NaNo is near!

It’s almost November and NaNoWriMo is here. This means I need to double my word count goal, 2k instead of 1k, so I can reach 50k and keep a few free days in the month. Experience has taught me that I really need those free days. I want to finish this novel during the month, what might be more than 50K, but let’s see how it goes.

I have a little planning (just a little) and chocolate. What could go wrong?

Progress Report!

• I finished one short story this week and edited another one, on total, I wrote 3k this and edited another 4k. Could be a little better.
• I’m not reaching my word count goal for the month, not sure yet how behind I will end the month but I’m happy in general. The days I did manage to work are productive, I just skipped too many days.
• I’m very behind in the things I actually planned to write, I keep getting distracted and working on something else instead. This way I just end up with 20 work in progress at the same time! I need to focus.
• No progress in the computer files clean up of doom this week.
• Almost done reading book 1 of 5.

About the beach

I just came back from a impromptus holliday on the beach. I had 10 days off work last week, and had planned on spending them in freelance jobs and organizing my life. All the planning went out of the window with the insane heat wave that reached us and a friend invite to spend a few days at her beach house. A few days turned out to be all my free days.

Due this oh very cruel destiny, I didn’t manage to get much of what I had planned done. It’s surprisingly hard go inside to write in a 37 celsius heat and the pool right there. But it did helped me come up with a bunch of new ideas, not only plot related, but about what are my goals for the next months and even years.

There is something about being away from home that alway kick my mind in a different gear, it makes me slow down and speed up at the same time in a way that I really enjoy. Priorities always become more clear when I’m not neck deep in small problems. Breaking the inertia of routine is the best way to take a step back and look at the big picture for me.

The beach specifically has an incredible effect in recharging my battery, all the sun and ocean and sitting around semi naked thinking about life. It grounds me back, bring my focus back to what really matters, and open my mind for new possibilities. I always come back ready to kill three lions before breakfast. I have to remember to get away from the city more often.

Now, to talk about goals and progress:

• With that scaped I already cashed all my off days in October, and I’m actually in a debt of 5k words to reach my month goal. But I still have hope to catch up before november starts.
• I finished my revision of A Tale of Two Girls. I need a little space from it now, before I can judge if it’s ready for beta or need another round.
• I made a good start in cleaning up my computer files, found some really interesting things lost around my hard drive, still a considerable amount of mess to sort out.
• Halfway through book 1 of 5.

A Round of Words in 80 Days!

I discovered about this challenge a few days ago and decided to give it a try. So, here it goes, without any actual planning or preparation, my goals for the next 80 days!

• The Goal: Write 100k of fiction.
  • This means 25k in october, 50k in november and 25k in december.
  • The intention is to write 1k every day during october and december, with 5 days off. And a mad dash for NaNo because I honestly find it tons of fun.

• The Projects:
  • Finish the second draft of A Tale of Two Girls – I’m not counting words here, it’s revision and it’s already half way done.
  • Write anthology submission – 15k
  • Write Unexpected Change – 50k (This is my NaNo novel. I’m not focusing in the 50k goal but in getting to the end and I suspect it might end up being more than 50k actually)
  • Rough draft for 3 short stories (small town series) – each one from 10k to 15k

• Some extras:
  • Organize my dump file, look at half written ideas to see if it’s worth keep going.
  • Read 5 books.

I’m not sure how doable all this is in that time frame actually. I’m not used to keep track of what gets done and when and I might be completely off here, but I want to give the challenge a try anyway.