Keeping the Pace

Originally published on "Parsley, Sage, and Rosemary Time" on November 6, 2017, and updated for today's posting.

On another of my blogs, I wrote about PlotOber and planning the fifth in my culinary mystery series so the writing of it in November for National Novel Writing Month will go more smoothly.

Well, I’m into November, one-fifth of the way through today, and by the end of the day I need to have logged a minimum of 10, 002 words to be on track to finish November 30^th with 50,000 words.

I’ll make it. Last night I recorded a word total of 8356, slightly over the 8335 that I needed. Pretty darn good, with weeklong company, if you ask me.

I started strong, as I always do. That story has been percolating for months and I focused the thoughts by using two magic elements: my Plotober massive planning elements and by brainstorming with my two critique groups. My crit partners have AMAZING minds! Have I said how lucky I am to have them part of my writer’s life?

Here’s a peek at my time tracker to-date. The far right column is  the minimum total number of words I need to have written to keep on track for NaNoWriMo. I got a strong start, “banking” words, so to speak for when I couldn’t write much.

Note, for example in the second column, that I had three days when I couldn’t make my minimum 1667 words for those days. Company. You gotta love ‘em, but there is a toll. My cushion of banked words let me enjoy my time with her.

Falling behind is inevitable, if my past years are predictive. But it is not fatal. I will just need to write more words on other days to catch up. She leaves today, so this afternoon maybe I can bank some more for the other days I’ll not write much if anything.

Have I mentioned that we are traveling for Thanksgiving this year? Again.

Each year I have about ten days of limited productivity due to company and travel. So I just have to write harder on those days that aren’t committed to fun, food, and family. I’ve got this! 

2017 NaNoWriMo Time Tracker

TEQUILA MOCKINGBIRD

Book 5 “Dinner is Served”

Date	Daily Words/Pages Total	Running Total	Minimum Running Total
Nov. 1	2228/7	2228	1667
Nov. 2	2886/19	5114	3334
Nov. 3	1563/25	6677	5001
Nov. 4	725/28	7402	6668
Nov. 5	954/32	8356	8335
Nov. 6	1662/40	10,067	10,002
Nov. 7			11,669

BANG! [sound of starting gun] And We're Off!

Just a quick check-in with you (I’m busy, you know!) to let you know about the start. I could have typed the first word for NaNoWriMo 2013 at 12:01 am, but I was still asleep. However, being an early riser, I did log the first words while sipping my second cup of coffee at 4:34 a.m. As of this posting, I have completed most of three scenes and 1703 words. According to the NaNo Stats, at this rate I will complete my novel on November 30.

But I have to finish sooner than that! And I’ll reveal why in another post. More on my NaNo progress another day.

Below is a snippet of my 2012 time/word/pages tracker. I will fill this year’s table every day, each time I write that day. It is my accountability tool to myself. If I have 0 words one day, I will see that every time I pull this up to update. I hate 0’s!

The final column is the cumulative total, by day, to finish with 50K in 30 days. Each time I write, I log in how long I wrote, what the word and page count was at the end of the session, and how many total words I wrote that day. As long as my 4^th column word count was more than the Running Total each day, I knew I’d make it. The Running Total column is what it takes to finish 50K in 30 days. I need to be ahead of that schedule.

I am eager to start filling in this year’s tracker! Here’s how I began last year.

Date	Time Started/Ended	Total Hours	Words/Pages	Day’s word count	Run Tot. Min. Req.
Nov. 1	3:33 a.m.-5:13 9:55 a.m.-11:55 5:45 p.m.-6:11	~ 1.5 ~ 2 ~ .5	1723/7 pages 4047/11 pages 4516/18 pages	4516	1667
Nov. 2	3:30 a.m.-5:32 3:40 p.m.-4:45	~ 2 ~ 2	6792/28 pages 7872/32 pages	3356	3334
Nov. 3	5:30 a.m.-6:00 6:50 a.m.-7:30 10:40 a.m.-11:17	~ .5 ~ .75 ~ .5	8468/34 pages 9385/38 pages 10,132/41 pages	2260	5001