I think writing 10,000 words a day isn’t sustainable, and more than 10K a day is insane. I’ve done it for three days, and had hoped to continue for a week, but I may be making my vertigo act up. I do take frequent breaks, and have gotten exercise and am eating healthy foods, but I want to relax for an hour during the day, take a walk with my family and not talk about writing. I want to read something just for fun. I don’t know that my books are going to be 100K each. If one, or both, were only 80K, then I wouldn’t have to worry about not getting done by the end of the month, even with lower word count.
Then again, I have noticed that when I’m going full steam, I write stuff that I otherwise wouldn’t. I think of further complications for my characters, and I am making progress. I don’t write just to get word count. I write to get words down that capture my story. But it might be time to drop back to something more realistic like 5K a day, which is still 3x the amount needed to win NaNoWriMo.
But I don’t consider it winning unless I meet my goals, which is the first draft of two new books. I may have achieved that ‘beginning bump’ that fits my style of work so well. I prefer to work extra hard at the beginning of a project so I don’t have to push at the end. So maybe I can stop pushing quite so hard today?
I think I’ll try for 7K today.
After having a hilarious time Sunday evening at a write-in that was at a Caribou that happened to be hosting a poetry slam (no notice, first indication was when they put a big receiver on a table near the back that several people had eyes with interest), tonight I’m back at ‘my’ Caribou. The one with lots of outlets and a variety of chairs. Unfortunately, it often has people who hang out for hours, but when I requested to change my small table for one that seated four that one person was at, it turned out that she was here for my write-in. So we kept them both.
After something like 50 hours of writing, I reached 50,128 words. In four and a half days. I took a 6 hour break, but it’s time to plunge back in to to finish the story. (And then start the second one.)
I think I figured out how to do NaNoWriMo a bit more sanely. I do like to write more in the beginning of the month than the end, although I tend to write for the entire month. So, I’m going for a week of 10 thousand words average, then a week of averaging 8 thousand, then 6, then 4. That makes 190,000. And leaves me two days at the end to finish up (and get to 200,000 if I need to.)
Next year I’m going for 154,000. Seven thousand the first week, 6 the second, 5 the third and 4 the fourth. It would be so much more sane to have an occasional 10,000 word day as a stretch goal instead of trying to average 10,000 a day for a week. I’d like to not try and write more than 10,000 words in a single day since I find it physically difficult.
It won’t finish two first drafts next year, but since I already have an idea of working on a series, it shouldn’t matter. But, I’d better get back to my writing for this year since I hope to finish the first book this weekend so I can write the second one for the rest of the month. But, I hope my 10,000 word days are mostly done. They’re harder than I thought they’d be to do day after day.
When I posted on Facebook that I had finished my first novel during NaNoWriMo, I didn’t mention that it was a day or two later than I’d hoped. After all, I could still make the second novel with 2/3 of the month left, I hoped. A non-writing friend saw my status and commented that she hoped the second novel was bigger, or took longer to figure out the complications or I’d have to write a third! I guess it does seem like I’d have time to do that. So maybe I’m not behind even if I didn’t get the first one done as quickly as I’d hoped.
Am thinking about what I want to do after NaNo. I know which book I’m editing, but am thinking a bit about writing in general. I think I’m going to start doing morning pages by hand. Maybe after breakfast, though, since I just love being in the sun room as the sky lightens. I have seen some of the prettiest sunrises I can remember. And the sky right now is just gorgeous.
And I like getting up and working on a project, so maybe I’ll do a chapter first thing in the morning. I definitely want more time to read and do other things than I’ve had in November.
But, I have less than 50,000 words left to write. And still have 10 days to do it in.
I have three goals at the moment:
1) Finish the first draft of my second novel during November.
2) Not write more than 201K words unless more are needed to meet the first goal (regardless of any side competition that might be going on.)
3) Never try to write this many words during November again.
The second and third goals are the tough ones. I can be competitive, and NaNoWriMo brings that to the forefront since the reward is a lot of writing that I can use the rest of the year. But I spent a crazy amount of time writing this November, and with two more novels to edit, it makes me not want to ‘waste’ time writing the rest of the year. I’m not sure if my writing would be better or worse if I wrote slower. On the one hand, I would be able to correct bad sentences right after writing them, which I don’t do much during November. Then again, I’m able to be almost exclusively caught up in the world I’m writing about, which is pretty cool. That wouldn’t be possible if I was only writing a story for an hour or two a day, then doing editing and other writing related things.
But I’m looking forward to slowing down. I’m going to try writing morning pages long hand. I’m getting back on Critique Circle.
I had time to exercise, cook, even did a little socializing including a marvelous time with Barry and the kids in Ohio. But focusing on writing 6667 words a day (on average) didn’t give me time for other writing activities. And I missed that. Plus, with my 10K start the first week, I just spent too many hours in a chair with a laptop in front of me.
So, I really mean goal number 3. But I’ve been told I’ve said that before.