Wednesday, November 28, 2012

15,932 words to go by midnight friday

Just a quick update... and an apology for typos, etc sice I'm typing one handed. Theres a sleeping baby in my other arm.

As of 11:55 last night, when I wrote my last sentence for the day I'd surpassed 34,000 words!  Still a ways to go till Friday and Rowan has the sniffles and doesnt want to be out of my arms today. Its not likely I'll get much writing till daddy comes home at 5. Maybe I sshould nap with the baby...

Monday, November 26, 2012

Half way there!

It's amazing what you can accomplish when you finally get in the zone. The writing zone is a place that is sometimes hard to find. The littlest things can keep you from finding it. A sleepy baby. A headache from too much sugar and fun at a child's birthday party. A growing sense of doom when you realize it's 6:30 pm and you haven't written one single word for the day.

I started pecking at the key board, getting a sentence here, and a sentence there. But it wasn't flowing out of me the way it has for the past little while. One of the problems was that I had reached that point when I was going to have to write a love scene. Those are always the most difficult for me. So I decided to skip over it and return later. I rocked Rowan to sleep, handed him over to his dad, and got busy. By 11:55 I had crossed the 24,000 word mark. Grand total written for the day - 3424. Not my best writing day, but still respectable. I went to bed content.

This morning I packed Rowan up and brought him down to my mom's. When I left he was happily playing, with an attention nan and great-aunt ready to cater to his every need. 

Now to put that time to good use. In an hour or so I should cross the 25,000 word marker. Half way there, and five days to make it. Still feeling like this is quite possible. 

It's a good day to write!

Sunday, November 25, 2012

20,000 Words on Day 5

Yesterday was an amazing day of writing for me. By 10:30 last night I had written 7000 words for the day. Most of the time I was averaging 1000 words an hour, although from time to time there would be slight setbacks.... lunch, supper, feeding Rowan.

Just look at that graph! What a jump!
Reg and the baby spent the better part of the day at the mall and didn't come home till almost 5:30. By then I think I'd reached 5000 words. It is harder to write when they are home, but I can't really expect my family to pack up and move out when I'm writing. I think yesterday I learned that with one or two fairly quiet days I can expect to get in 5-7 thousand words max.

Today I'm going to shoot to hit 25,000. Reg is making french toast, Rowan is hanging out in his mamaRoo, and I'm getting ready to write until Ethan's birthday party... or until my sister calls looking for help.

I'm really happy now with where the story is going. The characters are starting to take on personalities that are recognizable, and I've created a couple of secondary characters that I'm pretty fond of.

I tried to hit 21,000 last night. But only made it to 20,644. I wanted to push about her 350 words out of me but it was an important scene and I didn't want to write just for the sake of words. It needs to make sense, after all.

So there you have it. Today is Sunday. I have until Friday to complete it. At this moment I'm feeling like this is a realistic goal. Hurrah!

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Day 4 tally - 13,046 words

Reg and Rowan are about to leave for the day, I have a strong cup of espresso brewing in the mocha pot, and I'm ready to rock the word count for today.

Yesterday was pretty good. See the stats. Almost got to 5000. Rowan was awesome. He snuggled next to me and napped for the greater part of the afternoon. Yesterday evening daddy and son went out for a couple of hours so i could keep writing. It was a great help and i ended up writing my favourite scene to date.

Today will be the only full day of writing uninterrupted I'll get. Tomorrow I have to pause for a very important birthday party - Batman turns 4! Or at least his alter-ego, Ethan, turns 4. :) On Thursday my mother-in-law is going to take Rowan for the day, so that will be the last push I need before the Friday at midnight deadline.


So enough blogging. Time to write.

Friday, November 23, 2012

Almost 10,00 words in 3 days

I have to say I'm impressed that I managed a decent word count at all yesterday. The experiment of trying to write with a baby in the house did not go that well. When Reg got home yesterday I had a grant total of 0 new words. Yet between 5 pm and 12:30 am I managed to get the count up to 9261. My goal had been to get to 10,000. But some words are better than none.

Right now the 4th bar shows my total day 3 progress.
I don't have an update image for yesterday because I updated the word count after midnight, not knowing that the webpage resets itself. Instead, today I'll show you a bar graph of where I should be had I started this project on Nov. 1, and where I am. As you can see, I'm lagging. But right now Rowan is sleeping, and should stay that way till around 10:30, in which case I have to go to physio anyway. Hoping to get some words down in the next hour. Tomorrow Reg is taking baby on some Daddy bonding excursions (i.e. Shopping and visiting, I'd imagine) and I'll get one full day in.

So far I haven't exceeded 5000 words a day and I really need to be if I'm going to get this done. I also realized that when I started I had 11 days, not 10. So I'm still pretty optimistic.

Anyway, enough blogging. Time to write! And eat a scone. I'm starved!

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Day 2 complete

I'm happy to say that even with yesterday's limited hours I managed to surpass the previous day's word count. The grand total now stands at 6081.

Day 2 Status
Today I have no plans, so this will be the real test of how much writing it is possible to get done in the daylight hours with a three month old. Should be fun! One indicator is that I began this blog post at around 9:50 am. It's now 10:30. Rowan woke, and then I realized we both needed to eat, so there's the first slow down. But now he's lying happily on the floor and I'm ready to roll.

Other good news to report: I have characters that I now understand, and the plot is coming together. You'd think 18 pages in I'd know where this novel is heading, but I haven't a clue. I am truly flying by the seat of my pants on this one. The only thing we can all be sure of, since this is a romance novel, is that they end up together in the end. But I'd like my novel to have a bit more meat to it than that. Maybe today I'll figure that out.


Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Day 1 Update

Helpful website keeps me on track!
Well, the first day proved better than expected. I honestly didn't think I'd get any words down yesterday. After all, I don't really have a plot, or any idea where the story is going, but I still managed to write 2855 words. The contest has a neat little device that breaks down my progress into all sorts of facts. Like, if I continue to write at this pace I'll be finished on October 18, 2013. Eep!

On a good note, the folks over at Avon are aware of my endeavour and told me not to stress if I don't make the deadline. Still, I love a good challenge. So I'm not going to stress over this project. I'm just going to try my best to get it done.

Today is going to be a hard one to get much done in the daylight hours. I have physio at 11, have to take my Mom to an appointment at 1, and Rowan has a photoshoot with his cousins at 3. But after that, when daddy gets home, I'm hoping to make a good dent in the word count.

It's also noteworthy that I haven't felt this excited about writing since I found out Rowan was on the way. This is the kick in needed.