I finally did it. With a final push this morning, I wrote the ending of my book, which panned out almost exactly as I had planned, and achieved the 50,000 word target of NaNoWriMo! I can’t quite believe I actually did it!
Keep an eye out on my blog, you might just be treated to a few snippets from my newly finished novel ‘NDA’ in the coming weeks.
I have less than 8,000 words to go before I reach the NaNoWriMo target of 50,000 words, but only 7 days to go! And I’m working most of those days. At the start of the month I really didn’t think I would come close to achieving this goal. I expected to lose interest, or be overwhelmed by work, and eventually give up, as so often happens. But now the finish line is in touching distance, I am determined to succeed. I know how my novel ends, I have it all planned. I just need to get the words down on paper (or, more accurately, computer).
But there’s one thing that I know could throw me off track. I have started re-writing. I reached a point last week where I realised I had written myself into a hole and without a redraft I wasn’t going to be able to end the novel the way I wanted. So I gave in and rewrote an entire chapter (and thank God I did, the new version is much better). However, that one re-write opened the flood gates and now I am seeing all the places I could add new things and make improvements. I’m telling myself to avoid it, to resist all urges. I’m struggling to listen to my own advice.
I know I must get to the end before I go back and start again. I have two weeks in December perfectly reserved for re-writing. I need to step away from the story before I start again. I have 8000 words to write. Yet my brain keeps thinking “wouldn’t it be great if…” whilst my phone is growing ever more full of notes and my characters are telling me they want to be more rounded people.
Must… resist.
Bring on a weekend of writing (Can I reach the end by this Sunday? Time will tell).
I’ve been struggling the last few days. I’ve finally hit the chapters in my NaNoWriMo book that are the hardest to write, the chapters that develop the characters rather than having big plot moments. Normally, when writing other projects, I would allow these sort of chapters to make me pause, I would let writers block sink in, frustrated with the struggle to write decent chapters. But this time, I forced myself to keep writing. I accepted that the writing would be terrible, obvious, predictable passages. Writing that, when re-writing, would be heavily edited. That’s okay. That’s what I’ve come to accept. Writing doesn’t have to be perfect from the starting. Everything is a work in progress and I can’t let some tough chapters stop me from moving forward.
11 days of NaNoWriMo remain. I have 9 chapters and 10,367 words left to go. Must. Keep. Writing
Yesterday marked the halfway point of NaNoWriMo and I’m pleased to say I am just about staying on track. I hit 26,000 words on Sunday.
However, the last few days have probably been my worst in November. My work/life balance has gone haywire whilst I’ve been trying to work across two time zones with a five hour time difference. This has left me with limited free time to type up my handwritten words or update my word count on NaNoWriMo.org
However I have tried my hardest to stay motivated and on track during this time and now I have a half filled notebooked with around four chapters of my novel which I have yet to type up, have no idea how many words it is. Tonight, my challenge is to get everything updated and see where I stand at the halfway point. That is, if I ever get out of work…
With NaNoWriMo underway, I feel it’s time to come clean about my deep dark addiction.
I…am addicted… to notepads.
My whole house is littered with them, all various shapes and makes and sizes, each with odds and sods written in them. All stuffed in random cupboard and under my coffee table. Every time I see a new notepad, I get an overwhelming urge to buy it. And I never throw any away, even if they’re full, because what if one day I need the random idea I jotted down in that notepad (this has yet to ever actually occur).
I’ve written 10,000 words of my NaNoWriMo novel so far and almost all of it has been done by hand in a notepad which lives in my handbag for train journeys. Whilst it means I’m getting lots of words done in the hour and a half solid writing time I have each day, it also means I’m spending almost two hours typing a night. I could take my laptop on the train, but writing directly into my computer just doesn’t have the same satisfaction as scrawling across page after page of a pad.
Until next week, Happy Writing!
With less than a week until NaNoWriMo begins, the panic has started to creep in. I’ve never done anything like this, normally my writing just happens when I’m inspired, so writing projects take a long time to complete and usually lose their way in the middle.
In preparation for NaNoWriMo I’ve been pushing myself to write more on my Hunters Ridge novel (which I will take a break from completely across November). In the three weeks since I decided to write as much as I could as a warm up, I’ve managed 20,000 words. But I’ve discovered an issue which I need to resolve for my NaNoWriMo writing. I do most of my writing by hand in a notebook whilst sat on a train. That gives me about an hour an a half of solid writing time with no interruptions each day. Problem is, I then have to type it all up, which, although giving me a chance to have a second pass and improve my writing, wastes time when I could be writing new words. I’m currently debating whether to try and type up everything at the end of the day, or have a set portion of my weekends (when I expect to achieve my biggest word counts) set aside just for typing up. I don’t want to get to the end of NaNoWriMo with 50,000 hand written words, because I will never write it up.
If you are also taking part in NaNoWriMo and want to add me as a buddy on NaNoWriMo.org my username is Jennifercw26
I’ll see you at the start line in just 4 days.
For years I have heard about NaNoWriMo – a month to write a 50,000 word novel. I have always been intrigued by the idea of it, by having to force yourself to sit down and write because there is an actual deadline to make an achievement by. Normally, I forget all about it until half way through November, by which point I decide there’s no point starting late.
But not this year. A few weeks ago, during one of my regular ‘I must think of some new ideas to keep my brain in shape’ sessions, I came up with the idea for a novel and I was really excited by it.
Instead of doing my usual; rushing into writing, quickly growing frustrated and giving up before the novel has even begun, I decided to hold on to it and save it for November. Safe to say, I am looking for to November 1st. However, there’s a lot to be done before then.
I don’t like writing without a rough plan. I won’t allow myself to write any words of the actual novel before the start date, but I need to plan out characters, a rough plot line and the core events, otherwise I know my writing will turn a scrambled jumble of junk.
With just over three weeks to go, my preparations have begun. I’ve join NaNaWriMo.org (Username: JenniferCW26 if you’ve also signed up and want to find me), created my novel and I’m ready to go. I’ll be sharing updates on my progress as I go. Here’s hoping by November 30th I’m celebrating hitting 50,000, not still staring at a blank piece of paper!
NDA – After a whirlwind night of drinks, dancing and daring moves, Ellie wakes up in the bed of a stranger. A rich, attractive, very famous stranger.
But when Ellie discovers her celebrity one night stand is going to have a much longer lasting effect on her life, she is thrown into a world of secrecy and lies, and forced to sign away all rights to the truth through a legally binding NDA.
Ellie’s realises path to motherhood isn’t going to be easy.
I’ll admit, I thought I’d be better at keeping this blog up to date. But over the past few weeks my world has been engulfed by work deadlines, social gatherings and the envitable flu as summer immediately turns into winter in England.
I managed to reach the end of episode 8 of Hunters Ridge at the end of August, but the script app on my phone is rapidly gathering dust as I hunt around for where I last left my inspiration. It’s currently winning the game of hide and seek.
At the same time, I began writing a novel version of Hunters Ridge. I am deliberately challenging myself to write it in a very different way, to bring in alternatives and place the focus on slightly different characters to see a new angle on the whole thing. Currently standing at five thousand words, it hasn’t been the smoothest process, but I’m please with how it going.
Now, with NaNoWriMo not long away, my mind has returned to coming up with new ideas. I have never taken part in the challenge of NaNoWriMo but I’ve decided this year is as good as any to begin. I’ve spent countless hours scrawling through Reddit’s Writers Prompts (Some of which are pure genius) and have taken to spending my train journeys daydreaming in the hunt for the perfect idea. I now have three to choose from, and I’m excited by two of them.
I definitely won’t be promising to update more, but I’ll work to get better at balancing my life. Eventually the characters in my head will rebel and force their worlds into existance, one way or another.
This week, I figured out what I wanted to happen in the season finale of the script I’m writing. It’s all very exciting. Problem is, I still have 4 other episodes before I get to write that episode.
I found myself torn. I was so thrilled and excited by what I have planned, that I immediately wanted to write it. This has happened a few times across my two years of working on Hunters Ridge, but each time I have resisted, determined not to write ahead, because to me it feels like skipping chapters when reading a book, you’ll never really want to go back to those chapters you skipped.
But this is my season finale, it’s where everything is leading to and I found myself wondering if, for once, it was okay to break my rules. If I wrote where it all ends, then I can lead myself there easier. I allowed myself to write segments, including the very final moments. Then I forced myself to go back to work on episode 8.
It’s hard to believe that after two years, I’m coming close to the end of my second full draft. It’s still feels like there’s going to be a long journey to get it from page to screen, but for a project that started as something to do when I was bored on my commute, it’s come a long way. Here’s to the next two years
This week I didn’t do any writing. I tried, but I was distracted. What’s my excuse this time? Reading.
Last weekend, I watched the whole of Big Little Lies. I knew very little about the series. Everyone at work had been discussing the show and the book, I wanted to see what the fuss was about. I was instantly hooked. Fantastic characters, beautiful cinematography, a gripping story.
With the series complete, I went into work and was immediately handed the book. I haven’t read anything for a while, I’ve found it difficult to focus and get the to end of a book, mainly because most of the books I’ve been reading haven’t had good enough plots to keep my interest.
Big Little Lies was different. I couldn’t put it down. I was prepared to be disappointed, I already knew the plot, it couldn’t compare to the series, could it? Well it did. In 4 days, I read all four hundred pages. And when I reached the end, I was disappointed, not by the book, but by the fact it was over. I wanted more.
I’ve rediscovered the joy of reading. And now, I’m on the hunt for more good books. Any recommendation? I’m open to all suggestions.
Novel Unknown 