IWSG: NaNoWriMo Update & Productivity

 


My cousin said it best: we are finally at Level 12 of Jumanji. Happy December! It's the first Wednesday of the month, so that means it's time for the Insecure Writer's Support Group. As always, thank you to Alex J. Cavanaugh and this month's co-hosts for doing the hard work of visiting us all. This platform has grown so much since I first joined. It's wild.

So, this was the first year I did NaNoWriMo and STUCK WITH IT! Back in the day, if I didn't hit 1,667 words, I immediately gave up and just watched from the sidelines. This year, I decided to give it a try, as 1) I have a publisher and 2) I have a story I need to work on. The first 6 days, I actually overshot the 1,667 words a day. By the 7th day, I got stuck and needed to rearrange some things, so I only hit 242 words, and I decided that that was okay. I even got some encouragement on Twitter from other writers who told me it's not that you reach 1,667 every day but that you write every day. So after the first week, some days I might've written only a hundred or few hundred words, and other days I wrote over 1,000 words. The most I wrote in a day was 2,243 words. I reached over 2,000 twice! On the 30th, I wrote 1,868 words, ending my NaNoWriMo with 30,575 new words for my urban fantasy WIP, totaling an approximate 33K words altogether. I think that's pretty good, and now I know I can write every day if I put some time in, even just 20 minutes. I was in a writing group, and we did sprints together, so having the support definitely helped, too. I think I can say for certain that I might finally be back in the writing groove. =D

Okay, the monthly question really quickly, so this doesn't get too long: Are there months or times of the year that you are more productive with your writing than other months, and why? 

Um...I don't think so? I mean, I could easily say November, but that was "by force." ;) It's definitely a little easier to write in my office, because work is easy going, and I don't have my tv or video games to distract me, so this "COVID season" has definitely not been productive for me.


How about everyone else? How did you do with NaNo? Do you have months that you're more productive with your writing?

5 comments:

Pat Garcia said...

Hi,,
Good for you. I am glad you kept at it. It is also good to hear that you are back in the writing groove. Yeah!
All the best.
Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a safe passage into 2021.

Shalom aleichem,
Pat G @ EverythingMustChange

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

That's a great amount of new words! Glad you had others cheering you on.

Natalie Aguirre said...

That's great that you were productive during NaNo and adjusted your expectations as you needed to. I used it to try to write or revise most days. It helped me get into a consistent writing schedule.

Sarah Foster said...

Congrats on sticking with NaNo and getting a lot written. I didn't do it this year because I didn't really have an idea or the energy lol.

Heather R. Holden said...

Congrats on all the new words for your WIP! 30K+ in a single month is so impressive. Hope December turns out to be a productive writing month for you, too!