jojo writes

Well, that was a month! After an optimistic start, I ended up restarting on day 4. I'd written about 3500 words and just wasn't loving it. I rethought my approach to what I'd written and started from scratch and got about 8000 words on that before deciding that I hated the characters, hated the plot, and could not imagine spending another word with them. So I started over again on day 10 and that went much better, but then I went out of town for a few days and got thrown off and didn't end up writing a word for about a week. I was only at about 16k on the morning of the 25th and was, like, "Is this the year I fail at this? Should I just not even try?" But by the night of the 25th I was at about 25k. Was a little over 32k by the next night, and then have averaged 4500 or so every day since. And finished it all with a little more than an hour to spare. So somehow another successful year! Creativity challenged. Glad I powered through; I'd have been so disappointed in myself if I'd just given up. Total words: 50349

A month or two ago I thought about starting to think about NaNo, and then all of a sudden it was Halloween and I hadn't thought of it at all. Oops! In spite of a total lack of preparation, an awful day at work, and constant distractions when I sat down to write, managed to come up with enough words to not be behind on day one. So what if I really don't have a clear idea what I'm doing or where I'm going with what I wrote. Still a successful start! Total words: 1713 Tomorrow's goal: 2k if I can. Drink of choice: Honey lavender tea.

Just needed a little bit more to get to the ending I wanted. Annual creativity challenge successfully completed! A little bit of a difficult year what with restarting twice and then just having so much trouble writing on most days after work, but I think it was a good year overall. Definitely not the best thing I’ve ever written for NaNo, but I quite like parts of it and I like where it ended up. Had a fun time spending time with my characters, and that’s the most important part. Total words: 51646 Tomorrow’s goal: RELAX. Drink of choice: Eggnog.

Wrote about 2k yesterday and a little more than that today which got me past 50k! Yes! Not quite done with it, but have just a little bit of the ending to wrap up and can easily do that tomorrow. Total words: 50737 Tomorrow’s goal: Whatever I need to finish it up. Drink of choice: Prosecco.

I am on a roll today, and I am annoyed I need to stop writing and, like, sleep. Hoping I can pick up at this same pace when I get back to it tomorrow. Getting so close to the beginning of the end. Total words: 46016 Tomorrow’s goal: 2k would be lovely. But, like, what if I could just finish it tomorrow? I don’t think I’ll really have time, but a person can dream. Drink of choice: Guinness.

Averaged about 2k a day the past three days. Hoped I’d be able to get a bit more than that done, but ended up busier than I’d expected I would be so was just cramming in as much writing as I could at the end of the night. Still very slightly behind where I should be, but closing in! And the end is in sight! I had a moment of “oh nooooo” earlier when I thought this thing might take longer than 50k to wrap up but, nah, seeing where I am plotwise today I think it’ll end up being pretty close (she says hopefully). Need to wrap up my current chapter and then I think just one more will take me to the end. Current words: 42192 Tomorrow’s goal: At least 3k. Drink of choice: Water water water.

Didn’t get quite as much done as I’d hoped. I tried to write while watching hockey but then got super emotional about the game and could not concentrate on writing (you would think watching hockey while writing about hockey, kind of, would be inspiring, but you would apparently be wrong). Still, not a bad day of writing at all! Hit 35k, my favourite milestone besides the end. It just always makes it feel like I’m practically done once I’ve got that many words. Total words: 36316 Tomorrow’s goal: 2k would be great, but we’ll see how it goes. Spending Thanksgiving with just my mother, so kind of rude to ditch her to write. Might just try to get some done first thing when I wake up, depending on when I wake up. Drink of choice: Hibiscus LaCroix.

Was hoping for 3k, got close to 5k done in bits and pieces throughout the day! What a satisfying day of writing. Still behind where I should be, but just barely. Pretty much everything I wrote today ended up being tedious exposition, but at least I wrote it. Genuinely feel like the next bit has some potential to be, well, not good necessarily, but certainly not awful. Total words: 34039 Tomorrow’s goal: 3k would be fab. Drink of choice: An awful lot of coffee and a glass of tempranillo.

Almost 3.5k today, even better than expected even with a day that ended up being busier than I thought it would be. Have kind of been stuck in the longest chapter in the world for the past few days, but feel like I’m almost to where I can move on to the next big plot point that’ll get things moving forward. Total words: 29250 Tomorrow’s goal: 3k if I can! Drink of choice: Honey lavender tea.

Had some slow days during the week again. I don’t feel like I’m usually bad at doing NaNo on workdays, but this year it’s been rough. But work has been pretty rough recently so. Yeah. C’est la vie. Good news is that I’m off all this week, so hopefully I’ll be able to just get through this thing. Anyway, after doing maybe a couple hundred words a day during the week I managed about 2k yesterday and almost 3k today. Got into a good groove, feel like I might know better where this thing is going now. My characters are working better together which makes writing a lot easier. Still behind where I should be, but feeling optimistic. Total words: 25807 Tomorrow’s goal: At least 3k would be nice. Drink of choice: Coffee and water.

Nothing like having evening plans to motivate me to write apparently. Had an hour and a bit in between wrapping up work and needing to get ready to go and managed to bash out just about 2k that should set me up to substantially move the plot forward in the next little bit. Total words: 20015 Tomorrow’s goal: 2k at least. Drink of choice: Good old water.

Not the easiest of days after having the Mondayest of Mondays at work, but got the 2k done that I wanted. An absolutely abysmally boring 2k for sure, but no matter. 2k is 2k. Total words: 18057 Tomorrow’s goal: 2k, although I’ve got stuff going on tomorrow night so I might not get there. Drink of choice: Guava LaCroix.

Managed almost 3500 words, writing in 15 minute chunks every so often throughout the day, so that was fab. Still behind, but not nearly as behind as I was. Advanced the plot a bit and got kind of a clearer idea where I’m going with this, so that’s even more fab. Total words: 16056 Tomorrow’s goal: 2k would be great. Fingers crossed work doesn’t stress me into not being able to write again this week though. Drink of choice: Coffee and later some coffee pumpkin ale.

Love how last year I was like, “I’m never doing NaNo again without posting daily updates to keep myself accountable!” And now we’re almost two weeks in and I’ve been doing NaNo without posting daily updates to keep myself accountable. And it’s been rough going! It would have helped! A summary: Day One - November kind of snuck up on me, but I had a sort of vague idea of what I wanted to do. Managed 730 words. Days Two and Three - Decided I hated what I’d written the day before, but thought the idea could still work with some slight changes. Started from scratch and managed 1331 words over two days. Days Four though Twelve - Decided I hated what I’d written the two days before and would need to daydream about that idea way more before attempting to write any more of it (maybe next year?). Started from scratch with a sort-of-connected sequel to the books I wrote the past two years. Wrote a bunch the first couple days, but was so stressed out by work during the week that I was barely managing a couple hundred words a day. Total words: 12576 Tomorrow’s goal: I’m so behind, so 5k would be amazing, but perhaps unrealistic. So at least 2k. I’ll catch up eventually. Drink of choice: Pumpkin stout.

An hour and a bit to spare, and I just finished NaNo. But I think I really made a mistake this year in not doing progress updates here? I didn’t really mean to not, but I missed the first couple days and was having a terrible time getting going and was just like...this is too much trouble, I’m just going to write. But I may have severely underestimated how much keeping myself accountable is motivating? Anyway, it took me two weeks to write 15k, which I then scrapped almost all of because it was just. Not fun. I didn’t include that in my total word count, so this was basically a year of doing 50k in the last two weeks. And that was not an even pace! I really only just got to 25k maybe four days ago, and I ended up doing the last 15k in the last two days. Finding a steady pace just proved impossible this year, and I was behind literally the entire month. Never doing it that way again. But, hey, at least I did it. Yay, etc. Total words: 50166

So 50k in twenty-one days and then another almost 25k in the next nine, finishing up with just a couple hours to spare. There was a moment around 55k or so where I thought, hey, maybe this isn’t actually going to be as long as I thought, but I was very much mistaken. So, yeah! Officially by far the longest thing I’ve ever written. Possibly the most self-indulgent thing I’ve ever written. Maybe one of my very favourite things I’ve ever written? Also the horniest thing I’ve ever written but, like, horny for human touch in a Pride & Prejudice (2005) clenching-your-hand-after-helping-them-into-a-carriage type way which is hilarious in a novel about hockey bros. Like, I wrote this in lockdown and have been touch-starved since March, and that could not have come across more clearly. Anyway! Creativity successfully challenged. There were a couple rough days in there, as there always are, but I genuinely enjoyed doing this so much this year. Total words: 74475 Tomorrow’s goal: RELAX RELAX RELAX

Hey there, 50k, nice to get to you this early! But wow am I not close to being finished. I’ve never hit 50k without feeling like I was at least close to wrapping things up, but I’ve still got a big chunk of story to go. At least two more chapters, probably three, and an epilogue (and the chapters in this thing have not been short). So...50k is great, but gotta keep up this pace if I want to make sure I can actually finish the story by the end of the month. Feel like I’m in a good groove though, and I think I pretty much have the rest of the story sorted out in my head at this point. Just have to get it out of my head. Total words: 50053 Tomorrow’s goal: 3k would be great and should get me out of my current chapter and into the next. Drink of choice: A red blend.