NaNoWriMo2023 - Breaking the Tape

Writing was a bit hit and miss last week, but I've just passed the 50K. With a grand total of 51304 words I've unlocked the Winner Badge:

I have three more stories to write but intend to keep them flash fiction length. So, other than updating the progress meter at the side of the page once the remaining stories are written, that's it for this year!

Quick update: I wrote one of the other three stories that I'd planned, having decided to keep the other two in reserve in case they turned into longer stories for other purposes. Final total came to 52607. 

 

NaNo 2023 - Week 2 Update

This update's slightly later than intended, but the 30k milestone is in sight. As of 4.10pm my current grand total for this year's NaNo is 28979. The story that I've just finished weighs in just short of four thousand words, and another one that's planned will probably be around the same length, so I'm going to fit in some (hopefully) shorter ones over the next few days. As far as today is concerned, I'm concentrating on getting my notes in order, nothing more. I think it's time for a cuppa!

NaNo 2023 - Week 1 Update

The first few days of this year's challenge were a bit on the slow side, but I'm pleased to say that I've made it to 14059 words at the end of the first week. At the moment I'm nearing the end of what is probably a novelette rather than a novella, and have notes for the next four stories. I'm not sure how long they'll be, and a couple may turn out to be flash fiction, but I have a story that I planned a few years ago that I'd like to add to the collection, and it could be rather wordy, though not as long as one that's nearing its end. 

NaNo 2023 - Day 1

Well, I've made a start. I went out for the day and didn't start writing until after dinner, but the first story weighs in at 1895 words. With nothing else planned for tomorrow, I should be able to start earlier - Storm Ciaran allowing. As always I'll be updating the progress bar daily, with a written weekly update.  

NaNoWriMo 2023

This year marks 25 years of NaNo, so I've decided - a bit later than usual - to give it another crack. As with the 2018 iteration, I'm going to concentrate on short stories (and one or two novellas) rather than a novel. Here's the obligatory writer's badge, just to make it official:

As always I'll post weekly updates on my progress, though I'm not sure if I'll manage to hit the 50k goal this time around.

  

NaNo 2022 - Final Update!

At 10.41 pm on 27th November my word count for this year's NaNo passed the 50K by a mere eighty-two words. I knew that I'd need two more chapters to finish the story, and I've just finished the first of those to give a new total of 51252. I may make a start on the final chapter this evening, and by tomorrow night the story will be officially complete. Once it's done I'll update the word count thing again, and I'm guessing that I'll need another 1300 words or thereabouts. Here's the winner's badge to make it official:

 

Edit: final count is 53172 - the final chapter ran to 1920 words.

NaNo 2022 - Week 3 Update

Twenty-one chapters in twenty-one days, a grand total of 40211 words, and the finishing line is getting closer! In theory, and according to the stats counter on the official NaNoWriMo website, I should reach 50k on Saturday. As for the story, I can see it concluding between 51k and 52k. Watch this space ...

NaNo 2022 - Week 2 Update

Fourteen chapters are written, and today concludes with a grand total of 28175 words. I'll be doing other things on Wednesday so I may not get as much written, but at least I have a few thousand words as a buffer. If I carry on as I am at the moment, the NaNo site estimates that I should hit 50k on the 25th or 26th :-)

NaNo 2022 - Week 1 Update

I've had a few late starts, a few afternoon naps, and a lot of tea. All of those things have helped to build a current grand total of 13647 words. I've also written one complete chapter each day, which has happened by chance rather than planning. In terms of how this NaNo is progressing in comparison with previous years, I'm forty-three words down on my grand total for Day 7 in 2019. I haven't looked at all of my statistics for earlier than 2019, but I suspect that this year is more or less on par with previous years. Overall, things are plodding along nicely :-)  

NaNo 2022 Day 1

After a much later start than I'd hoped for, I've written the first chapter of this year's novel with a grand total of 1754 words. It's likely to be another late start tomorrow, but hopefully it will be slightly easier going as the week progresses. The first few days tend to be a bit yukky, so I'm not overly concerned by the fact that the progress bar on the official site looks less than wonderful. 

NaNoWriMo 2022

 As it's been a few years since I last took part in the regular NaNo, I've decided to switch genres this time around. Instead of horror/supernatural, I'm having a bash at murder/mystery/crime/thriller, set in the year 1500. To make it official, here's the writer badge for this year:

As always, I'll be updating the word count widget thing, and posting updates after Day 1 and at the end of each week. 

NaNoWriMo 2019 - And We're Done!

I'm very pleased to announce that at 9.50pm GMT my NaNo novel for this year made it across the finish line with a grand total of 50283 words. It was also the end of the story, rather than just a case of crossing the 50K target so I'm rather chuffed on two fronts. If I'd tried to add anything else it would just have been padding, which it didn't need. I have to admit that there were a few times when I thought I couldn't make the story stretch even half as far as it did, but once I got stuck into writing the supernatural scenes - because it was definitely more supernatural than horror - it was all systems go. So there we have it, along with a badge for a 26 day writing streak:

and an official winner's badge:

That's all folks!

NaNo 2019 - Week 3 Update

Three weeks in and I'm slightly short of the 40K mark. According to my stats on the official site I should hit 50K on 26th November at my current rate, but it would be great if I crossed the threshold a couple of days earlier. I guess I'll just have to type faster and try not to get into a slump - there have been a few slow days, but at least I already knew that this year would have to compete with a few other things that were planned. Anyway, I've earned my badge for a 21 day writing streak so overall things are looking pretty good.

Onwards and upwards!

NaNo Week 2 Update

So it's update time again, and although I didn't manage to end this year's Day 14 on the same amount as last year's Day 14, I have just over 28K words in total. Not many were added today, but so far I've managed to update my word count every day to earn the 14 Day Writing Streak badge.

Now it's time for a cuppa followed by an early night, and hopefully a better writing day tomorrow.

NaNo 2019 - Week 1 Update

I usually make the first round-up post at the end of Day 7, but never mind. Day 7 finished on a grand total of 13690 words, and Day 8 has finished on 16128 words! Therefore I'm proud to display the badge for an 8 Day Writing Streak as I've managed to write and update my word count every day :-) Tuesday and Wednesday were not as good as I'd have liked but what the heck, I got the words down on both days.

Suffice to say that I'm rather chuffed!

NOTE: The word count widget that I've always used on here hasn't been updated to work with the new NaNo site as yet, so I've had to switch to the DIY update version for now.

Out of the Starting Blocks

NaNo 2019 is well underway, and after making a start at midnight I managed 1008 words before my head hit the keyboard. After not very much sleep, doing the usual day to day stuff (including an afternoon nap), watching Wales lose to New Zealand :( and going out, I finished Day 1 on 2342. I'm hoping to get a decent way ahead by the end of Week 1 as I will have to miss a couple of days of writing for various reasons, but otherwise not a bad start. All I need now is a word count widget on here that works with the new NaNo site.

It's that time of year again!

November is nearly upon us so that can only mean one thing - NaNoWriMo! Needless to say I'll be working on something in the horror/supernatural vein, though early last week I hadn't quite decided if the story I had in mind could stretch to 50k words. However I've given it some more thought and come up with a few little additions, so I think (hope) it's doable. Watch this space ...

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NaNoWriMo 2018 - Over the Finish Line!

I crossed the finish line in the early hours of Saturday, 24th November, with a grand total of 50544 words! For once the word count validator didn't add or take off any words, so my paper and pen tally stayed correct. In all I managed to knock out 28 short stories, so I'm pretty happy with that. Not entirely sure that I'd choose to concentrate on a short story collection next time though, as it wasn't all plain sailing. Novels are definitely the way to go.

Still, I managed to get the job done, which is all that counts after a seven year break. As for what comes next I think I'll catch up on some reading then think about the novel I started as part of the Two Year Novel Course at Forward Motion. 

NaNo 2018 - Week 2 Round-up

It's the end of Week 2 and I'm pleased to report that I've passed the half-way point with 34132 words! I've just finished my seventeenth story, so now I'll be spending what's left of tonight coming up with the ideas for a few more. When I've written novels in previous NaNos they usually have twenty four or twenty five chapters, so I'm thinking that the finished article this year will have a similar number of stories. There's still a way to go, but the finish line is getting closer ....

NaNo 2018 - Week 1 Round-up

In spite of a later start than intended on Day 7, I still managed to reach 16040 words by midnight! That's the first six stories accounted for, the longest being story number one at 6324 words in total. It's a story for which I'd had a few notes written for quite a while, so it felt sensible to start with that one and see how things worked out. Whether it is any easier work on stories rather than a novel for NaNo I'm not sure, as it's a case of really having to work out a quick plot, outline, and off you go. Of course that's partly because I only made the decision to take part the day before everything kicked-off. If I'd made my mind up earlier and worked out a plan of attack for each story in advance - rather than making them up as I go along - perhaps it would have felt a little easier. I'm still pleased with how things are going though, and more importantly it's good to be writing again.