Nanofimo Wrap

I drove home from the coffee shop singing, which is something I only do when no one else is in the car, because even my mother, who loves me and believes I am the most wonderful and talented daughter in the world, doesn’t think I can sing worth a damn.

I sang:

Thirty thousand words,

Thirty thousand words,

I am so awesome

I wrote thirty thousand words!

So yes, as y’all can probably guess, I did 30K this November.

And that’s pretty good. I generally get out two or three times a week and write a minimum thousand words, which works out to about 12K a month, unless I’m under Terrifying Screaming Deadline or hit the groove or something, which makes..oh, let’s say 150K words a year, because I take whole weeks off when traveling, and then some days I throw down four thousand words and go “Awww, yeah!” So 30K, even if it’s not the full 50 of a Nanowrimo challenge, is a pretty good sum for me in a single month, particularly a month that involved a road trip, Thanksgiving, and tearing up old carpeting.

Hey, I write short books for a living, what can I say?

I look back at my stated Nanofimo goals. It’s a mixed bag.

• Didn’t touch the thing with the Goblins. Sigh.
• Did add 8.6K to Armadillo Wizard, which I am going to call Very Close To Goal. (Okay, like 4K of that was BEFORE November, but anything over the 18K I started with makes me happy.)
• Added around 10K worth of connective tissue to Slate. Carved out a big chunk too, though, putting me at 73.5K there. And these are good solid filling out the plot Point A-to-Point B words, not just me writing extra scenes and shoving them at the end in hopes I’ll figure out where they go eventually.  (Yes, I do this. Sometimes they go somewhere! Sometimes they never do, and then I gradually remove them as they become obviously useless.)
• Got 5K on the next Hamster Princess book, (The Twelve Dancing Mouse Princesses) which is not actually due until 2015, but it’s still nice to have. (This book may run around 18K all told, so 5K is actually a Substantial Portion Of The Text.)
• Added various odds and ends to various other projects—another few chunks on House with Bird Feet (awaiting agent notes before going too hog wild) plus almost 9K on something that which is looking promising as a middle-grade book sometime in the semi-distant future.

All in all, y’know,  it was pretty productive. I do wish I’d finished the Goblins, but I got pretty close to my goal on Armadillo Wizard, which is moving along nicely, and I put a hurtin’ on the Slate project, which is now much farther along, even if I didn’t finish it this month. I’m actually very pleased with the middle-grade thing—I foresee coming back to that one and going “awwwww yeah!” someday—and Hamster Princess 2 is just gravy.

I was joking earlier about pretending not to be disappointed with not making 50K, but when I lay it all out, I don’t actually have to pretend very hard. For the near future, I will probably keep alternating between Hamster and Armadillo* until I get edits on the two outstanding projects, but overall…not too shabby!

Hope you guys also had a productive Nanowhatevermo!

 

*Glancing at some of these working titles, I am thinking that maybe it is obvious that I am a trifle dotty about animals