NoDoNaNoWriMo

I haven’t posted here in a while, but it’s not because I’m doing NaNoWritMo. I did that once a few years ago, wrote the first draft of an urban fantasy novel that was well over the 50,000 word goal. I proved that I could do it, but pretty much did nothing else but go to work and NaNoWriMo all month long.  (Sometimes I wrote at work as well, thanks to a little conference room near my desk that was usually not booked during my lunch hour.)  What I didn’t do is write a good novel. I’ve tried to re-write it a couple of times since and I’m still not happy with it.

However, a few months ago I came up with an idea for a novel that I think has a lot more potential. I’m really excited about it, more excited about anything I’ve written in a long time. The weekend-binge writing “schedule” I’ve been using for short stories doesn’t work so well for a novel; I really do need to work on it every day to keep the flow and momentum going.  But I know I can’t commit to the 1600+ words a day NaNoWriMo pace, and what’s more, I don’t think it would be the right thing to do. It’s not a realistic regular writing pace for me, and if my previous attempt is any proof, the words that get written are not mostly good ones. NaNoWriMo success is purely based on word count, and they all count — good, bad, and even ones that make absolutely no sense whatsoever.

So I’m doing what I’m calling simply WriMoMo — Write More Month.  My goal is to find the time to write at least 500 words a day, 3500 words a week, 15000 words by the end of the month.  So far so good: as of last night, I’ve written 2623 words, which brings me just to the end of chapter 5 of the novel.  Compared to the 3 months it took me to work through the initial idea and write the first 4 chapters, completing a chapter in less than a week feels great.  When the month is over, I want to be able to keep up the pace, until the novel is finished — and then on into the next one.

I’ve also started working on my annual make-one-for-everyone-on-the-list holiday gift project. I won’t be posting pictures here, for obvious reasons, but I’ll track my running tally and try to get a group picture to post after the holidays. (One down and at least eight more to go…)