National Novel Writing JANUARY 2012

[Margo]

Now we all get a do-over! Same structure as December. One post per person, updated with new word counts daily, weekly, whenever. Target is 30k words in the month of January. I'm in a separate challenge with another writer to do 50k in the month. Who's with me?

1/01: 2000
1/02: 1000
1/03: 800
1/04: 2300
1/05: 1500
1/06: 2900
1/07: 400
1/08: 0 (small press business and stress!)
1/09: 700
1/10: 1000
1/11: 600 (noise and interruptions all freaking day)
1/12: 2400
1/13: 0
1/14: 3200
1/15: 0 (six.hour.workshop.ack.)
1/16: 2300
1/17: 3600
1/18: 3500
1/19: 0 (caught a bad cold)
1/20: 1700 (still with a cold)
1/21: 4200 (story for anthology DONE!)
1/22: 0
1/23: 1600
1/24: 0
1/25: 3500
1/26: 2700
1/27: 1000
1/28: 4800
1/29: 1200
1/30: 3900
1/31: 3700

January Total: 56,500

Edit 1/2: WOOT! Welcome back, guys! Let's do this thing!
Edit 1/5: AMSchilling wrote "Darn day job." I KNOW!!! I'm so hoping to quit to write fulltime this summer. My job pays really well, but in December I brought home more from writing than from the day job.
Edit 1/9: I'm seeing some encouraging totals from a couple of people! Go go go!
Edit 1/12: Nice work to everyone for bringing those word counts up!
Edit: 1/16: Uh-oh. Better get hopping. I'm only on track for 41k at this rate.
Edit 1/20: It's cool seeing everyone's numbers coming up in comparison to last month, even if 30k is still out of range.
Edit 1/30: There it is! 50K for the month of January! Go, Aimee. You can do it. 15K, so close!

[AMSchilling]

I'm in. My word counts in December weren't fabulous, but they were better than 0. What I really want is to finish the first draft of my ms. this month. I have a feeling I have a lot more rewriting to do in the opening 100 pages than I think, based on some of the changes I made further on. So we'll see how many words it takes to fix that big ol' mess.

1/1: 1300
1/2: 1150
1/3: 2 - Reworked 2 chapters w/ about 4700 words in them, so cut a lot and wrote a lot in its place. My word count had gone up by 2 when I was done. Guess when I write a scene that's 9 pages, it's going to stay 9 pages, darn it! lol.
1/4: 732. Darn day job.
1/5: 339
1/6: 1900
1/7: 2174
1/8: 2577
1/9: 1061
1/10: 3048
1/11: 1818
1/12: 374
1/13: 1089
1/14: 1922
1/15: 2995
1/16: 1089
1/17: 1173
1/18: 1365
1/19: 797
1/20: 3285
1/21: 3196
1/22: 1963
1/23: 243. Edited the first twelve 12 pages, though. Oh, and changed my title to something I hate equally as much as the old one. Gotta love the cleanup work after that first draft is done.
1/24: 286, and another 12 pages of edits. And maybe I found a title I like? That would be a shocker.
1/25: 314, and yet more edits. It goes soooooo much slower on rewrites!
1/26: 62, with about 20 pages of edits. So much done for such a tiny little word count change.
1/27: 927, plus another 20-something pages of edits.
1/28: 2147, plus 12 pages of edits.
1/29: 712, plus eight pages of edits.
1/30: 1849, plus some more edits.
1/31: 728, plus edits.

January total: 42,617

1/8: I love weekends. I get so much more done when I don't have the day job sucking all the creativity out of my head. Plus I can stay up that little bit extra to write without being a zombie the next day.
1/10: I've gotten NOTHING done at my day job this week at all.
1/20: Congrats on 10k, Aimee! And nice job on yours, too, Claudie--I'm impressed with how much you get done with everything else going on in school!
1/25: Yeah, Brenda, on meeting your goal!!
1/30: First draft done and 100 pages into my first round of clean-ups. That is so much further than I thought I'd get this month! I'm going to try to finish up the month tomorrow by getting to the transition spot around p.120 (as in act two I guess. If this was a standard myth story, it'd be where the hero finally accepts the quest and sets off). Fingers crossed.
1/31: Missed my goal of getting edits done to the transition spot today, but I'm still happy with what I got done this month. I started off just wanting to get my first draft done, and I did. And I like the place the story is at. So woohoo! And congrats to everyone and the great job they did!

[Aimée]

I don't think I can make 1000 words a day, but I'm aiming for at least a page a day. Good luck everyone!

1 - 218
2 - 849
3 - 0
4 - 0 uh oh
5 - 543
6 - 0
7 - 0
8 - 0 unfortunately
9 - 1348
10 - 1470
11 - 779
12 - 1303
13 - 0
14 - 0 again
15 - 161
16 - 1211 (the semester has started! definitely going to have to make time to write now...)
17 - 246
18 - 1507
19 - 415 (hit the 10,000 mark!)
20 - 0 boo hoo
21 - 316
22 - 227
23 - 0
24 - 510
25 - 589
26 - 142
27 - 261
28 - 172
29 - 436 (I'm going to try to get to a total of 15K for the end of the month! 2300 words in two days. That should be doable...)
30 - 638
31 -

Total: 13,342

[Claudie]

I'm in! Every incentive to keep writing even when the semester starts is welcomed! Besides, I like tracking how much I do every day I've started writing them on my own calendar. This time I'm not counting anything written for class, except the novel-writing one. I want to see how much I can get done on my two WIPs. Hopefully 20k-25k!

Jan 01 - 245 words
Jan 02 - 1465 words (for now)
Jan 03 - 0
Jan 04 - 574 words
Jan 05 - 683 words
Jan 06 - 0 words
Jan 07 - 564 words
Jan 08 - 109 words (was a bad girl. Played on the Gamecube with friends instead XD)
Jan 09 - 251 words
Jan 10 - 0 words
Jan 11 - 623 words
Jan 12 - 0 words
Jan 13 - (438) words (been writing other school-related stories, though)
Jan 14 - 391 words
Jan 15 - 573 words
Jan 16 - 0 words
Jan 17 - 147 words. I refused to have another 0-word-day.
Jan 18 - 0 words
Jan 19 - (172) + 158 words
Jan 20 - 317 words
Jan 21 - 0 words
Jan 22 - (593) words
Jan 23 - 318 words
Jan 24 - 0 words
Jan 25 - 186 words
Jan 26 - (99 words)
Jan 27 - (735 words)
Jan 28 - 0 words
Jan 29 - 348 words
Jan 30 - 0 words
Jan 31 - (43 words) + 9 pages edited

Words: 6852 + (2080) = 8922.
# Pages on "Home WIP": 31 (includes the 17.5 december ones)

EDIT Jan 5: Woah, Margo, brought more from writing? That is so awesome! Way to go.
EDIT Jan 9: I'm the opposite of AMS (great wordcount, by the way!). Weekends are bad for my productivity because I have to think of boyfriend. But darn, the semester started today, and I'm not even at 5k. >.>
EDIT Jan 11: Started on the second school-related novel. Writing first drafts = so much faster!
EDIT Jan 19: Dear lord. In the last three days the University has done everything it could to make getting both diplomas more difficult. I spent more time running around and e-mailing to solve paperwork problems than I did writing.
EDIT Jan 22: Now it's Vegas reservations that are causing me problems. Why, life? Please go bother someone else. I don't think I'll be up compared to last month (and it's made worse by the fact those words are scattered over different projects) but this thread helps me push and keep working on it. Otherwise I doubt I'd touch my personal WIP at all. And thanks AMS! I wish I could do more, but I like my sanity.
EDIT Jan 31st: Shoot, so close to 10k! Part of me wishes I had another day to write those missing 100 words, but another is just SO glad January is over. It's been one hell of a roller coaster. At least February promises an uphill slope, and March will be just plain awesome.

[dios4vida]

I'm in. I have got to get this second draft pieced together. I've never done a challenge or had such accountability to get my word count done, so I have no idea if it'll work or not, but I'm willing to give it a go.

I figured that I might not be doing it right but since I started, I might as well finish.

January 2 & 3: 422 (yikes!)
January 4: 1,884
January 5, 6, and 9 - forgot to log in!: 3,955 - almost ALL of which are brand new words
January 10: 571 - ALL new words!

Total so far: 6,832
Total to go: 23,168

[MattLarkin]

I'm in. I have got to get this second draft pieced together. I've never done a challenge or had such accountability to get my word count done, so I have no idea if it'll work or not, but I'm willing to give it a go.

January 2 & 3: 422 (yikes!)
January 4: in process

Total so far: 422
Total to go: 29,578

Well, making progress. Good luck!

[dios4vida]

Well, making progress. Good luck!

Sorta finally making progress. I've learned that November and December are absolutely terrible months for writing for me. I can count on doing virtually no work. I'd hoped to be done with this draft by now, and instead I'm sitting at just over 43K. <sigh>

Thanks for the encouragement, Matt!!

[Margo]

A lot of these words are copy/pasted from my first draft - it's not all "new" writing but I can count it, right?? (Otherwise I'd never make 30K in a month.)

Yeeeah, they should be new words. I can see a case for rewritten words during an editing process, but not so much the cut-n-paste. The idea being to bring word count up and show yourself that yes you can write 30k words a month more often than not. If you're revising, a good way to count words is to look at the word count on the section you're working on and check it again when you've revised that version. Maybe a 3000-word scene is now 3400 words. The count on your tally would be 400 words, not 3400.

I used to be one of the people saying I couldn't possibly write xx,xxx words in a month. But October was over 50,000 words, November was over 50,000 words, December was just shy of 50,000 words, and I'm sure I'll hit 50,000 for January. Those are draft, not including edits. Today's total alone will probably hit 3k, when this challenge only requires 1000 for the day. Some people have a hard time believing this, but I know several writers like this, and one who puts me to shame at about 80-100k/month, though she does this fulltime.

So, yeah, you might find out you can. Small children notwithstanding.

Edit: Of course, now that I'm making money at this, I am very reluctant to miss a date on my release schedule, so I'm highly motivated.

[Claudie]

Kind of ironic how I do it the other way around. I'm counting the written/rewritten words on two specific MS, but this time around I won't include any shorts for school. The goal is to see how much I can put on a different project than everything the Creative Writing program throws at me. Judging from last semester, if I get more than 1 spare hour a day, I'm a lucky girl. But also judging from last semester, without this challenge I'm liable not to put the spare hour on my WIP. Last semester I wrote about 10k of fiction every month for classes, which is why I calculate 20k would be great for this month (and February, and March, and April). Heck, if I did that I'd be done with this round of revision by the time May arrives.

[dios4vida]

A lot of these words are copy/pasted from my first draft - it's not all "new" writing but I can count it, right?? (Otherwise I'd never make 30K in a month.)

Yeeeah, they should be new words. I can see a case for rewritten words during an editing process, but not so much the cut-n-paste. The idea being to bring word count up and show yourself that yes you can write 30k words a month more often than not. If you're revising, a good way to count words is to look at the word count on the section you're working on and check it again when you've revised that version. Maybe a 3000-word scene is now 3400 words. The count on your tally would be 400 words, not 3400.

I used to be one of the people saying I couldn't possibly write xx,xxx words in a month. But October was over 50,000 words, November was over 50,000 words, December was just shy of 50,000 words, and I'm sure I'll hit 50,000 for January. Those are draft, not including edits. Today's total alone will probably hit 3k, when this challenge only requires 1000 for the day. Some people have a hard time believing this, but I know several writers like this, and one who puts me to shame at about 80-100k/month, though she does this fulltime.

So, yeah, you might find out you can. Small children notwithstanding.

Edit: Of course, now that I'm making money at this, I am very reluctant to miss a date on my release schedule, so I'm highly motivated.

Oh.

Well, I guess I'll just have to finish this draft before getting in on the challenge, then.

<must finish write write must finish must finish!!>

[Margo]

Well, I guess I'll just have to finish this draft before getting in on the challenge, then.

<must finish write write must finish must finish!!>

I'm confused. If you're drafting, that counts. Even if you're rewriting, new words count, though it would be harder to make the challenge goal with rewrites. Either way, post your progress, just to keep your feet to the flame and push yourself to finish.

[dios4vida]

Well, I guess I'll just have to finish this draft before getting in on the challenge, then.

<must finish write write must finish must finish!!>

I'm confused. If you're drafting, that counts. Even if you're rewriting, new words count, though it would be harder to make the challenge goal with rewrites. Either way, post your progress, just to keep your feet to the flame and push yourself to finish.

Okay, here's what I'm doing - I have a "chop" file of the good content from my first draft. (You know, the keep-only-the-best-sentences-and-rewrite-around-them theory of editing.) Right now I'm rewriting my second draft, inserting the good stuff into the new stuff. In my 1884 words yesterday, about 500 of them were from the "chop" file, but a good chunk of those were reworked, as well. The other 1300ish were completely new, but I didn't keep track exactly. I've no idea how to count that.

Since I'm new to the word-goal type of writing and am a pretty slow writer to begin with, I thought shooting for 30K this way would be a good way to ease myself into this, so that when I start raw writing again, I can say "I did 30K in a month that way, I can do it this way!"

[Cookie]

First week: I wrote A LOT, but it was all handwritten. Will update when it's all transferred over.

[Aimée]

My job pays really well, but in December I brought home more from writing than from the day job.

Wow! Congrats Margo! That's wonderful news. Can't wait for when that happens for me.

[Margo]

My job pays really well, but in December I brought home more from writing than from the day job.

Wow! Congrats Margo! That's wonderful news. Can't wait for when that happens for me.

Thank you. It happened kind of suddenly (after years of work, of course), and I must admit to being a little overwhelmed by the responsibilities and the momentum and starting to get a small press up and running and fielding inquiries and requests from editors for stuff under my real name. I've had a few meltdowns in the process.