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Secretly Doing NaNoWriMo for Years
Every year in November, the excitement of National Novel Writers Month(NaNoWriMo) descends upon the internet. People are drafting their outlines and busting out their copies of Save the Cat! Writes a Novel. My online writer’s groups are full of the energy around writing sprints and trying to meet their word count goal for the month. Traditionally, to “win” NaNoWriMo, you need to write 50,000 words in November, which boils down to about 1700 words a day. 50,000 words stresses me out I’m a mom of four school-aged kids who works full time and doesn’t write fast. My writing goals tend to be “write for ten minutes each evening,” “publish a…
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Writing your Book is an Endurance Sport
Build your Stamina I have written stories and essays my whole life. For years, I’ve journaled and blogged regularly. I’ve established a small daily writing habit, so my goal for this year was to get my idea for a novel written. On Halloween 2018, I saw a young woman dressed in an elf costume and ever since I’ve wanted to write a story involving elves. The idea has been kicking around my head for years and for my writing goals for 2022, I put down writing my elf novel. Warming up For Christmas Eve, in my family, we each get a book to read. My book was Save the Cat!…
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Not Even a First Draft – The One-Half Draft
I am in the middle of the first draft of my second novel. For my first novel, I was afraid to go out of order, so I worked my way through the book from beginning to end. When I started the second book, I was brave enough to start in the middle with a scene that interests me and just write what I see and hear. I’ve since been hopping around my plot outline from scene to scene, capturing mostly internal and external dialogue. The First Draft – 2D Cardboard Scenes When I write a first draft, it contains the important parts of the scene, but it’s not fully formed.…