Tag: nanowrimo

Sketchbook #48

I thought that October was going to be busy, that there were a lot of things that would get in the way of my creative goals.

It turned out to be even busier than I expected: I’ve only had one full week without interruptions (even today they’re testing the fire alarms in my building, which is always a joy—that’s why I’m working on this blog post instead of fiction), I’ve had inconvenient (but not serious) health issues crop up, and it’s just been generally difficult to stay motivated.

But I did it.

NaNoWriMo 2018 Diary | Post-Mortem

It’s been a week since NaNoWriMo ended, and I haven’t looked at – haven’t even thought about – my draft since then.

That’s a good thing.

NaNoWriMo 2018 Diary | Week 5

I was this close to giving up on NaNo yesterday.

I had just under six thousand words to go. No problem: I had two days, and I’ve been hitting over 3000 words/day for the past week.

… and then the power went out.

NaNoWriMo 2018 Diary | Week 4

That is the problem I’m having with NaNo this year, and the reason I’m thinking about maybe not doing it again next year: I’ve been writing at a pace that just isn’t sustainable for me. If I’d been able (or willing) to write every. single. day, I’d be fine, but… I can’t sustain that, either. I seem to be at my best writing around 2 hours or 2000 words a day – whichever comes first – and writing 4-5 days a week. More than that, and I start to risk burnout, and I don’t want to go down that road again.

The 2018 Reboot | Week 11 Check-In

I fell into a bit of a trap this week. It’s a familiar one for me, one I seem to stumble into every time I want to make a big change, whether it’s with writing, or photography, or getting organized, or (this time) setting goals.

I start to think that other people have the answers, and that if I just read enough books or articles or blog posts, I’ll eventually stumble onto the right one, the one that brings everything into focus.

It never happens.

NaNoWriMo 2018 Diary | Week 3

So. I’m still about 4000 words below where I ‘should’ be with this story.

But considering my slow start to the month, and the fact that I’ve been taking weekends off, that’s not terrible. I’ve been averaging about 2500 words a day; if I added one more short writing session every day, I could push that up to 3000 with no difficulty, and still only have to write Monday through Friday.

I’d rather not. I’d rather keep going the way I have been, and I do have a few things I’d like to do with my time besides write, but I could.

NaNoWriMo 2018 Diary | Week 2

… and I’m back on track!

I mean, I’m still behind the ‘official’ target for NaNo – after that one terrible day last week, I wound up taking the weekend off entirely – but the last five days have been really good. I’ve been meeting my personal goals, and today I closed out the first act.