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nano success!
For only the third time in however many times I’ve actually tried it, I have achieved Nanowrimo success. Honestly, I wrote quite a lot more than 50K this month, but I managed to get 50,000 vaguely useable words on this project, which is…slightly more than half…of what I was going for…well, we’ll take what victories we can, wot eh? So now I have to get the other half of it written in the next…week…ideally…o.O…and then for a rarity actually send it to a few beta readers for commentary/insights. And no, I don’t need volunteers, got that sorted already.
Anyway, so it’s onward and upward now. There’s a book launch this weekend, and I still have to get the novella out to the Patreon folks, and…lordy, there’s a lot to do.
Okay, so, to tally up the November Projects:
Project One:
Goal: 90K
Actual: 50KProject Two:
Goal: finish it, get it out to patrons
Actual: finished it! (8 or 10K or so, so adding that to the 7-10K I cut from Project One plus the 50K I kept on P1…yeah, I got a lot of writing done this month) did not get it out to patrons.Project Three:
Goal: revise, push thru production, publish
Actual: finished it!Project Four:
Goal: study a book, write 3 chapters
Actual: studied 3 chapters :)Project Five:
Goal: 3 chapters
Actual: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTHINGProject Six:
Goal: get it out to backers
Actual: noooooooooot. quiiiiiiiiiite. got a bunch of stuff DONE for that, but nooooooot. quiiiiiite.Overall, I’d say the month has been a tremendous success, work-wise. (Imagine what I’d have gotten done if I hadn’t been sick for 3 weeks, she said, rolling her eyes.) So yeah, that’s what’s gone on here.
Next month come hang with me while I revamp my Patreon, finish projects 1-2 and 4-6, and go to the gym 4 days a week… :)
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nano: halfway mark + gym, tv, & life
I’m supposed to be at 45K on Project One for November. I’m at 29K and have to revise again, but after two days of grim effort I may actually have a plot now, which should help. :P Technically I guess I still really only need 4K a day to make goal by the end of the month, but IDK if I’ll get there.
I haven’t gone back to Project Two yet. Project Three is underway in terms of layout. Waiting on the cover art for it, which is going to be AMAZING and I can’t wait to show it to you. (You all wanted a new CE Murphy book for the holidays, right?) I haven’t gotten any farther on Project Four, either, although I should do a bit more of it tonight, maybe. It’s kind of fun. Realistically I’m not going to get to Project Five this month, but that’s okay. REDEEMER, having been assigned Project number Six, will get delivered instead, and that’s…yeah. Very important.
Meanwhile I still have a cold, or, I think, have a second one that landed right on top of the first, so in many ways the fact that I’m doing anything at all is admirable. I’ve even gone to the gym twice this week, although in both cases I did my “lie on the floor” workout, which I could obviously do at home but don’t. I guess the important part about going to the gym is there’s nothing else to do there but exercise, and also one vaguely supposes people might eye you, if you just lie on the floor for twenty minutes without moving. (I don’t actually think they do. I don’t think most people pay much attention to what other people are doing at the gym. But one might be able to use the idea of it for motivation.)
The “lie on the floor” workout is actually a fairly decent little Pilates For People Who Aren’t Fit Enough To Do Beginner Pilates (aka Pilates For Weenies) that I’ve worked up. If I had any kind of video editing skills I might try to do a video of it for people, although that supposes anybody would want to use a tubby lady’s workout video instead of a slim fit lady’s workout video. (IDK, sometimes I think that’d be less depressing. Although I also suppose there are probably *many* exercise videos out there featuring women who are not slim and fit. I just haven’t looked for them.) Anyway. I’m tired.
I love STAR TREK: DISCOVERY and am howling in agony over there being a mid-season break. It’s on Netflix! I’m not supposed to have to WAIT for it! I also love THE GIFTED, although I’ve only seen the first 3 episodes, I think. But it hit the ground running, and it has *BLINK*! And she’s PERFECT! *flails*! And I continue to love SUPERGIRL and I wish I was writing LEGENDS OF TOMORROW because I feel I could navigate the border between absurd and stupid better than they’re doing. It’s amazing how unimpressed I am with the bad guy featured thus far on THE FLASH, but I will be here until the end for Michael Emerson as !EvilFinch on ARROW because OMG!EVILFINCH. And I just started watching THE GOOD PLACE, which I have it on good authority will eventually be an incandescent spot in my life but which is so far merely cute and amusing.
That was a lot of TV to report on. IDK what else I’ve got, in the general life department. I’m terrible at meditating. I read Carol Berg’s DUST & LIGHT / ASH & SILVER duology and they were amazing. Book two made me clutch my heart and gasp out loud in horror. It was very dramatic. :) I’ve got a GGK book that’s been on the shelf forever as my next should-read, but I always fall into a pit of despair when I read him because I can’t do what he does and so I try not to read his books while I’m actively writing (which is why I’m so far behind, sigh). Oh, and I picked up a SF thing that looked appealing and about 95% of it is, but it’s written in a deliberately noir way (which was part of the appeal) up to and including really kind of painful sexism, which I suspect is purposeful because it’s So Noir, but it’s also…I stopped reading it a few days ago and I don’t really think I’m going to pick it up again, so. *sigh*
Anyway, time to study Irish now. (It’s going very badly indeed. :))
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nano: i missed a day
Yesterday involved the sort of chaos that sometimes erupts when one has a small child, and I was too tired to do my words. It has not, however, thrown me hopelessly off track, mostly because I’ve already finished Project Two, and getting it done was kind of the bit that Not Missing A Day was critical for.
Besides, I’d had to concede on Friday that I’d screwed up Project One and had to go back and delete 7,000 words, so I was off count anyway. I fixed P1 and have recovered the wordcount, so I’m up to about 25K on it (again). If I can do 4K a day on it I’ll stay on target for the end of the month, and that…is probably possible.
In the meantime, let’s see. This week I need to go over the last proof of REDEEMER, which doesn’t even have a Project Number because it’s not technically supposed to be part of the November Projects. I suppose that would make it Project Six. I need to go over Project Two and fix the NOTES and deliver it to my Patreon people, and I need to go over Project Three one more time before prepping it for the newsletter people & beyond.
Research for Project Four is underway. I could do that and a few words on Project Five on any given day, except I don’t think I really know how to *start* Project Five, so…I’m not thinking too much about it right now, really. Which is fine. I have sort of enough on my plate right now. @.@
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it’s a nanowrimo month here
So far I’ve written about 22k in November. I’ve been working on two projects, one of which is codenamed Project One, which I’m now 16K into, and the other of which, Project Two, which is KISS OF ANGELS and I have JUST FINISHED IT and I’m extremely pleased about that. It does what I’ve said it would all along, which is sets up the Old Races world for more full-length novels should I ever be moved to write them.
I’m quite sure that when people read it, they’re going to kill me if I don’t write more.
It’ll be out to the general public sometime next year, but if you want to read it (and various other bits and bobs as I manage to write them) early, it’ll be up on my Patreon later this month.
Anyway, I’ve been aiming for 3K/double NNWM count on Project One in the mornings and for NNWM count (1700 words) on KISS OF ANGELS in the afternoon. It’s been working pretty well, although as I told Ted, if I miss even one day the whole thing will fall apart.
“You’d better not miss a day, then,” Ted said, and yep, that’s exactly how it is, all right. :)
Anyway, with KoA done I’m on to Project 3, which is revising a middle grade novel that I’ll be self-publishing VERY SOON NOW. It’s pretty solid, and revisions should only take a few days, so watch this space for more news on that front.
Tonight, however, I’m going to read more of Carol Berg’s amazing ASH & LIGHT (i literally gasped out loud in horror at the end of chapter 18) and watch some TV and go to bed early so I can do all this nonsense again tomorrow.
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No Mo Wri Mo
Up until a few days ago I was still entertaining the notion that somehow, sure, I was going to pull Nanowrimo out of the hat and participate. I’m not sure I thought that was a realistic goal, but I was hanging on to it anyway.
I’ve come to my senses. Most of the reason I’ve come to my senses, probably, is that my editor got the revision letter for REDEEMER back to me, and given that the book is now pushing 2 years late (*cringe*) that kinda has to take priority. And I’m GOOD with that, that’s OKAY, I’m HAPPY, because I want to get the book out to my backers, and also because the reality was that I was never going to succeed with NNWM this year and no longer feeling like I should try means I won’t have something else to beat myself up over when I fail.
October…October was not a month of getting a lot of things done. At least, not a lot of writing. Or any writing. I did read a few books, which I hadn’t done in what felt like a long time. I made jam. I watched Sense8 and Doctor Strange. We Halloweened. Many of these things will (hopefully) get separate posts of their own soon. :)
Anyway, there’s a lot of writing to do this month, but none of it is even vaguely shaped like NNWM. I have at least two (and ideally four or five but let’s be (slightly) realistic here) short stories to write, two books to revise, and a third to get into production.
I should probably stop blogging and get to it.
