So… ten days ago I ambitiously announced that I planned to write 100,000 words in the month of November. I think it’s safe to say that in doing so I thoroughly embraced the classroom poster: “Shoot for moon; if you miss you will land amongst the stars!”

It is now November 14^th. In a few short hours it will be November 15^th and half of the month will be gone. So far, I have written approximately 14,000 words out of the 100,000-word goal total.

The good news (the great news) is that 8k of those are for How Can I Help? (the next book in the Hope in Darkness series). This has been my most-requested book when I tell people about the series; it will tackle how those without depression can help a struggling loved one. Those 8,000 words represent a complete first draft! Rough copies of How Can I Help? have been distributed to my editing team (i.e. Brian, my husband) for review and feedback. Depending on how busy my life gets, I hope to have the first copies of How Can I Help? available in time for Christmas!

Of the remaining 6,000 words, about half have been in other Hope in Darkness books. I am not writing any one book at a time, but bouncing from chapter to chapter and book to book as the thought-train takes me down various tracks. I find that this lets me dodge around writer’s block if a particular section starts to give me trouble and lets me chase new tangents that grab my attention. I also try to separate writing and researching to avoid falling into the focus blackhole that is the internet. I write until I hit a point that needs outside sources, make a note, and hop over to another part of the series until I hit a similar obstacle there. When I have 3 or 4 questions assembled, then I go looking for answers for all of them.

The rest of my writing has been for Paradia, my long-term fantasy series project. It’s been a work in progress for years, and I was hoping to make a decent dent on it this month. That hasn’t gone exactly to plan.

I hit two stumbling blocks. Firstly, there were several chapters of Paradia that I wrote or significantly re-wrote the last time I did a big writing push, and I had forgotten entirely that I had done so. I had to re-read them, and then I accidentally got trapped editing for a day instead of writing. Then I had to spend a day getting my head back in rough-draft mode. (That’s part of why the goal of NaNoWriMo is to write a first draft only: editing can be the bane of fresh writing.) Secondly, I fell into a plot hole that was not supposed exist. The timeline of a couple events doesn’t work out the way I planned it to. I will probably need to go back to the outline and notecard stage to figure out how to dig myself out of this unfortunate little quarry.

Let’s take a peek at the statistics:

That’s not bad for the half-way point, especially when you consider that I actually worked the first few days of November, celebrated my birthday, and suffered another round of Covid, all of which cut into my writing days. On the other hand, Thanksgiving is coming up and with it a trip to my parents in Idaho so I’ll definitely lose a few days there. All in all, I’m on track for my actual commitment and my stretch goal is in reach.

For Paradia…

Yikes. At this point I have adjusted my goals. Paradia will have to wait for now; I’m going to buckle down and focus on that 50,000-word stretch goal for Hope in Darkness. Maybe I’ll make Paradia my New Year Resolution instead…

So far my daily average has been about 2,000 to 3,000 words. This is perfectly respectable, especially considering the hurdles I’ve been jumping, but it’s not the 10,000-word marathon days I have managed in the past. Hopefully I will have another, even better, update in a few days! Until then, stay safe. If you would like to sponsor or support my writing, see my previous post for the donation form. Thank you for all your support!