NaNo Days 26, 27, 28 & 29: Winner!

I won! I won the fight against no time and deadlines and my Inner Editor and most of all myself, and I wrote a novel (story) of 50,000 words (50,024, to be exact) in one month! Yay me!
So today was the day this was going to happen, because I was only about 4,000 words away, and what started on a Sunday felt right to end on Sunday too. So I wrote 2,000 words, took a break, Skyped with a friend, walked around, read the newspaper, and went back and wrote the remaining 1,700 words. Which actually weren't that bad, those final words. But I had one of my nicer characters to end on, whereas the earlier 2,000 were for the character I dislike the most (and I'm hoping the reader will too) so those felt like more of an accomplishment. And then I validated my novel, and my word count bar became purple, which is the Colour of Victors, and I had a bunch of NaNoWriMo people shout congratulations at me. Which is always great fun.
So what did I do, according to NaNo?

You are incredible. Here's a quick rundown of your accomplishments thus far: 

1. You made the surprisingly tough decision to commit to your creativity and write a novel. 

2. On November 1, you put pen to paper, leaped, and started something. 

3. Every day of this past month, you chose your novel, your voice, and your story. You stayed up late or got up early. You stole minutes here and there. You created time. 

Which sounds (and feels) pretty good to me.

Buutttt, of course I'm already looking ahead. The story isn't finished, actually, I'm just a little over halfway. And there's some parts missing. And some parts I want to go back and do over. And other parts that badly need editing. So I'm thinking I will keep this novel hanging around for a while, try to write some more whenever I'm in the mood or can find the time, try to edit some bits, and see where it goes. Because I am feeling pretty good about it, not just about finishing it, but about the thing itself too (which is a NaNo first, for me). Who knows, maybe it will lead somewhere some day. But that's for later, for now, it's time to celebrate (and relax)!

NaNo Days 22, 23, 24 & 25: Burgled

So this was supposed to be this really happy post about how I was ahead, and still going strong, and my writing was getting easier every day, but then I got burgled. Yup. Yesterday, someone got into my house, and took my laptop. And with that laptop, they took about 1,500 freshly written words, which I hadn't backed up to Google Drive yet (luckily, I had backed it up at 37,776 words, which was what I was at on day 22). So my NaNo status says 39,014 (day 23), but in reality, I'm back to 37,776.
While I should be at 41,666 today. A difference I was easily going to overtake, because I was going to write yesterday, and stay ahead, and even had thoughts about maybe finishing early this year. Clearly, this is not to be.
I'm contemplating just copy-pasting the 'stolen' words on the bottom of my document and continuing, but somehow that feels wrong, and it would really mess up the story. So I won't do that, and I will just try to hammer out the 1,500 words I'd already written, and add the 2,500 words I'm behind anyway. Which means 4,000 words in one day. Which is completely crazy, and probably won't happen, but I'll give it a try anyway. This one stupid person with no regard for other people's lives or homes or privacy or stuff won't get me down.

NaNo Days 19, 20 & 21: Back in the real world

So the thing with going on holiday for 5 days, is that when you get back, you actually have those 5 days of work waiting for you when you get back. Well, technically 3 days, because the rest of it was during the weekend, but still. Lots of work.
But I still wrote something on Thursday and Friday, but not as much as I'd liked. I was at 32,600 words, where I should be at 33,333 (isn't that the best word count aim ever?). So today, I sat down to get myself back on track, which is 35,000 words. And as I am now at 35,418, we can conclude that I did.
Funnily enough, after forcing myself to write on even though I've already reached the word count I was aiming for, I tend to write the best things. Philosophical observations, great character depth, lots of nice backstory I didn't even know was there. It's as if the writing goes better when the pressure is off, which isn't that surprising, really. And I always think I will be able to tell later when I wrote certain things, but experience has taught me this isn't the case. Which is good, because in the end it all has to blend together into one big story, which simply has rushed and forced bits, and more relaxed and in depth bits. One of which I wrote on a dying laptop at Reykjavik airport, and one of which I wrote just now, at my own kitchen table, in my own time.

NaNo Days 16, 17 & 18: Falling behind and catching up

So on Monday we took the Golden Circle tour, which is apparently the Thing To Do while in Iceland, and that kept up busy for most of the day. I managed to cram out about 900 words, but that clearly wasn't enough, and I'd officially fallen behind. Yesterday, my last full day in Iceland, I managed only 800 words, in between frantically running around to visit all those things I still needed to visit (didn't manage to see them all. I will have to go back one day. It's a shame). Now I was really lagging, at 27,000 words while I should be at 28,333.
So today, the day I had to get up at 3:15 (Icelandic time) to catch my plane, was the day I was going to catch up. With my poor, six year old laptop whose battery lasts only about 50 minutes, and no power sources at Reykjavik airport, I sought out a quiet spot near my gate, and set to it. 50 minutes later, I was at 28,841 words. How I do this? No idea. Do I like what I've written during those frantic minutes? Not overly much, but I don't really hate it either. Especially the last bit, a kind of philosophical introspective mental murmuring of one of my main characters, was pretty nice to reread.
But the goal was 30,000, so after unpacking and shopping and cooking and showering and cuddling with the cats, I threw another 1200 words out, and I am now officially back on track, at 30,018 words. And both the story and characters are still moving in the general direction I decided for them, which is really nice. NaNoWriMo is all about quantity, and some times I do nothing but type words, even though I don't particularly like the words I'm typing, but most of the time I actually feel pretty good about this years effort. Now I just have to keep on track, and finish the last 2/5ths...

NaNo Days 12, 13, 14 & 15: Halfway!

So last Friday, the 13th, I travelled to Iceland, where I'm staying with a friend for a couple of days. Which deserves a whole post on its own, which I may or may not write when the NaNo craze is over.
Anyway, on the day of my flight I couldn't really write anything. I brought my laptop with me on the plane, but the woman sitting next to me was of the nosey, prying kind, and I didn't want to get into a whole conversation about writing and the why and the how and the what about. And I was already ahead, having written more than 2,000 words on the train to Amsterdam. (I did write about 150 words and updated my word count, but that was to get the '10 days in a row' badge for updating your word count. Yes, I am a nerd.)
Yesterday I woke up, showered, made some tea, and wrote 1,800 words. This put me back on the word count where I needed to be (23,333) before my host woke up. Which felt pretty good; writing in the early hours while others are still asleep, and then spending your day doing nice touristy stuff in Reykjavik.
So this morning I did the same, and I've just reached the halfway point of 25,000 words! Which I should be really really pleased about, and I am, but I know from previous NaNo experiences that the really rough bit is between 25,000 and 40,000 words, because that's when you get fed up with your story, but still have to keep on writing. So I am very happy that I managed to get this far, and that I'm still on par with the word count, but I'm not taking this as a guarantee that I will actually finish on time. So I will keep on writing some more until my friend wakes up, just to gain some more ground while I can. But they say that Iceland has the highest published author ratio per capita, so maybe it's the Icelandic literary vibes flowing through me. Who knows?

NaNo Days 7, 8, 9, 10 & 11: Working like mad

So on the 7th and 8th day of NaNoWriMo, I was still pretty sick, and then pretty busy trying to get all the things done that I didn't have time for while being sick. Which didn't leave me a lot of time for NaNo writing. I was still ahead of the set word count, but losing ground fast.
I managed to make up for lost time on the 9th day, Monday, when I wrote a lot during the evening. Yesterday, Tuesday, was crazy busy: I had lots of work, then went to Rotterdam (2.5 hours by train), did work things from 15:00 until 22:00, and then drove back with a colleague. No time to write, you'd think, but the crucial hint is in the 2.5 hours of train time. I worked for about 1 hour, until I'd done all the things I could do without a proper wifi connection, and then I wrote. I wrote 2,962 words in 1.5 hours. This has to be some sort of record for writing on trains. Also, it put me at almost 20,000 words. Then this morning I had to get up really early again and do lots of other work things, and when I got home I had to pack for my trip to Iceland coming Friday (which will also have a major impact on my writing possibilities, but I'll tackle that one when it arrives). So now I'm pretty tired and without inspiration, but I did put in another 500 words, because the NaNo magic is in keeping up on your writing, even if it is just 500 words. So now I'm at 20,102 words, which is 98 words over what I should be at tomorrow. Still a little bit of leeway, but not as much as I'd hoped. I'm aiming for keeping up with the required word count for the next few days, which is all I can hope for, really. 

NaNo Days 5 & 6: Writing when ill

So then I got sick. Nothing major, mainly a sore throat, dizziness, ringing in my ears, and muscles that felt like I'd run a marathon. Probably the flu, or a minor form of the flu, because I never get really really ill, but it's enough to stay at home from work. Which would make you think it's perfect to catch up on some writing, but again; too ill for that. Nevertheless, I managed to keep up with, and ahead of, the daily recommended word counts.
Yesterday I wrote about 2,200 words, mainly because I got back to one of the characters that I really like, so the writing went easier (I have 10 pov (point of view) characters that I visit in turn). So far today I've written 1,785 words, putting me at 12,142 words in total. I'm not sure how much of it will make sense when I read it again, but it's about the output, not the quality. Along the way, I've been jotting down lots of little notes and things on my characters, because some of them are starting to blend into each other. Which means I've probably written a lot more, but that's not part of the actual story, it's more back story.
I hope to write another chapter tonight, if only to give me the proper head start I will need when I go to Iceland next Friday. And then tomorrow we'll see; hopefully I'll feel a lot better, and I'll be able to pull ahead even more!

NaNo Days 3 & 4: Slight stagnation

So yesterday I didn't write a single word. For NaNoWriMo, that is, I wrote a loooot of words for other things, mainly work, mainly feedback. When I got home I decided I didn't want to spend my evening staring at words on a screen too, so I called a friend and we went out to dinner and a movie (The Martian, which takes more than two hours of your life, but it's worth it). She called me crazy for even attempting to do NaNo this year, which I took as encouragement.
Then today I had to spend an hour on a train to a meeting (the one I'd been writing all that feedback for the day before) and as the wifi in the train was dismal as usual, I decided to write. And I wrote 1,012 words, whilst on a train surrounded by businesspeople making business phone calls. It was another first, but I thought it pretty efficient. And about 1,000 words per hour isn't the fastest, but it's more than I'd expected.
However, 1,012 words is no where near enough to keep me on track word count-wise, so I'll have to see if I can throw another 1,000 or 1,500 words at it this evening. I have to catch up on work emails that came in during the meeting, and loads of other stuff too, but we'll see. I'm feeling pretty good about this novel (pah, that sounds wayyy bigger than it is; story), so I'm thinking and hoping that things will work out, writingwise, tonight.

NaNo Day 2: Keeping up the good count

I wrote 1,703 words today. I had the craziest, busiest day at work, cycled home with my head still full of work stuff, did the shopping, cooking, eating, and then put myself behind my laptop and threw out 1,703 words in a little more than an hour. I do surprise myself.
I'm at 6,745 words in total now, which is more than I should be at on day 4. This is good news, as the coming days I actually have appointments in the evening, so I won't be able to write as much (unless I write at work, which would be both professional suicide and impossible, as I haven't even come close to being up-to-date on my actual work). So a nice little head start, which I hope I will be able to keep through the coming days!

NaNo Day 1: A Flying start

My 2015 NaNoWriMo effort is off to a flying start; at the moment I'm at 2,560 words (which I thought was a nice moment to pause and do some other things), of the 1,667 I should be writing each day. Which means I'm ahead, yes, ahead, of schedule. A flying start, as they say.
I wrote my first 790 words in three quarters of an hour, which isn't a record per se, but is pretty damn quick considering I haven't actually written fiction in about half a year. The second streak, from 790 to 2,560, was done in one hour exactly, which means about 1800 words an hour. If I keep that up (which probably won't happen), I can get the daily limit done in an hour every day, which would maybe kinda fit in my schedule (again, probably not, but some days you can write, and some you can't).
But the best thing about all of this is not the quantity, it's the quality. I'm actually pretty happy about what I've written so far. It's the start of the story, so it's the bit I've been rehearsing and fine tuning in my head for the past few days, but still, nice sentences and words and details and characterisations popped up in my head as I went along. The characters are still behaving as they should, doing the things they should be doing and thinking the things they should be thinking, so I'm still pretty much in control. I switched narrators just now, and it takes some time to get into the 'voice' of the second narrator, but still, it's going quicker than expected.
So I'll just continue to write as long as it's going smoothly, and see what word count I finish on for today. I've seen several others on the Regional Forum at 5,000+, which would be really nice, but also really difficult. Either way, I'm happy with what I've got, and anything extra is just a nice NaNo bonus.

ETA: I finished at 5,039 words today, which must make this my best first NaNo day ever. If only November only had Sundays...