Five Things I Learned from NaNoWriMo

1. Start with an outline

I used to be a writer who never outlines. That makes it very hard to finish a time-limited exercise like NaNo. While a ton of scenes still seem to come out of nowhere when I write, it was extremely helpful to me to have "beats" of the story to aim for. On days when I didn't have any ideas, I looked at scenes I hadn't written yet, and tackled them.

2. I wanted to quit so many times

I was under par just about every single day until the end. When I reached 25,000 words, I realized that all that work I did, I was going to have to do over again. But I kept going. By making a daily habit of it, I made it less of a chore and just a part of my routine. And this was actually the first year, out of many, that I completed the goal. 

3. It takes a village 

Seeing everyone's tweets and posts on various websites was incredibly helpful, encouraging, and at times just the reminder I needed to keep writing. In the future, I want to plug in with a writing group. 

4. It's just a draft

With a writing exercise like NaNo, writing an entire novel in a month, you have to forgive yourself for a lot of dead ends. I told myself that something ought to be salvageable. On Dec 1, it's better to stare at 50,000 words (even if only some are usable) than a single blank page.

5. Back it up

One copy on your hard drive is not enough. Look into cloud storage, have a back-up drive, e-mail the story to yourself as you go, print it - whatever you do, make sure it's secure. My cats jumped on my keyboard a lot, and my computer isn't as young as it used to be. Don't let one glitch wipe out all of your hard work.

Questions? Thoughts? Leave them in the comments or tweet me @lauraebradford. 

New words throughout the years

So the Oxford English Dictionary added some new words recently. I don't think I've heard of cakeage (I know it as the bland, descriptive "cake cutting fee"), but I use hangry and fast-casual all the time - probably even in the same conversation. I've heard many of the other words or phrases numerous times, without ever stopping to think if they were "official" words yet.

It's interesting to see how language evolves over time. The year 2012 gave us such gems as earworm, a music favorite of mine - and how did we ever converse without referring to our bucket lists or game changers? That year had a lot of negative words about the economy, so I'm glad that now things are (a little) better and we can focus on the important things in life - food.

Could you write for 1,000 days in a row?

I just finished reading the post 1,000 Posts in 1,000 Days. My initial reaction? Amazement. I don't think I could keep a habit like that going for nearly 3 years. Even after 30 days, I tend to fall off the wagon.

But writer Bradley Charbonneau's post is extremely motivating.  "One day at a time," he wrote. "Through sick days, bad WiFi, low batteries, a creative mind full of zero original ideas, I made it through."

It reminds me of the "No Zero Days" system. It works for fitness, for language learning, and especially works for the creative arts. The idea is to just keep moving - that if you stop once, you're more likely to stay stopped. An object in motion and all of that.

Some writers don't abide by that at all. Some take weekends off, others walk away from the page when they're stuck and seek inspiration elsewhere.

But part of me wants to write every day. I get a great idea, jot it down, but then someone asks me something and I'm right back in the real world. Just now, I had to walk away from this post for a few minutes to get something, then one of the cats meowed and wanted to be petted, and I saw that the shrubs outside were getting tall and needed to be trimmed.

But I came back to this post. The cat is happy enough sitting beside me, and it's almost dark - the shrubs can wait until tomorrow (when it's cooler out, anyway). I'm not sure I could write 1,000 posts in 1,000 days, but maybe I can write a few more.

End of year update

Photo by unsplash.

So I thought I'd write up a little update just to let everyone know I'm still writing.

I participated in NaNoWriMo -- I didn't win, but it really jump-started my writing. I'm revising Saturnine and working on a paranormal YA project.

I had a very hectic but lovely year, in which I started a new job, graduated with a bachelor's degree, got married, and then moved -- all within four months.

Then we got a kitten! You can see a lot of her on my instagram.

They say when it rains, it pours. I turned my attention back to writing, so maybe I can keep at it.

Have a joyous end of December.

Various goings-on

So, I realized I hadn't updated my blog in awhile (I closed my eyes and guessed it had been a year, but I checked and saw that I did in fact post once in 2014. Phew.) and just wanted to update everyone that I am still alive and stuff. I had a pretty busy year so far. I married a very handsome photographer and we moved into our very own house. The moving process itself could fill its own book.

What was I talking about? Oh, the blog. I admit, I never really knew what to do with my blog. Some writers discuss writing news, so I could write a post on my feelings that Amazon is allowing independent authors to set up pre-order pages, but all I can think to say is, "Yay! That's really cool." Other writers post really helpful guides, and yet others chronicle their crazy lives as they date rock stars and tour indie radio stations. Personally, I don't even post vacation photos to Facebook, partially because I don't take vacations and partially because it all just seems like too much oversharing.

I have been writing, but nothing ready to release just yet. So, not much to report.

Layout, newsletter, news

Happy New Year, everyone! I made some slight cosmetic updates to the blog - before it was really flat and white and gray and blah. So, I hope everyone likes orange. I have been reading a lot of articles about 2013, and my biggest regret is that I didn't update the blog layout sooner.

One of my New Year's resolutions is also to make a newsletter. You can sign up here.

Links to Things I Have Found Helpful

• 17 Things Every Entrepreneur Needs to Prepare for the New Year All writers are basically entrepreneurs, but even if you're not, this has very helpful, specific tips for organizing your life.
• Entrepreneurial Lessons From Amazon, It’s Not About The Drones And Future-Proofing Interesting read on Amazon's business model, and what it means for writers.
• Konrath's Publishing Predictions 2014 I have been following J. A. Konrath's blog for years, and he's always been quite prescient. 
• Why Bitcoin Has Value - A lot of news sources are disparaging bitcoin, but its full potential hasn't even been explored. Expect a lot more development as people try to sell, buy with it, and protect it in the upcoming year.

Word goals for December

Awhile back, Patrick Thunstrom made me a spreadsheet for writing progress. It's quite handy but only goes so far for me, because I tend to write a draft and rewrite it about twenty-five times (which is why Saturnine isn't out yet).

But I decided to dust off an outline of an old project I never finished, update the outline, and try to get 30,000 words written in a month. The results:

The left column is word count, bottom column is number of days. It's an 80-day chart, so look at the left corner. From this graph you can deduce two things:
1) I obviously messed something up when copying it to Paint, because it's blurry.
2) I did well early on but veered off course as time got closer to the holidays. I started on December 3rd, so the 21st day is Christmas Eve.

So this is some evidence that I actually can still write, I just need to keep focused and take breaks from time to time for real-world stuff. Awhile back I did a social media scaleback, and I'm going to attempt a social media comeback. Tweeting, blogging, and the like do take time and effort, but they help bring me into a writing frame of mind.

Oh, can I add New Year's Resolutions to this post? Release three books in 2014. Expect more wibbly-wobbly charts in the future, but I'll try my best to get my words out there.