NaNoWriMo 2020: Days 16-22

Things are starting to get a little more tense as some of us begin to fall behind in our word count, and, despite starting NaNoWriMo early, I’m no exception. (As usual 😂)

~Day 16~

I got up this morning, working on finishing the scene I’d left off on. I ended up having a great time, and I feel like the scene kind of became a whole lot more important to the plot than I’d intended. Which is kind of awesome. 😆

That moment when you come back to your story, read the last line you left off on, and start laughing at your characters, because you know shenanigans are about to ensue.

Also, getting hit in the middle of the afternoon with the deep want to write is totally unhelpful for trying to focus on school. I blame my character Lev.

Snippet of the day:

I want to completely reject everything he says in a heartbeat, but I can’t. Maybe because it’s coming from him, and he’s somehow become my friend, and… friendship apparently doesn’t work that way? Or something?

Written today: 2,423

Total word count: 36,528

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~Day 17~

Today was a little different; I’m always super hungry by the time I finish writing, since I have my dad and sister getting ready to go to work – and therefore, eating delicious smelling food. 😆 So, I made some overnight oats last night, and my sister made me some coffee this morning along with her own. (The oats didn’t turn out quite as I’d expected. We didn’t have all the ingredients of the recipe I was going to use, and then I kind of ended up throwing together some stuff? It was a little too much milk, but I’ll try making it again some other time. At least there’s a couple servings/breakfasts there to cover me for the next few days!) (Also, if you’re interested in seeing the recipe whenever I fix it, make sure to tell me in the comments below 😉)

As for writing, I found that eating made me even more tired and usual for some reason? 😅 I started struggling about halfway through, and I know that this scene is either going to be taken out completely, or else heavily edited sometime in the future. Oh well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Eating while writing made me tired, but gave me energy later. It also made me some time. I ended up using it today on piano practice, but maybe in the future I’ll be able to write twice in one morning. 😉

Overall, I did have a good writing day; before I got tired, my characters were being total idiots, which was a blast to write. (I’m not being sarcastic when I say that 😂)

I noticed in the afternoon that the color had changed again on my word-count-tracker thing!

I actually came back later to write up another scene, since I was too excited for my Midpoint scene. 😆 I really wanted to be able to write it tomorrow, so I made sure to write an entire extra scene just so I could. That kind of bumped my word count up to my most productive day yet.

Snippet of the day:

It takes me a few seconds to realize that it’s not my dad texting me about an axe murderer.

Written today: 5,693

Total word count: 42,220

That officially brings me to being within 10k of my goal!! 😱

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~Day 18~

I set my alarm for 10 minutes earlier today, because I felt like I’d need *slightly* more time to be able to pull off the entire Midpoint. I ended up eating the rest of my overnight oats from yesterday while reading over the end of my last scene to get into the right headspace (and the eating part was helpful, because I wouldn’t have to stop as much to be able to eat) and then began, my trusty coffee at my side.

I wouldn’t let myself write any part of this post until after I’d finished writing, and I was about to type about how I wasn’t actually tired today while working, but I’m now suddenly being smacked with exhaustion. 😂 It’s like I just wasn’t letting myself notice before that I actually was tired.

Anyway, I did my Midpoint! I feel like I didn’t do the scene justice, but I’m going to leave it anyway. Someday, I’ll come back and edit it, and hopefully that’ll help. But, hey, it was a tricky scene, and I have unrealistic expectations for myself, so I probably did just fine, overall. 😆

It was a high-emotion scene, and, reading over it to find a snippet for you, I think I did pretty good at capturing that part, at least. There are parts where I want to just expand on everything, ruminate on the words and let them flow like molasses – or caramel, seeing as my MC loves caramel. 😛 But, other than just switching out like, two words, since the sentences didn’t make sense otherwise, I’m leaving this first-draft-version alone.

Also, apparently I’m done Part 2 of my book?? 🤨 🧐 🤔 Not sure how that happened.

And and and, the colour of my word-count-tracker thing changed again. It’s turning from green to gold now. 😉

I ended up using my extra time today on a shower; I usually do those in the afternoon, bUT today is special.

Abbie Emmons was holding a writing session! (If you’ve been around my blog for a bit, you’ll know that I’ve talked about her before 😆) My time, it was from 12:00-2:00, which mean I would miss the beginning and end, but by showering, I was able to pop in and spend my afternoon time on writing some more. 😉

Also, I switched my theme when I wrote a little in the afternoon… and it made my word-count-tracker thing change to pink? 🤨 So I am suddenly suspicious that all the colour changes I’ve noticed may not be just because I’ve been writing more. Even though they’re supposed to be gold here at the end, not pink. *huffs in annoyance* *switches my theme back*

Snippet of the day:

It’s dark outside, and any streetlights that might have been there are completely blocked out by the rain, leaving me to run blindly in the dark.

But I run anyway.

Written today: 3,179

Total word count: 45,287

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~Day 19~

I think that I maybe-sort-of-accidentally burnt myself out a little? 😅 I wrote quite a bit in the past 2 days, and I think trying to write again in the afternoon yesterday pushed me over the edge. Today, I got up, showed up, and barely wrote anything. I slowly made my way through those first words, but then could feel that I wanted to stop.

I’ve been trying to listen to myself more for my cues about when to stop or if I can keep going, so I decided to kind of stop.

…but then I reeeeeeeeeally wanted to at least finish the scene I was in the middle of, so I typed that out. And then I had to write down a few words for the next scene, and ended up with another 150. So, my word count wasn’t too terrible today. 😂

Snippet of the day:

They insist that Grandmother and I stay seated, and so I find myself, for the first time in years, in a kitchen while cooking is going on but not cooking. It’s weird.

Written today: 754

Total word count: 46,041

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~Day 20~

A couple things for today:

1. I was up late the night before. I decided to sleep in, because I really would need my energy today.
2. Personal life stuff happened. I was gone for the majority of the day, and I won’t say for what, but I was exhausted by the time I got back home close to 5.
3. School. With all those hours of the day gone, driver’s ed coming up, and a busy Sunday ahead as well, I knew that I would be busy with school all weekend. I did whatever I could in the time I had.

Therefore, this all added up to me getting exactly no writing done today. (Usually, I write these pieces of my post for each day on the day of, but I actually didn’t until the morning of the 21. Right before I rushed off to get ready for drivers ed and see if I could get some schoolwork done that morning.)

No snippet today.

Written today: 0

Total word count: 46,041

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~Day 21~

So, driver ed happened. And schoolwork. But not writing. 😅

No snippet today.

Written today: 0

Total word count: 46,041

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~Day 22~

List of things for today (because apparently my characters are rubbing off on me):

1. I was gone all day again, only getting back at 5.
2. I did more school.
3. We saw the new Mandalorian episode (because Baby Yoda. ‘Nuf said.) (actually, it was because my family wanted to watch it, and since we’re all watching it together, I had to pause in doing homework so we could watch it 😂

4. MORE schoolwork. (Shocker.)

No snippet today.

Written today: 0

Total word count: 46,041

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That week was… not what I expected. 😅 I still have the final 4k to write to finish NaNoWriMo, but this coming week is also going to be crazy with school, so we’ll see what happens.

I’ll see you next week after this is all over! 😉 But first, make sure to tell me how your own writing is going! I’ve been really enjoying chatting with other writers these past couple weeks about projects. 😃

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Days -5-1: 14,011

Days 2-8: 10,511

Days 9-15: 9,712

Days 16-22: 11,936

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What is your NaNoWriMo story about? I’d love to hear about it!

Do you think you’ll be able to finish strong?

Am I the only one who has school getting in the way of my writing? Or can you relate? 😂

-Julia

Photo by Timo Wielink on Unsplash