About two years ago I began creating an outline for a novel that I had planned on writing during November 2010's NaNoWriMo contest. I never finished the outline, but I did get a dozen or so chapters plotted down. And when the contest came, I managed to bang out 18,000+ words before I finally fell victim to work schedule, fatigue and videogames.
Last year I met and fell in love with my fiance Charlotte. I remember on our first date how I told her about my dreams of writing a series of books, and how I had fared the previous November during NaNoWriMo. My goal was to pick up where I left off during the 2011 NaNoWriMo contest, but I quit before the contest even began. Skyrim was coming out. My book would have to wait. We also were engaged that November, so there wasn't a whole lot of thought placed on writing 1667 words a day.
At the beginning of this year, I made a promise to Charlotte that I would finish my novel before we were married. To ensure I met that goal, I decided to write just enough words every day until our wedding day (November) to finish the book. My thought was that by writing 100 words a day, I wouldn't get overstressed coming home from work only to spend four hours writing. I could knock out 100 words in five minutes. Cake!
We also went and bought a cork board for me to use as a wall of encouragement. I filled it up with index cards: one for every chapter, and one for every 5000 word milestone. As I was writing the book, I would put big check marks over completed index cards with the date they were completed.
This lasted for a few weeks, but ultimately I couldn't keep up with the endurance of writing 100 words a day. "Oh, I'm pretty tired today. I can make up those words tomorrow." Five months later, and I've barely written anything else.
The good news is that during the first few weeks, I managed to increase my word count from 18K to 25K, so that's something. Also, the extra words all came in chapters I had already written. I'd expanded the word count (and the quality) of the chapters I'd already completed during that NaNoWriMo two years ago, giving my story a boost and giving me a solid shot at hitting 80K+ words with the final novel.
Now, with July on the horizon, I've decided to cut the crap and just get this book written. My first order of business is to finish my outline using this application called Storybook. It helps me keep everything organized, from chapters and scenes to characters and locations. I'm going to work on this outline from now until the end of July, assuming I need that long. Then, come August, I will begin my own version of NaNoWriMo. Being that my goal is 80K words, and I'm already at 25K, I just need 55K more. Thats 5K more than NaNoWriMo, so I'll need to write 1700 something words a day for the entire month of August.
But you know what? I'm ready for it. I'm sick and tired of starting and quitting and wishing I had finished, then starting and quitting and doing the whole cycle over and over and over again. Its been this way since high school with this novel. Well, not this novel particularly, but the whole group of novels together. I've got so much coming at me in my life. Im getting married. I have huge projects at work to complete. My adult life is REALLY going to be kicking into overdrive pretty soon, so if I want to ever get at least one novel written, then this is my last real chance.
So much for Diablo 3. :( Here we go!
Kaddisfly - Eres Tremulent
