A printed copy of the rough draft of my 2023 NaNoWriMo novel arrived in the mail today! When I finish a project like this, I always make a printed copy for my own shelf. Even if I never get around to editing it, I’ll have a reminder of what I accomplished and learned while writing…

I am finished! The final word count for the rough draft of Project River is 93,284 words, made with 506,000 keystrokes over the course of about 39 hours of drafting, for an average speed of about 40 words per minute. That’s 237 pages of double-spaced 11-point text. My lowest day was November 1st with 1,993…

With 91,000 words, I have managed to beat my personal goal of 90k for this year. But my novel is not yet finished. There is still the final confrontation with the antagonist and the denoument to write. For the other writers out there, stay with it! We can finish this month strong!

I am now at 82,000 words, with daily average of 3,000 words. However, the amount I write each day varies from 2k to 6k depending on how much free time I have. What works for me to get all of those words down quickly is word sprints. A word sprint is a timed period where…

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you’ve been able to spend time with those you are thankful for today. There’s just a week left of NaNoWriMo, and I’m at 66,500 words. I’m a little behind par, but close enough that I am not worried about it. I know that as long as I can write something everyday,…

So far, I’ve written 56,680 words. Which is good, but I’ve only written half of the scenes that I have planned for this novel. Running the numbers, that means that if I keep at the same pace for over-running my estimated length of a scene, the final word count will end up being closer to…

I’m done! Kind of. With 51,301 words total, I’ve managed to beat the official NaNoWriMo goal! Now just to get to my personal goal of 90k by the end of the month. Things continue at a steady pace, though I am over-running my word goals for each each scene, and therefore slowly falling behind on…

I am now half-way to my goal, both in terms of days and words, with a total of 46,762. I’ve gotten a free questions on the software that I use to write. I use Manuskript, which is free and open-source. It has several sections for managing characters, plots, world building, outlining, and writing.

This is just a short post to celebrate 5,925 words in a single day, split up over two writing sessions. I am now at at 35, 244 words total.

When writing any story, there are bound to be changes during the first draft. That’s especially true for me during this NaNoWriMo since I am planning the novel while I write it. Even 27,000 words in, there are things that change. Characterization Characters can change more than their name or eye color. Their outlook on…