Nanowrimo Days #3 and #4 Report

All is not lost

Nov 04, 2019

Day #3

I thought yesterday, day #3 of Nanowrimo, was going to be a complete bust.

It should have been fantastic. I slept in a bit — until 5:45, 45 minutes later than the time I usually wake. (I know, I know, it happens naturally. And I love it.) I felt good. I slept in and still had time to write. I could have my cake and eat it, too.

Then I got up to my office to write and looked at my phone. It was 4:45! And I remembered the time change. Which should have simply given me more time to work.

But there’s something about time change day that just makes you feel weird. Even though I’d actually slept longer than usual, my brain kept saying, but you got up at 4:45! You’re exhausted!

And then my seven-year-old grandson woke up and appeared in my office. He who is a teenager in training and complains loudly about being awakened at 7 for school, was wide awake at 5:30 (really 6:30).

Damn time change.

I can’t resist Henry, and I’ve learned not to try. My office is his favorite place. We debated the merits of various games on my phone, which meant sampling them, of course. And I’m pretty sure we came up with the answer to world peace, too.

In the meantime I only had 700 words and felt like I’d barely gotten started. But I gave up and went to eat breakfast, vowing to return later, though not sure if I would.

But I did! And added 700 words, bringing the total for the day to over 1400.

Day #4

I’m developing a new process, quite by accident. But it’s working great. I do my pages in the morning, and then throughout the day I get a ton of ideas — for things that will happen in the story, for scenes, for new characters. And more.

A big reason this is happening is that I’m tearing through mysteries, thrillers, and romantic suspense novels on my kindle. Nothing gives me more ideas than reading other novels. I notice how other authors put their stories and scenes together and it inspires me.

So I take notes on my phone. I use Google Keep as my note app and I highly recommend it. This is handy because I always have my phone next to me, but I’m not always near my computer or pen and paper. That’s the first part of the process.

Then, first thing in the morning I transfer the notes to the journal I’m using to track everything in this story. It’s a big, oversized spiral that I bought at the grocery store, and I love it, too. Something about its heft makes me feel I’m writing big and important things.

And the act of transferring the notes get my brain engaged with the story all over again and gets me writing. There is a small danger that after note transferring I’ll feel satisfied with the day’s output and wander over to look at email, but so far that’s not been too much of a problem.

Today, though, part of my notes involved a new chapter one and a prologue. So I had to do some copy and pasting and restructuring. (I know, already.) I’m trying not to get too caught up in it and not doing any editing.

Today’s output: 1558 words. A bit of a cheat, because maybe a couple hundred words had been written before, but I give myself credit for the time it took to cut and paste and rearrange.

Wordstrumpet

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