Weekly Writing Intentions: October 29, 2022
Daily Diary, Day 788: Weekly Writing Intentions:
First of all, last week went pretty much as I planned. Saturday and Sunday, lots of continued cutting of words and rearranging sections, then a great day of finishing the last outlined chapter, with nearly 1400 words written. The rest of the week I spent working on the outline for the rest of the book and the book that all come after. Total word count for the week was 2, 314, which is actually more than I expected.
Exercise went very well. Despite taking on day off from walking (dentist appointment) I averaged slightly over an hour and a half exercise of some sort every day, including doing a good 20 mins of PT exercises the last 4 days.
Now for the next week’s intentions.
I don’t know if you all have heard of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which was started in 1999 by about twenty young people living in San Francisco who decided to try to write a novel in one month. The founder looked for the shortest book on his bookshelf, calculated it was about 50,000 words, and that became their goal.
The next year, they changed the month to November, and in 2000 they created a website, with a word count, so those writers who wrote the full 50,000 words from scratch could be declared a winner. There were 140 participants and 29 winners that year. By 2018, there were over 450,000 participants and 53,000 winners.
Several times since becoming a self-published author I have signed up to participate, the first time in 2013 to get started on writing Bloody Lessons the third book in my series. However, the only time I signed up and really used the month to achieve the 50,000 word goal was November 2019 when I was working on Lethal Remedies. I was just starting the book, so the 50,000 words was only slightly more than a quarter of the way through what was to become the final book, but it really gave me a good start.
This week, noticing people talking in various venues about participating, what their goals are, and getting messages from the local San Diego NaNoWriMo group, I finally decided this would be a good year to participate. I probably won’t participate in the local groups, who seem incredibly young, and most of them are starting their first serious attempt at a novel), but there is this odd sense of belonging to a huge community that I find motivating. My goal this year is to complete the draft I am working on (figuring that I could accomplish this if I can maintain at least a 1000 words a day average.)
So, to achieve this goal, I am going to be better about using the timer (25 mins writing, 10 off), and being very disciplined about not editing as I go along. I will limit marketing activities during the day until I get my 1000 words written, and I will start doing my facebook/substack posts in the hour after dinner. This should help me get an earlier start in the day, with more time to write.
I will also commit to not skipping on my exercise, but I will try to limit my phone calls to only those I have scheduled or major crises. I do have a couple of doctor’s appointments, but there is nothing I can do about that, except try to get more words written on the days where I don’t have anything scheduled.
This means that I want to spend the next 3 days ensuring that my outline is as complete as possible, so I will be able to start writing on November 1. I will also do any promotional activities (making graphics, drafting newsletters, etc) I can do ahead of time, so they won't take up too much writing time. I would certainly love to hear from any of you if you are also planning on writing a lot this November.
So, strap on for the ride, and let’s see how many words I actually get written by November 30!
And, here’s another set of creepy skeletons, with one cute wreath!