After much thought, I decided not to compete this year. It was not a hard decision since I am editing one I wrote in an earlier competition.

The year I wrote this work was the first time I did the challenge. It was an eye-opening experience for this novice writer. It required writing 1667 words a day—every day of the month, including holidays!

Did you note I said |”novice writer?” I had dabbled in writing a novel, but not one with a deadline hanging over me. So, how did it go?

The first few days were very challenging. I started with the names for the principal characters and some key story points (I didn’t outline.) Not only must I envision the story, but I had to type it into Microsoft Word.

I am not a hunt and peck typist, but I don’t burn up the keys either. My typing speed while creating the story might have averaged ten words a minute. Time dedicated to typing was between 2.5 to three hours each day.

What came of it? I called it a disaster when I reread what I wrote. It loosely hung on a plotline but met the word goal to win the challenge.

The following is the first few paragraphs of that story after significant rework.

#####

Saving Siden (Working title)

The Goddess Kiliane found Goddess Mira relaxing in her palace’s main room. A tapestry hung behind her, which showed a pack of wolves serenading the moon. “Come with me tomorrow to get my gown,” Kiliane said, dropping into the chair across from her.

“I think I will stay here. I don’t enjoy being around humans,” she said, pushing errant strands of her honey-blond hair behind her ear.

Kiliane leaned forward. “You need to let the people you protect to see you, and I desire your company. Come with me; you might enjoy it.” She pressed until Mira agreed to go.

The next morning, Kiliane led her best friend through the Jihalla-Siden interdimensional gate onto Siden. They stood at the edge of an open-air market extending to their left. A road separated them and the market from a row of storefronts in two-story wood buildings.

Mira’s hands rubbed her bare arms.  “I should have stayed on Jihalla. It is cold here.”

She laughed while her friend, who wore a sleeveless silver gown, shivered in the early morning coolness. “You should have worn something warmer, but the temperature will rise soon.” Mira glared at Kiliane dressed in a long-sleeve shirt and pants.

Zudon had announced a banquet several weeks ago. He was hosting a celebration of the millennial anniversary of their awakening tomorrow night, and Kiliane needed her gown. Seamstress Amelia said it would be ready today.

The sound of ironshod wheels rumbling on the cobblestone road took their attention. Wagons passed in front of them filled with melons, corn, tomatoes, and more. At the east end of the market, farmers jockeyed their wagons into open-air market spaces.

Kiliane’s nose wrinkled at the odor of manure. She almost laughed at Mira, who was pinching hers shut.  She took a deep breath and smiled when the breeze shifted, and the smell of baking bread came to them.

#####

The graphic is something simple I created with Canva. I hope you enjoyed this excerpt. Let me know what you think of the image and if you would like to read more by using the comment form.

I encourage and appreciate likes and shares.

Be safe during this trying time.

Shelving this decision for a moment, I thought I would review my progress turning the 2016’s disaster into a novel.

The 2016 draft was a NANO win with its length of 50,250 words. This number of words didn’t survive the first read-through. I am a pantser, a writer working without a detailed outline. I couldn’t decide how to finish the story, so I wrote three different finishes. During the first revision, I cut two, reducing the word count to about 48,000 words.

I am on the sixth revision, about forty percent through. I started this one with a word count of about 49,100 words and comments from a beta reader and an editor. The editor guided improving the structure and content. The beta reader desired “more” detail.

I worked through the first thirteen chapters, finding places to add or expand scenes and, by edit, to excise unnecessary words. The word count still grew to 55,227 words at that point.

I face today whether to stop this revision and prepare to compete in NANOWRIMO—2020. The draft produced would finish the three-book series. The story would be on paper, well, on my computer.

I haven’t the luxury to delay the decision for long. 1 November 2020 is not so far away.

Will you take part in NANOWRIMO—2020? You can use the comment form to answer and I would like your reason for your decision.

Be safe during this trying time.

NANOWRIMO 2019 starts 1 November. I wrestle with competing this year. Interestingly, competing implies competition. Yes, It is a competition against oneself.

The competition is to write a novel of fifty thousand words in November, an average of 1667 words a day. Some days I might write more or less, such as during the holidays.

I participated twice, and both times met the goal.

Both times, I sprinted the last couple of days to reach the goal.

Taking the plunge

The first time I didn’t consider Thanksgiving. Losing one day might not sound like much, but I am not a great typist. I averaged, maybe, ten words a minute on a good day. So, a day’s writing was nearly three hours to put 1667 words on paper.

Shucks, only three hours. Yes, three hours if the vision for the story flowed from mind to paper in a steady stream. It didn’t always for me, I started and stopped as the story revealed. As a result, I spent longer with the keyboard the days after Thanksgiving.

The second time, it had little to do with the holiday. I was in the last couple of months working before retiring from my job. I started November strong, but as the holiday neared, I suffered a form of malaise, lack of motivation. Fortunately I found it again after Thanksgiving. The sprint to the end found me crossing fifty thousand words on the 30th.

Each time, I wrote with a vague outline. The key elements were just a sentence or two. From these, I had to build the story as I wrote. Challenging, very!

This year

I am starting early this year, laying out a foundation. I hope to have a good grasp of the story and where it will go before the 1st. It should make finding 1667 words a day (average) easier. I will let you know after 30 November.

Do you intend to take the NANOWRIMO challenge this year? A comment form is available for your convenience.

Musing, let see what is flitting at this moment.

I just finished bowling in the Monday Seniors League. Friday night in the Friday Early Birds I bowled a 728. The first 700 plus series in two years. I was concerned this morning that I would follow the exceptional (for me) series with a bummer series. Low and behold, I had a 641. Relief!

Someone came up to me during the league and made a comment about the Impeachment Inquiry. I try to minimize politics there and here. I listened and only added that I wished the House would leave him alone and get back to doing legislation to benefit Americans. Let the election next year decide whether President Trump should stay or go.

I lost an uncle recently. It made me think about everyone lost. My mother in 1996, my father in 2002, one brother in 2001 and the other in 2002, and my sister in 2011. All of my mother and father’s siblings are gone. So many to mourn.

I am considering taking part in NANOWRIMO this year. I skipped last year after taking part in the previous two years. It might be the break I need from the novel I am editing. Need to either commit and prep an outline or just jump in on November 1st. I would make faster progress with an outline.

Many other thoughts flit too fast to collect and relate here. They note computer processing speed in advertisements. Well, I contest none yet can match the human brain for speed.

Do you agree? Use the comment form to let me hear your opinion.

Writers of all genres and levels of experience took the challenge of writing fifty-thousand words in the thirty days of November.

Today, many of those writers are sitting before their computers or with pen in hand frantically writing in the effort to meet the challenge.

NANOWRIMO WEBSITE

The NANOWRIMO website has a tool to count the words written and judge success. The writer copies the words written from the computer file and pastes into the word counter. When the count is at or above fifty-thousand words, a winner’s certificate becomes available for download.

The winner’s certificate notes the winner’s name and the title of his work.

I didn’t take the NANOWRIMO challenge this month. Instead, I created my own challenge to finish the fourth revision of the work I wrote during the 2016 challenge.

I can create a winner’s certificate for my challenge and issue it to me. The fourth revision was completed on 28 November.

In 2016, NANOWRIMO suggested I spend December finishing the novel and getting it ready for publishing. Needless to say, I didn’t.

Use the comment form to let me know if you receive such an email from NANOWRIMO. You can use it to let me know if you plan to work your novel until published. Or was this just an effort to win the challenge?  

Kiliane’s Rage

I agreed to write Kiliane Rage during November. This would require me to write some 1,667 words a day average. I didn’t understand just what this would mean. When I took Thanksgiving off, it changed the workload to get back on schedule.

I successfully completed the challenge with over 50,000 words a day early.

The work was put aside for a week before going into edit mode. I probably should have waited longer because what I read almost destroyed December for me. I found I had several good scenes, but most were awful. There was duplicate material in several places and terrible description throughout.

I read through it twice before beginning the editing process with excising what was similar material from scenes. The result was the removal of several thousand words. Since I have gained back the lost words with better written scenes.

Last year, I agreed to the NANOWRIMO challenge. Again, I wrote a work that needs extensive editing. Now I have two interesting projects which allow me to alternate between them, and avoid becoming overly frustrated with either. When they are done, I will have a novel and a sequel.

No NANOWRIMO this year

This year, I am not taking the NANOWRIMO challenge. I considered it for a time since I have ideas for a sequel to the sequel. Why not get the sequel’s sequel written?

The reason is that I am a pantser. I don’t do detailed outlines. This results in works-in-progress needing a lot of tender loving care. I have two and adding another at this time is not something I want to do.

This may disappoint the diehard NANOWRIMO adherents, but this is right for me.

Are you doing NANO this year? I would love to hear why you are or are not taking the challenge this year.

You can use the comment form for this or tell me anything of interest to you.

A year ago, I wrote a 53k novel during NaNoWriMO using Microsoft Word 2013. In January this year, I started to edit and revise it using Word. Recently, I transferred the work-in-progress (WIP) to Scrivener. Word aficionados may disagree with my evaluation and comparison. Word is a great product but less useful for this effort than Scrivener. Some justifications for this opinion follows.

I, a pantser, wrote the novel using a minimalist outline. To meet the daily writing goals, there was a duplication of content and a poorly developed narrative. The characters were not developed nor settings defined.

Reluctant to change to Scrivener

Writing the draft, Word enabled meeting daily writing goals. When revising the draft, Word was awkward to use. It didn’t offer me an ability to easily move scenes, track thoughts for changes to existing scenes, or create and insert new scenes. For a time I struggled with using Word while ignoring the capabilities that Scrivener offered.

Made the move

Out of frustration, six weeks ago I transferred the WIP into Scrivener. Each scene became a document within its own folder. That completed, I reread each scene and made notes in the Document Notes section of the Inspector for things to consider when revising the scene. Word requires maintaining a separate document for notes or incorporating the notes into the scene text. Word’s notes placed in the story text need to be removed before creating the file for submission. Scrivener’s notes are not part of the scene text and are ignored when compiling.

More reasons to use Scrivener

Other features that Scrivener offers are templates for characters and settings. I used the character template to note my characters’ information. The template missed information I wanted to track, but it provided a good starting place. The setting template was a good starting place for descriptive information about where events occurred. Word requires creating documents or appending character and scene information to the WIP’s file. Neither of these is as easy to use as Scrivener where accessing information is as simple as clicking on the character or setting’s folder.

A feature I found useful was the ability to move scenes within the story. I found several scenes out of place during the read-through. It only took a moment to drag the scene’s folder to its proper place to reorder the scenes. With Word, I must cut the scene, locate the place I want it, and paste it.

Two more useful features

There are two more capabilities I learned Scrivener had which I use. I name each scene with a descriptive title instead of chapter numbers. I can move scenes without worrying about numbering. The second is custom labels. I edited the label section to include revision labels. When I finish the scene, I label it according to which revision number just completed. Most scenes are at revision one and are so color-coded. Other scenes are revision two and one scene at revision three. I can see at a glance what scenes need work.

As noted earlier I said I am a pantser writer meaning I do not work from a detailed outline. Word sufficed for writing the draft, but Scrivener’s tools and capabilities simplify revising the draft into a finished novel.

Do you use Scrivener or another tool when writing? Tell me your preferences using the comment form.

This past week was a tough week for my wife and me.  On 1 December, my wife’s Aunt Barbara passed away. She 86 years old. Two days previous, 29 November, my Aunt Jeanette passed. She was 81 years young. The ladies were exceptional women who left us with many wonderful memories.

NaNoWriMo

Many writers greet the first day of December with a sigh of relief.  They have won or lost (or not participated) in NaNoWriMo. Win or lose, the relief of knowing there is no guilt in not writing for a day.

Pipeline 2008 Boys Red

The boys had two weeks off after the Columbus Day tournament. Last Monday was their first training event since. The plan for the fall season is to concentrate on technical topics. The training held in a school gym and the games played in an indoor arena. The differences may account for the team’s poor performance today as they lost by several goals.

Writing

I have a work written during last year’s NaNoWriMo. It is still work-in-progress. A year seems long enough to bring it to near complete, but that is not the situation. “Too many irons in the fire” is the appropriate cliché.

Recently, I accepted time is a premium as I move toward retirement in January. I am frustrated with the lack of progress, so I have committed to editing/revising at least one full page each day. I can hear the gasps at such trivial progress this means. Yet, it will be measurable progress.

Thank you

The past year has seen you visit and many left comments. Thank you to each, and I hope you will continue to drop by. Comments are always appreciated, but they are optional. Visit.

Schedule change

The Pipeline 2008 Boys Red are moving indoors for the winter season. This means a change to practice days. There are now Monday and Tuesday instead of Tuesday and Thursdays. As a result, I won’t be posting weekly on Monday. Look for new posts on Sunday.

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving with my daughter’s family and their friends who were visiting from Iowa. My wife prepared two turkeys. One was traditional, stuffed, and cooked in the oven. The other smoked with pecan chips. Both were hits with everyone.

Grandson’s Birthday

Bradley’s first double-digit birthday was today, Sunday. He was able to spend days leading up to it with his long-time friends from Iowa. His birthday wish was to have a peanut butter crème cheesecake. My wife found a recipe that uses her newly acquired Instant Pot and gave him a seven-inch birthday present. Put ten candles on it and let the boy enjoy. Fortunately, Lori made a couple of five-inch versions for the rest of us. The rest of us shared one of the five-inchers while Bradley’s older sister claimed one for herself.

Black Friday

In the past, we have avoided the crowds screaming for Black Friday sales. There are multiple other days when comparable sales occur. There are sales on Memorial Day, July 4^th, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Black Friday, Christmas pre-sales, Christmas post-sales, and even New Year’s Day. Sometimes there are sales not associated with a holiday.

I had to pick up a prescription at Sam’s. We were presently surprised to find the place only moderately busy. In addition to my medicine, we found something for grandchildren’s Christmas. Feeling lucky, we went on our weekly shopping at the Commissary but found it closed. The attached Navy Exchange was wall-to-wall people. The checkout lines ran down the main aisle. This may be the reason why Sam’s was moderately busy. Or it could be all of the dedicated Black Friday shoppers were finished and asleep at home.

This year’s experience did nothing to convince us we want to become part of the Black Friday Shoppers Club.

Christmas Season

I am looking forward to Christmas this year. I will be retiring in January after 51 plus years employed. 25 years and some months and days in the US Navy and more employed as a consultant to the Navy.  I am not worried about having things to keep me active in retirement. More about that another time.

I would enjoy hearing about your Thanksgiving and Black Friday experiences. Leave a comment using the form below.

[powr-contact-form id=bc74c1c7_1511745031075]

Kiliane’s Rage is my work-in-progress written during NaNoWriMo. I rarely visited it during the holidays. In mid-January, I brought the draft out and began working with it again.

I joined a critique group about the time I took Kiliane’s Rage out of hiding. I quickly learned a critique group can affect your morale or self-esteem if you are sensitive to criticism. It is frustrating to read the critical comments that point out shortcomings to story delivery on a work you think you have aced. I read and reread the comments on my first scene with disappointment. Then I bucked up, accepted the input but did not rush to make changes.

Instead, I completed the second scene with the first reviewer’s comments in mind. The second set of critiques pointed out different things as concerns. Some contradicted the first set of critiques. The problem I decided was the second set was by different readers than the first. At this point, I decided to concentrate on a full read-through and revision without involving a critique group.

Let me confess to a fault. Yes, I have one that is likely shared by many writers. It is the “not good enough” fault. I spent several sessions reworking the first scene before I submitted it for critique. The first scene introduced the protagonist, the antagonist, and several secondary characters at a banquet. I worked with the draft from NaNo WIP. As I mentioned earlier, this scene went to the critique group. I wrestled with myself not to immediately incorporate their comments. I had the same issue with the second critique. Move on or the poor babies in the ninth scene would never enjoy my attention.

I stopped revising content to complete a read with a focus on plot. *Sometimes I do things out of sequence and have to do over. This should have been first!* I found plot holes that would take a dump truck full of asphalt to fill. No need to worry about adverbs, adjectives, or passive voice when there are gaps in the storyline.  Or how does backstory fit?  Does it get worked in or, most likely, excised.

courtesy: Amazon.com

That brings things up-to-date. Kiliane’s Rage draft is coming along and this version has a home on a Kindle. I recently learned how to get docx and epub books onto my kindle. For the longest time, years, I thought you could only read mobi files on a kindle. *Techie, that’s me!* This weekend I uploaded Kiliane’s Rage docx file and I am reading my story on my kindle. How different the same words read when the WIP comes up on an ereader vice in Word or Scrivener.

One day in the, hopefully, not distant future, Kiliane’s Rage will find a home on many ereaders.

Have you ever uploaded your WIP to an ereader? Did you find your WIP read differently?

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