Weekly Word Count

Another crazy week for me. By Friday I'd only written 6,436 words. I don't usually write at all on the weekends, but with last weeks total of only 841 words I thought I'd better give it a shot.
Of course, the kids were home and I didn't want to abandon my husband with both of them so I brought my daughter with me to the library. She's kind of a bookworm, and we were heading to "the big library" so I thought we'd check her out a few books and she'd settle in for a long read. How could I have been so wrong?
After we got her books and sat down she wanted to get a drink. Then another drink. She'd tap me on the shoulder telling me to, "Look at that cute baby." or say, "Mom, feel this. I think it's gum.".
Then she wanted to ride the elevator upstairs. "Come on Mom, just ONE time!"
Okay, I thought, we'll ride the elevator up to the top floor and I'll rent one of those study rooms. We could go in there together.
It would be like a tiny jail cell for her. No water fountain, nobody walking by, no elevator, no distractions. I could finally get some work done!
I was wrong. There was a key! The fact that she could lock and unlock the door proved to be too much for her to resist. She suddenly needed to go to the bathroom, "I'll be right back." she'd say as she walked out the door with the key and a new air of sophistication. Or, "I have to get another drink of water." or "There's this book I want to check out." In and out. In and out, until finally I'd had enough.
Needless to say I didn't get much done. I left after writing only 1,557 words, giving me a total of 7,993 for the week.
When we got home she told my husband how much fun we'd had and how she couldn't wait to go again.
Oh well, lesson learned.
 How many words did you write last week?

P.S  It's two o'clock on Monday, February 17th. So far my word count for the day is zero, and I've almost finished an entire box of Girl Scout cookies! I'm not off to a great start!

Weekly Word Count

Don't laugh, but I only wrote 841 words last week. That's a lot of zeros up there!!
I'd like to say that I feel bad about not writing much last week, but the truth is I don't. I watched TV, hung out with the family, made costumes for a mother daughter rollerskating day, ran errands, helped kids with homework, and generally just enjoyed the role of stay at home mom.
Will I get back into the swing of things this week? I'm not sure, but I'm going to try. I must admit, it felt rather nice to just chill out a little:)

A quick update on my new writing gimmick. I have 30,000 words left to go. That means thirty of those note cards are left hanging on my bathroom mirror until my novel is done. Hopefully this week I'll be able to pull some more of those numbers off!

Weekly Word Count

My weekly word count total for the week of January 19th to the 25th is 10,052. That's the highest one so far, and it came about totally by mistake. Well, sort of...
On Tuesday I actually wrote 2,081 words, but because I was trying to multitask while writing down the total (something my brain is really not equipped for) I accidentally wrote the number 3,801.
Now, I know you can't tell it by my handwriting, but I have a need for things to stay tidy. The thought of crossing out that number and replacing it with the correct number was too much for me to bear. I couldn't mess up my entire calendar to put the right number in. Instead, I did the only thing I could do. I wrote the extra thousand or so words to get to 3,801.
I tried it again the next day. I wrote 3,211 down on the calendar before I had even written one word on my novel. True to form I couldn't cross it out when I wanted to quit at about 2,000 words. I also couldn't bring myself to lie to you guys and say I'd written that much when I hadn't.  So...off to the laptop I went and I wrote until I got to my goal of 3,211 words.
As you can probably tell by the low word count on Thursday and Friday, I did NOT write down a total word count first.  The fact is, to get those higher word counts on Tuesday and Wednesday my days were pretty hectic. I didn't watch any TV because of all that writing. I LOVE my TV time so I was unwilling to give it up on Thursday and Friday:)
I will say that just knowing I have to publish my word count each week has been very motivating for me. I bet it would be for you too. So go on, jot down your word count online. Put it on Facebook, or Twitter or on your blog. Or put it in the comment line below. It just might be the motivation you need to finish that novel!

Word Wars

If you're not familiar with word wars, sometimes called word sprints, it's a challenge to see how many words you can write in a certain amount of time.
I've been "meeting" with a group on a website called Tiny Chat. Someone will set a timer for fifteen minutes and then type "Go". Everyone starts writing and we don't stop until the timer goes off. After fifteen minutes (or ten or whatever) of fast and furious writing we all get back on Tiny Chat and share our word count. Whoever wrote the most, wins.
What do they win? Nothing. Or maybe a shot of confidence, but mostly we all win because we've all got at least a few hundred words to add to the daily word count.
We'll do at least two challenges, sometimes three, and then call it a day. I can get anywhere from 800 to 1200 words in those short bursts of writing, but more than that I find it freeing somehow.
There's no time to judge what you've written or think too hard about word choice, you've just got to write. And for someone who's been struggling to get the entire story onto paper this is exactly what I need.
There is even a Twitter account that does word wars during the month of November. You can find it @NaNoWordSprints.
And if you want to get a little more technical you can use Write or Die. This website will give you rewards, and punishments, for your writing. For example, there is something called Kamikaze mode that will un-write your words for you if you stop typing for a certain amount of time. Yikes! 
You're probably thinking that all of those words written in a frenzy are pretty much crap. For the most part, you're probably right. But with each word war I'm moving the story further to the end. 
Once I'm at the end I'll go into editing mode. To see what that entails, check out Editing Your First Draft. In the mean time, gather some writer friends and try having a few word wars of your own. You're sure to be pleased with the results! 
Ready. Set. Go!

Weekly Word Count

I'm late. I know. I went out of town this weekend and I was partying too hard to think about writing or blogging:)
Here are my word count totals for last week.
I wrote a total of 7, 535 words.
I'm not too disappointed in the word count for the week, but the really frustrating thing is that it's not all on one novel.
On Tuesday I wrote my characters into a corner. On Wednesday, I thought about how to get them out of it. Obviously, since my word count was zero on Wednesday I didn't find a way out.
Instead of just skipping on Friday I started ANOTHER story, but at least I got a few words on paper.
I'm still not back on track, but I'm (literally) plotting my way out. Hopefully, by tomorrow I'll be able to get back to my main story.
Wish me luck.
What were your word count totals for the week?

Weekly Word Count

As I mentioned in Ten Thousand Words A Day I am going to start publishing my weekly word count on my blog. This is nothing fancy or detailed, I will simply update you on my word count.
I will resist the urge to make excuses about how busy my week was or this and that and just get down to the numbers.
The holidays were crazy (wait, I thought I said no excuses....maybe just one) and I missed the first week in January so you'll get two updates for this one.
From January 1st to the 3rd I wrote a total of 3,131 words.
From January 4th to the 10th I wrote a total of 8,615.

What are your word count totals this week? Any word count above zero is pretty fantastic in my opinion!

Rubbernecking In Fiction

So you've never heard of rubbernecking in fiction? Ha, that's no surprise to me because I completely made it up. Now hold on a minute or two because I think this is information you're going to want to hear.
 Usually when a person hears the term rubbernecking they do not think about fiction. What comes to mind is a car accident. Maybe you're thinking police on the side of the road, cars smashed up, and an  ambulance at the scene? There is that definition, but there is another way to use the term.
Wikipedia says, "The word rubbernecking has also come to be used more generally to describe voyeuristic interest in someone else's business or difficulties."
 So how can you use this in your novel to set you apart? Simple. Just make sure you add in those things that people can't seem to turn away from. It's like adding a bit of gossip to spice up your novel.
Have you ever started a story with, "Oh, man I just heard the most disturbing thing on the news."?
 Or, "The strangest thing happened the other day." People love the interesting, sometimes sick, things that they hear that are not your everyday gossip.
And it's not just gross things either. It's amazing love stories, stories about psychic moments, or miraculous rescues. People love to hear things that are different from the norm.
I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that your story is out of the norm, but that's not what rubbernecking is. Rubbernecking is all the strange stuff you see or hear on your way through your story. Your story should be fantastic and interesting in it's own right, but give the readers a little something extra.
Make the reader slow down in places because you've just given them something to gawk at. There are all sorts of opportunities for minor characters to have a big impact. Maybe your main character see's the neighbor taking out the trash and she wonders how she's doing now that she's out of jail for killing her newborn. Or maybe it's a supporting character that has half of his body scarred from burns.
On a lighter note it could just be a few racy sex scene's (depending on what you're writing of course).
These things shouldn't take away from the story, they should add to it. If you're main character has hidden pain from the past (and most of them do) maybe the short description of the man with scars all over his body is a metaphor for your main character's inner pain.
It should be subtle of course, and short. Rubbernecking is not a subplot or worse, an entirely different story. It's just a little extra kick to the details of your book.
The reason for doing this is, of course, to make your novel more interesting. Why not just say use every opportunity to make your novel more interesting to your reader? Well, you could say that, but I like "give your readers an opportunity for rubbernecking" better!

NaNo Wrap Up

 Guess what..I quit on my latest novel. I'm sure you're not surprised by this. To make a quick count, since I started this blog in July I have started and quit about four different novels. If you count just plotting books and not the actual writing, I think it's more like six.
This isn't really a surprise to me. As a stay at home mom wanting to make some money I have had any number of schemes that I've started and never finished.
I was going to be a jewelry maker. Then I worried about my necklaces breaking and children choking on the beads. Of course I had to quit. It would be irresponsible not to.
Then there was the card making business, but man printer ink is expensive. The photography business, I was really never any good. And then, there was the writing business. To be fair I was always writing, but only recently did I commit to really trying to get a book published.
I'm not ready to quit writing entirely, but I do (somehow) keep quitting on my novels.
If you read my last post, or maybe it was the one before, I was SO excited about my new novel. But then I had to take a break and get ready for a Disney vacation for Thanksgiving and by the time I got home I was over the story. All of the sudden, it just didn't seem like it was any good at all (sound familiar?).
So, the lesson from NaNo this time is: word count, nerd count, it's all about writing every day. Keep your head in the story even if you can only write 200 words a day.
But that leaves me with a question.
Will I only get published if I finish an entire story and then another entire story and another? OR will all of this writing and practicing naturally lead to a finished (and published) novel?
Am I just being a quitter by leaving so many books unfinished? Or is it like finding a husband? All those other failed books are just the natural course to finding "the one". The one novel that I was meant to write, and everything before it just wasn't meant to be?
Or is that just quitter talk?
Let me know what you think! 

Write It Now or Regret It Later

For years my sister and I have had a common goal. We wanted to be writers. We both believed that if we really put our minds to it, if we really worked hard, we would succeed.
We would meet at the library or a coffee shop with our laptops and get to work, but then something strange would happen. The coffee shops were too loud. The library was too cold. We realized we needed to go shoe shopping or we were suddenly starving and had to go to lunch. With all of these "issues", we didn't get much work done.
While at lunch we would talk about how difficult it was to be a writer. Oh, it was so much work and there was really no guarantee that we would ever succeed. We had the kids to take care of, volunteering to do at the school, and blah, blah, blah.
It went on like this for a while. We'd write a little, complain A LOT, and then go have lunch together and complain some more. It was really a lot of fun!
Then, slowly, things began to change. My sister quit meeting me to "write" and started writing on her own! How RUDE!
I'll admit it. I was trash talking a bit, "It's not right for her to abandon me!" "Who does she think she is?", but while I was trash talking, she was writing.  And a few months later she finished her novel.
Now of course, I wish her all the success in the world, you can find her book, The Corpse Goddess, on Amazon here.
But I was J-E-A-L-O-U-S! Jealous! Why was I so jealous? Even I didn't really get it. She deserved it, she did the work. Plus, there were hundreds of people who had published novels before her. I wasn't jealous of them!
 Now you may think you don't care about my sister and her book. You don't care that the doctor next door to you is a doctor, or that the girl you knew from high school is a movie star, but the reason you don't care is because you don't want to be a writer, or a doctor, or a movie star.
But I'd be willing to bet there is something that you really want to be. Whether it's an artist, or an entrepreneur, or a size six in your skinny jeans.
Whatever it is it won't bother you so much if some stranger succeeds. But when a friend or a family member succeeds, someone you know is so similar to you. They don't have the time either, they don't have the guarantee of success either, and somehow they did it anyway.
When they make it work, and someday they will, you're going to be happy for them, but more than anything you'll be asking yourself, "Why didn't I do the work?"
That's what I was thinking when my sister got published! "Why haven't I been writing?"
I promise you, all your excuses, the entire "poor me" act is going to seem pretty pathetic!
You will feel guilty for not doing what you really, truly wanted to be doing. You will deeply regret wasting time. You will regret letting yourself give in to the excuses. I know I did.
So, lace up those running shoes, start that business, write that book because the very worst thing you can say at the end of the day, or the month. The worst thing you can say at the end of the year or at the end of your life is, "I regret not doing..."

Ten Things I've Learned From NaNoWriMo

1.  50,000 words does not a novel make.
2.  If you feel like you're neglecting your kids, take them to GattiTown and give them $40.00. They will forgive you.
3.  GattiTown is not a good place to sit and write a novel.
4.  GattiTown should not give away giant blow up bats as prizes.
5.  If you are rereading your manuscript and you see any version of the words,"You are mildly intoxicated, possibly completely inebriated at this point, HA HA HA." Get ready for some serious deleting.
6.  Writing everyday is the easy part. Working it all into an exciting plot is the hard part.
7.  If taken before sitting down to write, a giant bowl of butter noodles plus one beer acts as a pharmaceutical grade anesthetic.
8. Your first draft will kind of suck no matter how fast or slow you write the thing.
9. Your dogs WILL eat your manuscript. Or at least as much of it as they can get away with.
10. Writing consistently for 31 days will give you a momentum that you won't want to stop.