NaNoWriMo 2013 Mid-Month Update

About three weeks ago, I wrote a post about my plans for my NaNoWriMo project for this year, an Indian space opera story tentatively called The Veergati Codex. I talk about it in some detail here. That post also talked about some of the negative reactions I’ve seen against the entire event, established authors basically deriding the efforts of the “dilettantes” and the “dabblers” since “real authors” write all year, not just for one month a year. Its a fair criticism I guess, but its undeniable that many of the published authors of today are these same dilettantes and dabblers who’ve made it big. I know of at least three currently published authors, from major publishers no less, who took their first steps with a NaNoWriMo event and have reached all the way to where they are now. So the derision this year really rubbed me the wrong way.

But anyway, that’s not what this post is about. In the previous post, I’d said that my goal for this year was to do 30k words instead of the usual 64k+ I’d pulled the last years. With some personal things going on, not to mention some other commitments and my reading, I couldn’t afford to spend that much time on the writing for the event this year. I was all resigned to it too.

But then the first day came, and I was a mean writing machine, if I do say so myself.

NaNoWriMo 2013 Edition

In just a few short days will begin another Nation Novel Writing Month where tens of thousands of people all over the world will make a head-start on their novel projects, aiming for a monthly word-count of 50,000. Thousands will fall way short. Thousands will make that target, and thousands still will surpass that and end up much higher. From personal experience, its been *relatively* easy for me to break past the goal. In my first year, in 2011, I ended the month with a word-count of 65,866. In my second year, in 2012, I ended the month with 64,001 words committed. But this year, its going to be much different.

There are certain personal things going on that make it a impossible for me to be able to carry on this level of productivity this year. And its not just one thing, its a lot of different things, none of which are the topic of discussion here. Simply put, I’m aiming only for 30,000 words by the end of the month and even then I’m doubtful if I can make it.

No, the topic of discussion here is the reaction of some published authors with respect to this yearly event. To sum, its derision and arrogance and dismissal of the efforts that people make in November every year for this event. And that is something I have a big problem with.

Monthly Report – February 2013

Once again, the monthly report has been severely delayed, so I offer my apologies once again. Between a huge review backlog and other endeavours, it’s become rather tough to find time for the report writing. But anyway, here it is.

Overall, I think the month turned out to be decent enough. I’m making steady progress on several fronts, and having a damn good time of it, which is always good in the end! Although, all things considered, I’ve been thinking that I devote too much time to reviewing and should tone it down. Not sure about that! I definitely need to devote more time to my writing, and also tone down on my TV watching. Funny how “entertainment” can impose on life.

So, this is how the writing and reading went down last month, and you can find the January report here.

Monthly Report – January 2013

This is quite a bit late, and I apologise for the delay. Lots of things going on this month, and not all of it good, so things have been off-schedule for a while.

In my blogpost titled “2013 – What Now? Some Resolutions Maybe?” I mentioned that I was not going to set myself any individual project word-count goals, and that my big aim would be to do 450,000 words for the whole year. January, on the whole, wasn’t all that great since there were two trips to India involved (one coming back in the first week, and another going there in the last week), so that crimped by writing quite a bit, not to mention that my slump and procrastination continued.

Try as I might, I can’t fix this stupid procrastination. There’s always something that comes up, that totally screws with my writing moment and I end up doing nothing. I have no idea how to get it sorted. The reading progresses great, just not the writing.

Eh, whatever. It’s still better than doing absolutely nothing for a whole month! So here’s how my writing and reading in January went down.

2013 – What Now? Some Resolutions Maybe?

So the New Year has come and gone. The end of the second week is almost upon us. And so far, it’s been a somewhat lazy, yet productive month. Also one that has been spectacular in a few ways. It’s also time to make some new resolutions and challenges. So let’s get to it.

2012 – A Bloody Fantastic Year Ends

So, the year 2012 ended a few days ago, and it’s been an absolute blast, to say the least.

Anyways, to do a small recap of my goals for the year,

1. Write ~420,000 words of both fiction (various submissions and novel projects) and non-fiction (reviews and blogposts).
2. Read 400 novels, comics, novellas, stand-alone short stories (still not sure if these SHOULD be included) and listen to some audio dramas and audiobooks.

At the end of October, I was very close to both of those goals, having crossed the ~472,000-word mark, and was still ahead on the reading goals, as I was at 352/400 on September 30th. You can find the November report here.

November Report

November ended a few days ago, and so far this year, it was my busiest month ever, in terms of writing; busiest by far, as you’ll see after the break.

Anyways, to do a small recap of my goals for the year,

1. Write ~420,000 words of both fiction (various submissions and novel projects) and non-fiction (reviews and blogposts).
2. Read 400 novels, comics, novellas, stand-alone short stories (still not sure if these SHOULD be included) and listen to some audio dramas and audiobooks.

At the end of October, I was very close to both of those goals, having crossed the ~377,100-word mark, and was still ahead on the reading goals, as I was at 304/400 on September 30th. You can find the October report here.

NaNoQuickie

 

Sexy! 😀

The actual manuscript word-count is 64,001 words at the moment. I ended mid-scene to wrap things up and get my validation in before the clock hit midnight. The extra ~1,500 words there are from the chapter synopses and the little backstory stuff I wrote in Scrivener. Another year, another win. I call this a successful writing month.

AND NOW I CAN GO FRIKKIN RELAX FOR REALS.

NaNoWriMo, NANP and Advent Reviews

Just dropping by for a quick pit-stop. This last week has been very busy, with lots of stuff going on and I thought it was time to update all of you, and explain as well why the Names: A New Perspective series has been on hold.

NaNoWriMo Returns – Week 3 and Going Into The Final Stretch

In the Week 2 Update, I said that my goal for Week 3 was to hopefully complete chapter 4 by the end of the week and to have roughly 14,000 words in the bag. The first of those goals was going to be really tricky since I tend to overwrite chapters a lot and stick to my outline only in the most meta sense, but I was confident that I could do the second goal. I had done it in Week 2 and I had been traveling then, so no big deal.

NaNoWriMo Returns – Week 2 Update

Following on from my Week 1 Update, Week 2 was both better and worse for Project Cloak of Secrecy. The trip to India proved to be as bad as I had thought it would be, since I had two really terrible days of writing that set me back considerably. I managed to really in the second half of the week, but that required a near superhuman effort on my part, not to mention that I even ended up breaking a writing record, one that I’m really proud of in retrospect.

NaNoWriMo Returns – Week 1 Update

As I mentioned in my October Report, I’m taking part in the National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo, once more this year after my successful run with it last year. The project, tentatively titled Ragnarok Chronicles Volume 1: Cloak of Secrecy is a space opera style science fantasy with Norse Gods, Giants and Humans in an interstellar and pan-dimensional power struggle. The concept was borne out of a want to do something with the growing body of work in this subset of science fiction/fantasy featuring gods in contemporary timelines such as James Lovegrove’s “Age of” novels or M. D. Lachlan’s Claw series.