Type, Typo, Typing

…before getting that lovely purple bar.

Wordcount: 46,210 Words to go: 3,790

I feel utterly sleepy and I don’t know how much more I’m going to get done tonight.

No one showed up at the write in tonight, I’m still there. Actually, someone came in but never replied to my hellos. Mef may still turn up (I wonder if the silent Bumpkin is her).

The least I should do tonight is get to 46,666, which is the actual daily word goal, or 46,682 to be even with Anezka. Hee. So not sure what to write next. I’m sick of the Steampunk Paul/Kevin line (maybe I should make more people disappear). Wahh, I just want to be done…

Current count: 42,352 Today’s goal: 45,000 but really 46,176 and ideally 50K

How’s that for not committing to a goal?

Now, the thing is, I know I could finish this today if I push. It’s just whether I’m going to push hard or harder. I do want to finish no later than tomorrow now, so if I’m going to do that, I might as well do it today, right? I guess it all depends on how it’s going. Good news: I’ve already opened the file. Bad news: I’m lazy. Ok, that’s not news.

We’ve been doing online write-ins the last couple nights and will continue until Sunday. I’m enjoying them, but I wish more people would come along. It would be much more fun with more of us. I also kind of wish we had thought to do this earlier in the month when we had more people still in the game. Next year I wiill request a Leicester chat room at chatnano, and maybe we can do one a few times a week. Much easier than dragging myself and the mini into town, and I get so much done. I’m averaging about 500 words in 10 minutes. So I used this principle on myself last night to push through another couple of thou, setting the timer for myself, writing for 10 minute intervals and then allowing several rounds of puzzle pirates in between. It worked and I didn’t get to bed (that) late considering. Might think about doing that today through the day too.

My plot is going weird. I’m finally getting into the Steampunk Paul thread, moving things along at a little quicker pace, but, well, bleh, I’m not really that excited about that or the Robert thread, and I dropped the no-go original case thread a long time ago. This whole month has basically been a push to wordcount, and I’m frustrated by that. I really want to try it all with a pre-outlined plot next time. Maybe I will work on something between now and April for the April Fools challenge, or maybe I will use the April Fools challenge to write an outline for November. Hm, that sounds more doable.

In the mean time, my next week’s goals will be to look at the old Christmas story and beat it into shape to get my proof done as part of last year’s winner’s gift. This year’s I may go with the pirate one as this year’s is basically a bunch of disjointed scenes tattered and blowing in the wind of Nano.

Current count: 28,059 Tomorrow’s goal: 30,000 31,000 at least

Wow, somehow I sped through a couple thousand words. That takes some of the pressure off for tomorrow, but 3k is still the minimum I want to get. Unfortunately, I will be very very tired, since it is pretty much morning already.

Current count: 26,147 Tomorrow’s goal: 30,000 at least

I’d hoped to get 4,500 done today, but at least 3,000 is the minimum and done. Way too many games were played today. In fact, I spent hours on just one, for absolutely no reason. I have no idea why I do this to myself. Tomorrow must do 4,500. There’s a write-in, and I haven’t been getting a lot done at write-ins, but at least I get a solid base of 1,500 or so. My mini-goal for tomorrow’s write-in should be 2,000. Word wars help, although the tiny keyboard on the mini does slow me a bit, I think.

Speaking of the mini, I have to watch out when I re-import the file after tomorrow’s session, because today for some reason, after writing on the mini for half-hour or so, I brought the RTF back to my main laptop and it was slightly buggy - all the text from a certain point on was in small caps, and the spelling was set for Africaans. The formatting was wonky and some text in one of the sections kept moving oddly when I tried to copy and paste it. At least I had yesterday’s version, and I’d only written about 550 words, so I copied that and pasted it without any formatting into the previous document. It was lucky that I saw it when it happened. For all I know, it’s something that could happen whenever I switch between Open Office and Word.

Current count: 22,140 Today’s goal: 23,000 at least

After falling behind drastically over the last week, I pulled myself up by the bootstraps today and put in another effort, writing just over 3,000 so far today. I need to write to at least 23K for one important reason: my average words needed per day will be exactly 3,000. If it is more than that, I suspect it’s all a lost cause. I can’t believe there are only 9 days left, just this weekend, the week and next weekend and that’s it. I know I can do this, I know 3k a day is not undoable, but considering my staying power for the entire rest of the month, I am afraid I will burn out if I try to do that much every day, or I will convince myself that I can make it up the next day, or the next day. After next Sunday, there is no more days, and I have to finish before midnight in order to validate.

I wake up with such good intentions, but somehow it always ends up early afternoon and I haven’t started yet, then end up writing long into the night. And oh I just remembered Monday’s a lost day, as we’re off to London so I need to get 4500 each of the next two days in case I can’t write Monday at all, and I may have trouble concentrating on Tuesday because we’ll have an electrician in all day, and that will be worse than the plumber last week, I’m sure. Grumble, grumble. Sometimes I think I should just quite while I’m (not) ahead to save myself the grief. Either that or quit the whining and go finish the last 800+ words for today and get to bed.

Current count: 11,134 Today’s goal: 15,000 at least

Well I didn’t hit 12k, but it was a close thing. Somehow time got away from me (damn Freecell), and I had to get to bed because we have some workpeople in today to do important kitchen-y things, like removing our old oven and installing a dishwasher - yay! Anyway, they started at 7.45 this morning, and I couldn’t stay up even an extra half-hour to get to 12k. But, today I will head for 15k and beyond. I’m please with how things went yesteray, even if I’m not sure at all what the hell my stories are doing yet. Right now I’m writing on three different strands randomly and eventually will try to tie the together, I guess.

Current count: 8,130. Today’s target: 10,000 at least.

Tom says I do this every year, and I haven’t procrastinated enough to go back and look at every other year’s excel spreadsheet, but he’s probably right. I don’t know, things seem to happen every year, and then I get behind, and then I have to put up a fight and write hard. Right now my spreadsheet says I only have to write 2600 or so words a day from now until the end. But I am aiming to write today to hit at least 10,000, preferably 12k. Just whizzed through 1200 or so, and the best incentive I seem to have right now is not allowing myself to play Puzzle Pirates until I write another 1k. I have a few things I need to keep current on different characters, which if I did 1k in between each would get me plenty over 12k today. We shall see.

Luckily Tom is out this evening, so I have no excuse but to sit here at my desk and write.

So I started at midnight last night. A few of the writers from last year came over and we made sweet plot bunnies out of marshmallow and other sweeties, and then once midnight chimed its bell we all hit the keyboards. I was the one lagging behind at all times.

Although I’m not that excited about my first line: “Just here, I think that’s the Market Square.” it’s a start, and I haven’t fallen about into weird silliness so far. Although to be fair I haven’t written much yet. Still under 1500 words - not even a day’s count.

We were up until 4.30a and then went to sleep. Up again at 8-ish, and finally going to get back to writing now.

I went with the detective one for now. Not entirely sure where it’s going, or whether I’ll like it at all. But it’s an experimentation, isn’t it?