Five Weeks To Go

Thanksgiving sunset

   Thanksgiving is over and so is my major work commitment that kept me from participating in NaNoWriMo. I'm looking forward to the next five weeks when I can better balance work and writing.
   The month wasn't a total bust because I did get a few scenes written, mostly this weekend while I was on the road to visit family. This coming five weeks, though, is the make-or-break period for one of my 2012 goals -- to finish one of my WIPs. I have two contenders and need to focus on one of them to make this goal.
   To that end, I just bought Rachel Aaron's awesome writing book, 2K to 10K: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love. I've heard Rachel interviewed on several podcasts and was inspired by her approach to figuring out she could write faster. She developed a three-prong approach centered on knowledge, time and enthusiasm. Knowledge is knowing what you're going to write before you start. I'm more of a plotter than a pantser, though I'm not fully in either category. Time is tracking your productivity to see when you write best and under what conditions. And enthusiasm is keeping yourself excited about what you're writing. I've read the blog posts, but the author has added to that in the e-book and it is  worth far more than the 99-cent price.
   This week, I'm working on the project formerly known as the novella and I'm going to finish the outline, so I will know what scenes need to be written. I have a pretty good scene list, but it's lacking the last 20 percent. Taking Rachel's advice, I'm writing the end first and will then figure out how to get there from where I am.
    And where I am right now is in front of my computer with a couple hours before I need to go to bed. So I'm going to get started... now.

Resolutions – October Update

    This has not been a writerly month (it’s a word) (I had to check). The reason? I will be spending November in trial and when that happens, the month before is spent preparing for that trial. When preparing for or in trial, my client deserves my full attention. So no guilt that I only wrote 3,825 words in October. Frankly, I’m not sure when or how I managed to get that many words onto paper.
    Here’s the break-down: I wrote on six days last month; I wrote 3,263 words on the sequel to the novella, 152 words on the suspense novel, 168 words on last year’s NaNoWriMo project, and 242 words on the novella. Not great. Still, it’s better than last year, when I wrote one day and only logged 368 words in October. Yes, I had a lengthy trial last November, too. I really need to schedule work better so I can take part in NaNoWriMo next year.
    I'm now at 128,256 words for the year. That's not too shabby. Even with last month's anemic efforts toward my writing goals, I'm ahead of last year at this time, when I had 85,019 words done. The end of the year is fast approaching, though, and one of my goals is to finish something in 2012. 
    While not writing, and when not working, I have been thinking a lot about story structure, raising stakes for characters, and motivation. I have many handwritten notes about what I want to do once December arrives and things return to normal. At the top of that to-do list is “nap,” but a close second is “write.” I’m actually looking forward to the second item more (and I do love to nap).