Wednesday 26 November 2014

NaNoWriMo 2014 Pep Talk (Post #5)


For our last few days of this year's Wrimo, here is my pep talk that I wrote for Movellas. If you've never been on Movellas you should. It is the most incredible writing community I've ever come across and I don't know where I'd be without it.



I, on behalf of all the Wrimos who have reached the holy grail of 50,000 words, bestow this golden knowledge to you, fellow Movellian: you can do this. I know this for a fact because you are already trying. You are a mighty warrior and your war will be won. Glory will be yours.

You can do this, petrified writer. Chant it to yourself if you have to. Goodness knows I’ll be chanting it every day to keep myself chugging along.

You can do this, experienced and inexperienced authors of Movellas. Reaching 50,000 words, though it is a feeling like no other, is not the most important thing in the world. If you don’t reach the finish line by the time December shows its Christmasy head, don’t despair. You’ve still done something thousands, dare I say millions, want to do but are too afraid to try. Yes, you started your book.

Keep powering on, beautiful novelist. I’m not encouraging you to drop everything, (I’m afraid you still have to do your school work) but you are allowed to abandon your friends during these few weeks. This is a noble cause, your novel, let it know you can make sacrifices.

My advice to you is to sit down at the same time every day. Turn off your internet, put your phone in another room, (or turn that off as well) and make yourself write. If nothing else, you’ll get bored and have nothing else to do with yourself. After a few days, the routine will be like an old friend and you’ll spend fewer precious minutes twirling your thumbs and more time writing those diamond words.

Forget typos, you’ve no time for that. Don’t read back unless you have to remind yourself where you are. Forget about character and plot problems, they’re your inner editor’s problem. Do not, whatever you do, brilliant creator, let your inner editor out of its cage. I repeat DO NOT LET YOUR INNER EDITOR OUT OF ITS CAGE. Let it scream. Let it shout. Let it cry. Rejoice in its pain. It’s not often you’re allowed to do so.

Each day, stop when it gets exciting (once you’ve done the crucial 1,667 of course). Doing this will make it easier to start with minimal time wasted the next day. Every moment writing is important. I know not writing is a strange thing to suggest for NaNoWriMo, but doing this ensures you write lots every day and not just on odd days.

Your fellow Wrimo and friend @[Prodigy] implores you to use any method you can to overcome that crippling writer’s block. A spark of anything could help you out: a song, sketching your characters, even doing some research. Stop at nothing to slay the beast that haunts every writer’s nightmares.

Following those words, @[Ahlaam Nightshade], another gallant Wrimo and comrade, suggests  writing prompts to finish off the monster and to boost your confidence because you are fantastic!

You can do it.

You are doing it.


You are an author and nobody can ever take that away.

Molly
Wrimo

First posted on Movellas.

Tuesday 18 November 2014

NaNoWriMo 2014 Post #4

Hello to week three! Week three's usually a favourite of mine and I'm glad it's finally here. I take back what I said on my last post, week two was hard, it just hadn't caught up to me yet. But I battled on. In fact, it got harder once I reached 50,000 words, maybe because some of the drive dwindled because I'd reached the target.

I reached 50K on day 12 which is a personal best and bloody amazing! That's an average of 4,000 words every day, something that I may never have the leisure of reaching ever again so I'm enjoying it now. I'm okay with the fact that this is probably going to be my personal best forever because I imagine every NaNo from now on is going to have obstacles such as life in the way. I didn't seem to have that pesky little problem this year. Lucky for you, I can't bombard you with stickers yet as you can't actually validate your word count until Thursday.
On day 12 I wrote almost 6,800 words to reach 50K, a daily word count which I'm pretty sure is my largest ever.

But good news, I'm still excited about my story and that's what carried me through week two and into week three. I had little wobbles at times wondering if it was good enough but I soon told myself that it didn't matter and to not judge it until, 1: I've finished it, and 2: I've read it from start to finish. So I'm not allowed to doubt myself anymore. That helps.

Let's look at some stats again. By the end of day 17:

2011 - ZA                             - 28,615
2012 - I Dare You                 - 38,908
2013 - JAPOA/Fire and Ice  - 37,571

2014 - Thereafter                  - 67,130

It's clear to see that this year I'm bossing it. This is shaping up to be the quickest book I've ever written! Insanity. 

My goal is to finish it today - day 18 - meaning I've written an entire (and not short) novel in two and a half weeks.

Why wouldn't a publisher want this?

My donation page. Make the world a more creative place!


Okay, gotta go finish my novel!

Molly
WriMo

Tuesday 11 November 2014

NaNoWriMo 2014 Post #3

Well, today is day 11 of NaNoWriMo and I've nearly finished. I know! Mental. I think I'm a tiny bit insane but that's okay. This is pretty much what my protagonist has been saying for a while now so I'm going to take a leaf out of her book.

I should start off by saying all hail the covered up word count! I have written way more than I ever dreamt of just by covering up my word count and writing for long periods of time. I realised it was becoming too much about what that number said so I swiftly took it out of the equation. It was the best decision ever. I have written a huge amount of words every day. It's crazy.

According to NaNoWriMo, I'm doing so well that I'm going to be at 50,000 in two days. Meaning that I've completed NaNo in half the allotted time.

What? How?

To answer that question, I'm not intirely sure. It's fantastic to have a rival to push you to your absolute limit. I know for a fact I wouldn't be nearly as far if I wasn't battling it out with Aunt Midnight Rogue on Movellas every day to see who's going to win second place in the NaNo race. The winner reached 50K in 10 days which is just . . . inhuman I'm pretty sure of it.

I enjoyed comparing myself to last year so here are last year's day 10 stats compared to this year.

2011 - ZA                             - 16,760
2012 - I Dare You                - 21,835
2013 - JAPOA/Fire and Ice - 20,951

2014 - Thereafter                 - 40,697

Yeah, I'm getting to the realm of double what I've usually written by this point. That's pretty damn scary.

I'm very lucky that we're on week two and I'm still in love with my story and characters. It's about this time that people want to kill their characters off because they're sick of being with them but I'm not having that problem. If anything I love my characters more with each day as I see more of them. I'm also on good terms with my plot. I'm not going to throw in the towel or mix it up because I've got week two blues. I'm in an excellent place in my story. I know that's down to how much of it is already written. I would most certainly be suffering from week two blues if I was still on some of the beginning stuff I'm past now.

For those of you competing, here's my NaNoWriMo page
Also, here's a link to my donation page to make the world a more creative place.

See you at 50K.

Molly
Wrimo

Tuesday 4 November 2014

NaNoWriMo 2014 Post #2


Yes, it's that time again and it's safe to say I've gone NaNoMental or NaNoPumped as I keep writing on Movellas

Right now I'm on 10,538 words.

Let's talk about the first three days and not include today because without today the stats are pretty shocking. So on day three this year I had written 4,400 words more than I had last year. That's two and a half day's worth more in NaNo speak, one day being 1,667 words. How crazy is that? The craziest part of it is that I started off on day three with 5,250. Yep, I wrote 5,288 words in one day, doubling my word count. That's only 500 short of everything I'd written for ZA on day three back in 2011 - but I was a NaNo novice then. Now I am a master and I'm three days ahead already.

You want to know why I decided to double my word count on day three? 1: Because I could. 2: Because I wanted to see if I could write that much in one day (I have written more in a day before - somewhere around 6,000 is my record - but only ever to finish a novel). 3: And this is the most important, I wanted to get myself back in the race.

On Movellas, my favourite writing site, me and two others decided to host a NaNoWriMo Race where the Wrimos on Movellas would write as fast as possible to see who can reach 50,000 words first. Now it occurred to me yesterday that there were a lot of people reaching the 10,000 mark.

I wanted to be one of those people too. After all, if you don't play to win why are you playing?

So I decided in the almost three hours until my boyfriend got back from work, I was going to write another 2,500 words to make my total 10,000. Then I decided I wanted to make it 10,500 so I could say I doubled my word count. After turning off my internet, giving myself a pep talk, flinging my phone away from reaching distance and writing like a maniac, I did it. When I ticked over to 10,500 I could've cried.

For a visual representation of how far I came yesterday, here's what my word counts looked on day three for the previous three years:

2011 - ZA                                                             - 5,700
2012 - I Dare You                                                - 7,840
2013 - Just a Pair of Abominations/Fire and Ice  - 6,132

Yeah. It's shaping up to be a pretty good year so far, though I've still got a lot of work to do if I want to reach 50,000 first, but that's my kind of challenge.

I can't wait to see what the rest of the month brings!

Here's my donation page if you want to make the world a more creative place.
Here's a link to my NaNoWriMo profile if you want to buddy up.

Here's to day four and a crate full of words.

Molly Looby
Wrimo