I Won Camp NaNoWriMo | Final Update

Tags

Camp Nanowrimo, character development, completing goals, cover building, NaNoWriMo, reading smut, triggering characters, writing goals, Writing Routine

Check out my writing vlog where I read Cycle Eight to my mom, finish my final story for the month, and prep a new cover!

Week five, our final week, went so well! Granted, my numbers are down a bit again, which makes me so thankful I had gotten so ahead during the first half of the month. 

Stats aside, I was able to read Cycle Eight to my mom in one day. We powered through it since he was an asshole and neither of us liked him. Too bad he plays such an important part of her development. The great outcome was getting feedback on if he was too triggering or not. So far, the consensus is that he straddles that abusive line well.

I also finished my second Lishky short for the month. This one feels a bit all over the place, but that might just be my current mental state. I’ll know more when I read through and edit it. I also have my new cover for it…almost. I’m getting mixed feedback on my choices, below. Got any advice?

I’m also not such a fan of the blurb I have for it, too. At least I have something to work with though.

Finally, I was able to create the first part of the physical compendium for two of my betas who prefer physical copies. My husband should get his tomorrow, so I’ll post a pic of it on social media. I expect it to be a chonker.

Anyway, let’s look at my final numbers:

Week Five | July 25-31

Minutes Logged: 550/630

Minutes Ahead: 160 (Whoo!)

Words Written: 2,101

Since it’s the end, let me give you some overall totals:

July 2021

Minutes Logged: 2,950 / 2,790

Minutes Ahead: 160 (Whoo!)

Words Written: 11,020 / 7,750

This makes me so happy. I love when I can complete all of my goals for a month, especially for a nanowrimo month. 

Let me know how your writing went this July in the comments below, and I’ll see y’all soon with more writing challenges and fun prompts.

We Published A Book! | Camp NaNoWriMo Week Four Update

Tags

book description, Camp Nanowrimo, editing process, NaNoWriMo, publish a book, writing goals, writing habit, writing update, writing vlog

Hello, lovelies.

Check out my writing vlog where I edit Cycle Eight, draw on our sales board at work, and publish a new ebook.

It’s week four, and I’ve finally done it. I wrote those damn blurbs. You heard me! I wrote four of those little fuckers. Next week, I’ll workshop them with my betas.

That’s one massive weight off my shoulders and a big old checkmark on a goal for the month.

I’ve also managed to finish my edits of Cycle Eight, which means I will be reading it to my mom next week. Maybe this time I can capture some of that audio for the vlog, but that means I will also get that goal checked off my list before the end of the month. Woot!

All I have left is to finish the other short that I’m halfway through writing and keep at my habit of 250 words a day. Because let’s be honest, although my numbers meet the requirement, I haven’t been consistent, and that’s not okay.

Or maybe it is because I edited and published one of my Lishky shorts during one hell of a week.

Oh, yeah. I had to sit on the phone with the IRS for three hours one morning. The bonus being that I talked to a very helpful human being who fixed what she could for the moment. And I had SO MANY errands last week. It was nuts.

I’ll take the whole week as a win.

So, let’s look at my final numbers:

Week Four | July 18-24

Minutes Logged: 595/630

Minutes Ahead: 340 (Whoo!)

Words Written: 1,418

These numbers aren’t the best, but the goals are getting checked off. Funny how that works. Must be the buffer I gave myself last week.

Onward and upward! Time to kill the last week of camp nano.

Let me know how your writing is going this July in the comments below, and I’ll see y’all next week for another update.

Reading Smut to My Mom | Camp NaNoWriMo Week Three Update

Tags

building habits, Camp Nanowrimo, cover creation, editing process, NaNoWriMo, reading smut, Wooing the Alpha, writing goals, writing update

Hello, lovelies.

Check out my writing vlog where I reward myself for finishing Wooing the Alpha, get my first vaccine shot, read to my mom, and write a shit ton of smut.

Week three has been productive in different ways. I’m almost finished with the first draft of one of my Lishky shorts, I made a new cover, prepped my website for a new release, wrote a blurb (but not for Wooing the Alpha), and am nearly finished reading Cycle Seven to my mom.

Plus, I’ve logged a hell of a lot of minutes! Now, let’s see if I can wrap up all of my goals, like editing cycle eight, finishing another short, and getting those damn blurbs done.

So, let’s look at my final numbers:

Week Three | July 11-17

Minutes Logged: 955/630

Minutes Ahead: 375 (Whoo!)

Words Written: 3,284

I finally feel like I’m getting my butt back in gear. Writing’s coming easier because I’m keeping to my daily habit, which is exactly what I wanted. However, I have noticed that I’m more willing to give myself a break when I get ahead…like the day I wrote 1,499 words, so all I did was edit the next day. Yeah, I need to cut that out and keep to my daily goal no matter what.

Let me know how your writing is going this July in the comments below, and I’ll see y’all next week for another update.

My Hopes, My Dreams, My Fears, & My Failures | Camp NaNoWriMo Final Update

Tags

Camp Nanowrimo, NaNoWriMo, Wooing the Alpha, writing challenge, writing dreams, writing failures, writing fears, writing goals

If not obvious by my lack of updates for the last two…three?…weeks of camp, the second half of the month did not go as planned. Check out my video explaining way more than I will below, plus kitties.

I failed Camp NaNo. Yup. But you know what? I tried. I made progress. Life keeps moving.

All of my excuses relate around the high number of hours I’ve been working, the two new jobs I landed, and how tired I am when I get home. Blah. Blah. Blah. I didn’t put the work in. Bottom line.

Still, I’m all right with that. Goals are fluid, but let’s look at them anyway.

Goal One: Write Every Day.

I was doing so well at this to start off with. I wrote 19 of 30 days. 

Once I realized that writing every day might not be possible, I shifted to include editing as hours spent on Wooing the Alpha. This helped me out a bit. I hit 28 of 30 days.

Goal Two: Edit Cycle Four

Bam. Totally completed this goal.

I finished my word lists and read cycle four to my mom. Yes, I read my smut out loud to my mother. We’ve gotten past the awkwardness of it. Mostly.

Goal Three: Betas

Another accomplished goal. I sent my betas cycle four and finalized all of their notes from cycle one: I had one major revision to do, but it reads solidly now, so Woot!

Goal Four: Track

Well, I once again did well for the first three weeks. I tracked my progress until April 18th. Then, nothing. I’d lost track of vlogging before then, and I was struggling to keep count of my minutes. Instead, I focused on working with the book to keep myself going.

Goal Five: Sprints!

Those first two weeks were sprint strong. Then, it became an annoyance to plan them with the way life got crazy. Like I said, it was hard to track.

Goal Six: Social Posts

Yeah, I don’t even think I started this. Unless you count YouTube and blog updates. I didn’t touch instagram, facebook, twitter, linked in, or reddit, et. al. Bad on me. Oh well. It’s not the end of the world.

Goal Seven: 125 Minutes a Day

Nope. Although I stopped tracking, I do think that I made it to 60 minutes a day on average. You know, a three hour phone call to my mom one day, and twenty minutes of writing on another. That’s still a nice accomplishment in my eyes.

Overall, I wrote 6,463 words in Wooing the Alpha. 

I’m hovering at the end of this beast: one more major section with five scenes, and two more for the falling action. And that’s it! I can’t believe it’s so close.

And for transparency sake, I’m pretty sure I’m sabotaging myself. You know, prolonging the end because I’m scared of messing up the end. If you work on big, creative projects, you might know this feeling.

My only way through it is to keep picking at it, coming back to it, and pushing myself to move forward.

That’s my goal for May. Hit this project until I make it to the end.

It’s going to happen, especially with the new job I landed. Apparently, it’ll be pretty boring there, so they encouraged me to bring my writing with me. Talk about a win!

Let me know how y’all are doing in the comments below. I’d love to hear from you!

I’m Still Behind | Camp NaNoWriMo Two Update

Tags

Camp Nanowrimo, NaNoWriMo, staring at my book, Wooing the Alpha, writer's block, writing challenge, writing every day, writing the end of a series, writing vlog

Hello, lovelies.

Check out my writing vlog with some clips of me trying out my new meat grinder, baking for Easter, making drinks, cute kitty closeups, and my struggle against the clock and writer’s block.

I’m at the end of my book, and y’all, it’s hard to craft the right ending. Being nearly there gives me so much anxiety, but I can almost feel the relief of having draft one done.

Of course, since it’s hard to write, I’m not getting a whole lot of words in, so I’m counting my plotting time—you know, the time I sit and stare at my work even when the words don’t come, and my research into my own 940+ page book to be sure I’m being consistent.

However, with all of that finagling, I didn’t catch up from last week, and I missed out on a few minutes this week, too. Oh happy days.

So, let’s look at my final numbers:

Week One | April 4-10

Minutes Logged: 831/875

Minutes Behind: 44 (plus the 90 from last week)

Words Written: 2,596

Total Words in Manuscript: 253,709

Y’all, I can’t really be too mad at myself. The numbers don’t count as much as I want them to because I just want to finish this behemoth in any way that I can. Sitting with it every day seems to be doing the trick, so I just have to stick with it.

I’m almost to the last major plot point, a couple of pages away in fact. And I’m trying not to freak out.

No worries though, I still have massive amounts of work to do on this to finish it out, filling in some scenes, and giving myself some more space to explore the alphas that I restrained in cycle fourteen—aka, I tried to limit them too much in word count and now need to go back and beef them up a bit. Let them grow!

All right, I’m going to stop stalling and get back to work.

Let me know how your writing is going this April in the comments below, and I’ll see y’all next week for another update.

I’m Already Behind | Camp NaNoWriMo Goals Camp & Week One Update

Tags

Camp Nanowrimo, daily habit, NaNoWriMo, sprint tracker, Wooing the Alpha, write every day, writing goals, writing sprints, writing tracker, writing update

Hello, lovelies.

Check out my writing vlog with the kitties and my crying while I write, cooking chicken noodle soup and playing in my bullet journal.

I’ve written more these last few days than I have for most of the month of March. Work has been killing my energy, so the daily habit has made me happy.

However, I am behind. Counting minutes makes me far more flexible with my writing time as long as I write every day. And that’s a win so far.

So, let’s look at my final numbers:

Week One| April 1-3

Minutes Logged: 285/375

Minutes Behind: 90

Words Written: 2,164

Total Words in Manuscript: 251,190

Here we are. I’ve got some time to make up. Days off are excellent for that as long as I don’t let myself get too far behind.

I won’t. I vow it!

I will finish this book. That is one of my goals for this camp experience.

Overall, I hope to write every day, to edit cycle four, send cycle three to my betas, track my time and my words, participate in sprints, vlog every day, and write for 125 minutes a day (my actual camp nano goal).

I don’t think I’m asking too much from myself. At least I hope not.

Wish me luck, y’all! I’m almost there.

Are you participating in camp? How are you tracking your progress this go around? Let me know in the comments below!

I Wrote 50,000 Words in November | NaNoWriMo Final Update

Tags

bob's burgers monopoly, bullet journal, Nano, NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, Winning Nano, Wooing the Alpha, writer's block, Writing 50000 words, writing challenge

Hello, lovelies.

Check out my writing vlog with the kitties and Bob’s Burger Monopoly, sweet tart martinis and workouts, bullet journal set ups and lots of freaking out about my word count racking up to the sweet 50k.

Welp, I did it. I wrote all of the words.

Somehow, the universe lined up just right to let me complete this challenge. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I put in A LOT of work. I sat with my book when I didn’t feel like it, when I barely had the time for it, when the words didn’t want to come, when I had too much going on with life. I forced myself to hit that wordcount or make it up if I got behind. And it worked.

I managed no zero-word days. One day below a thousand, and most of the days were close to the goal (between 1600 and 1800 words). I got one day of over 3,000 this week because of my 500-word day, which was Thanksgiving. I had a headache all day, plus, holiday.

So, let’s look at my final numbers:

Week Four & Five| November 22-30

Words Written: 50,053

Words Ahead: 53

Total Words in Manuscript: 204,116

Yup. That happened. It really did. And as excited as I am about it, I think I need a rest! Not that I plan to put my book down for any length of time. I’m just going to take it easy on myself. 850 words a day doesn’t sound too bad after 1,667 a day, right? Well, we can thank my writeropoly board for that.

Ultimately, it pushes me toward my goal of consistently writing a thousand words a day. One day. One day.

I also have no planned celebration for winning Nano (and getting a new job). Let me know what you think I should do to celebrate. And please tell me about how your November went in the comments below.

An “Okay” Writing Week | NaNoWriMo Week Three Update

Tags

book boxes, completing a project, designing game, job interviews, kickstarter, NaNoWriMo, TBR game, Wooing the Alpha, writing vlog, writing when busy

Hello, lovelies.

Check out my silly writing vlog where I freak out about how close I am to completing not only NaNoWriMo but my manuscript as a whole. Yikes! I also pack and ship my new book boxes.

This was a good week for the words, which is odd since I had a couple of low-energy days. Or to say plainly, I’m getting tired. However, I am almost DONE with story thirteen of fourteen. Yeah.

Yeah.

I’m pretty sure the looming end is the only thing keeping me going, even though I have no idea what I’m doing in story fourteen.

I also had two interviews this week for a job, and that’s made me excited and is pushing me to get the words before I might not have the time to put into it.

But y’all. I am actually keeping up. I can’t believe it.

So, let’s look at my numbers so far:

Week Three | November 15-21

Words Written: 35,047

Words Ahead: 40

Words To-Be Written: 14,953

Look at that! I’m way past the hump, and if I’m being honest, I’m a bit terrified about the end of this project.

It’s so long, and it’s come together so quickly. I hope I make the right choice at the end.

As a side note: with the tired I’ve been feeling, I’ve distracted myself with some fun, like making a new reading challenge game (aka a TBR game), and it’s complicated, which I totally love. Next week, I’ll be working on my new writing challenge game.

If you didn’t know, I currently play bookopoly and writeropoly every month to challenge myself.

So with that in mind, if you have any challenges or prompts for either game, please leave them in the comments below for me so I can add them to my game. And be sure to let me know how you’re doing!

Getting Behind & Potential Burnout | NaNoWriMo Week Two Update

Tags

burnout, finish a book, grit, NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, Wooing the Alpha, write a book, writing challenge, writing productivity, writing update

Hello, lovelies.

This week came with its ups and downs, but I’m actually doing nano… watch me freak out a little about it in my vlog:

I had a few days where I wasn’t feeling particularly productive, so I let myself have the day on Saturday to putz around, play games, and read after I struggled to get any words out on Friday. I did, however, return to my manuscript and bang out over seventeen-hundred words.

I’m trying to listen to my body more, and when the words don’t come after some heavy work, I might be close to burning out. A headache usually confirms it. Hence the rest day.

I keep making it back to put the work in, though. It’s all about that grit at this point.

So, let’s look at my numbers so far:

Week Two | November 8-14

Words Written: 22,819

Words Behind: 519

Words To-Be Written: 27,181

With all of these words, I was able to get through story twelve of fourteen. Only two stories are left in my project, and I can’t believe it.

Unfortunately, my plotting has fallen behind, and I haven’t finished figuring out what’s going to happen between Winter and Newt. That isn’t such a good place to be in, but I have a feeling that writing Newt will help me more than the planning might.

And I also might be freaking out a little bit about story fourteen. I still don’t know who I’m going to choose or how much of that part of the story is meant to go. This terrifies me, but it shouldn’t. Afterall, I used to write entire books without a plan.

Maybe, it’s how massive this one is that scares me. I guess we’ll see.

All right, y’all, now that I’m rambling about my fears and process, it’s about time to get back to it instead of yammering about it.

Let me know how you’re doing this month in the comments below.

Preptober Reflection, NaNoWriMo Goals & Week One Update

Tags

determination, grit, NaNo Prep, NaNoWriMo, NaNoWriMo goals, National Novel Writing Month, preptober, self-doubt, writing goals, writing sprints

Hello to all of my lovely friends.

It is NaNoWriMo season, and I have been training hard to create a consistent writing routine. Last month with my writer-opoly challenges, I got my 750 words a day—or 23,250 words for the month. I was 500 shy of that goal, so I still consider this a success. It helped me get ready for 1,667 words a day in November.

Yup, that’s what National Novel Writing Month is for: writing 50,000 words in thirty days.

We authors are a crazy lot, yeah?

Well, it’s the first time I’ve gotten to participate in the ACTUAL NaNoWriMo because November is usually the time for grading essays and midterms and readying for finals. It’s usually a time of editing stories for a December publication. And since I have neither of those things this month. I’m going to give that 50,000-word goal a genuine try.

Here’s a little comparison of my Preptober goals, and all of those nice boxes that I did not check off, with my goals for November, where you’ll see I was nicer to myself because…let’s face it, the word count goal for the month is a killer. It’s hard to do anything else.

One thing I’ve really noticed during the first week of Nano is that the sprints have been my friends. I’m doing four or five of them a day to combat with writing fatigue, and my chart is a lifesaver for keeping myself on track.

I’m off to an okay start for week one. Even with going to the dentist and the job interview that I got lost after, I’m not as far behind as I would have predicted.

So, let’s look at my numbers so far:

Week One | November 1-7

Week One | November 1-7

Words Behind: 221

Words To-Be Written: 38,552

See! I’m doing okay. I’m roughly 165,000 words into Wooing the Alpha, and that’s over 600 pages, by he way. My end goal is 210,00-220,000 words for this project, so I’m getting close.

Here’s hoping NaNoWriMo gets me to a good spot where the end is in sight.

This project has been a rollercoaster. And being in the muddy bit—the end of the middle—during a high-powered month like this may seem a little insane. I’m not running on the shiny new project high to get me through this.

This is all grit and grinding, folks.

I’ve trained all year for it. And damn it, I want to be a winner at the end of this.

So wish me luck, y’all, and tell me about what you’re working on in November. Is it Nano? Is it something else? Let me know in the comments below.

And check out my first week’s NaNoWriMo vlog: