This page will host my daily log for NaNoWriMo.  Please do not come here looking to be impressed.  I am a fulltime programmer, mom of two children, one in Kindergarten and the other in 3rd grade, dinner planner, bath giver, homework helper, and furniture mover, house entertainer for visitors, thanksgiving cooker, 49er fan, all for the full month of November.  A lot of my writing is going to be at night after the kids go to sleep and on the weekends where I play catch-up.

My participant page is at http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/participants/tevyn.  NaNoWriMo has there own stats system however their 24 hour window is from 12 to 12, were as mine is from 7 to 7.   You’ll find me writing past midnight and I count those words on the day before. 

On Twitter @Tevyn I’ll include the tag #enderlace, as that is my possible book title.

I decided to use a monthly chart to show progress by day and then details below.  I thought about making a post for every day of my progress but decided on a simple log, a little less boring for my readers and it gets straight to the point.  I’ve made estimates for each week. The stats will be displayed as actual/goal. 

NaNoWriMo 2011: 15,753/50,000 – Participant

Jump down to recent log entry by clicking this link.

Calendar Month of November

Daily Logs

Day 1: Life threw a curve ball at work and I needed to stay late to work on a location change for a presentation demo for a meeting with the customer on Day 3 in DC.  When I got home we had an contractor talk to us for 2 hours about how to repair our crack in the foundation and avoid future flooding issues.  By the time he left it was 9:30 and I was mentally exhausted.  I sat down at the computer to write but I just got the title and author, 7 words, put down.  I realized that I’d really have a bad start of NaNoWriMo if I pushed myself now, then went to bed.

Day 2:  Today was my dentist appointment.  They are sedating me while they work on three crowns.  In the morning I was able to write 140 words on my Windows Phone 7 device using Yarny.  After the dentist my head hit the pillow and I didn’t wake up until 4:30.  I tried to write some more at that time but my eyes would shift and become unfocused.  My husband and kids arrived home shortly after and to my famous luck we found Lice in Kylee’s hair.  We proceeded to treat her, disinfect, clean, and change out sheets.  My head has been itching lately too, so I also went through a treatment.  This took us all night but I did get in several more words around 9:00pm closing with 698.

Day 3: This morning was the trip to DC for our customer presentation and demo.  I was too nervous to think about writing.  It went well, but no desired executive decisions were made with regards to the project I’m working on.  After DC I had 3 more hours before my official off time so I went into the office and worked on writing up a pro’s and con’s solution to some of the questions at the meeting (wish I could count that in my daily word count).  After work I wrote off an on (I did this in the living room with a tray table and my laptop (I admit I think this was a mistake).  I whipped out about 736 words in between the dinner and second sweeps through Kylee’s and my hair.

Day 4: I listened to a voice mail that my 10 year old nephew left me last night. He was challenging me and making fun of me.  He had 2,236 words already and I am only at 1,441 and I need 10020 by the end of Sunday in order to keep this up.  Tonight I only achieved 782 words after work, grocery shopping, dinner, and fine tooth combing Kylee’s head again.  We both went under another treatment (this one a little more thorough).  Tomorrow will be a better day.  My husband is taking the kids over to a friends in the morning and then he will be at work.  I will have a ton of hours free for writing.  I need 8 thousand more words in the next two days.  I’m not giving up, even if I fall far behind.   My mood is good because I know I can’t control emerging responsibilities, but I am still pressing on.  I’ll pass you tomorrow nephew! Oh and I switched from Yarny to Scrivener for today.  The binder and project statistics are handy.

Day 5: This was a pretty productive day, but it took me a minute to crack open the flow.  To be honest I started Chapter 1 (after I wrote the prologue) on Day 3 & 4 and hated it.  I found that I started my main character to young (age 8) and it was too difficult to express my knowledge on an eight year old.  So I fought over it at the end of Day 4 and in the morning of today.  I decided to start over (not deleting anything I wrote) and advance her to twelve.  I also slowed the story down a lot.  Previously I was jumping into the fire and it read like an outline of sequential events rather than a story.  Today I restarted Chapter 1 and have added details and pulled in aspects of the world better.  Today I think I learned a very valuable lesson in writing.  Don’t just jump in—slide in.  As fun as it is to just jump in, that initial shock of cold water bugged the heck out of me.  I planned to write more than 2,805 words today, but I had an awesome annual Halloween party to attend that night.  On the plus note, Kylee is free of head lice.

Day 6: I don’t know what happened, I woke up and then pulled on my lazy pants.  I guess I just lost my mojo today.  I wasted the day by day dreaming, catching up on TV shows, watching 49ers vs. Redskins, and making brownies.  This was a 0 word day. Ugh.

Day 7: Back to the office this morning and a long day at work.  I don’t like how dark it is now when I drive home.  We had McDonald’s and then my husband and I both crashed.   The kids ran around, who knows what trouble they got into.  Another 0 word count day. Tomorrow I’m recommitted and I have a lot of work to make up.  I am now behind 6,662 words and that is growing. Yesterday and today are my biggest mistakes for not reaching 50k.  I need to make it up so these days won’t eat me up inside.  I also need to purchase Scrivener now that the its out for Windows.  I earned the money on a personal bet with a friend of 20$ that the 49ers would beat the Redskins in yesterdays game.  Go Niners!

Day 8: I finished the zero draft of Chapter 1 - Acceptance, it’s not to bad either.  825 words today.  A little over my set minimum and it looks like Friday is going to be a big day for catch up.  Chapter 1 has 3,615 words.  I am up to 5,788 total words so far.  It is 11:14 PM EST and I’m off to bed.

Day 9: Didn’t get as much as I wanted done tonight.  Only 674 words.  I really need to get rid of distractions, like the internet.

Day 10: 771 words tonight, but tomorrow is going to be my big make up day.  I think this is getting a little easier to keep up with.

Day 11: Veteran’s day off work, but the kids are still in daycare and my husband is taking them far away for a sleep over tonight.  I reached my personal one day best of 3709 in a day.  I seemed to get stuck at the point where I want to have my main character jump grades/age, but I didn’t want the reader to miss out on all that she has learned.

Day 12:  Yesterdays end held me back from starting this morning.  I wanted more time to work out how to approach my next scene.  This afternoon the whole family had visitors, and I got distracted in hanging out with them (doing chores, cooking, shopping, cat nap). 0 words.

Day 13: Bought Skyrim for my husband.  What the heck was I thinking.  Oh yeah, maybe I can distract him and keep him happy while I right.  Nice thought, but it didn’t turn out that way.  Instead it went: you’re watching football let me see what this new RPG is real quick.  I hence became addicted and played up to level 7 (the slow always sneaking way).  If you can see an image of me now, I am shaking my head ad looking utterly disappointed in myself. 0 words.

Day 14: Must write.  Even though I know I’m 22,393 words behind for finishing this week, I’m still pushing myself to write.  You knew that my expectations were low for finishing, but my goal here is not just to say ‘Hey I’m not going to make it so I should just quit.’  I’m trying to get myself into a new habit and to better my writing.  Today so far I’m at 1082 words.

Day 15: Kicked off the day deciding that I needed some action in my story and determined that it was time for the main character to get her first “lace” (aka tattoo).  With excitement, tonight I began writing, but a few hours later with 1329 words done it was 11:47 PM and the lace hadn't happened yet.  I was eager to get there, but it looks like the actual event will take place tomorrow night.  Tonight I adjusted my projected times for the rest of the week.  I don’t feel like I have enough time during the week to commit to 1670 per day.  Changed to 1000, since that’s what I’ve been reaching lately and extended my weekend by 2010.  My current total words is at 13418.  This is the most I’ve ever written on one story, so as low as it is for NaNoWriMo I am still very proud of my effort.

Day 16: My eyes couldn’t stay opened this evening, but I tried to write anyway.  I only got 163 words added.  On the morning of day 17 I decided that those 163 were going to be moved to the ‘extras’ pile because I want to start the chapter with a different scenario.  I have 36,419 words to go in 13 days.  I’ve been using both Scrivener and Yarny.  Scrivener is the better off the two for keeping my pieces organized and providing project statistics, however Scrivener allows me the ability to access it from work (uh oh) or on my phone.  It’s a pain to copy between the two so I’m shouting out to Yarny and Scrivener peoples to have export to each other features.  Of course if Scrivener does get an online storage for quick access I probably won’t use Yarny again.

Day 17: A successful 1118 words tonight, but I realized I really don’t like my work so far.  Don’t get me wrong I <3 my story and I believe in it whole heartedly.  The problem is that I’m writing so fast that I’m generalizing a lot of pieces.  When I edit this I’m positive that my word count will at least increase by 40%.  I’m just skipping a lot of details because I’m just not ready to slow down to address them.  I’ve also realized that I have deviated from my outline.  I think this is good for the story because my adjustments have resolved some concerns I’ve had with the age progression of my characters.   I wanted to document that my planning of an outline for NaNoWriMo is a great idea, but sticking to it should not be a restriction.  On NaNoWriMo’s stats I keep entering my count for the day after midnight, which doesn’t help improve the statistics graph and rates they provide.

Day 18: Today was too busy.  I had to stay late to make-up lost time at work and when I got home it was 7 PM.  I also made crazy plans to go see a 10:10 movie with a friend.  We decided to meet up for dinner at 9 PM.  So I had less then an hour and a half to catch up with my kids and try to unwind from work.  0 words.

Day 19: Complete and utter laziness consumed me, I am completely to blame.  This is my worst NaNoWriMo day yet.  0 words.

Day 20: Second lazy day, however I did actually do something somewhat productive.  I worked on cleaning the house in preparation for Thanksgiving.   I also played Skyrim (bad Jamie).  I can probably say that Skyrim killed my NaNoWriMo, but in reality it’s all on me.  0 words.

Day 21: House is still a complete mess.  I spent today fighting with Traven (my 5yr old boy) and helping Kylee (8yr daughter) with her math homework.  I seem to be crashing hard now on my focus to write.  I am truly hating the fact that the NaNoWriMo is in November.  0 words.

Day 22: I did it. I wrote 1054 words tonight.  I didn’t get to bed until a little after midnight, but I finished another chapter and tomorrow I will work on dynamics between two of my main characters.  Current total is up to 15,753 words.

Day 23: I needed to at least get five hundred words tonight along with more cleaning and cooking.  Boiling eggs, cooking the sausage, and maybe tonight I will peel the potatoes. At the end of the day I had to much to do for Thanksgiving tomorrow. 0 words.

Day 24: Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Too busy cooking, cleaning, and visiting with family (as it should be). 0 words. 

Day 25 - 30:  0 words. I got scared.  Scared, of the huge numbers I’d have to do to complete on time.  Scared, because I was trying to break old habits with a new one.  Lazy, because I didn’t want to change my old habits.   The ones were I vegetate in front of a TV for hours on end.  I needed 34,247 words to catch up. I ran from those numbers and gave up entirely because they were intimidating.  I wanted to win, but I knew I couldn’t, so I psyched myself out and was happy to spend all my spare time in the world of video games (Skyrim).

I ended NaNoWriMo with a total of 15,753 words. 

This in no way says I’m done with my Enderlace book or with my efforts to make a new habit of writing.  I’m not quitting.  I’m just not going to demand a high turn around going forward.  I’m going to simplify my writing, not to large word counts, but to write.   I will write a blog post soon to go over how I plan to continue writing in order to finish what I’ve started, my overall experience, and if I will do this again next year. 

Congratulations to all those who have successfully reached their NaNoWriMo targets.  I’m very happy that both my nephew (in YWP) and my friend Maki surpassed their goals.  You guys rock!