Home Posts tagged "Nanowrimo"

Tag: Nanowrimo

The Nano That Wasn’t

So last month, I talked about participating in NanoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) with two books, alternating or working on whatever book I felt like working on. And at the time, it seemed like a perfectly reasonable, doable plan. Especially since I wasn’t planning on trying to make the usual 50,000-word goal. And then November actually hit. For the first half of the month, I had a lot going on with work, which is fine — I never complain about money coming in — and I figured, okay, this first half is a wash. Maybe I can just do Nano for the second half then. I’m chuckling to myself because it’s the 21st, 9 days from the end of the month, and I have yet to write a single word. I haven’t even written a poem. Nada. Nothing. So what the heck happened? Life happened. Life. Life stress. Health stress — nothing serious, but just enough to cause some…fun motivation issues. Chronic extreme fatigue being one. I’m still battling that. The holidays are approaching, which are their own unique brand of stress. Things are imploding. The thought is there, but every time I think about actually, you know, actually writing, my muse side-eyes me and says, Seriously? In the middle of this freaking mess? Have you lost it? And I sigh and set the thought aside yet again. It’s pretty awful, because my main way of dealing with stress is…you guessed it…writing. And I haven’t consistently written for years now.…

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To Nano or Not to Nano, That is the Question

It’s seven days till the big day — the first day of National Novel Writing Month, which is basically Christmas for a lot of us writers who love to participate every year (like me), and I am wibbling on what to do, like my fellow Turtleducker Kit Campbell talked about in her blog recently. Normally, because of work, I’d say no way, or sign up and attempt it and maybe write a few hundred or thousand words and call it “a valiant effort,” and feel like I tried, but damn, the experience was lost, again, because I couldn’t fully participate like I wanted to. It’s been this way for a long time. I can tell you already that I have an editing job hitting at the end of November. Not too bad, but…I have an ongoing job that got put off a bit due to some extenuating circumstances that needs to get done, preferably before this one hits. I have assorted author assistant things happening that are the usual things, but they take time too. It’s all part of my work, which I love, so this isn’t a complaint by any stretch. It’s just…I’m still trying to carve out the time to write more consistently. I can’t seem to manage it. I am hoping I hit upon the sweet spot, that method that’s been eluding me for literal years since I started my business…so I can maybe do something this Nano. It won’t be 50k like it used to be…

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A Rustling in the Bushes

Well, here we are again. I had honestly begun to think it wouldn’t happen any more. It’s so easy to tell other writers that their muses haven’t abandoned them. It’s just a dry patch. You’ve got a lot going on in your life. It’s tough times for everyone. We’ve been through hell the last few years. The creativity will come back! Telling yourself that, though–no, that’s easy too. But believing it? Now that’s hard. Once upon a time, story ideas tackled me frequently. The kind of ideas that would grab me by the shoulders, or maybe the neck, and shake, demanding to be written. It hasn’t happened in a long time. Like, a really long time. Oh, I’ve had ideas, like maybe once or twice a year. And sometimes I even wrote them. But they weren’t the kind that pounced me like Tigger or Hobbes would do. Maybe the ideas that jump me like that aren’t better–in fact they probably aren’t better than something I’ve really thought through–but dammit, they are fun. And it’s happened. A great loud song I’ve heard a hundred times collided with a picture of a smartass redhead (have you noticed I have a thing for smartass redheads? Perhaps you haven’t been paying attention.) and an unrelated news story in my head, and BAM! KD is flat on the floor under a very self-satisfied tiger. via GIPHY Looks like I’m in for some fun coming up, and I’m quite excited about it. I’m poking writer friends…

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Playing Catch Up

Hi friends! Like Siri, I too love autumn (and am an autumn baby), and October is my very favorite month of the year! I just…feel very exhausted this October. It’s hard work, getting a book ready and then out! I’ve essentially done almost nothing but Hallowed Hill since, oh, May? June? Goodness, I don’t even remember. But I had to get the book ready, and then I needed to do marketing, and publishing, etc., and it was A LOT. And now the book is out! And aside from generally poking it (and fighting with Amazon, which keeps losing bits of things) it doesn’t require a lot of my attention anymore. So now I can move on to all the other stuff I should have been working on, right? I mean, in theory. But generally I am just tired. MileHiCon is this month, which I’ve been doing for, oh, eight years or so. I’ve got copies of Hallowed Hill ordered, and I’ve submitted my permits and have my panel schedule and all that jazz, but there’s still stuff to do. I need to figure out a card reader, and do panel research (maybe–I’ve already forgotten what panels I’m on. I had to drop the dinosaur panel which was devastating), and I’m pondering maybe making little booklets with the excerpt, or the first chapter, in them to hook people into buying the book. Or maybe I’ll just do bookmarks. But I’ve got to figure that out. And I’ve got a big volunteer…

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The World’s Tiniest NaNoWriMo

Last time I mentioned that I was going to attempt the “world’s tiniest NaNoWriMo”. I wrote it casually, offhandedly, to avoid the notice of the “No you can’t” voices. No, you’re too busy; you’re too stressed; the pandemic is still taking up too many brain cycles; you haven’t written any fiction since well before the pandemic began. That was all true…but I was determined to try. I picked a work in progress, a lighthearted fantasy novel that I had started for NaNoWriMo 2019. I’d written 20,000 words that November (an official NaNo is 50K words, and most novels are between 80K and 120K, depending on the genre). I’d written only a few thousand words on it since then, but I had an outline to guide me, and I thought I could manage to pick up from where I’d left off. I set the “tiniest possible goal”, 100 words a day, which has worked for me before when trying to restart the flow of creativity after a writing drought. (Those happen to me regularly.) Writing that slowly is not a great way to get a coherent story, especially novel length, but sometimes there’s nothing else to be done. Then I did the smartest thing: almost every evening I went and hung out with my online writer friends, and we challenged each other to “word wars”. You both start writing on your own projects at an agreed-upon time, and stop when the timer you’ve set goes off (usually 10 or 15 minutes,…

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NaNoWriMo Rebelling is Fun

So, this year for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), I actually have two projects, which is a first for me! Yeah, quite ambitious, although I have no plans of actually hitting the usual 50,000 words like you’re supposed to do. Let’s not get too crazy, okay? I haven’t hit that since 2008, and that was via voice recognition. The book was Hereafter, which was supposed to be a dark comedy, and ended up being a dark conspiracy/paranormal romance thing that I still need to rewrite. Hmmm. Anyway, um, this year’s projects are the following: my Turtleduck Press novella, Soul Song, which is a paranormal romance about twin flames, and also Esperantaj poemoj (Esperanto poetry). Why on earth are you doing both, Erin, you ask? Are you insane? And with working crazy hours, and the holidays approaching, and your health being wonky and and and — Well, see, it’s like this. We at TDP decided to try our collective hands and sporks (and possibly turtleducks) at the novella thing, and I’m uh, way behind. I figured I’d at least get going on mine. And it’s, uh…going? I’m 2,000 words in. Exciting stuff. 🙂 I’m doing the 100 words when-I-can method, which is really all I can manage at the moment. Man, it’s a far cry from previous years, but it beats 0, which was what I had for most of this year. So at least I’ll end on a semi-high note? And the Esperanto poetry…my friend and study partner and I…

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November Has Fried My Brain

What day is it? Where am I? Who are you? Oh, friends, what is happening? Don’t ask me, I don’t know. Like KD, I’m also doing Nano this year. But is it going well? It is not. And, I mean, the story itself is going fine! It’s fun to write, and the writing is flowing reasonably well. But everything else is kind of melting around it. Seriously. Problems are cropping up left and right, deadlines have come out of the woodwork, people I’ve been trying to get a hold of for months are finally calling me back, and there’s work happening that I scheduled months ago. I haven’t been this busy in a long time. They say that having more on your plate helps you get more done, but at some point you also start to lose track of what’s happening around you. Or things get forgotten about because you’ve got twenty things you’re trying to keep track of. Or your to-do list gets so long it’s overwhelming to even look at it. I want to say that it’s going to get better soon. But I also know that it isn’t. Even if I manage to get on top of everything that’s going on right now, there’s fifteen other things that I’m ignoring for my own sanity that will, eventually, need to be dealt with. Plus the holidays are coming up ridiculously fast and all the grandparents want ideas, and they are very impatient about waiting for answers. Is there…

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NaNoWriMo, So Good to Me

Fifteen years ago, I did NaNoWriMo for the first time. In twenty-four days, I wrote the first draft of Even the Score. I won. In 2007, I pulled the mess that was what I had of Joss together, and wrote the first real draft of Queen’s Man. 2008 was Burning Bright. I wrote the 50k, but the book wasn’t done. I got stuck. The next year when NaNo was approaching, I thought I’d go ahead and finish it for NaNo. Instead I got inspired and I wrote the ending in NaNoPubYe’s NaNo warm-up (25k in two weeks) and ended up doing In the Forests of the Night for NaNo 2009. I wrote over 50,000 words in fifteen days. Two days later, I’d written the entire first draft. My streak of useable first drafts ended there, alas. I won 2010 with 50,000 words of my nemesis story, but I still, eleven years later, don’t have a plot. (the plot? I have lots of…things.) NaNo hasn’t only given me the impetus to write and finish a bunch of novels (Is four a bunch?) It has given me friends. I met my dear friend, my roomie, through NaNo. I met a bunch of other writing friends, with whom I still write, on the NaNo forums, or in my favorite writing forum that grew from the NaNo forums. And, of course, most important to my writing destiny, I met Siri, Erin, and Kit through that forum. We’ve been writing and publishing together for eleven…

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Mardo estas esperanta tago (Tuesday is Esperanto Day)

So, September marked a full year since I took my first class in Esperanto. It also marked a full year since I met my study partner and continued studying with him after class ended. We began a series of video lessons from the 90s called Esperanto Pasporta al la Tuta Mondo (“Passport to the Entire World,” basically). It’s really cheesy, but it’s really great as far as the content for learning goes. There are also PDFs you can get that go with it — an entire transcript (which is so helpful), a vocab list, and excercises you can do as well. Quite a few of them! Let me tell you, this has been awesome for my learning. I’ve picked up so much, more than I probably would have with Duolingo alone. The excercises force you to use the concepts and actually solidify the ideas and grammar points in your mind. So it’s not just passive reading or watching, you’re doing it. And hell, the videos are cute — I often call it a soap opera because that’s what it reminds me of. Just with not-so-great acting. But the Esperanto is spot-on. At least from what I can tell, anyway. So my partner told me about a group in England that was having free classes in Esperanto. Beginner’s classes. At first I couldn’t make them. But this go around…I could make the Tuesday one. He talked me into the Course II – instead of Course I – because he felt that…

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Searching for Consistency in Chaos

Yeah, that’s basically been my life for…gosh…since August of last year? Not counting COVID, just business stuff, now. Somehow the editing part of my business exploded and I started getting jobs way more frequently than usual…one after the other. While this was totally awesome and lucrative, it required some adjusting — from the way I structured my workday to the way I scheduled each and every job. And, for the most part, it hasn’t really let up since. Which is awesome. And a bit rough. And then we also have COVID in there, and the usual life stuff, and my health crap and and and… So things have been seriously off kilter for awhile. So much that I haven’t written in months. One of my editing clients, who I routinely talk shop with, asked me the other day how the writing was coming along and I had to honestly tell him that I’d written 181 words in January and that was it for the year so far. And some poetry. And in years past I’d written every single day. My least prolific year back then was around 86,000 words, back when I spent a bit more time editing than drafting. My most prolific year? 399,000 words. Four standard novels, folks. But back then I had 9-to-5 day job. I came home, ate dinner, and wrote. Rinse and repeat. For years. It was not only a routine, but a comfort. I knew I could always go into my worlds and play.…

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