JaNoWriMo

As I said in my previous post, I had a great time, learned a lot and produced a lot during NaNoWriMo. I’m not the only one. A few of my writer friends and a few of their writer friends decided the whole “push yourself further than you ever thought possible” needed to be repeated at least once more. We decided to do our own mini-NaNoWriMo, which we are calling JaNoWriMo since it is taking place this month.

A couple of us are writing new words on new works, just like the original premise of NaNoWriMo. Most of us, though, have adapted this idea to more closely fit the actual goals we have for the month of January. Instead of writing 50,000 words on a new novel, we have given “word points” to our projects and are calculating our progress by percentages. This allows the group, with its many different goals for the month, to compete with each other in an equitable way. The published writer of 50+ books has her goal; the not-yet-published writer has her goal. Obviously, they are widely different actual word counts. By calculating percentage to the desired goal, all can see their progress and compare it more equitably to the other competitors.

My goals include 15,000 new words on several diverse projects. I plan to write and upload something to this blog every few days. When I do, I’ll get x-number of word points toward my goal of 50,000 words. I am also editing many scenes from my current novel. I reviewed my previous draft and reorganized the scenes, deleting several and adding new one. Doing that earned me x-number of word points. As I write or edit each scene, I will get another x-number of word points. My goal is to get through 25 of those scenes by January 31. That is only about half of the book, but it is a reasonable goal. I also will write a synopsis that I will start sending out to possible agents and publishers. That is worth another set of word points. My last set of goals is to start writing articles or queries to magazines about possible articles I can write. Each query written gets a word point and each time I send one, I get another word point.

I’m really excited about monitoring progress this way and by the friendly competition between a few writer friends. I expect this to propel me ever closer to the dream of creating and publishing my stories. Look for them soon! In the meantime, keep checking back here for updates on my life, my thoughts, my musings and more!