Last year in November I posted about my progress on NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), when writers attempt to write a 50,000-word novel in thirty days. I hit the target, then blew past it! I toyed with doing NaNoWriMo again this year. But I decided the timing wasn’t quite right. […]
Forgive me one more post on NaNoWriMo. Now that it’s over, I’ve been asking myself whether I should do it again some year. Although there are some NaNoWriMo groupies who do it every year, I don’t think I’m one of them. In fact, I’m not sure I will ever participate […]
I finished the draft of this new novel on Thanksgiving Day. Since then, I’ve been filling in some gaps, trying to get to at least the NaNoWriMo pace each day. Through Sunday, November 29, I wrote 93,200 words. The NaNoWriMo pace for that period is 48,343 words, and my personal […]
Through Sunday, November 22, my total word count is 77,400 words. The NaNoWriMo pace for that period is 36,674 words, and the pace I set for myself of 2,000 words/day would have put me at 44,000. Although my pace is slowing from the blistering 4,000 words/day of the first week, […]
From the start of the month through Sunday, November 15, I wrote over 57,000 words on my next novel. Whew! So, I satisfied the NaNoWriMo target of 50,000 words in a month. I actually hit 50,000 on Friday the 13th, so I guess it was a lucky day for me. […]
On Sunday, November 8, I hit 30,000 words! The NaNoWriMo pace for that period is 13,336 words, and my personal pace of 2,000 words/day is 16,000. So I have blown past my goals. I have never written 30,000 words in a month, let alone in eight days. And I’ve been […]
I’ve mentioned NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) before—the national endeavor by authors around the world to write 50,000 words on their novels during the month of November. I’ve always had excuses for why I shouldn’t participate. The timing never seemed right. I’ve never written more than 20,000 words in a […]
I wish I knew more about plotting a novel. It’s one of the reasons I kick myself for not beginning my writing career earlier in life. If I’d spent my twenties starving in a garret as a writer, I’d be through the worst of the learning curve now. I’d have […]
I’ve had a really hard time making progress on the first draft of my current work-in-progress, which will likely be the last book in my Oregon historical fiction series. I started it in late May 2023, and I’m not done with the first draft yet, though I’m beginning to see […]
In 2023, I had two primary writing goals—to publish When Heart Shall Fail (preferably in the first quarter of the year) and to draft the next (and last) book in my series on the settlement of Oregon. I published When Heart Shall Fail, but not until around Memorial Day. I […]
