Here we are, on Sunday of week 2.

The plan

The plan was to finish my Speculations column and submit it, and to continue revising Reality Bomb and working on my first short story. If I was so lucky as to finish the first story, I’d start a second. There are several open calls and contests coming up. I know I won’t hit all of them, but I’m going to try for a couple.

The progress

I wrote 748 words to finish my column. It’s 1,653 words in total. A little long, but it’s another personal post.

Between revisions and my evolving map of RB, I racked up 12,446 words. I’ve finally made it past the point where I realized I’d have to change the POV to first person and start over. It’s good to be forging ahead.

I wrote 112 more words on my story. It’s a cute one. I’ll tell you about it later in the year.

This update is 359 words.

And … I did a little personal project that amounted to 360 words.

This week’s total word count: 14,025.

NaNo 2021 running total: 26,771 words. That’s an average of 1,912 words a day.

The pivot

Tomorrow is my first day back to work after two wonderful and restorative weeks off. I expect that my productivity will be significantly lower during the week. It’s to be expected. I usually write or revise 250 to 500 words a day when I’m working. It’ll be a bit more than that because I’m not curating. Optimistically, we can probably double that to 500 to 1,000 words a day. But that’s being optimistic. I might catch up a bit on the weekends, but I doubt I’ll “win” this year.

It’s all about the motivation, though. Writing something every day has been good for me. I’m feeling refreshed and inspired. I’m remembering why RB was important to me (actually, I didn’t forget, but autistic burnout messed with my head for a couple of months).

My best wishes to everyone who’s participating in NaNoWriMo 2021 in any capacity. You can do the thing!

Until next week, be well and stay safe; be kind and stay strong. The world needs your stories!

Today is November 7^th and I’m happy to report that I’ve written 12,746 words so far.

The plan

I named my project this year “NaNo Rebel Combo.” And it’s exactly that. I’m working on next round revisions on Reality Bomb, including the work I’m doing on my scene map as I go, some pieces of short fiction, and my next Speculations column for DIY MFA. I’m even counting these blog posts (and my curation posts) toward my goal. It’s a real mixed bag this year 🙂

Also, I have the first two weeks of November off from work. I expect my productivity to take a nosedive starting on the 15^th.

The progress

On RB and the scene map, I’ve written 9,872 words;

I’ve written 141 words on a short story;

I’ve written 905 words of my Speculations column; and

Including this post … I’ve blogged 1,353 words.

Grand total for week one: 12,746 words (1,820/day).

The pivot

Once my Speculations column is submitted, I’m going to refocus on RB and the first short story. When that short story is finished, I’ll start another.

As I mentioned, I’ll be returning to work on the 15^th and don’t expect to accomplish as much after that. But I’ll keep plugging away, as I’m able, and see what I can put together.

We’ll see what I can do in the next week, but I’m not set on winning this year. This is just motivation for me to get back to a more regular practice. As you can see, I’ve only set myself a goal of writing 36,000 words on my spreadsheet. I think that’s reasonable, but what I often think is reasonable turns out to be a stretch.

Until next week, be well and stay safe; be kind and stay strong. The world needs your stories!