NaNoWriMo Wraps Up

Well, I may not have “truly” written a novel in one month, but I did write 50k words, and that itself is quite a feat.

This month has not been the easiest month for me in terms of health and time and family. I didn’t write for one week, and I still managed to finish 50k by last night—as I was sick for a week and couldn’t write very much.

I started graduate applications this month, and I was set back a few days in my “goal” for finished dates, but so far I’ve met every deadline. The next two applications are due on the 15 of December which gives me this weekend to apply and submit everything. It’s not easy, but last year prepared me pretty well for this.

I know I’ve mentioned this, but my grandpa is at home on hospice care, and doing things around the house to help out takes more time than I had planned for it to do, along with needing to stay home while my grandma ran errands certainly took time away from what I needed to do, but I used some of that time to write.

There is also the making of Christmas presents this year, which happen to be amigurumi creations that I will be whipping up for some 10-15 people. I haven’t made a complete count, but I know I’ll be making quite a few! And Christmas cards will need to go out too. So you see, I’ve not been idle!

And still, I managed to write 50,000 words (roughly 250 pages) in one month. Of course, I don’t have a full time job at 40 hours a week, but if you do, know that it is still possible to write, even if you only have an hour at a time. A few sentences are better than no sentences.

With that, I leave you to go, and create.

For me, my next step is editing. Massive amounts of editing (right after I finish this last chapter).

Making Time For Writing

Perhaps the best part of participating in NaNoWriMo is that it “forces” me to write. Not that I wouldn’t otherwise, but it has a nice, clear goal: 50k words in one month. Now, about the forces. What is nice, is that I’m often thinking about when I can write, and for how long, and what to write next.

I make time for writing.

In my regular, everyday life, I tend not to make as much time for writing. Though of course, I try to write about 1,000 words a day, if I can at all.

I’m rethinking my goals, and may wo with a time instead of a number. I read a great article in Poets & Writers where the writer set aside blocks of time and wrote. For every hour, a rather short time writing, she would take 15 minutes at the end to do small tasks around the house, and then go back to writing. It easy to sit in front of a screen for 45 minutes, and when very few words flow, that time can seem long, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

So that is what I may end up doing. I’ve tried the block of time, with no interference, or outside distractions, and it is beautiful.

Late Post

It has been a crazy week here for me. I’ve been writing like crazy, so much so that I’m still ahead in NaNoWriMo, and my other WIP. Yesterday, I helped my brother move 30 miles, and today, I’ve been working a lot on getting repetative tasks over for graduate schools: ordering GRE scores ($23 a pop) and two sets of transcripts—I’ve also got letter of recommendation stuff I have to mail out tomorrow.

Whew. It seems like I’ve been working non-stop on this today, and I haven’t written since Monday, so I will after this brief blog post. Tomorrow is a filling, work, and I’m also hosting a NaNoWriMo write in at the Village Book Shop in Glendora from 6pm-9pm. Which means getting writing done.

I hope you all are enjoying the time of year and if you are participating in NaNoWriMo, best of luck and happy writing!

List of Graduate School

Here is a list of graduate schools that I’m applying to, in alphabetical order (those crossed out have already been applied to—updates will happen, most likely):

Bowling Green State University

Colorado State University

California State University Long Beach

California State University San Bernardino

Iowa State University

McNeese State

Minnesota State

Ohio State University

Oregon State

University Central Florida

University Notre Dame

University Texas-English Dept

University Florida

University Minnesota

University Neveda

University of Iowa

University of Michigan

University of Montana

Western Mich. University

I realize that this isn’t much of a blog, and that you all want more. Right?

Well, this month happens to be November, a month of many things, one being Nation Novel Writing Month—NaNoWriMo for short—and another being my birth month. Needless to say, this is a very busy month for me. We’ve got cakes and turkeys and novels and graduate applications. Yikes! So much to do.

This year, I’ve decided to participate in NaNoWriMo, once again subjecting myself to the agony that is 1667 words per day. Only this time, I’ve upped the ante. I’m also writing one scene a day in my other WIP The Balance that I’ve been working on this year. While not deadlined at the end of this month, I will have it finished at the end of the year.

Needless to say, I will be very, very busy writing this month. In the week or so that I’ve been writing like a madman, I’ve come to enjoy life a little more. You can’t have writing epiphanies if you’re not writing, and I’ve been having them left and “write” and up and down. I don’t think I’ve had this much fun for a long time.

This past weekend I participated in a Write In for NaNoWriMo and had a blast! I wrote 4620 at the Write In (winning 3rd place for most words in a word war) and came home to write an addition 489 to bring the one day total to 5009 words. That’s roughly 17-19 pages, double spaced. That’s a LOT of writing!

And for those of you that follow me on Twitter (pretty much all of you), you know I’m also going to the gym too. I’m not giving up anything up this month. I still have a social life—though not a huge one to begin with. I’m only fiddling around less at home, and focusing more on what matters. And being less lazy.

If you are part of NaNoWriMo, my best wishes and happy writing. For those of you not, happy writing anyway!