Aaaaand … tipsday’s back! As December 1st fell on a Wednesday, it’s not its usual honkin’ self, but I managed to fill out the curation with some lovely videos. Enjoy!
Oh, my goodness, writerly friends! It’s the end of an era!
After five years, I’m leaving my DIY MFA family. It’s sad, because I’ve really enjoyed writing Speculations, but, as I mention in the column, I’ve had to honour my reality and make some tough choices.
I have some new priorities in my life right now and they need my attention.
While you’re there, please do check out the other, excellent columnists, and Gabriela’s awesome writer’s resources.
Until next time, be well and stay safe, my writerly friends!
As promised, here is a fulsome review of my experience of NaNoWriMo 2021.
The plan
I had no expectation of winning this year. Because I had just come out of an autistic burnout and was finding writing or revising anything challenging, I decided to be a NaNo Rebel again this year and I set my goal low.
In addition to revising Reality Bomb and filling in my chapter and scene map for the novel, I was going to write my Speculations column for DIY MFA, work on a short story (I had hoped, more than one), and to round things out, I also counted my blogging. In short, I counted everything I wrote in the month.
Even so, I thought I’d only get 30,000 words revised on RB, 2,500 words each on the short story and blog, and 1,000 words on my column. 36,000 words seemed like a reasonable goal.
The progress
I did have the first two weeks of November off work. I was kind to myself, got a solid 8 hours sleep each night, ate well, walked Torvi twice a day, watched television and streaming, and played a computer game as a nightly reward. I didn’t put any pressure on myself. I think it was a good approach 🙂
Between RB and the map, I revised 44,854 words, or 150% of my goal.
I finished my short story in 1,424 words, which was only 57% of my goal. I also submitted it.
I blogged 2,138 words, or 86% of that goal.
On my column, I wrote 1,653 words, which was 165% of my goal there.
Plus, I wrote 360 words on a little side project.
I wrote 5,575 words of the 6,000 I had intended to. That’s 93% of my writing goal.
My winning total for NaNoWriMo 2021 is 50,899, but when I add everything I recorded up, it totals 50,429. So, I made a mistake of 470 words somewhere. Still, I won!
Evidence …
I was all over the place!
The only badge I didn’t get was recording 1,667 every day.
The pivot
I had expected my progress to slow when I returned to work. And it did, but the progress I’d made in the two weeks I was off, plus the work I was able to do on the weekends was enough to shore up the low production days.
I’ve hit a problematic part of RB at this point, though. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it’s the mid-point of the novel. Yes, my middle is saggy. It’s going to require some thought and strategic thinking to tighten it up.
So, I’m going to take another little break, let things percolate for a bit, decorate the house for Christmas (which I haven’t done for … years), and marshal my resources.
I don’t know if I’ll get back to revisions later this month or wait until the new year. I’m going to take the same approach I did with NaNo. I’m going to be kind to myself, set reasonable expectations, and do what I can.
The other factor at play is my recent diagnosis as autistic. I’ve found a therapist, joined a support group, and I’m looking at workplace accommodations. And I’m working full time. I know there are a lot of authors who work full time, but with this new understanding of, and context for my life, I can see the times when I’ve been overwhelmed and burned out. I can’t do it all, all the time.
This weekend, I’ll be posting my next chapter update for October and November (the November piece should be short, ‘cause mini updates).
Until then, be well and stay safe; be kind and stay strong. The world needs your stories!
This will be a super quick update today. I’ll have a more complete update on the 30th. Or maybe the 1st. Depending on how I feel. I usually need to take a bit of a break after the blitz.
The plan
Keeping on as I was keeping on appears to be working out 🙂
The progress
Between revision on Reality Bomb and filling in its map, I put in 11,484 words.
I wrote 393 words on my short story. Probably only going to get the one done this month.
And this post is 162 words.
Total for the week: 12,039 words.
Running total for NaNoWriMo 2021: 49,861 words.
Think I’ll make the 50k? Yeah, me, too 🙂
The pivot
There are only two days left (!) No time to pivot, even if I wanted to.
As mentioned of the top, I’ll be posting a NaNoWriMo 2021 wrap up on Tuesday or Wednesday.
Until then, be well and stay safe; be kind and stay strong. The world needs your stories!
It’s the end of week 3 and I’m still doing well … ? Better than I thought I’d be faring at this point, that’s for sure. Best be grateful, eh?
The plan
I expected my production to dip with my return to work, and there was one day where I only managed 407 words of revision, and two others where I logged less than 1,667 words (1,187 and 1,099, to be specific). Otherwise, though, I recorded over the 1,667 and made up for the shortfall.
There were a couple of stressful days (the ones where I logged 407 and 1,099, coincidentally), but overall, I’ve been trying to manage a better work/life/creative balance. I think it’s working?
The progress
Revisions to Reality Bomb and filling in my scene map amounted to 10,451 words.
I wrote another 360 words of short fiction.
And this update is 214 words.
My total for week 3 is 11,025 words.
And my total for NaNoWriMo 2021 so far is 37,831 words.
The pivot
I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing, I think. No pivot necessary. Of course, I’ll have to watch the work stress. It’s getting better, though.
I hope all my American friends have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!
Until next week, be well and stay safe; be kind and stay strong. The world needs your stories!
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 7th 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 15th.
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 15th 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!
This will be the last tipsday until December 7th! Yup, it’s NaNo again. So, stock up for the month and feel free to peruse past weeks’ posts as well. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence, but this tipsday is jam packed full of writerly goodness. Enjoy!
Hallooo, writerly friends! At the last minute, I have decided to NaNo. I am once more a rebel, hoping to make some progress on this next round of Reality Bomb revisions as well as penning some short fiction. The hope is that, between the two, I’ll rack up a reasonable word count.
I am not, however, striving for 50k. I’m not going to stress. This is going to be a casual NaNo this year and my emphasis will be on trying to get back my writing mojo. My practice has been spotty since my burnout and I really just want to get some words on the page. Or revised. Or something. It just doesn’t feel right, not writing.
To facilitate this recapturing of joy, I’m going to hold off on my next chapter update until December. I will not be doing my regular curation beyond this week (because I already have the Tuesday and Thursday posts completed). I will be scarce on Twitter.
I will offer mini-updates every week, however, to make up for the lack of content otherwise.
Then, in December, I’ll do a double update (October and November), resume curation and Twitter, and I’ll let you know if this little experiment works out 🙂
If you want to be my buddy on the NaNo site, I am (unsurprisingly) MelanieMarttila.
Always Looking Up 