It's my first Post Nano Update, and all I can say is So-Far-So-Good!
I've been hitting my daily minimum consistently, so far, and I'm not almost certain Darkling will be 47 Chapters + 1 Epilogue, leaving me another 12-14k until the end of the book.
Today is Christmas Tree Decoration, and then Sunday I have an in-person event where I will, hopefully, sell a few copies of Changeling! :D
But in the meantime, I'll just keep chipping away at these final chapters.
Chapter 44 was REALLY good, and Chapter 45 is shaping up to be just as good, in a different way.
I'm so excited to share this book now!
I only just made my minimum word goal today, due to a migraine that came on SUPER quick, but we're still doing well regardless!
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I did have an early night on November 28th, and I slept right through to 9am on the 29th!
I did some more on my sewing project, which is coming along nicely, and then hunched over a low table gave me a slight headache, which then got exaccerbated by an extrovert meeting with my dad.
So I took some pain killers, got some lunch, and went back to bed for a bit. Unfortunately! Because I really wanted to make a lot of progress today. I'm midway through a scene where Lizzy and [Redacted] reveal some things, and someone else finds out some information that is going to get carried forward into Book Three, and I'm excited, damn it.
It always happens like this...
In the end, between the headache, the sewing, and dad, I ended up not writing anything for the 29th, but the 30th I had a look at my numbers.
If I could get just over 5k, then I'd be at 175% of my original 60k goal. And something about that symmetry appealed, so that was my goal for today.
And it was a slog.
Because I've got a hospital appointment tomorrow, and I'm quietly freaking out about it. So I've been distracted mentally, and exhausted mentally and physically.
I keep falling asleep mid sprint.
But I've been workin on it since Midnight... and it's now 11.36pm... an I actually bloody did it!
So! Time for some "Last Day of Nanowrimo Final Stats!"
1) My final word count for November is 105,078 words
2) That is 175% of my original 60k goal
3) I had SIX Grace Days in November. Also known as Zero-Word Days. That leaves me one unused I'm going to rollover into December.
4) The Total Time I spent writing in November was 42 Hours 40 Minutes!
5) This takes the total time I've ACTIVELY WRITING on Darkling to 146 Hours and 50 Minutes.
6) Speaking of overall totals, this October-November period has brought the Darkling Manuscript up to a total of 125,737 words, and 41 completed chapters.
7) I'm currently writing Chapter 42, and predict based on my outline that there will be 46 Chapters Total.
8) Based on the average chapter size in Darkling, that is approximately another 14,000 words left to write.
All that to say I will be continuing Darkling into December, to try and get it finished before December 19th.
However, considering the hospital appointment tomorrow has already wiped out my spoons, and I've not even reached tomorrow yet, I suspect December 1st will be a zero-word day.
I predict the next update, post Nanowrimo, will be December 4th, but tell me, how did everyone else do this Nano?!
Share your stats, wins, losses, etc and let me know how you all did!!
Seriously, no idea what happened to the 27th of November. I had such plans and they just... never came to fruition.
So, an unanticipated zero word day. However, I did hear that a local pub/restaurant type place is hosting a Christmas Market on December 7th, so I've snatched up a table for the event and will be selling copies of Changeling at my first in-person event! Signed copies, Book swag, flyers for my Newsletter and "Whatever Happened To Madeline Hail?", and all.
Should be interesting, at the very least Lol I have the bookstock I ordered for an event last year that was outdoors and I had to drop out of due to weather (Books don't like rain; who knew?), but I didn't anticipate finding an event this close to Christmas with stalls still available, so I was planning on looking for a local craft fair or similar next spring/summer.
But this will do! :D
As for November 28th... Slow. But we still made progress.
I had to go out to the shops and managed to do SOMETHING to my foot resulting in a massive bruise and a lot of pain, so that's decidedly distracting ever since I got home.
Regardless, we managed to push through for 1,855 words today, tipping the manuscript total over 120k!
Just a couple of days left for Nano, and I'm excited to see how Darkling continues into December!
I checked my outline and there's about 7-10 scenes left to write, and honestly, right now it feels like I've got a million scenes to write, and no time to day it, even though it's practically the opposite.
Anyway, I digress, I'm having an early night tonight, so catch you all on the flip side for the final two days of Nanowrimo 2025.
Okay, well, nothing about this last week of November is going to plan, so I'm going to stop making plans lol.
November 25th was supposed to be a 0-word day while Mum and I did Christmas Errands, but honestly, it was so cold we didn't go anywhere, and mostly slept.
I did manage to get 1 hour of writing in before midnight, after I woke up around 10.30pm, so netted a nice little 1.9k words. Not my daily minimum I was aiming for, so no garlic bread yesterday, but still better than 0!
Since I was up at Midnight, I started the 26th with three 20-min sprints, and went to take a nap before mum woke up because...
Today was the day. Mum and I went out to do the Christmas Chores instead, we walked into the store, and the power went out. In the WHOLE town! A full 7 post codes, thousands of homes and businesses without power.
So we looked at each other and were like; "Home?" "Yes". lol
Mum and I are both a touch supersticious and like, literally as we cross the threshold the power goes out in the whole town? Nah, we don't mess with that lol.
Anyway, I took another nap, and then settled down this evening to do some more sprints. I got another three 20-min sprints, totally 2 hours writing today, and just shy of 5k words.
Since I still have to cook a meal I'm calling the 26th about 40 minutes before midnight for a change, but it does mark the completion of several of my goals.
I've written 97,844 words in November. My goal started at 60k, then increased to 84k, then increased again to 96k, so I've beaten every target I set for myself this November.
My manuscript word count is currently 118,502 words! But, more importantly, I've got about 7 scenes/chapters left to write. My chapters are averaging about 3,100 words so I'm looking at about 22,000 words of the manuscript left to write. Which feels INSANE to me!
So, if I can do about 5.5k every day for the rest of the month, I might, MIGHT, even finish Darkling before the end of November! Which is, at the moment, the only goal I semi-set and haven't met yet. To be perfectly honest, I only Semi-set the goal because I didn't think it was doable?
I knew, once I hit the new content, as opposed to the redrafting, my wordcount per sprint would drop, and it has. I've been getting somewhere around the 400-600 word range, depending on how sure I am I know what the characters are going to say, and how complex the discussion+foreshadowing is.
At that speed, I'll need about 11 sprinta a day for the next four days. I usually max at out between 6 and 9 sprints a day, so I still don't know if that's doable for me, especially with Christmas prep, and I don't wanna push too hard and burn out.
But, regardless, I'll continue writing Darkling (if it's not done) into December. Especially since I have a preorder piece for Darkling to finish off too, and then I'll finish writing work for the year on December 19th as always.
So my real deadline for this manuscript, and it's accompanying preorder-bonus-scene, is December 19th. And if I can't do 22,000 words in the next 23 days, I should be hung at dawn lol.
November 23rd, I finished Chapter 35 of Darkling, which is the first full chapter of new content since I started the redraft!
As agreed, my alpha reader (aka my mum lol) sat down to re-read this new version. Which she did in one day, and then proceeded to swear at me for stopping where I did.
But she did give me some good feedback in terms of what's been improved and what feels like it's coming next.
And as I suspected, the lighthouse and it's forshadowing has been well recieved. I don't know exactly how, or why, but this one element threaded throughout has tied the narrative together in a way I didn't expect, but really, really, needed.
So the 23rd I got little over 1,200 words. Which is a touch lower than I'd like, but also it's all new content and I know it's going to take a moment to switch gears.
November 24th I didn't get any words down, and I don't anticipate any tomorrow either. Christmas cleaning, shopping, chores, etc are piling up, but I've progressed half as far again than I'd estimated at the beginning of the month, so it's already a win.
With that in mind, while I didn't get any words done today, the 24th, I did go back over my outline to refresh myself on where we're going, particularly in light of a lot of the redrafting and character changes I made.
And I think, THINK — keep in mind I'm a horrific overwriter — that Darkling can wrap up in about the next 10-15 chapters. My outline says 11, so I've rounded up a bit. The average Darkling chapter is 3,100 words, so I'm looking at about another 40k, rounded up.
I think I'm begging anyone listening to let me complete this book before Christmas lol
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I did absolutely nothing for the 21st. Another 0-day.
Not quite sure what's in the air right now, but I'm crashing into sleep a lot, and really with experiance under my belt, and almost 7 days ahead of target, it's better if I just ride it out than try to push through it.
November 22nd was almost the same. But it started raining.
I joked that my playlist being 20 minutes of rain while I'm writing, followed by 10 minutes of music while I take a break, was training my brain, but it was actually a joke.
However, the rain seems to have actually triggered something in my brain, and I started sprinting. After waking from a dead sleep on the sofa.
And without any bloody coffee lol.
I managed 4 sprints before I caved and got a coffee, and something to eat.
Nearly fell asleep again, because the rain stopped and apparently that's what I needed.
Then grabbed another three sprints right before midnight.
All in all the random thunderstorm netted me a nice 5k, which was a good catch up from my couple of zero-word days recently.
"Catch Up", she says, as if she's not at 150% or her original November writing goal lol.
With that in mind, the total manuscript has just crossed 110k words, and I've FINALLY completed the redraft from the ground up.
Mostly. I have one more chapter that I write in Draft 2, but so much has changed at this point it's essentially going to be completely scrapped, and I'm currently working on Chapter 35, the chapter before that one, and it's entirely new content.
So, I expect my word count per sprint to drop to about 600 words per sprint, that's my average for new drafted content.
But I'm excited, because it means I'm in the final stretch. Based on my outline, at this stage of the book, I estimated another 25k-35k left to write. So we'll have to find out how close my estimate was :D <3
I don't know. I think I stayed up all night, crashed at lunch time, work up in the evening, but now it's, like, 10pm on the 19th and I've done not much at all lol.
Technically, I could get some sprints in now, but my head's just not in the right space yet, I'm not awake yet, I'm still on my first coffee of the day.
So I think, the best thing, is to call this a Grace Day, and just let it go and relax. I can get some sprints in after midnight, once I've woken up a bit.
So, no change on the 19th, except my Grace Day switched from the 19th to the 20th. I was supposed to be doing Xmas shopping with mum on the 20th, but we've had a huge temperature drop here in the UK and at these temperatures (5C and below, and at the moment we're at 0C) I'm basically housebound due to leg mobility issues.
Weather looks like it's improving again by the 24th, so that'll probably end up being a shopping day, and somewhere else in the last week of November will end up being the "Decorate for Xmas" day.
But I digress, I did not do any sprints after Midnight. Somehow I still just wasn't in the right headspace, so I ended up watching soem True Crime of youtube until I crashed and slept.
Woke up at 6pm for meds, and decided to sprint, at which point I managed one 20min sprint (Of about 304 words) before falling asleep on the sofa until 11pm.
After that I got coffee, food, and one more sprint in before midnight.
So it wasn't a 0-word day, but I didn't meet my daily minimum target either.
And you know what? That's fine. I still made progress. I got some words down. That's always a win in my book ^_^
So this is where I stand at the start of day 21. My last sprint was pretty good, or at least back to sort of normal numbers range, so I'm going to grab some dinner, finish my coffee, and try and get my daily words on early for November 21st <3
The plan was to keep working on my sewing project today, but honestly, it's been one of those days where I make a decision, blink, and four hours has vanished.
So about lunchtime I decided no sewing, I didn't wanna mess up the project, instead I'd write.
Yeah. By 5pm I'd done one sprint lol...
I'm gonna keep going until 6pm, which is when my next meds time is and then just go back to bed, I think. I'll consider myself lucky if I get 3 sprints total today...
Sprint two... I was so deep in the story I didn't hear it end, but since it's currently 5.59pm, I'm calling it two sprints aka 40 minutes lol.
Three sprints, minimum word count, I did mention it's been #ADay
Oh and I moved around my Grace Days a bit, since mum would like my help prepping & decorating for Xmas. 20th we're out doing errands, and buy some new decorations. 24th is making space for the tree, and decorating, and the 30 is now organizing the food pantry and freezer so she knows what to buy in for December & January.
And this is why, historically, my November success rate is incredibly poor lol. I don't have thanks giving, but helping the family prep for December does typically tend to eat into my available time. ^_^
As for today, the 18th, it's been another odd one and it's only 8am.
I woke up 11pm on the 17th and knew I needed to take my meds at midnight. So I got myself set up in the living room with a fire and a hot water bottle and coffe, and kind of zoned out on the socials. Then once it ticked over into the 18th, I took my meds and decided to do a couple of sprints.
I got 3 in, and then switched to some chores. Washing up, tidying the living room. Later today I have to put together mum's new computer chair, and I do want to at least mark up and baste stich my sewing project today so I have all my supplies ready for that too.
Then about 6am I got bored, and did a few more sprints.
So I'm already sitting at 6 sprints, and 5k words, and it's only 8am. Could be a good day, or that could be all I do (I mean, it's already a good day, but you know what I mean!).
It all depends on how draining the rest of my November 18th turns out to be...
Aaaand putting the chair together wiped all my spoons. No progress on the sewing project, and no more sprints, but 5k is nothing to turn my nose up at!
Particularly since it's ticked my total manuscript over the 100k mark!
