Okay, well, nothing about this last week of November is going to plan, so I'm going to stop making plans lol.
November 25th was supposed to be a 0-word day while Mum and I did Christmas Errands, but honestly, it was so cold we didn't go anywhere, and mostly slept.
I did manage to get 1 hour of writing in before midnight, after I woke up around 10.30pm, so netted a nice little 1.9k words. Not my daily minimum I was aiming for, so no garlic bread yesterday, but still better than 0!
Since I was up at Midnight, I started the 26th with three 20-min sprints, and went to take a nap before mum woke up because...
Today was the day. Mum and I went out to do the Christmas Chores instead, we walked into the store, and the power went out. In the WHOLE town! A full 7 post codes, thousands of homes and businesses without power.
So we looked at each other and were like; "Home?" "Yes". lol
Mum and I are both a touch supersticious and like, literally as we cross the threshold the power goes out in the whole town? Nah, we don't mess with that lol.
Anyway, I took another nap, and then settled down this evening to do some more sprints. I got another three 20-min sprints, totally 2 hours writing today, and just shy of 5k words.
Since I still have to cook a meal I'm calling the 26th about 40 minutes before midnight for a change, but it does mark the completion of several of my goals.
I've written 97,844 words in November. My goal started at 60k, then increased to 84k, then increased again to 96k, so I've beaten every target I set for myself this November.
My manuscript word count is currently 118,502 words! But, more importantly, I've got about 7 scenes/chapters left to write. My chapters are averaging about 3,100 words so I'm looking at about 22,000 words of the manuscript left to write. Which feels INSANE to me!
So, if I can do about 5.5k every day for the rest of the month, I might, MIGHT, even finish Darkling before the end of November! Which is, at the moment, the only goal I semi-set and haven't met yet. To be perfectly honest, I only Semi-set the goal because I didn't think it was doable?
I knew, once I hit the new content, as opposed to the redrafting, my wordcount per sprint would drop, and it has. I've been getting somewhere around the 400-600 word range, depending on how sure I am I know what the characters are going to say, and how complex the discussion+foreshadowing is.
At that speed, I'll need about 11 sprinta a day for the next four days. I usually max at out between 6 and 9 sprints a day, so I still don't know if that's doable for me, especially with Christmas prep, and I don't wanna push too hard and burn out.
But, regardless, I'll continue writing Darkling (if it's not done) into December. Especially since I have a preorder piece for Darkling to finish off too, and then I'll finish writing work for the year on December 19th as always.
So my real deadline for this manuscript, and it's accompanying preorder-bonus-scene, is December 19th. And if I can't do 22,000 words in the next 23 days, I should be hung at dawn lol.
I'm still not questioning it. We're not going to look directly at my muse, in case we scare her off.
Because two of my 20minute sprints today got me, literally, over 1,000 words. EACH. Which is... mental.
It did mean I managed to get my cheese garlic bread for lunch though! Which was lovely...
Now, if this weird phenomenon of me writing over 3.5k a day continues, I could get as much as 85k written this month, but I'm NOT changing my goal from 60k.
There's two reasons for this, the first is I don't know if I can sustain 3.5k a day. I DO know I can sustain 2.5k though, because I've done it before.
The second reason is with a 60k target, 3.5k a day looks like incredible progress, which is a huge boost to me mentally. And it happened the first time I completed Nano; I got 50k about 10 days before the end of the month, and I was instantly like "Oh my god, I wonder how much more I can do before the deadline?!"
So I'm hoping to mimic that feeling. We'll see, I guess. There's a LOT of November left to go, and the Second Week Slump is a real thing.
Since I was doing particularly well today, the 3rd, and I know I'm going out with my Dad on Thursday, I decided to double up. I know my dad is very mentally draining for me (In the nicest possible way, he's an extrovert, and I'm not) so I did some math. 14k is 3.5k for 4 days, so I decided to aim for that on day 3 to get me an extra 3.5k worth of words "in hand" so to speak.
It took me an extra 3 sprints in the evening, but I managed it.
As for November 4th, I slept fine, but woke up feeling blech.
And somehow, doing absolutely nothing, I'd hurt my ankle so that constant throbbing was a bit draining.
Having said that, I'm not using up one of my grace days, I'm just not going to push myself TOO hard today either.
I managed one sprint before having to go and elevate my ankle for a few hours, but came back later this evening to finish up.
Sprint 1; 963
Sprint 2; 773
Sprint 3; 854
Spring 4; 874
And in the interest of not pushing myself, I'm going to leave it at 4 sprints today. Which finished Day 4 at;
November 5th is Guy Fawkes Night here in the UK. And I let myself sleep in, so I didn't get up until midday, and I had to do a load of washing up, in bits, while resting my foot. Because of course, our dishwasher broke down after I did roast bloody turkey.
So it's currently, as of typing this, 6pm and I've written nothing. It's a lazy day though, so mum and I are ordering takeaway for dinner, and hopefully that'll give me the rest of the evening to get some words in...
It did not. Because after dinner, the cat was ill twice. *facepalm* Furballs, so nothing serious but still, mum can't sort it, she's fine with dogs but not cats, so that's my job and...
Yeah. I FINALLY started writing at 10pm
On one hand, starting at 10pm does mean I had enough time left to get my four sprints in...
On the other hand, my speed stalled just a bit. IF you can call 3.2k stalling. It's still substantially more than the 2.5k I've set as my daily target, but it's also the lowest wordcount I've had all month so... mixed feels, comforted with my earned garlic bread.
Interestingly, as I was rewriting draft 2 into draft 3 I hit a point where I was about 2/3rds of the way through an Andric POV chapter, and suddenly thought, "Actually, this is a good stopping point..."
I had another 800-850 words of the chapter left to rewrite, but when I looked at it, putting that in the next chapter, which is Lizzy's POV, gave me a chance to show a bit more of Olwen's character, and to foreshadow Booker's mild precognitive ability, and to show some more relationship development with Andric and her.
Also, it brings up the next chapter's word count, which doesn't hurt. It was a little on the lower end of my bracket.
So all in all I'm not mad about the shift, it was just a surprising one, and not one I'd planned for.
Excerpt;
"You okay?" he whispered against her hair, and she shrugged.
"I hate that you're hurt," she confessed, and felt his breathing stutter.
"I know."
She didn't know what to say to that. She knew Andric had accepted, and she wasn't going to ask him not to. It left them right where they were standing, and then Booker's voice broke through their bubble.
"Everything okay now?" he asked, voice falsely bright, and Lizz lifted her face from Andric's chest.
"Yes… I think so?" Lizzy said, voice questioning the anxious look on her best friend's face as he stood with his hands shoved into his pockets, Olwen just behind him with a scowl on her usually friendly features.
"Oh good," Booker chirped, "because I'm getting a fairly strong precognitive sensation that Olwen's going to make me pay for that trick once she gets us in a ring of our own. I just wanted to make sure my intervention was worthwhile."
Lizzy looked at Olwen again, only to realise the scowl she'd thought the woman was sending Booker, was in fact the pain-filled remnants of whatever telepathic static he'd shoved into her head.
As for November 6th, I've just hit a patch that I wrote more recently. It's a scene between Booker and Lizzy that will reveal to anyone who doesn't get their hands on the preorder bonus, just exactly what's going through his head in this book.
But since it was written more recently, I already knew there would be less editing/rephrasing required.
What I didn't anticipate was that my first two sprints for November 6th have been over 1k each again...
Sprint 1; 1,137
Sprint 2; 1,151
Since I seem to be doing REALLY well today, and I've probably got one more sprint to complete this scene, I've taken a bit of a pause for dinner.
But after this scene, the next chapter is, in contrast, going to slow me down substantially.
It's a chapter that I haven't actually written yet.
During one of my "How do I get over this writing block?" sessions, I realised I needed a specific scene to highlight Olwen Pryce's character, and to foreshadow some things for the end of the book. So I have some "bits" written, I have some outline, I have some notes about what needs to be shown, and what needs to be foreshadowed, but the chapter itself still needs to get an initial draft down.
I'm hoping to just keep rolling with the sprints this evening, and get as much as I can done before midnight... which will hopefully mean my inevitably smaller word count tomorrow won't set me too far back on my total monthly goal.
So, I finished Nov 6th with 4 sprints, the last two were in the mid-900's words, so I did well, but I ran out of time before midnight to make much more progress 'today'.
Still, I'm not mad at a 4k day, and almost 25k total word count on day six ^_^
I'm hoping I have enough words in the bank, so to speak, to make up for this slow patch I'm about to go through with the first-drafting of the next chapter...
I did have an early night on November 28th, and I slept right through to 9am on the 29th!
I did some more on my sewing project, which is coming along nicely, and then hunched over a low table gave me a slight headache, which then got exaccerbated by an extrovert meeting with my dad.
So I took some pain killers, got some lunch, and went back to bed for a bit. Unfortunately! Because I really wanted to make a lot of progress today. I'm midway through a scene where Lizzy and [Redacted] reveal some things, and someone else finds out some information that is going to get carried forward into Book Three, and I'm excited, damn it.
It always happens like this...
In the end, between the headache, the sewing, and dad, I ended up not writing anything for the 29th, but the 30th I had a look at my numbers.
If I could get just over 5k, then I'd be at 175% of my original 60k goal. And something about that symmetry appealed, so that was my goal for today.
And it was a slog.
Because I've got a hospital appointment tomorrow, and I'm quietly freaking out about it. So I've been distracted mentally, and exhausted mentally and physically.
I keep falling asleep mid sprint.
But I've been workin on it since Midnight... and it's now 11.36pm... an I actually bloody did it!
So! Time for some "Last Day of Nanowrimo Final Stats!"
1) My final word count for November is 105,078 words
2) That is 175% of my original 60k goal
3) I had SIX Grace Days in November. Also known as Zero-Word Days. That leaves me one unused I'm going to rollover into December.
4) The Total Time I spent writing in November was 42 Hours 40 Minutes!
5) This takes the total time I've ACTIVELY WRITING on Darkling to 146 Hours and 50 Minutes.
6) Speaking of overall totals, this October-November period has brought the Darkling Manuscript up to a total of 125,737 words, and 41 completed chapters.
7) I'm currently writing Chapter 42, and predict based on my outline that there will be 46 Chapters Total.
8) Based on the average chapter size in Darkling, that is approximately another 14,000 words left to write.
All that to say I will be continuing Darkling into December, to try and get it finished before December 19th.
However, considering the hospital appointment tomorrow has already wiped out my spoons, and I've not even reached tomorrow yet, I suspect December 1st will be a zero-word day.
I predict the next update, post Nanowrimo, will be December 4th, but tell me, how did everyone else do this Nano?!
Share your stats, wins, losses, etc and let me know how you all did!!
Seriously, no idea what happened to the 27th of November. I had such plans and they just... never came to fruition.
So, an unanticipated zero word day. However, I did hear that a local pub/restaurant type place is hosting a Christmas Market on December 7th, so I've snatched up a table for the event and will be selling copies of Changeling at my first in-person event! Signed copies, Book swag, flyers for my Newsletter and "Whatever Happened To Madeline Hail?", and all.
Should be interesting, at the very least Lol I have the bookstock I ordered for an event last year that was outdoors and I had to drop out of due to weather (Books don't like rain; who knew?), but I didn't anticipate finding an event this close to Christmas with stalls still available, so I was planning on looking for a local craft fair or similar next spring/summer.
But this will do! :D
As for November 28th... Slow. But we still made progress.
I had to go out to the shops and managed to do SOMETHING to my foot resulting in a massive bruise and a lot of pain, so that's decidedly distracting ever since I got home.
Regardless, we managed to push through for 1,855 words today, tipping the manuscript total over 120k!
Just a couple of days left for Nano, and I'm excited to see how Darkling continues into December!
I checked my outline and there's about 7-10 scenes left to write, and honestly, right now it feels like I've got a million scenes to write, and no time to day it, even though it's practically the opposite.
Anyway, I digress, I'm having an early night tonight, so catch you all on the flip side for the final two days of Nanowrimo 2025.
I don't know what possessed me, but I wanted to try something.
I wanted to try and get over 10k in a day.
Just to see if I could.
So, my medication times are all over the place right now, but I woke up at 4am for my tablets, and say down to write. I did five 20min sprints! And then I took a break for my hard earned garlic bread with cheese.
(In case you've forgotten, 3 slices of that is my daily reward if I hit 2.5k a day...)
Then I managed two more 20min sprints, before I started nodding off on the sofa, so I went back to bed.
when I woke up at 11am, I started work again (After the appropriate amount of coffee), and did another four 20min sprints.
At this point, I had to stop again. I had washing up to do, and dinner to cook. And, ideally, I'd like to do one more sprint after dinner, just because a solid 4 hours or writing makes my inner neat-freak happy.
But I'm incredibly happy to say that in 3hrs 40mins of writing today, I made 11,382 words!
I did actually manage to slide one more sprint in after dinner., so I totalled 4 hours active writing today, and clocked in about 12.5k words ^_^
And look, I'm already 11k over my 60k target. I'm tempted to increase the goal in the top left there, but I'm also curious about how much over I can get.
Meanwhile, I'm using Sarra Cannon's "The Rough Draft Challenge" website to track this redraft with an 84k target, in 30 days.
So let's see how that graph is looking...
MmmHmmm.... so. The question is rapidly becoming... do I increase the goal to 100k in a month? Because, I've gotta say, 72k in 30 days is my current record. (Although that was 1st drafting, which is much slower for me in general)
Moving onto November 16th, I decided not to write. I have a sewing project for my best friends daughter that I need to finish, and I'm on a bit of a deadline for that since I'd ideally like to ship her parcel by the 20th.
So I spent the morning working on that, and then around lunchtime I got a killer migraine, so took some pain killers and just crashed.
I woke up at 5pm for my next round of meds, and after getting coffee, and something to eat, I was like... It's 10pm. And I feel like throwing a couple of sprints at the wall, just as a treat.
So I did end up doing some writing today as well.
Three sprints...
Which totalled a little over 3k (Yay! More Garlic Bread! ^_^)
And has my total wordcount for November just under 75k, and the manuscript at a crazy 95k!
Which, unless I increase my target again, has me about 10 days ahead of schedule.
This is an ideal spot for me, because as I said; Sewing project to finish up.
It's really reassuring to know even if I don't get any time to write over the next three days or so, I'll still be absolutely fine wordcount wise for this month!
So the plan was to keep writing after midnight, when it ticked over to the 13th, but I didn't.
Kind of zoned out and doomscrolled youtube until my dad picked me up for the shops at 8am.
Did the shopping, came home, had lunch, crashed out about midday and went to sleep.
Had to get up at 5pm for meds, and then I had a coffee, caught up on socials, and then continued to zone out and doomscroll.
Lots of little things today that just whittled away my motivation. Spilled milk (literally), cat produced a furball, general malaise.
So, all that to say that November 13th (apropos, now I think about it) is my first Zero Word day.
But tomorrow is a new day...
And we did a bit better. I did one sprint right after midnight, so no matter what happened I had something today.
Which was a good idea, because I Struggled to wake up today. Three times, so in the end I gave in and just slept until I woke, which was about 3pm.
But I did get some more sprints in this evening though, which was nice, and tipped me over my daily minimum...
I took a break at 9pm, watched Sarra Canon's live stream on youtube, cooked Macaroni Cheese (home made!) for dinner, are, and it was like... 11.35pm? Barely enough time for one more sprint, so I've just let it go for now so my dinner can settle, but I'll be starting up again at Midnight for the 15th.
I've got tablets to take at 3am (since my timing was off because of the late wake up) so I'll probably try and go through to then with the writing as well.
But I'm almost at my first goal of 60k for November... and my manuscript as a whole is sitting at a chunky 79,000 words!
I'm thinking of aiming for 84k, which would have been 3.5k a day if I'd started with that goal. At this point, it's more like 1,550 words on each remaining day... but I'm rapidly coming up to the main area of Darkling that needs a drastic overhaul, so I expect my words-per-sprint to plummet.
I'm expecting it though, so hopefully it won't knock my motivation for a loop...
But I'm currently redrafting Chapter 23 (in Draft 2), which has become Chapter 25 (in Draft 3)
I've got 10 more chapters to REdraft after Chapter 23, and then I estimate about 25k-35k left of the story to actually write, estimated from my outline.
