Because writing a novel is a gift. Real-time updates from the final three days of NaNoWriMo

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This post is made up of the updates I posted on my writer’s Facebook page and Twitter as I stopped to take breaks. I get real numbers crunchy in these posts. It was fun to post these updates.

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Monday, 11/28/2022

9:32am

I’ve fallen behind on my NaNoWriMo newsletter updates. I’ve been sick two different times. I’m actually still recovering from this second round.

Currently, my manuscript is a total of 34,438 words.

Because I’m so behind, my new daily minimum for today, tomorrow, and Wednesday (the final day of the month) is 5,187.

My Dream Big Goal is: 12,229.

I took one more day off from watching my niece and nephew to recover from this cold and catch up on these words. (Thanks seester!)

Let’s see how it goes today!

First, breakfast and changing into real pants because that’s what helps me feel productive

See you all back here with updates!

10:36am

Moved to the pink rocking chair we have because the old lady cat decided she needed to sit in my desk chair haha I love her 🙂 #nanowrimo

12:17pm

I’ve written 2,196 words in the last two hours.

Things that work for me:

• keeping my phone far away from me

• taking 1-2 small breaks in a 2-hour writing chunk. Breaks so far: cleaning up Moochy’s throw up (poor old lady) and talking to Mom on the phone for a bit

A lot of the manuscript so far has been brainstorming notes to myself about scenes to write and timeline ideas. I always have notes to myself in a NaNoWriMo draft because I’ve never come to the month of November with a fully fledged-out novel idea and I’m okay with that.

The actual novel itself won’t be 50,000 by the end of the month, but I count it for NaNo because I’m learning this is part of my process.

Current overall manuscript total: 36,634

Words needed to reach new daily minimum: 2,991

Words need to reach a total word count of 46,667: 10,033

Breaking for lunch. “Rules” for that:

• Away from my desk and laptop

• Set a timer on my phone to limit activity there and do something not on a screen. (Watching a Tv show is the exception to this rule for some reason.)

See you soon!

Let me know how your Monday after the holiday weekend is going

12:45pm // Read and screenshot these from a NaNoWriMo email: “We’re not in the homestretch of NaNoWriMo. We’re in the giftstretch. I say that because finishing a novel is a gift–a gift to yourself and a gift to the world, so please remember the gift of your novel these last three days as a source of inspiration, as a way to celebrate yourself, and as an achievement that will keep on giving…” – Grant Faulkner

3:46pm

NaNoWriMo Update 3 today:

Wrote 1,490 words in the last 2.5 hours. Still a good amount, but I was distracted and not really sure where the scenes were going. Towards the end, I printed out the scenes list and that feels good to have a piece of paper I can scribble notes on and check things off.

Words written today so far: 3,686

Manuscript’s current total: 38,124

Words needed to reach the 5,187 daily goal: 1,501

Words needed to reach NaNo’s overall goal of 46,667 words by the end of today: 8,543

Feeling: distracted, tired, like time is running out. But seeing that I have less than 8,600 words to reach NaNo’s actual Day 28 goal is pretty cool. (Even if I don’t reach it haha)

Taking a 15-minute break away from my computer.

See you back here in a bit!

10:10pm

NaNoWriMo Day 28 // Update 4:

Reporting back after a delightful friendsgiving tonight

I wrote 2,924 words from about 4:30-6:30pm(ish).

Total words written today: 6,610

Total word in my manuscript: 41,048

That’s less than 9,000 words to the grand total of 50,000! (8,952 to be exact.)

That means I have to write at least 4,476 words tomorrow and again on Wednesday.

Things that helped this third writing session:

• I moved to the couch (change of scenery)

• I discovered Focus Mode in Word – where all the other buttons go away and it’s just the document filling the screen

I’m going to head to bed, so that I can get a goodnight’s sleep and write the morning away before work tomorrow

Goodnight friends! See you tomorrow

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Note: This is post #7 in the NaNoWriMo 2022 series. All the posts in this series are linked at the bottom of the first post, which you can find here.

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Writing Process Notes:

1/16/23 // 12:34pm-. Copy/pasted status from Writer FB page to help create this post. Looked for photos. 710 words.

1/21/23 // 7:19pm-. My end of the couch. Hobbit Hole noises and Ant typing his Goodreads’ review of Cujo. // Added photos, the intro note, tags, scheduled post, etc. Word Count: 765