December 1, 2021
Day 422, Week 60
Emotional State: Clean slate yet raring to go
Life, BOOKS, & Writing
Nanowrimo has ended. Successfully. You could say I “won” Nanowrimo, but I would say I conquered my concern that I couldn’t write a book in a month. Technically, I didn’t, but close enough. I ended Nanowrimo with 57,061 words. I only missed three writing days out of 30, which is impressive. And I didn’t revise. Much.
I did come up with a great story for Book Three and even better, figured out what the story is for Book Two. I struggled hard with Book Two and now I know what I need to do to go back and edit it (okay, rewrite the whole thing) to make it good. The pieces are there, I just need to highlight them in a different way than my original intention. For nothing else, November was a success, because the idea I have for Book Two is sooo good!
With ‘winning’ Nanowrimo comes a few perks, a lot of discounts on writing products and the joy of knowing that I succeeded in writing what would have seemed like an insurmountable amount of words a year ago. I can do it. I can be a proliferate writer. My book wasn’t a one-off and I’m not devoid of ideas. Basically, Nanowrimo reconfirmed I’m an author, not a one-hit wonder. The surge of emotions when I won was unexpected. And it had less to do with the 50,000 words and more to do with writing an almost entire book.
I am not a word count counter. I don’t have a daily word count goal. I don’t think about how many more words I need to write to consider my writing session successful. I’ve never really focused on word count. Yes, I use it to ensure I’m writing enough. And enough for me is based on what my goal is. If I want to write a book in two months or less, I need to hit weekly goals, whether chapters or word count. Word count is the default or rather was the default in my bet with my husband where I needed to write 10k a week minimum.
I think I need to shift my weekly goals to chapters. My books are trending to around 36 chapters on average, which means I need to write about 5-6 chapters a week to get it done in 5 weeks. Less for longer, more for shorter. My chapters average between 1500 – 2500 words, so that would equate to the 10k of my previous goal.
Gah. I feel like I’m circling around the same thought, over and over, so I’ll stop here.
Because I want to focus on the other thing I learned in November. I can write a tight book. My first book was 42 chapters with a lot of fluff. I cut out 6 chapters, combined a few, cut out the entire first act and started it where the original Act 2 was. About 20,000 words were removed from the rough draft. Book Two came in at 38 chapters, but it’s a disaster, so we’ll move on from that one.
Book Three is tight. I have the setup, I’ve hit all the markers, and I don’t see myself adding a lot to it. There are earlier details to focus on that came to be important as I wrote, but that’s it. Some setting, since I neglected it. Some research. But honestly, I don’t think I’ll be massively rewriting Book Three at all.
It could be a unicorn. We’ll have to see what happens in Book Four or Book 1 of the cozy series. But I think I’m getting better and better, which makes writing and publishing faster. Which means I can decide when I want to release my books, not because of the time it’ll take to write them, but the time it’ll take to revise, cover design and farm them out to an editor. And that is an amazing feeling.
Speaking of planning, that’s what December will be for. Finishing Book Three (should be done by the weekend) and then planning. Finding an editor, but figuring out what kind of editor I need first. Find a cover designer. Planning my launch, my promotions, my strategy for 2022. Revising my website. Fixing a few issues. Creating a bunch of content to dole out when I begin revising/rewriting Book 2. Exercising again.
I have some tools I got from my Nanowrimo win that I want to play with. Tools I know I’ll use, but need to tweak to fit my style, my plans, and how I plot out a series. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll start on the cozy series while it’s fresh in my mind.
After all, I wrote one book in 30ish days, I can definitely write another in the same time period.
Maybe.
To read more of my weekly whine fests and writing journal journey posts, click here.