My 2,000 WPD (word per day) continues to be a success. Usually I end up with a bit more than 2,000 words, so that's even better. I realized something the other day. At 2000 + words per day, six days a week? I'm NaNoWriMoing every month. (2,000 x 6= 12,000 per week x 4= 48,000 per month and add on the extra 2,000 because of extra days in the month/extra words=50,000.) That sounds crazy to me. And honestly, it doesn't feel like it to me. I feel like I've upped my pace a bit, and it has been a little stressful with ther baby nursing all day--my house kind of gets neglected and my kids miss me because I am in my room nursing a lot, but I think with focus and 2 hours a day? Done. (my babies nap about one and a half hours a day. Done.)
Anyway. That doesn't mean I'm writing a novel per month, though. NaNoWriMo operates on the premise that 50,000 words = 1 novel. Which kind of isn't true. If you want to publish with a publisher, you're looking at 65,000 as a minimum to qualify as a novel. If you are writing for adults, 85,000 is the minimum (some will argue otherwise) with about 100,000 as the sweet spot.
So, that's two nanowrimos.
And I'm currently writing two novels at the same time, so that's four nanowrimos before I finish a book. So... four months. And then it usually takes me about two months to rewrite, get a few people to read it and re-rewrite. So four more months. So ETA on these books is about 8 months until I can turn one in to my publisher/market one to literary agents. And eight months is about how long it usually takes me to complete one. So this is about right for my goal (to finish 2 in the time I usually finish one.)
I have found something interesting. I tend to have certain word-count breaks. Usually I'll have various levels of "feel done" stages. I want to quit at about 750 words. I want to quit again at about 1200-1400 words and then breaking my goal of 2,000 usually leads me to around 2,200 or so words per day. It's like I have a 700-750 word chunking thing going on in my brain. SO I get through 3 of my "chunks" for this 2,000 word goal.
I have been surprised to find that I experience a lot less writers' block, writing this amount. It seems (to me) to smooth me over some breaks in scene or narrative that are difficult to pick up the next day. And I think it also gives me a better overall grasp on the flow and big picture of my story, because i'm writing it in bigger chunks.
I have found it to be exhilarating.
Now, I need to figure out how to manage my time better.
No comments:
Post a Comment