My NaNoWriMo 2002 Diary (continued)

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Sun., Nov. 17, 2002

NaNoWriMo total word count goal: 50,000
Words I wrote today: 2,009
My total word count as of today: 29,651
Words left to go: 20,349
Percent complete: 59%

It took me a while to get started, but I got a good chunk of writing done today.

Mon., Nov. 18, 2002

NaNoWriMo total word count goal: 50,000
Words I wrote today: 2,002
My total word count as of today: 31,653
Words left to go: 18,347
Percent complete: 63%

I am very thrilled to have passed the 30,000 word mark. Hooray! The going was a little rough today. I walked into a scene where a minor character provides my heroes with weapons to defend themselves, but I hadn't really thought about what kinds of weapons would fit their personalities and still be appropriate to the situation. I fumbled around a bit, brainstormed with Joe, then rolled with it.

Joe completely rules, by the way. I am overwhelmingly lucky to have a boyfriend who will make me a wonderful dinner and then have a completely serious conversation with me about what kinds of weapons a six-inch action figure would find most useful in battling a renegade cat. Best boyfriend on the planet, no contest.

Tues., Nov. 19, 2002

NaNoWriMo total word count goal: 50,000
Words I wrote today: 0
My total word count as of today: 31,653
Words left to go: 18,347
Percent complete: 63%

I went out to dinner with my friends Pam and Marina tonight. It was the first time I've been out with friends all month. I intended to write after dinner, but I took the night off instead.

Wed., Nov. 20, 2002

NaNoWriMo total word count goal: 50,000
Words I wrote today: 1,005
My total word count as of today: 32,658
Words left to go: 17,342
Percent complete: 65%

I was very tired tonight and the writing was incredibly slow and difficult. I still believe I can make it to the Nov. 30th deadline, though.

That's all for now. I'm going to bed.

Thurs., Nov. 21, 2002

NaNoWriMo total word count goal: 50,000
Words I wrote today: 1,015
My total word count as of today: 33,673
Words left to go: 16,327
Percent complete: 67%

Um, just picture yesterday's note repeated here.

Fri., Nov. 22, 2002

NaNoWriMo total word count goal: 50,000
Words I wrote today: deleted 2,017 words, wrote 920 new words
My total word count as of today: 32,576
Words left to go: 17,424
Percent complete: 65%

I was looking over my story and realized that I'd written myself into a corner. I spent several days writing a scene where one of my main characters does something totally out of character for where he is at that point in the story. It was throwing everything off kilter and making it very difficult for me to write.

I did something I never thought I'd do in NaNoWriMo, I deliberately deleted words from my story and rewrote the scene. It was a painful sacrifice, but it makes it much easier to move the story forward from here. I saved the deleted bits in another file and I'm trying to use the better parts in other places.

Sat., Nov. 23, 2002

NaNoWriMo total word count goal: 50,000
Words I wrote today: 3,717
My total word count as of today: 36,293
Words left to go: 13,707
Percent complete: 73%

I was talking to Joe about my story and realized I was heading for my final battle much too quickly. I was going to run out of story before I made my word count. It was time to look at things more closely.

I sat down with a printout of the story and made an outline of the major events in each chapter. Once that was laid out, I could see that I needed to add another day of action to the early part of the story. Everything was building much too fast. I plotted out what needed to happen and wrote a ton of material, but it took much longer than usual to write it because I was reworking things at the same time.

I'm going to do a ton of writing tomorrow too. Hopefully that will get me caught up in terms of word count and plot fixing. There's only one week left!

Sun., Nov. 24, 2002

NaNoWriMo total word count goal: 50,000
Words I wrote today: 4,077
My total word count as of today: 40,370
Words left to go: 9,630
Percent complete: 81%

It took many hours, but in the course of one day I finished fixing the plot and caught up on word count. When I saw that I finally passed 40,000 words, I was so happy I wanted to cry. Then I realized that it would be much more practical to make many backups and print this monster out. I'm up to 124 pages!

Mon., Nov. 25, 2002

NaNoWriMo total word count goal: 50,000
Words I wrote today: 1,559
My total word count as of today: 41,929
Words left to go: 8,071
Percent complete: 84%

If I do this again next year, I'm going to add "Hours of sleep I had last night" to the daily stats. Seriously. I'm a living experiment on sleep deprivation and creativity. This valuable research should not be wasted. My interim conclusion: sleep deprivation is really fun for making bad ideas sound like good ones, but I write better and longer when I'm rested. I wish the truth were more glamorous than that.

Speaking of glamour, I'm treating myself to a massage and body wrap on Dec. 1, the day after this deadline. It's entirely possible that I'll fall asleep after about ten minutes on the massage table. I hope they won't stop massaging me when that happens. My body feels wrecked from tons of typing, minimal sleep, and the complete abandonment of my exercise plan. (What's that? Why yes, I would like some cheese to go with my whine.)

Tues., Nov. 26, 2002

NaNoWriMo total word count goal: 50,000
Words I wrote today: 0
My total word count as of today: 41,929
Words left to go: 8,071
Percent complete: 84%

I made the tactical error of only getting four hours of sleep last night. I came home and keeled over after work and didn't write a word. (This entry is being written a day later.)

Wed., Nov. 27, 2002

NaNoWriMo total word count goal: 50,000
Words I wrote today: 1,276
My total word count as of today: 43,205
Words left to go: 6,795
Percent complete: 86%

I am very, very glad that Joe and I kept our schedule wide open for the holiday weekend. We're having a small Thanksgiving dinner together, but other than that my time is wide open for writing. I've had several days this month where I wrote 2,000, 3,000 or 4,000 words, so I can still make a big push on the 28th through 30th and meet the deadline. I just know I can do this.

Thurs., Nov. 28, 2002

NaNoWriMo total word count goal: 50,000
Words I wrote today: 2,313
My total word count as of today: 45,518
Words left to go: 4,482
Percent complete: 91%

Joe and I had a quiet Thanksgiving at home, just the two of us. It was easy and relaxing and it left me time to write before and after the meal. I'm so close to done now. I want to make a huge push tomorrow.

Fri., Nov. 29, 2002

NaNoWriMo total word count goal: 50,000
Words I wrote today: 6,332
My total word count as of today: 51,850
Words left to go: 0
Percent complete: 104%

I did it! I did it! I finished! I'm done! I WROTE A NOVEL IN A MONTH!!!

I'll write a wrap up entry on this page later. I need to collapse now.

NaNoWriMo Winner Icon

Wrapping Up

Approximately 14,000 people around the world participated in NaNoWriMo and only 2,070 crossed the finish line. That's less than 15 percent. As much as I was frustrated with myself for the times I burnt out and didn't write, I managed to be in some very elite company and I'm proud of that.

This was an amazing, exhausting experience and I would gleefully do it again. I pushed myself to an extreme and I still liked who I was when I got there. Apparently, Joe felt the same way. On the evening of Nov. 30, he got down on one knee, with his great-grandmother's wedding ring, and asked me to be his wife. I said yes.

We've talked marriage for a while, but I was shocked and amazed that Joe was willing to propose to me at the end of NaNoWriMo. He said that the way we worked together as a team during such a stressful time convinced him that the time was right. I was already so thrilled to have finished my first novel. Being engaged to Joe just takes my happiness to a whole new level.

Many thanks to all who encouraged me in this venture!