National Novel Writing FEBRUARY 2012

[Margo]

Okay, who's up for another go? 30,000 words in a month, 50,000 if you're feeling ambitious (and I am). One post per person, edited as often as necessary to reflect updated word counts.

2/01: 1900
2/02: 2900
2/03: 0 (because ppl wouldn't leave me the heck alone...going to start turning off cell phone as well as internet)
2/04: 3000
2/05: 3100
2/06: 2300
2/07: 2700
2/08: 2300
2/09: 5500
2/10: 0 (tired, took day off)
2/11: 0 (business matter to attend to)
2/12: 4800
2/13: 3500
2/14: 1500
2/15: 2100
2/16: 3100
2/17-2/20: 0 (dealing with some very bad news on the personal front)
2/21: 1900 (back in the saddle)
2/22: 700
2/23-2/26: 0 (sometimes it really bites running a business--in addition to the day job)
2/27: 1900

Total for Feb: 43,200

Edit 2/01: Glad to see you guys back! I smile when I see it too, AMSchilling, but for a completely different (and totally immoral) reason.
Edit 2/02: Welcome back, guys! It was inspiring seeing everyone's word counts come up last month. Do it again! Do it again!
Edit 2/05: Glad you joined us, Matt. It's a good way to work up your writing endurance! AMschilling, you don't have to subtract words you edited out. You still drafted them! They count even if they don't make the cut!
Edit 2/07: Seeing some nice totals from Trixie and Matt!
Edit 2/10: Don't stress, guys! Just start fresh tomorrow (or whenever you can get some time away from family, in poor Aimee's case ).
Edit 2/10 (not at 1AM this time): Way to go, Matt and Brenda. Nice looking numbers.
Edit 2/12: A day off well-earned, Matt.
Edit 2/13: I hope the protest helps, Claudie. AIMEE! Oh, no. I'm so sorry to hear it. You are taking it amazingly well. So glad the lost words are not slowing you down.
Edit 2/21: Oh, those are some nice numbers, Matt. Well done.
Edit 2/27: Well done, Matt. And Claudie. 100 pages of critique? WOW.

[Claudie]

Sure! I'm not going to make any prediction about how far I go this month (except, maybe, "not 30k"), but I'm game for another push. My schedule is supposed to lighten up by the 10th. We'll see how that influences the total.

Feb 1 - 0 words
Feb 2 - (140 words)
Feb 3 - 451 + (45) words
Feb 4 - 0 words
Feb 5 - 256 words
Feb 6 - (548) words
Feb 7 - 0 words
Feb 8 - 146 words
Feb 9 - (155 words) + 622 words
Feb 10 - 400 words + (423 words) + 9 pages of comments for the Fest
Feb 11 - 0 words
Feb 12 - 136 words
Feb 13 - (1001) words
Feb 14 - (696) words
Feb 15 - 0 words
Feb 16 - (38) words - editing poetry. Not very productive for quantity.
Feb 17 - 0
Feb 18 - 0
Feb 19 - 0
Feb 20 - (674) words
Feb 21 - 0 words
Feb 22- 0 words
Feb 23 - 0 words
Feb 24 - 259 words
Feb 25 - 200 words
Feb 26 - 0 words
Feb 27 - 0 words
Feb 28 - (502) words
Feb 29 - 200 words

Total Word Count: 2580 + (4310) = 6890 words

As with January, the ( ) wordcounts are fiction written for class, and not in my two main novel project.

EDIT Feb 5th: Yay, Matt! Welcome to the club. Those 707 novelling words make me very happy. I didn't think I'd have time either days but POOF! Time appeared!
EDIT Feb 9th: UGH. We're a third of the month through and I only have 2k in. This is ridiculous.
EDIT Feb 13th: Look at that! I've got a 1k day. This is a minor achievement but damn.. yes! Makes me happy.

And guys, your totals are so awesome! You're inspiring me to suck away every hour of my days and make them count. Keep at it! Chances are I'll be on student strike next week to protest against tuition raises and will suddenly be able to write, write, write!

EDIT Feb 19th: Been doing a lot of editing and commenting these last days. Hence the 0 words. Those 5 days of near nada hurt, though.
EDIT Feb 27th: Bleh, my total is moving so slowly! On the other hand, I have done nearly 100 pages of in-depths critique for the Vegas thing, so most of my free time goes there at the moment. Better luck in March for the 10k, I guess.

Final Count! 6892 words and about 100 pages of critique.

[AMSchilling]

I'm in, though I'm going to be focusing more on pages edited than total word counts (I'll still put them in).

I really want to finish this first rewrite of my novel this month. I'm horrible at letting time pass between edits, so I can see the plot holes and stuff when I come back, and if I can get this round done by March then I can keep myself busy pulling up a million weeds for a few weeks to let the book cool. And I *am* a procrastinator, so this is great motivation to not futz around online all day.

PS Margo: I don't know why but your sigi cracks me up every time I see the "hot Norse elves" bit.

2/1: 1342 new, 11 pages edited
2/2: 2313 new, 14 pages edited
2/3: 829 new, 28 pages edited
2/4: 0, 20 pages edited. What can I say? It was a slash and burn kind of day. Actually a good thing, since my book is over 100k at the moment.
2/5: 0, 20 pages edited.
2/6: 330 new, 16 pages edited
2/7: 270 new, 4 pages edited (real world intruded all day. ah, well)
2/8: 912 new, 7 pages edited
2/9: 245 new, 9 pages edited?
2/10: 2612 new (replaced a chapter with something that worked a lot better, so no pages edited per se but lots of progress!)
2/11: 1700 new, 55 pages edited
2/12: 4657 new, 0 edited (can't really call those 19 pgs edited when I replaced every single word!)
2/13: 1550 new, 13 pages edited
2/14: 2701 new, 21 pages edited
2/15: 1466 new, 6 pages edited
2/16: 0 and 0. (My brain forced me to take the day off. I like to humor it once in a while.)
2/17: 0 and 0. (Another vacation day for the brain on my WIP. Though I did start doing some world building for my next novel idea.)
2/18: 1258 new, 0 edited
2/19: 361 new, 6 pages edited
2/20: 576 new, 0 edited
2/21-2/24: a measly 361 new, no edited
2/25-2/26: 1533 new, 8 pages edited
2/27-2/28: 1143 new, 16 pages edited
2/29: ? new, 13 pages edited

Total for February: 25025 words, 267 pages edited

2/5: Phew--thanks Margo! I had another slash and burn day today, so if you hadn't said I didn't need to subtract I'd be in negative numbers soon! I keep forgetting to note how much I cut so I can figure out how much I actually wrote later on. Gotta put a sticky on my forehead or something to remind me.
2/10: Nice job, everyone! It's impressive how much people are getting done with all the other demands they've got. The most important thing is to keep at it, even if it's slower than we want.
2/13: *observing a moment of silence for Aimee's dearly departed 13k*
2/16: Congrats Brenda!!!!!! I love it when things all come together like that. It's one of the best feelings.
2/24: Lovely cold circulating in my house, hitting the muppet first and then me. It's hard to write when your head is stuffed like a rag doll's.
2/28: 84 pages left to edit with one day left in the month. Think I'm going to miss that goal somehow.... Oh well. 250+ pages, when I slashed and burned as much as I did (and rewrote close to 100 page of those), is still pretty good. The first draft is now more second draft, and isn't nearly as sucky. I'll call it a win.
2/29: Great job, everyone! No matter how many words we did (and some of you were rock stars on the word counts), it's more than we had at the start of the month!

[Aimée]

*takes deep breath*

Ok, go. Goal: 15K

1 - 405
2 - 539
3 - 449
4 - 459
5 - 604
6 - 0
7 - 0
8 - 0 (family in town the past few days. super stressful week, not expecting to get any writing done in the next few days either.)
9 - 0
10 - 0
11 - 0
12 - 359 (finally got some free time! but having computer troubles now... not a good writing month for me...)
13 - 488 (almost halfway through the month and only 1/5 of the way to my goal of 15K. I'm in a creative mood, so I think I might be able to make it!)
14 - 0
15 - 0
16 - 0
17 - 244
18 - 321 (Pft. I'll be lucky to make it to 5K this month, let alone 15. I'd like to blame it on me being busy and having computer problems, but honestly, I just haven't felt like writing much... Been having those writerly doubts. [contradicting what I said earlier in the month, haha] Hopefully March will be better. :] ...)
19-29 - didn't keep a count, but it was probably close to zero... no novel written, just schoolwork and workwork writing...

EDIT 2/13: Something happened to my computer, and my hard drive got wiped clean! Everything gone! Unfortunately, the last time I saved my stuff to a flash drive was about two months ago, so everything I've written in the past two months has disappeared into the stratosphere. Of course I'm not discrediting the 3000 words I've written so far this month, and the 10K in January. Those words, though gone forever now, had made me a better writer and deserve to be accounted for. RIP 13,000 words that I was too foolish to back up on a flash drive. Learn a lesson here, fellow writers...

EDIT 3/1: Well, it seems I did not make it very far, but I had just about the busiest month of my life, nothing under my own control. Hopefully I'll get back on track in March because my writing is everything! Got to keep on going...

Total: 3918

[MattLarkin]

I write more by time than by word count. But since I started writing book 2 of the Skyfall Trilogy this morning (Feb 5th), I figure I'll give this a try.


2/5: 5500 words
2/6: 2100 words
2/7: 2100 words
2/8: 1400 words
2/9: 1600 words
2/10: 4700 words
2/11: 8500 words
2/12: 4100 words
2/13: 2800 words
2/14: 1400 words (happy Valentine's!)
2/15: 1700 words
2/16: 0 words
2/17: 2400 words
2/18: 7600 words
2/19: 670 words (better than none, I guess)
2/20: 6400 words
2/21: 1400 words
2/22: 650 words
2/23: 1100 words
2/24: 3600 words (and we're done!)

Legacy of Moon and Fire total: 60,000

Edit 2/12: whew! 30,000 is pretty good for one week. I'm taking the afternoon off.
Edit 2/18: Hey, Brenda, glad to hear! Look forward to seeing what you've got.
Edit 2/22: Thanks, Margo! Sorry to hear about the bad news. Hope things are okay.
Edit 2/24: So 20 days on the first draft of book 2 from start to finish. Came out a bit shorter than intended, but so did the first one. It's word count actually went up a bit after my editor's advice (despite major cuts), because of the parts he wanted added. So I'm not too worried about it. Now it's time for that month or so off to let it rest. Whew!

[dios4vida]

<deep breath> Okay, I'm in. This time for real - raw writing, fresh words, not editing or revising. This'll give me something to focus on and work towards while I let my "completed" WIP rest before editing it.

I don't know if I'll make it to 30K, especially with this late start, but maybe 15K?

Feb 6: 643
Feb 8: 1638
Feb 9: 1646 (heh - trend much?)
Feb 10: 1567 plus a bunch of storyboarding
Feb 11: 637 - and I don't even usually write on the weekends!
Feb 13: 463. Ugh. Replaced three entire sections with much better character arcs, etc. so I'm only slightly ahead on the count. Still good work, though.
Feb 14: 1647. Snow kinda killed the flow. But still proud of today's word count.
Feb 16: 1620. Apparently I am very consistent.
Feb 17: 1200 on the dot. Not feeling well so quitting a little early to get some rest. Dumb weather.
Feb 21: 768
Feb 23: 953
Feb 24: 1604
Feb 28: 629

February total: 15,015 (!!)

EDIT, FEB 9: It might not seem like a big total, but considering that a year ago I was thrilled to have written 1000 words in a week, I'd say this is pretty good!
EDIT, FEB 10: I met my weekly goal of 5K and I got the basic structure for the next section of this story plotted out. Win-win!
EDIT, FEB 13: Great job, everyone!! Your numbers are putting me to shame. Awesome to see everyone rock the writing like this!
EDIT, FEB 14: Well, I think my productivity just got shot out the window. IT'S SNOWING!! It was 80 degrees here on Saturday, I was doing yardwork in shorts and a tank top...and now it's SNOWING!! Plus, my cat is very confused and freaking out, which is equally time-consuming.
EDIT, FEB 16: I would just like to say that I've never in my life felt like such a productive, energetic writer. I never knew I could write like this. My plot is just falling into place, I'm so excited about what I'm writing, and progress! Holy cow, progress! I never dreamed I could do this. Wow.
EDIT, FEB 23: Been some rough days around here, so fell behind. Should still be able to make my 15K goal, though. Margo, I hope everything works out okay with the bad news. And everyone, great wordcounts! Good job, folks, let's wrap things up on a strong note, shall we?
EDIT, FEB 23: Urgh! Just can't write when my house is a disaster. Must go be housewife-y and clean. Hopefully I can come back to writing when everything's finished.
EDIT, FEB 28: May or may not be done writing for the day (have tons to do for the Fest!) but I MADE MY GOAL!!! I wasn't sure I would for a while there. Phew! What an accomplishment!!

[trixie]

I'm not sure what my Feb goal is right now. I think it's to get my book through the second disaster. I sense a lot of re-writes in my future...

2/4 - read 3 10-page sections for crit group and finished YA full crit from the fall (oops). Compiled notes. No individual writing done.
2/5 - 2663 words, 1 new chapter.

[Aimée]

Bump so we can find it...

[MattLarkin]

Aimee, really sorry to hear about your computer. Lately I've been using DropBox to avoid this kind of risk. I think it's worth looking into for the future.

[Aimée]

Aimee, really sorry to hear about your computer. Lately I've been using DropBox to avoid this kind of risk. I think it's worth looking into for the future.

I looked it up. It's quite interesting and useful, though for someone who has multiple computers/a smart phone. I just have my one laptop that's got everything. I'm sure others will find it invaluable, but I've decided to copy all of my stuff into Google docs so it's always there for me!

[Claudie]

Strangely enough, I'm the other way around. I've got more than one laptop and keep switching between the two, so nearly every recent thing I have is on my USB drive. If it was to break, I'd lose a lot (so I try to back it up on either computer frequently, but I'm bad with back-ups). I'll light a candle for your departed 13k. These things really suck.

And Brenda --- AAAH, SNOW! Welcome to Canada, haha!

[Margo]

Bump for participants.

[dios4vida]

So 20 days on the first draft of book 2 from start to finish.

Oh my gosh!! Congrats, Matt, that is absolutely incredible! My measly little 14K looks a little weak now. (It's great writing for me so not really, I'm proud of my progress.) Looking forward to seeing what you did in book 2!

[MattLarkin]

So 20 days on the first draft of book 2 from start to finish.

Oh my gosh!! Congrats, Matt, that is absolutely incredible! My measly little 14K looks a little weak now. (It's great writing for me so not really, I'm proud of my progress.) Looking forward to seeing what you did in book 2!

Thanks, Brenda. My plan is to roughly follow the same pattern I did with one in terms of writing schedule. That is, let it sit a month, rewrite. Show it to my first beta readers. Rewrite. Show it to my editor. Rewrite. Show it to you. Rewrite. Copyedit.

I found that worked well for me in book 1. Your advice was both technical and insightful, so I like saving it until I near the finished product, as it really helped me polish.

Oh, and, write at your own pace. I'm a heavy planner, so I knew everything about the book before I started writing. Makes it easier to write fast. And since this was book 2, most of the characters already had strong voices developed, with the exception of Ratna, who didn't have POV chapters in book 1.

[Quill]

23,600 for the month, for me, which isn't too shabby considering the other things I've got going on. Thanks for the encouragement, you guys, to keep on writing!