I owe my Nano Manuscript over 2200 words (from the past 2 days) and 1667 today – let’s just call it 4K! Over the marathon weekend I only managed 5K ….
However I knew what the problem was;
Exhaustion and the need for SLEEP – I have fallen asleep by 9pm for the past 2 night writes -resulting in SMALL word counts, Tuesday I produced 800+ and just 309 words last night.
Both writes were tough… why? I HAD NO PLOT!
I didn’t mean to be a pantster this Nano (one who flies by their seats of their pants with no plan and free writes through 50K!) It just happened this way as I was far too busy in October with work, poetry, performances, Literature Festivals and organising the Inkspill Writing retreat to complete any planning and preparation for NaNoWriMo.
Last night when I finished my measley 309 words I decided I needed a plan!
Today I was home and ready to write at about 2pm – I have spent the past 40minutes, drinking coffee, planning and researching.
Here is where today’s NaNo started;
(excuse the 70’s carpet we haven’t yet replaced… it is warm and deep and I intentionally took a distance shot – not that anyone would want to steal my story arc planning – but it keeps the story a bit of a mystery!)
In my notebook with a story arc plan for each character followed by a list of chapters and main events.
Of course the 50 000 words is only half the story and I plan to use the spring and summer camps to finish it if I can. 
Right off to start writing in stages.
2:45 pm Stage 1
POST TO BE UPDATED – pop back and find out how I have done!
3:00 pm
- I have already beaten last night’s word count – in just 15 minutes, 321 words!
3:45 pm
- An hour after starting and I have 1342 *nearly finished today’s word count and then to catch up! It is so much easier when you have a plan.
BREAK – Caffeine and much needed cake – the sugar will keep me awake now that day light is fading… and the best thing – I would usually still be at work and in the past 2 hours I have managed all this, as well as a mini-food shop on the way home and lunch!
4:15 pm Stage 2
- Slippers on and 5 minutes into the write I have accomplished today’s word count: 1670
Off to update NaNo Stats and then I will carry on catching up the missing words from this week!
2013 Novelists
2 9 8 , 5 9 7 Wrimos taking part – that’s 298, 596 other people as mad as me! 🙂
- If you are ahead of the word count, try to stay ahead.
- DO NOT feel guilty for occasionally not making the word count. I haven’t managed the past 2 nights, the important thing is I turned up and wrote… even if it was only a few hundred words.
- So turn up.
- Turn up and WRITE!
- Plan – have a plot no matter how flimsy or flexible.
- Have in mind what you want to achieve each day, as far as the content – what you will write and even a target number of words if that works for you.
- BITE SIZE chunks – it works for revision and it works for creating too. Tonight I had 3 sittings and managed over 4000 words.
- In the words of Nike – JUST DO IT!
Yeah I’m doing NaNoWriMo too and I’m glad I had a handful of story outlines and expectations for each character before starting on the trek toward 50K . Good post!
Good luck with your Nano write – I knew in the end I would have to set a plan to paper – my ideas were all too vague or too multi-layered… kind of hard when only writing half a book. I am feeling much better about it now though.
I had a bit of a plan – and some character notes, but as I was free writing it started taking a different direction. Even now with the plan something major happened to one of my character’s in tonight’s big write which almost makes her the central character for a while!