NaNoWriMo 2019: Day 18

Things began to go sideways for the hero today. Blackmail. Making him do something he doesn't want to do. Bad for him. Great for the reader.

Day 1: 2,063 (2,063 total; 47,937 remaining)
Day 2: 2,724 (4,787 total; 45,213 remaining)
Day 3: 2,189 (6,976 total; 43,024 remaining)
Day 4: 2,033 (9,009 total; 40,991 remaining)
Day 5: 1,769 (10,778 total; 39,222 remaining) *Rewrite of chapter 4 
Day 6: 1,899 (12,677 total; 37,323 remaining)
Day 7: 1,207 (13,884 total; 36,116 remaining) *First sub 1,667 day
Day 8: 1,788 (15,672 total ; 34,328 remaining) *Breakthrough on where story is going
Day 9: 1,724 (17,396 total; 32,604 remaining)
Day 10: 1,735 (19,131 total; 30,869 remaining)
Day 11: 2,046 (21,177 total; 28,823 remaining)
Day 12: 2,052 (23,229 total; 26,771 remaining)
Day 13: 1,982 (25,211 total; 24,789 remaining)
Day 14: 1,703 (26,913 total; 23,087 remaining)
Day 15: 2,226 (29,139 total; 20,861 remaining) Bad guy shows up for the first time
Day 16: 1,468 (30,607 total; 19,393 remaining) *Second sub 1,667 day
Day 17: 2,164 (32,771 total; 17,229 remaining)
Day 18: 2,434 (35,205 total; 14,795 remaining)

NaNoWriMo 2019: Day 17

After falling under the 1,667-word pace yesterday, I not only bested today's pace, but made up for it today. Since we're dealing with numbers, 3,334 is what you get with a normal two-day pace at 1,667. My last two days add up to 3,632, a difference of 298 more words than pace. Got to love that.

Which also speaks to the idea that you don't have to worry if you don't make par on any given day. You can make it up. Just keep writing.

I ended up finishing the character moment chapter for the Hero this morning, slightly revising where I had ended up yesterday. I was an intimate conversation with him and a lady. Emotions got involved, and just when there was a genuine moment, things got in the way. I threw a wrench into the moment and sent him scurrying to play catch up.

It'll make tomorrow's writing that much more fun as he tries to figure out a way to get himself out of the tightening vice in which he finds himself.

Day 1: 2,063 (2,063 total; 47,937 remaining)
Day 2: 2,724 (4,787 total; 45,213 remaining)
Day 3: 2,189 (6,976 total; 43,024 remaining)
Day 4: 2,033 (9,009 total; 40,991 remaining)
Day 5: 1,769 (10,778 total; 39,222 remaining) *Rewrite of chapter 4 
Day 6: 1,899 (12,677 total; 37,323 remaining)
Day 7: 1,207 (13,884 total; 36,116 remaining) *First sub 1,667 day
Day 8: 1,788 (15,672 total ; 34,328 remaining) *Breakthrough on where story is going
Day 9: 1,724 (17,396 total; 32,604 remaining)
Day 10: 1,735 (19,131 total; 30,869 remaining)
Day 11: 2,046 (21,177 total; 28,823 remaining)
Day 12: 2,052 (23,229 total; 26,771 remaining)
Day 13: 1,982 (25,211 total; 24,789 remaining)
Day 14: 1,703 (26,913 total; 23,087 remaining)
Day 15: 2,226 (29,139 total; 20,861 remaining) Bad guy shows up for the first time
Day 16: 1,468 (30,607 total; 19,393 remaining) *Second sub 1,667 day
Day 17: 2,164 (32,771 total; 17,229 remaining)

NaNoWriMo 2019: Day 16

Odd thing: I end up having more pure writing time on any given weekday than I did today.

Woke up at 7:00 a.m. after I allowed myself to sleep in and got to writing. Words didn't flow as easily as yesterday or earlier this week. Still, the hero had a character moment, a moment I'm not done with yet so I know just where to start tomorrow.

Day 1: 2,063 (2,063 total; 47,937 remaining)
Day 2: 2,724 (4,787 total; 45,213 remaining)
Day 3: 2,189 (6,976 total; 43,024 remaining)
Day 4: 2,033 (9,009 total; 40,991 remaining)
Day 5: 1,769 (10,778 total; 39,222 remaining) *Rewrite of chapter 4 
Day 6: 1,899 (12,677 total; 37,323 remaining)
Day 7: 1,207 (13,884 total; 36,116 remaining) *First sub 1,667 day
Day 8: 1,788 (15,672 total ; 34,328 remaining) *Breakthrough on where story is going
Day 9: 1,724 (17,396 total; 32,604 remaining)
Day 10: 1,735 (19,131 total; 30,869 remaining)
Day 11: 2,046 (21,177 total; 28,823 remaining)
Day 12: 2,052 (23,229 total; 26,771 remaining)
Day 13: 1,982 (25,211 total; 24,789 remaining)
Day 14: 1,703 (26,913 total; 23,087 remaining)
Day 15: 2,226 (29,139 total; 20,861 remaining) Bad guy shows up for the first time
Day 16: 1,468 (30,607 total; 19,393 remaining) *Second sub 1,667 day

Year of an Indie Writer: Week 46

Well, this is the end of the second full week of November and of NaNoWriMo 2019. I don't know about everyone else doing NaNo, but I'm having a blast. I managed to stay ahead of the basic pace, getting to 25,000 words on 13 November, two days ahead of schedule.

This includes a day in which I ended up writing 1,700 words or so but only 1,200 of them counted for the full novel. Such is the unexpected pleasure of writing into the dark.

Speaking of that, one of the metaphors I've heard about writing into the dark is exploring a cave. When you get to a fork in the tunnel, you choose one and go down it. You might hit a wall, in which case you retrace your steps and then take the other tunnel.

That happened to me on Thursday. Morning session was a tad slow and it ended with a decision at the end of chapter 13. All throughout the morning at the day job, I realized the path I had gone down was blocked. Fixed it at lunch.

Non-writer folks never understand that we writers are actually thinking about the story when we're not actually writing.

The bad guy finally walked on stage in yesterday's session. I don't know much about him, but I made sure to introduce him doing bad guy things. We'll see how he ends up.

Hopefully our hero can beat the bad guy without too much trouble. Pshaw! Who am I kidding? The Hero will get a lot of things thrown at him. The fun now will be to see how he handles himself.

Not a lot of non-writing stuff this week. It's all single-minded focus. But after fifteen days of writing a new book, I am remembering just how much fun it is to write a book.

Who else is doing NaNoWriMo? How is it coming for y'all?

NaNoWriMo 2019: Day 15

Halfway through the month's writing, around halfway through the entire novel (I think) and the bad guy entered the stage. We've seen his stooges so far, but now he shows up. Don't know much about him, but he's really pissed.

This book is a mystery/thriller although up to now, it's been all about the mystery. I've been layering in questions asked by the various characters, all while keeping the reader in the dark as well. That includes this reader, since I'm writing into the dark.

Hopefully our hero can beat the bad guy without too much trouble. Pshaw! Who am I kidding? The Hero will get a lot of things thrown at him. I've set it up so that multiple forces will close in on him. The fun now will be to see how he handles himself.

Day 1: 2,063 (47,937 remaining)
Day 2: 2,724 (4,787 total; 45,213 remaining)
Day 3: 2,189 (6,976 total; 43,024 remaining)
Day 4: 2,033 (9,009 total; 40,991 remaining)
Day 5: 1,769 (10,778 total; 39,222 remaining) *Rewrite of chapter 4
Day 6: 1,899 (12,677 total; 37,323 remaining)
Day 7: 1,207 (13,884 total; 36,116 remaining) *First sub 1,667 day
Day 8: 1,788 (15,672 total ; 34,328 remaining) *Breakthrough on where story is going
Day 9: 1,724 (17,396 total; 32,604 remaining)
Day 10: 1,735 (19,131 total; 30,869 remaining)
Day 11: 2,046 (21,177 total; 28,823 remaining)
Day 12: 2,052 (23,229 total; 26,771 remaining)
Day 13: 1,982 (25,211 total; 24,789 remaining)
Day 14: 1,703 (26,913 total; 23,087 remaining)
Day 15: 2,226 (29,139 total; 20,861 remaining) Bad guy shows up for the first time

NaNoWriMo 2019: Day 14

One of the metaphors I've heard about writing into the dark is exploring a cave. When you get to a fork in the tunnel, you choose one and go down it. You might hit a wall, in which case you retrace your steps and then take the other tunnel.

That happened to me today. Morning session was a tad slow and it ended with a decision at the end of chapter 13. All throughout the morning, I realized the path I had gone down was blocked. Fixed it at lunch. So I ended up writing 1,702 words to end up only 1,201 words of actual story progress.

But it's progress.

Day 1: 2,063 (47,937 remaining)
Day 2: 2,724 (4,787 total; 45,213 remaining)
Day 3: 2,189 (6,976 total; 43,024 remaining)
Day 4: 2,033 (9,009 total; 40,991 remaining)
Day 5: 1,769 (10,778 total; 39,222 remaining) *Rewrite of chapter 4 
Day 6: 1,899 (12,677 total; 37,323 remaining)
Day 7: 1,207 (13,884 total; 36,116 remaining) *First sub 1,667 day
Day 8: 1,788 (15,672 total ; 34,328 remaining) *Breakthrough on where story is going
Day 9: 1,724 (17,396 total; 32,604 remaining)
Day 10: 1,735 (19,131 total; 30,869 remaining)
Day 11: 2,046 (21,177 total; 28,823 remaining)
Day 12: 2,052 (23,229 total; 26,771 remaining)
Day 13: 1,982 (25,211 total; 24,789 remaining)
Day 14: 1,703 (26,913 total; 23,087 remaining)

NaNoWriMo 2019: Day 13

This was one of those days in which I hit the end of a chapter (13) with my main hero then shifted POV to a secondary hero in order to move time forward.

Only thing was, by the time I reached the end of chapter 14, I realized I'd have to return to the end of chapter 13 and revise how it ended. Or write an unexpected new POV scene with the hero and call it chapter 15.

Ah, the fun of writing into the dark.

I reached the halfway point, word count-wise, today, but not quite the mid point of the story. I think.

Day 1: 2,063 (47,937 remaining)
Day 2: 2,724 (4,787 total; 45,213 remaining)
Day 3: 2,189 (6,976 total; 43,024 remaining)
Day 4: 2,033 (9,009 total; 40,991 remaining)
Day 5: 1,769 (10,778 total; 39,222 remaining) *Rewrite of chapter 4 
Day 6: 1,899 (12,677 total; 37,323 remaining)
Day 7: 1,207 (13,884 total; 36,116 remaining) *First sub 1,667 day
Day 8: 1,788 (15,672 total ; 34,328 remaining) *Breakthrough on where story is going
Day 9: 1,724 (17,396 total; 32,604 remaining)
Day 10: 1,735 (19,131 total; 30,869 remaining)
Day 11: 2,046 (21,177 total; 28,823 remaining)
Day 12: 2,052 (23,229 total; 26,771 remaining)
Day 13: 1,982 (25,211 total; 24,789 remaining)

NaNoWriMo 2019: Day 12

This is just one of those days in which the writing flowed well, but it's clearly a transition chapter.

Although I love writing in Scrivener, I am using Google Docs for NaNoWriMo 2019. I can bring my Chromebook with me to my office and write anywhere. The known little quirk in Google Docs is the 10,000-word mark. If a file gets a little more than 10K, it starts to go wonky. So I break my stories up into 10K chunks.

I started Part III today. By the end of the month, I'll have at least five of these parts to make up the entire novel. Tomorrow I'll reach the exact halfway mark (word wise), officially two days ahead of schedule.

Day 1: 2,063 (47,937 remaining)
Day 2: 2,724 (4,787 total; 45,213 remaining)
Day 3: 2,189 (6,976 total; 43,024 remaining)
Day 4: 2,033 (9,009 total; 40,991 remaining)
Day 5: 1,769 (10,778 total; 39,222 remaining) *Rewrite of chapter 4 
Day 6: 1,899 (12,677 total; 37,323 remaining)
Day 7: 1,207 (13,884 total; 36,116 remaining) *First sub 1,667 day
Day 8: 1,788 (15,672 total ; 34,328 remaining) *Breakthrough on where story is going
Day 9: 1,724 (17,396 total; 32,604 remaining)
Day 10: 1,735 (19,131 total; 30,869 remaining)
Day 11: 2,046 (21,177 total; 28,823 remaining)
Day 12: 2,052 (23,229 total; 26,771 remaining)

NaNoWriMo 2019: Day 11

Today brought my first 2,000-word day in a week. Really happy to hit that mark again, especially on a time-limited weekday. The morning session was only 844 words. The groove of the session really kicked in...just as my alarm sounded and I had to get ready for work. 

Which meant the lunch session hit the ground running. Irritatingly, I hit the end of the session without getting to the end of the scene. Oh well, I know where I'll be starting tomorrow morning.

One of the things that keeps me going is my spreadsheet. I thought I'd share it today.

Date	Today	Pace	Diff	Pace Total	Actual Total	Total Diff	Remaining
1-Nov	2,063	1,667	396	1,667	2,063	396	47,937
2-Nov	2,724	1,667	1,057	3,334	4,787	1,453	45,213
3-Nov	2,189	1,667	522	5,001	6,976	1,975	43,024
4-Nov	2,033	1,667	366	6,668	9,009	2,341	40,991
5-Nov	1,769	1,667	102	8,335	10,778	2,443	39,222
6-Nov	1,899	1,667	232	10,002	12,677	2,675	37,323
7-Nov	1,207	1,667	-460	11,669	13,884	2,215	36,116
8-Nov	1,788	1,667	121	13,336	15,672	2,336	34,328
9-Nov	1,724	1,667	57	15,003	17,396	2,393	32,604
10-Nov	1,735	1,667	68	16,670	19,131	2,461	30,869
11-Nov	2,046	1,667	379	18,337	21,177	2,840	28,823

Date - Obvious
Today - Words written on that particular day
Pace - The 1,667 words you need to hit in order to reach 50,000 words by 30 November
Diff - Today number minus Pace. I color code it so I can get my green streak.
Pace Total - The number you get if you only write 1,667 words each day.
Actual Total - The number of words I actually wrote to date.
Total Diff - Difference between Pace Total and Actual Total
Remaining - How I'm doing relative to 50,000 words

Every addition/subtraction field has the formulas built in. The green and red are conditional formatted based on the number.

This spreadsheet helped me on 7 Nov when I didn't reach the 1,667 for the day, but I knew I was ahead of the pace overall.

Do you use a spreadsheet?

Day 1: 2,063 (47,937 remaining)
Day 2: 2,724 (4,787 total; 45,213 remaining)
Day 3: 2,189 (6,976 total; 43,024 remaining)
Day 4: 2,033 (9,009 total; 40,991 remaining)
Day 5: 1,769 (10,778 total; 39,222 remaining) *Rewrite of chapter 4 
Day 6: 1,899 (12,677 total; 37,323 remaining)
Day 7: 1,207 (13,884 total; 36,116 remaining) *First sub 1,667 day
Day 8: 1,788 (15,672 total ; 34,328 remaining) *Breakthrough on where story is going
Day 9: 1,724 (17,396 total; 32,604 remaining)
Day 10: 1,735 (19,131 total; 30,869 remaining)
Day 11: 2,046 (21,177 total; 28,823 remaining)

NaNoWriMo 2019: Day 10

It's funny how things work out when you're writing a 50,000-word book.

Today's new words close out chapter 10. Yes, I'm finally back on track after having to rewrite chapter four. I really love the chapter number and the date to line up.

But this story's Act I came to a nice conclusion this morning. My tale involves the Hero getting pulled into the main part of the story quite by accident. But by the end of chapter ten, he has done what he thinks is the perfect thing: help the victims along and washing his hands of the rest of the story.

He's happy. Well, he's happy until chapter 11...

Day 1: 2,063 (47,937 remaining)
Day 2: 2,724 (4,787 total; 45,213 remaining)
Day 3: 2,189 (6,976 total; 43,024 remaining)
Day 4: 2,033 (9,009 total; 40,991 remaining)
Day 5: 1,769 (10,778 total; 39,222 remaining) *Rewrite of chapter 4 
Day 6: 1,899 (12,677 total; 37,323 remaining)
Day 7: 1,207 (13,884 total; 36,116 remaining) *First sub 1,667 day
Day 8: 1,788 (15,672 total ; 34,328 remaining) *Breakthrough on where story is going
Day 9: 1,724 (17,396 total; 32,604 remaining)
Day 10: 1,735 (19,131 total; 30,869 remaining)

NaNoWriMo 2019: Day 9

Despite not having as much time to write as you might expect given it is a Saturday, this morning's writing session was great. I shifted POVs for the first time yesterday, but came back to my hero's POV today. I had to stop writing earlier than I wanted, but it'll make tomorrow's session that much more exciting.

One of the best things about writing into the dark, not knowing where the story is going is both scary and fun. I get to be the first reader. Dean Wesley Smith wrote about that in today's post. Have a read and remember how much fun it is to write stories!

Day 1: 2,063 (47,937 remaining)
Day 2: 2,724 (4,787 total; 45,213 remaining)
Day 3: 2,189 (6,976 total; 43,024 remaining)
Day 4: 2,033 (9,009 total; 40,991 remaining)
Day 5: 1,769 (10,778 total; 39,222 remaining) *Rewrite of chapter 4 
Day 6: 1,899 (12,677 total; 37,323 remaining)
Day 7: 1,207 (13,884; 36,116 remaining) *First sub 1,667 day
Day 8: 1,788 (15,672; 34,328 remaining) *Breakthrough on where story is going
Day 9: 1,724 (17,396; 32,604 remaining)