, I want to find as many real-world visuals to help keep me motivated.

One other thing I is I either find an image or (in this year’s case) create a cover for my book. I like the way it looks, and it get’s me excited.

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Tactics I use to stay motivated –

If I’m on a roll, 1,700 words is pretty easy for me. But there are days where I just don’t have the energy or the motivation to write and those are the days that are tough. Ultimately, I sit down and write. There aren’t really any tactics I use, except for one. I mentioned this in previous posts where I’ve talked about past NaNoWriMo’s – the first year I participated, I ended up with such bad writer’s block, and my usual methods of just getting words on the page even if they suck did NOT work. For two out of the four week I didn’t write, and in the last five days of NaNoWriMo, I wrote 25,000 words, all crap. Doing that sucked and I promised myself that I would never get that behind again.

The one tactic I use is kind of fear based, in the fact that I never want to repeat that first year. Other than that, I don’t really bribe myself for meeting word goals or anything.

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What do I do if I’m feeling uninspired or burned out –

I take a break. I go for a walk. I get out of my house. If I’m stuck on a problem and can’t figure it out, starting blindly at the screen isn’t going to help. It just makes me more frustrated. What usually helps me to figure out plot problems is taking a long walk and listening to musicals. I’ll head over to the park near my house and go through various soundtracks. It doesn’t always help, and I don’t always get that “aha!” moment, but it clears my mind enough to come back and look at it fresh.

If that doesn’t work, I might take the day, and make up the word count the next day. This is where you have to be careful – you can procrastinate for days, and suddenly have 10,000 words you have to make up. I try to not take more than maybe two consecutive days off, but sometimes I just need the break. 50,000 words in 30 days is crazy and a lot, and by the end of November I always feel creatively burned out.

I’ll also write long hand, on a giant sheet of paper. I think it’s all the empty space on the paper – it allows me to spread out my thoughts, rather than having them confined in a small notebook. For me, writing long hand really makes me think about what I put on the page – I don’t have a delete button that magically makes it disappear in a moment. It helps focus and center my thoughts.

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What about Writer’s Block –

It’s the bane of all writer’s existence. I used to let it stall me, allow me to procrastinate, but now not as much. I can usually push past if I just write.

That sounds simple, and in a sense it is. I figured out a long time ago that it doesn’t have to be the next scene or part in a story. It can literally be anything – for NaNoWriMo, words are words. I have past projects that have scenes from my SF WIP, because in that moment I needed to write that scene. I have a scene in another fantasy project where a character is scared of puppies for an inexplicable reason, because I needed to move onto the next part of the story. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make sense, or if it has nothing to do with the project you’re currently working on. Because guess what, you can edit it out later. NaNoWriMo can be stressful enough by itself without trying to figure out every nook and cranny of your story in 30 days.

Hell, put place holders in for areas you haven’t figured out yet.

[Insert character name here]

[city name to come]

[kissing scene]

Etc.

In another sense, it can be hard, and the advice to “just write” can be annoying. The guy reaction is “if I could write then I wouldn’t have writer’s block” and sometimes just getting words on the page isn’t going to happen no matter what you do. Step Away From The Computer/Notebook. Take a break, eat some food, walk your pet if you have one, do something that isn’t related to the story you’re working on. Just don’t think about it. Maybe it’ll come to you.

You might also be stuck because something in your plot isn’t working, or your MC is acting out of character, or some other element isn’t working. When you have so few days to hit that 50,000-word mark, deleting and going back and rewriting sounds awful. You can do that, and have to make up all those words, or you can just read back through, and try and find out where you’ve hit a snag, and start writing from that moment. Just highlight the words you’ll delete later, that way you know what is and isn’t a part of your story.

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Lastly and probably most importantly, have fun with this. Challenge yourself, but don’t let this be a ride or die situation. NaNoWriMo is a way to bring fellow writers together, it allows us to keep each other accountable and encourage each other. It’s an opportunity to write that story that’s been beating around in your head for ever, or work on that project that you’ve already started. It’s a method to get people to sit down and write their stories, whatever they made me, and it’s completely optional.

So again, have fun!

Feel free to add me as a Writing Buddy! https://nanowrimo.org/participants/lexacourtney

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If you’re doing NaNoWriMo this year, what genre is your story? Do you have a title? Are you a plotter or a pantser? Let me know below!