NaNoWriMo Daily Accountability Journal

[Philip Overby]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say I'll be starting NaNoWriMo earlier than most others here since I live in Japan and we're a day ahead of most countries.

So I thought this thread could be a good way to keep us accountable by talking about our daily successes, struggles, tidbits of advice, whatever. All you have to do is write:

Day 1: Hit my word count goal and went over. I'm really liking my main character so far.

Day 2: Not as good as yesterday, but I'm still moving along. I need to add a bit more flavor to some of my minor characters.

Etc. etc.

You can honestly write whatever you want to talk about, but I think seeing how others are progressing can be a good motivator for those of us that trail behind and don't like to be left in the dust.

I'll start the first post tomorrow. Make sure to put Day 1, Day 2, etc. so we know what day you're talking about.

In any case, I'll be posting here (hopefully) everyday so if anyone wants to keep up with me, challenge me, or just root others on, feel free to post.

Happy noveling!

 

[Philip Overby]

Day 1: It's already 2:40 am here in Japan, officially Nov. 1st, so I started working on my WIP. I'm going the "rebel" route this year as I didn't want to start on anything new. So before I go to bed, I hit 1,623 words, just shy of the goal for the day. I suspect I'll hammer out quite a few more when I wake up later today.

I'm not completely enamored with what I wrote so far, but I think it's the direction this particular novel needed to go. I'm leaving off a lot of humor, which I actually prefer in my stories, but I've found for this one, splashing it here and there is going to work.

 

[Chilari]

Day 0, 22:40. Still in the office as I have been since 07:20, tired, running on caffeine. Unlikely to get much writing done tomorrow, or sleep tonight. Still haven't sorted out the last character group I intended to work out in advance and blog about today, but they're the group that appear latest in the story so I can get away with it. Also, due to tonight's late one I'll get off early tomorrow so might get extra writing done in the end anyway.

 

[Jackarandajam]

Day 0, 10:00pm...

Realized that my local didnt have anything to be a local of. Oh God.

Created Buer' Rad, a swamp town that harvests trees for the local fortress.

About half of my character bios are complete, still pondering over bizarre geological dilemmas...
Actually i just figured out the worst one, due to typing that. i love this thread.

Cliffs, and climbs, and rivers, oh my...

 

[Chessie]

Day 0: Midnight hits in 3.5 hours for me...and I have no idea how I'm going to start this novel. Um...yeah....

 

[Jackarandajam]

Day 0: Midnight hits in 3.5 hours for me...and I have no idea how I'm going to start this novel. Um...yeah....

Help is just a vague outline/concept in need of brainstorming away...

 

[Graylorne]

Day 1: My first daily score was 2,169, bringing my NaNo Rebel Total to 23,001.

Just as last year, I'm posting the last paragraph I wrote each day to my website.

 

[Chessie]

Day 1: halfway into my word count whoohoo! I have plenty of time on my hands today so hopefully I'll reach over the goal for today. I figured out how to start the story about 10 til midnight.

 

[GeekDavid]

Despite getting a late start to the writing day (morning errands), I cranked out 2,222 words today according to the NaNo validator. That's kind of a nice number, I think.

 

[Butterfly]

Day one - Yesterday I had one of those amazing flashes of inspiration which kind of put a few things into perspective. I wrote a brief outline and slept on it, which today led to a 3834 word development of two chapters in 3 hours. I still have one more chapter of this arc to work on tomorrow and then I will likely need to move on to a different character.

 

[Jackarandajam]

Day 1: 1,017 and counting.

Introduced a character, love it.
Will finish my quota today, and start a morning routine... Morning coffee and nano quota, if it works out like that. The house where I'm staying is at its most quiet before 10am.

 

[Chilari]

Day 1: managed 770 words, in the last 43 minutes of the day. Considering the first four hours of the day were spent at work, finishing a 20 hour shift to get a bid out before the deadline, only 3 hours were spent asleep, and at least an hour of the day involved a trip to the Minor Injuries Unit at the local Healthcare Centre (my town's too small for a whole hospital) because my fiance hurt his knee, I think this is perfectly respectable. Oh and I got to watch Thor too so I'm happy. Going to try another 300 words before bed, then really get cracking when it's really tomorrow, not this "after midnight" nonsense.

 

[NellaFantasia]

Day 1: 1,813 words

NaNo began the exact way I thought it would. An agonizing crawl through the day until, with the effort of pulling teeth, I finally had my word goal. Fortunately, I think my deflated attitude crossed over to my character, which is a good thing since at the moment I need her to be that way.

 

[Chessie]

2646 baby! It only took me all day though.

 

[Philip Overby]

Day 2: Despite battling sickness, I'm forging on ahead. It may actually be helping me in some ways. I'm up to 5,635 words, while par is 3,333. So I'm ahead of the game so far. This is usually how things start. I do really well the first week and then slow down. We'll see how things go.

I'm enjoying some new characters I introduced and I feel like their motivations are shining through more than they were in my original version (this is my 2nd attempt at this story after getting some feedback that I felt made a lot of sense). While the story has more horror elements than it did the first go around, I felt it was suffering in the comedy department, which was something I really wanted to play up. However, since introducing some characters, the humor is seeping back in thankfully. I'm excited to see where things go.

I've got a big, insane fight scene (complete with flinging sorcery) coming up, so that should be fun to write. Looking forward to it!

 

[Graylorne]

Day 2: 1,110 today. Not all that many, but I'm wrestling wit my times sheet.

This final book starts with five groups of people. They are all bound for the same locations, but of course not at the same times until the end. Their distances vary, as do their starting dates. And ofc they need something to do along the way. Even with written tables, my mind has difficulty grasping things like this. I will get there in the end, only it slows me down, now and then. So I'm content with this score for today.

 

[NellaFantasia]

Day 2: 2,343 words

Behind, of course, but weekends are generally a bad time for writing anyway. Unlike what seems to be the norm, I'm busier on the weekends and have all the time in the world during the week.

As for the writing, I introduced my second main character today. Don't know him as well as I do my other, so this scene will be...interesting.

 

[Chessie]

^^Same here. Weekends are hard for me to write...so I only got 1606 words today. And it literally took me hours. This can't continue happening...I gotta rein it in.

 

[Jackarandajam]

1,809... If my count doesn't skyrocket in the next three days, I'm starting a "metaphorical cattle prod" thread.

 

[Philip Overby]

Day 3: I've got 9,430 words so far. I've been picking and editing stuff from other drafts, but I haven't been including that in my word count, only brand new stuff I've written since November started. My whole novel (counting what I've done so far before November) is at 22,841. Pretty solid for having basically just started the whole thing over at the beginning of October. If I stay at this pace, I may have a completed first draft by the end of the year. That was my goal in any case. If I get the 50K for November and I get a good word count in December, I'll be raring to go!

I'm liking my character more this go around, too. She has a clearer purpose and goal and is not as whiny as she was before. I also added some villainous folks that make my skin crawl, so I'm glad I added them as well. They're so slimy they don't mind hanging out in sewer tunnels.

The day's not over yet here, so I still have more to go I hope. I'm gearing for at least 10K by the end of the day. Here's hoping!

I don't know what others are doing, but I'm finding writing in short bursts is helping me a lot. I've been off work for three days though, so that's allowed me a lot of free time that others probably don't have at the moment. I'm thankful for the free time anyway!