News, NaNo & Turning of the Year Goals

Well, it’s been a while, hasn’t it. *rubs hands together* Where to start?

Accomplishments:
1. NaNoWriMo: I wrote 57K words this November. Rah!!
Aprox 10K of those were for Molten (vamped and de-vamped), the balance were my SNP (shiny new project)–the YA dystopian idea that came to my on my camping trip this past summer.

2. 2500 words/day. Since Nov 1, I’ve written at least that many words each weekday, with only two exceptions (the day I moved rooms, and the day I wrote extra words the day before.) *proudness*

3. I’ve been running 5 days/week, and doing quick AM Pilates 6 days/week for three weeks. *more proudness*

4. (This isn’t really an accomplishment, but) I ready The Now Habit: A strategic program for overcoming procrastination and enjoying guilt-free play, by Neil Fiore
It’s awesome, and I completely recommend it. *big thumbs up*

Molten vamped/de-vamped update:
Remember how I’m playing around with de-vamping (taking the vampires out of) my first novel, Molten? I originally thought I’d use the first 20-30K of the vamped version and basically write the rest of the book from scratch. I planned to use NaNo to draft all those extra words, and I started November with that intention. Well, after a week of re-writing the same few scenes, it became obvious that I don’t have that many new words for this projet. If the re-write is going to work it’s got to be a pretty much direct replacement (vamps out, other plot point in) using the words I already have. I look forward to seeing what happens.

In the meantime, while continuing to draft the dystopian project, I’m chipping away at the last few edits on the vamped version with a tighter beginning. Soon that will be ready to go back out on query. Yay!

Writing Goals & Self-imposed Deadlines:
Dec 21: 80K on Dystopian. Or finish draft 1, whichever comes first. (I’d love to finish, just to say I wrote* a book this year. But in the greater scheme of things more words is better, because I cut a LOT when I edit. Of course, if I write a bunch more just to boost the word count, I’ll just end up cutting it. So I’ll write until I run out of plot.)
* Where “wrote” = drafted.

**optional** Dec 21: Complete final edits on vamped version of Molten.

Dec 22-Jan 1: VACATION!

Jan 13: First draft of Dystopian finished. (This leaves aprox. 6 weeks of “sitting” time before NaNoRevisMo.)

Jan 31: Vamped Molten proofread + one round (5-10) highly personalized queries ready.

**optional** Jan 31: 1st 50 pages polished of De-vamped version.

Feb: Work on De-vamped re-write Draft 1

March: NaNoRevisMo – Dystopian

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Well, there you have it. What is everyone else up to? Belated congrats to all the NaNo winners!