I have fallen in love with NaNo. Being surrounded by other writers hammering out their projects, reading how others get over their creative blocks or outline a plot, and encouraging each other late at night via Twitter has been just the kick in the pants I needed to get my YA completed. I am not done yet, but my new goal is to be finished by the end of the weekend. (of course, then I’ll be entering intensive revisions so lots still to be done!)
I haven’t been able to blog as regularly as I’d like the past two weeks, but I’m so grateful for everyone continuing to check in–and a special hello to all my new blogosphere friends! I should be back on schedule next week with daily posts.
Now, onto this week’s stats:
Current Word Count: 57,802! That’s about 13,000 words this week, and I took the weekend off to enjoy my family! Very happy with that 🙂
Little Hints: Milk in plastic bags. Did you have those in your school cafeteria? I remember when they first introduced them when I was very young and despite another 10 or so years with them everyday in school, I never quite got used to them. I did some research and many schools still use these, as they create less waste space-wise. They’re still weird.
Soundtrack Song of the Week: Complicated by Carolyn Dawn Johnson. I love this song but I’d never heard it before I did research for my story soundtrack. The emotions this song conveys are powerful and real. Love it (As always, email subscribers click through on the link to watch it on my blog since it doesn’t want to include itself in emails, grr
Writing or Editing Trick Used This Week That Worked Particularly Well:
Well another all nighter did help this week but really letting the characters go where they want and not forcing them into my pre-designed outline has been awesome. That and really letting go and imagining my main character being able to do things I never could–last night, she finally stood up to the “Mean Girl” in her school which was so hard for me as I would’ve never had the courage to do that!
Personal High: Meeting and surpassing my writing goals this week and getting a little writing encouragement in the form of an agent contacting me from a Pitch Contest I entered, asking for more pages and saying my work caught her eye! I am trying to keep my expectations low but having just started following this writing dream in August, it was very motivational for me. 🙂
Personal Low: Not being able to do it all–stay on top of my blog and twitter, reading and posting on other blogs, and working on my novel. I wish there were like 5 of me. . . then maybe one could do the laundry, too.
Writing Goal For the Coming Week: By next Wednesday, I plan on being finished my first draft and heading into revisions!!
What are your goals for the week? Anything particularly work — OR not work– this week?
HAPPY WRITING!
