This November has been a whirlwind of emotions and words. This is not the best November I’ve ever done (I have done crazy word counts in previous years somewhere between 90K and 100K), but it is the most consistent.
I made myself a promise this year to hit the minimum of 1,667 words every day and update every day to make sure I get all the badges on the website. With all of the allegations and drama over on the website now, it seems a little less important now, but I still want that success for myself.
In the meantime, for the rest of November, I’m going to keep writing and forming my own habits. That’s what this month is about first and foremost, finding the magic of a new novel and documenting how long it takes me to get words down and write a book with minimal distractions.
Here’s how I did in week 3:
Day 15: 2311 in 1 hour and 10 minutes
Day 16: 1885 in 45 minutes
Day 17: 1767 in 45 minutes
Day 18: 1704 in 37 minutes
Day 19: 1730 in 45 minutes
Day 20: 1869 in 45 minutes
Day 21 1724 in 40 minutes
Monthly Total: 42,681
Here’s a few takeaways I’ve picked up over the last week.
An outline is crucial
Before the month started, I wrote an outline for the novel. My writing journey has grown and evolved from when I first started at 13 and each project is different, but for the last few years (especially since I’ve been working on an ever evolving series or two), I haven’t been using outlines, I’ve been letting the work surprise me.
For this year, working on a brand new project (for the first time in almost two years), I decided I needed an outline, so from start to finish I wrote down an outline of what I wanted to happen and loosely when.
So far this month, I’ve gone off outline a few times with the first time being super uncomfortable and the next few times feeling more comfortable. My outline is not in the best order, but it helps to know that I can play around with where things are.
For example, my main character wasn’t supposed to interact with her best friend until the 10th plot point in my outline, but there was the perfect place to introduce her earlier so I did. Another example, as I’ve been writing, I’ve realized my main character was too passive, so I added in a scene where she wasn’t so passive.
That’s probably why it took me 18 days to get through the first page (landscape) of my outline.
Also, post-its have been the perfect tool to get through the day and list a few plot points I want to hit, but not be too overwhelmed by the whole outline.
It is entirely possible to write when you think you don’t have time.
There was almost a day this week that I didn’t write at all. I had a busy day with social things and a hectic morning, so I figured I simply wouldn’t write. The timing was weird, I couldn’t sneak away and put a few words down, I was drained and exhausted. I could and did make every excuse, but ultimately, before I went to bed that night, reason kicked in and kicked my butt.
I almost lost a near 300 day streak of writing because I “didn’t feel like it”. I would have lost par of 1,667 daily and my motivation if I had a zero day. It would have been harder to get back into the story that the interest was already flagging on because I’m getting into the muddy middle.
I wrote that night, I snuck in 45 minutes right before midnight and while it was hard to get started, I made it happen. I couldn’t be happier with the results.
There have been several days where starting to write has been difficult, but by the time I reach my daily goal I don’t want to stop.
Getting started has been the hardest part.
Self made deadlines are the best ones to break
One of my other goals this month, outside of writing a novel, has been to blog regularly and post over on Medium and Substack. I have a weekly schedule of when and where I want to post, but similar to the story above, the day was not conducive to any kind of creative work and it just so happened to be when a post was due.
Thankfully, the post was mostly complete, it just needed a few last minute edits. I beat myself up over having a “late post”, but overall the more I thought about it, the more I accepted that sometimes posts will be late or off by a day. The important thing is that I did post and I did keep up my streak. The important thing is I’m getting content out there.
November is for words, December (and beyond) is for editing
This year, my typing skills aren’t quite up to snuff. Currently, I have acrylic nails that are beautiful, but quite dangerous when typing. Autocorrect and acrylic nails are a great combination when it comes to writing a novel, so there are several instances where at the beginning of the month I was erasing and cursing and annoyed, but now I just roll with it.
Now, for ease of time and storytelling, I simply put the offending word (or the word I wanted) in parentheses and keep moving forward. I can edit later, now I’m telling myself the story and getting through my outline.
See you next week!