Its that time of year again. Nanowrimo! This year I'm really trying to get as many words done as fast as possible, because I'm hosting thanksgiving this year, which means I'll be busy for the end of the month, and unable to breakaway from family to get down some last minute words. Luckily for me, the first day of nano fell on a Saturday, giving me lots of time to get ahead on my word count.

As is my tradition, I stayed up late and started Nanowrimo with a bang. I got down 1760 words before bed that night. I got up the next day and continued to bang them out for the rest of the day. I ended last night with a total word count of 4311.

Hot-N-Ready: 1276
Owned Forever: 3035

I'm over at Sweet'n'Sexy Divas talking about my secrets to Nanowrimo prep. Some of the tips you've probably seen before, but I think there are a few that are new and different. Each year I seem to learn some new tip or habit to help me improve over the previous experience.

Stop on by and let me know your tips for winning Nanowrimo. I'm always interested in learning a new tip. And I hope you'll learn something new from my list too.

http://sweetnsexydivas.blogspot.com/2014/10/nanowrimo-prep.html

I just officially validated my novel, and I am a nanowrimo winner. My total word count as of right now is 50343, and I still have a whole day left. I intend to continue and try to get as many as possible for the month of November, but its nice to officially hit my number and know that I have won.

This month has been very productive, even though I didn't write one novel like you're supposed to for nanowrimo. Not only did I get more than 50k of new words, I started and finished one entire story (still untitled, and below titled as Army Menage). Before I was done with the story, I had an idea of two or maybe three other stories that would go with this one in a series. Unlike some of my other series, this one (which I've labeled Protective Patriots) all the stories intersect in a few key spots, so I intend to write them all at the same time, so I can get all the details right, and hopefully they will all be publish around the same time too.

I also managed to write another 12,000 words on a current story Second Chance at a Cheerleader (bringing the total word count over 40k, which is a long work for me). There's still more writing to do on that story, but 12k is good progress for one month, and also this month I figured out some other scenes that need to go into that work to finish the character arc for Lanie, which definitely inches me closer to that finish line.

I'm going to continue to write all I can for the next day, but I also need to start thinking about what I want to spend December on for my December close out plan. Unlike some years, I don't have as many partial projects hanging around, but I definitely want to get something headed to the publishers to start the year off right.

Current Nanowrimo Word Count: 50,343

Second Chance at a Cheerleader - 12,334
Army Menage 1 -25,836 (Completed)
Army Menage 2 - 1,341
Army Menage 3 - 3,729
Home for the Holidays - 7,103

I had an awesome day of writing on Sunday. I finally gave into the shiny new idea that’s been playing with me for some time. It’s a, so far, unnamed ménage of two army rangers, home on leave, and the woman they’ve loved and protected for years. It will probably be short, I’m thinking 20k or maybe 30k, but like all my ideas it’s slowly growing into another series. I have a few other ideas of some hot army rangers, but they may just be their own stories and not a series. I’ll have to write this one and see how it goes.

I stuck to my rules on Sunday, and wrote my first 1800 or so words on an older work in progress, and then moved on to the shiny new idea. Between the two I was able to get 3568 words for the day. And I managed to get in an hour of kickboxing once I meet my goal.

Day four wasn’t as good. Monday’s are hard for me any week, but banging out almost four thousand words the night before didn’t help. I was tired, sore from my work out, and I’d already agreed to spend the day in the field for work, a.k.a. spending the day not at my computer with the opportunity to get a few words down between meetings. 

But I still managed to write 1121 words. Not my full word count goal for the day, but not bad. I did however, have to abandon my rules to get them. A lot of these words are on my new work. But since I wasn’t sure if I could even get a hundred words with how tired I felt, I think getting more than a thousand is worth a little rule breaking.

That’s my favorite part about Nanowrimo, how it pushes you to do more than you think you can. It pushes you to make time, focus and encourages you to put your writing before everything else. I couldn’t do it every month, but I’m happy to do it for one a year.

Total Nanowrimo Word Count:

Second Chance at a Cheerleader – 6364
Army Ménage - 2261

Another great word count day yesterday. I managed to write 2119. Once more a little over goal, but not enough to worry about burning myself out. I wanted to get a little more done, but was just to pooped.

I’ve created two impromptu rules for this November, we’ll see if they hold up the whole month or not. One rule is that I’ll write the first 1667 words on a
current work in progress. After that I can start writing on something new. The point of this Nanowrimo for me is to try and finish up some works in progress, and get a few stories ready to submit for early 2014. Having a hundred works with a couple thousand words on them doesn’t help with this goal. So far I’ve only been working on one WIP, but I expect the closer I come to the end, the harder it will be to keep going with the same story and the more tempting a shiny new idea will be. So I hope this rule will keep me working towards my end goal of new completed works at the end of November.

My second rule is that once I hit my words for the day, I have to exercise. I’ve been horrible about exercising for the past month, and with it being Nanowrimo time, it’s just another reason to not take care of my health. But the truth is, with all this writing I’m doing I do need to spend some time exercising and working out my muscles, instead of sitting on my butt. It’s good for me, for my writing and for my mind. So once I hit my Nanowrimo words for the day, I will exercise. I’ve picked this stopping point in my writing for two reasons. One is because if I hit my words, I can afford to take the time, oppose to being behind. But it will also encourage me to exercise, since most of the time once I hit that many words I’m in the zone and I will want to keep going. I’ll get up and do my exercises quick, so I can get back to my work.

I didn’t manage to work out on day one but I did day two and hope to continue the tradition. During the week will be hard, but I think I can do weekends, and that’s better than nothing. 

Total Nanowrimo word count: Second Chance at a Cheerleader - 3931

This year, since November 1st fell on a Friday, I wanted to take the day off. To start off Nano strong and get ahead of the word count instead of spending the whole month struggling to catch up. The last two jobs I had (and I believe the only jobs I’ve had since my first year participating in Nano) didn’t afford that. I had certain things I had to do on the first of the month, even if that first fell on a Saturday, and I couldn’t afford to take the day off. But my current job, didn’t have these limitations, so I was all excited to take this day off.

Well, best laid plans didn’t work out. Unfortunately by heat broke last week and I had to take the day off to deal with that, leaving me with not enough vacation to take all the time I wanted. That combined with my boss not being in, I had to cover for her, so it just wasn’t possible. I’m still earning my reputation at this job, so I can’t afford to be as frivolous with my time off as I used to. But maybe next year.

I did stay up until Midnight to start, like I do every year, and managed to get in 441 words before 1am (I had to go to bed then, not only was I too tired to be useful, but I had to get up at 5:30, so I needed to get some sleep). I then managed to write another almost 1400 words at work, bringing my total for day one to 1812 words. Not too bad. I meet the first day goal and exceeded by some. Now I just have to maintain, all though it would be nice to do even better. 

My goal for this Nano is just to get as many words down on the page as possible, towards as many projects as possible. I have so many ideas floating around in my head, waiting to be written but I have a lot of trouble getting the time to write them down. This is my time to push through that block and make some real progress. I want to make this competition work for me, and get as much done as I can. I’ll keep a running tally of what’s going on for each project I work on, so you all can see how much I’m working on the projects you’re looking forward to seeing.

Current Nanowrimo word count:
Second Chance at a Cheerleader (Snowedin Fantasy 2) - 1812

Its my day to blog over at Sweet'n'Sexy Divas and I'm talking about what I do to prepare for Nanowrimo each year. I have a few quick tips on what to do the month before to get yourself ready for a hard month of writing. Stop on by and let me know what you do to get ready for the big event.

http://sweetnsexydivas.blogspot.com/2013/10/nanowrimo-prep.html

I officially threw in the Nanowrimo towel a few days ago. It was a long shot from the very start of the month, but the final nail in the coffin was the cold I picked up at our family Thanksgiving. Further proof that little brothers can drive you crazy no matter how old you are.

Through I’m disappointed that I won’t be able to complete the challenge, when I look back on what I have accomplished I’m pretty excited.

 I managed to complete the hardest edits of my writing career, Wandering off the Path, the first in my new bound by fairytale series. I released Foolish Desire, the fourth book in my naughty holiday list series, and promoted it to a successful first month (even landing on the best sellers list for a little while). 

Writing wise I wrote over 20k on Dirty Work, the next and final installment in the naughty holiday list series, and another 3k on Regan and the three bears (working title), a future installment in my bound by fairytales series.

All in all it’s not a bad month’s worth of work. And I do have Nanowrimo to thank for it. If it weren’t for Nano I certainly wouldn’t have written as much as I did. Between the edits, promotion for Foolish Desire, and some evil day job issues, I probably wouldn’t have written much. Due to pushing myself towards that Nanowrimo goal, I’m now about two thirds of the way through
Dirty work, and I’m that much closer to having another release heading towards the door. 

So even though I didn’t make my Nanowrimo goal, I’m still going to consider it a successful month. I’m hoping to put in a few more thousand words before the end of the month, the best I can with this nasty bug. Thankful for another year of Nanowrimo.

I love nanowrimo. I’ve participated every year since I learned about it. However I’ve only won twice, the second year I tried, but didn’t succeed. I was in the middle of editing my first release, and taking on a new overwhelming job, and I just couldn’t make it work.

Unfortunately, this year is already shaping up to
be like 2010. My job will be busy, I have my first round of edits do to my
publisher on the 5th (and I’m sure two more round will follow through November) and because of the busy October I had (getting both Birthday List and What Happens in the Booth published) I didn’t even get done most of my errands in October, like I normally do to prepare for nano.

But I can’t not try. Especially now, when I need as many releases out as I can get. So here’s a list of rules I came up with to hopefully set me up in a good place to win nanowrimo this year.

1. What has to be done is completed first. Between edits for my next release, and blogging to promote my current release, there are a lot of things that need to be done. Those have to happen first. Even if I’d rather be writing. I can survive without winning nano, but I don’t want to develop a reputation for not getting blogs in on time or not getting edits to my publishers.

2. Any words are good words. This year I’m not going to focus on getting one work done, but instead I’m focusing on getting any words I can. Unlike earlier nanos, I’m at a different point in my career now, where I’ve proven I can complete a work and getting more works in progress is more important than finishing one.

Works I might be working on this nano include-

· A ménage for the end of the world (already 30,000 plus into)
· Buying the boss - billionaire BDSM Auction story (already 1k into)
· Dirty Work - last in the naughty holiday list series
· Wolf Lake (last year’s nanowrimo novel that still hasn’t been finished)
· And anything else I come up with…

3. There can be no zero word days (a rule I’ve already broken once) even if I’m exhausted and don’t want to lift my fingers I at least have to set some time aside for writing. Even if I only get a hundred words. That’s a hundred words closer to winning.


4. Lunch is for writing. This time of year it gets crazy around work, as we try and close out the financial calendar. Though it shouldn’t be as bad for this year as it was in past years, but it can still be overwhelming. To make sure I still get some writing done, I’ll take my laptop to a quiet place and spend my whole lunch working on my writing (either writing or blogs or edits, whatever needs to be done).

5. On my days off, I’ll commit 8 hours to writing. This year I have four paid vacation days in the month of November. Each of those days I’ll commit 8 hours to writing, just like I did in last years, full time writing vacation. 

If I can make these rules work, I just might be able to win this nano season.