Day 8 (Wake Up Call)

APR. 17TH – 2,416 WORDS

My favorite days are Tuesday and Friday, especially since Melissa joined us today! We didn’t write this morning, but a lot was discussed (all productive of course, hee hee). We talked about our progress–congratulations to Melissa for keeping up with the goal each day! Meeting at Jumpin’ Java keeps us on track. Besides, it’s fun to bounce ideas and writing tips off each other.

It was discouraging to hear how far behind I am in word count. I’m a little over 2,900 behind; reality hit at that moment. No more games. No more distractions. Write 1,666 words a day no matter what. I like talking to Melissa and Robin because if NaNo starts feeling like a trap or simply a requirement, it’s cool to know that other people are going through those emotions as well. Plus, it makes me want to perform better if I have to report my progress to someone. I don’t want an E for effort. I want my A (at least my inner nerd feels that way).

Good news. They liked my story concept and the motivation for the killer(s), so I’m proud of that. The typical motives for murder are: revenge, love, jealousy, greed, downright crazy. It was fun having them guess what set my character(s) off. If they would have kept questioning me, I probably would’ve revealed the murderers to them–they were two minutes away from me spilling the beans.

I’m the only one who uses pen and paper. Maybe instead of buying my messenger/briefcase bag, I should buy an AlphaSmart 3000 from Amazon (Wendy–another blogger I follow–speaks highly of them). Its a portable word processor.

• PROS FOR PEN/PAPER–is in my comfort zone, can keep writing without being distracted by wanting to go over my story to edit with the delete key, can carry it where ever I go, etc.
• CONS FOR PEN/PAPER–if pen runs out of ink, I’m screwed, don’t know word count until I type it up
• PROS FOR ALPHASMART 3000–can type away without having to jot down on paper first, will know word count right away
• CONS FOR ALPHASMART 3000–will have to carry it with me from work to home, keys are loud (like a typewriter), old versions (nothing newer)

Lack of word count is stressful. It would’ve been easy to quit or claim to lower the 30 day word count to something below 50,000 to meet my goal. Instead, I’m motivated to write over 2,000 words for a few days to catch up, then can go back to normal with 1,666 a day.

I worked my butt off today, so I can have a positive report on Friday. I wrote at home even through my TV shows, quitting at 11:30 PM. I had started at 6 (of course, little breaks here and there were taken. I’m not Wonder Woman). I’m proud to say I didn’t cheat and write overly-done descriptions or pure crap like I was tempted to do this morning. It’s actually readable LOL. It helps that I reached the section in my story that I was motivated to begin with in the first place.

In revisions, I’ll have to research online–or possibly read mystery novels–to get idea of too much foreshadowing? Right balance of clues? Too many suspects? Not enough? Art of using red herrings?, etc.

I’m not researching now because I learned my lesson. I only have time for writing this novel until May 9th (then I’ll be free again hee hee). No more distractions. For now, NaNo will have to be my top priority no matter what. Let’s see if I’m still singing that tune by the 3rd week.

Talk about a wake up call today!

Keep smiling,

Yawatta Hosby