NaNoWriMo Week 4

So, this week hasn’t gone well.  I doubt I will make the 50,000 words needed to win NaNoWriMo. I’m not going to make excuses. I had a strong suspicion this was going to happen, and despite that, I didn’t take any steps to prevent it.  Mostly, I let myself get too distracted by other writing projects.

The year before, when I won NaNoWriMo, I had been writing every spare minute to get my 1,700 words in.  I was writing at lunch at work, at home, and didn’t do anything else.  This time, I only wrote at home.  Time at work was devoted to working on somet things I need for Christmas presents.  That was my mistake.  I was able to knock out between 800 and 1000 words while at work. I forgot you fragmented my attention can be while at home.  So every time I started getting words out in a good flow, I got pulled over to take care of another problem.  And no, telling people that I’m not available at that time is not an option.

There were also some private issues going on that  interfered.  I lost two days to things that I had to attend.  Emotionally I wasn’t able to do any writing.  Or much of anything those days.

The other big issue I had was a problem I had with the outline.  I ground to a halt late in the second week.  I recognized that it was because there was a problem with my outline. So I spent a day and only partially resolved the outline’s problem.  I need to go review it again and figure out the rest of it, since I ripped out about three quarters of the events.

So how can I get around it next year?

1.) Schedule more time to write.  I need to get my Christmas things done in October.  Which means I’m leaving myself a note in August to get to work on it. (Yes, for crafters it can take that long.)

2.) Upgrade my outlining skills.  I will admit it. I’m making the transition from pantser to plotter. While I’ve got a somewhat instinctive grasp of outlining, my execution needs work. I’ve been given a few links to beat sheets that might be helpful. And knowing where I’m going will help me bang out words a lot faster than if I’m trying to figure out what happens next every sentence.

3.) Unplug from the internet for a minimum time at home.  Facebook and Twitter and other things did distract me some, and I could have easily gained an hour of focus without them.  I won’t be able to eliminate all the distractions at home.  However, I can work to minimize  them.

Fortunately, the project that I’m working on doesn’t have a hard deadline.  I have to reschedule when I will be working on this story.  I’m expecting the final developmental edit for Chaos Wolf to be back soon, and will make an announcement about when it will be available.

So next year, NaNoWriMo.  Next year!