Quick Update!

I'm baaaaack! Hey guys! I just wanted to give a quick update (thanks to everyone who reached out to me on what I'm currently writing).

MILWORDY 
I will begin to do MilWordy again on 10/15/14 (tomorrow). I will be giving at least weekly updates on that. I am also planning a post about what I learned from my last attempt, so, there's that to look forward to. :)

NANOWRIMO 
Of course i will be participating in NaNo this year (there's not many things I would miss it for). This will be my 3rd year participating and I'm very excited for it. I'm thinking about doing daily updates (here) on that, though I haven't really made up my mind about it yet.
Last year I did a post about how to succeed at NaNoWriMo and I would like to continue to do those annually so there's that to look forward to as well. :)

I have so much I want to talk about and say about my writing and what I've been doing lately and my plans but it'll have to wait for their own separate posts. Thanks to everyone who followed this blog since my last post! I really appreciate your support.

Over and Out
- Elle

Double MilWordy Time! :)

I'm pushing through my struggles and starting NaNoWriMo today and now with that in progress I started to think about my failed attempt at MilWordy.

For those of you who don't know MilWordy is a writing challenge where you attempt to write 1 million words through the course of a year's time. That equals 2,739 words a day. I started that challenge for the first time earlier this year and failed and have since tried and failed again. Now that I'm working on 250K words for NaNo I've decided to start it over again. I mean, third times the charm right?

Here's the thing, when October comes I get into a little frenzy preparing for NaNo. That being said I don't want to finish MilWordy during October 2014, so I'm giving myself until September 30th, 2014 to finish. But with the head start I'll be getting from (hopefully) finishing my NaNo 2013 goal of 250K that shouldn't be a problem.

Also to push myself even harder I want to double it. Yep, that's right, I want to write 2 million words in 11 months time. 2 million words / by 334 days = 5,988 words a day. If I finish my word count goal for this month that will leave me with 5,756 words a day in order to win MilWordy.

I know that sounds ludicrious to attempt it without ever having won MilWordy before but I'm not starting out for the first time either. I know the challenges involved in attempting it and I'm prepared for those challenges. And of course I'll be blogging about my progress along the way.

Happy Writing!
Elle

NaNoWriMo 2013 Update!

I'll be honest, I've had a tough year. Everything hasn't been peachy for me but I've always tried to put on a brave face and muster through it. I've been going through my own personal issues which up until now I have kept to myself. I know you've seen excuse after excuse on this blog of why I wasn't writing and after a while I figured I should just delete this blog (and I did but then reopened it) because it felt like I was making little to no progress here.

The truth is I've been battling depression and anxiety and while I _love_ to write my stories, depression has a crazy way of taking the enjoyment out of everything weather you love it or not. Hell even reading has been slow for me this year. I'm currently at 22 books read, the last time I read that few in a year was over 4 years ago.

I remember I was so excited right before NaNo. I was counting down the days and checking my timer on this blog to see how many days, minutes, and seconds I had left. And then day 1 came and the excitement was gone. Instead of wanting to write I wanted to cry so I did nothing.

For the past 9 days I've been watching the NaNoWriMo forums and looking over my 2013 NaNo progress calendar and taking care of my responsibilities and doing other things that wouldn't stress me out and wishing that that motivation was there again.

I'll say this, I'm not deleting this blog again. The last time I did it felt like I was giving up on myself and I refuse to do that. I'm going to try to write weather I feel motivated or not. I don't want to give in to this depression, I want to push through it.

So tomorrow come rain or shine I'm going to start my quest to finish 250K words during NaNo (12,500 words daily).

Elle

1 Day & 6 Hours Til NaNoWriMo

I haven't updated in a few days because nothing much has been going on my way. I still have 3 plots to work on of the 4 stories I plan to write next month. I do hope to finish 2 of those tonight, we shall see how that goes.

NANOWRIMO GOALS 

My NaNo goals have changed and instead of writing 200K between 2 stories I plan to write 250K between 4. That comes down to a minimum daily goal of 8,400. I've got my fingers crossed that all goes well. :)

Also those 4 stories are ; Her Secret Power, The Witch's Destiny, Water Earth Air, and Three's A Crowd.  If you want to know more about those stories I have the info posted under the WIP tab.

Elle

5 Days Til NaNoWriMo

As of right now I still have 4 novels to plot out before November first (which is 5 days and 4 hours away). This is my plan for the next few days.

10/27 - finish plotting Her Secret Power
10/28 - finish plotting The Witch
10/29 - finish plotting Water, Earth, Air
10/30 - finish plotting 3's A Crowd

From today until the end of November I will be posting here once a day on my progress. My spidey senses are telling me I'm at the beginning of a cold (maybe flu). I really hope I'm wrong about that. Either way I've got a lot to get done before 11/01 and much to look forward to. :)

Elle

NaNoWriMo Tips

I learned _a lot_ about what it takes to make your goals based on my experience with NaNoWriMo last year. I'm posting this as a reminder to myself and for anyone else who wants/needs the advice. Here goes;

1) Motivation is Key! - NaNoWriMo is very exciting. Use that excitement to help motivate you through your word count and beyond. So the first day (especially) but even the first week try to write as much as you can instead of just writing the minimum. This will help to get you ahead and then it will be easier to pace yourself. My advice would be to set a goal of what number you want to reach for each day of your first week and then follow it.

2) Don't Get Behind! - As simple as this sounds you may not realize until your behind how much more stressful it can be. You don't want to play catch up through November. So know your minimum word count and always try to hit at least that every day.

3) Be Prepared! - One of the things that severely hindered me from hitting my word count goal of 200K last year was that my manuscript wasn't ready to be written. I knew so much of it already but I didn't know all I needed to know. I ended up having to write everything one scene at a time and then trying to figure out what the next scene was before I could go write the next scene. This took up a lot of valuable time I could have spent upping my word count. This year I'm working on completing my outline _before_ November 1st.

4) Get Involved! - There are so many people on the NaNo forums and even on Twitter who would love to get to know other WriMo's and will do word wars with you or just generally be of help to you if you just ask. Last year I had someone PM me and ask If I needed a "kick in the behind buddy" (LOL!) and she was there to give me that push when my numbers weren't as high as I wanted them to be. From my experience most WriMo's are very nice and getting involved and speaking with other WriMo's could be just the thing you need on the days your not motivated.

Here's a bonus for motivation, did you know that if you start NaNoWriMo you are 32 % more likely to win/finish NaNoWriMo? And of course the more words you finish the more your likely (statistically speaking) to finish. There's more on that in the chart below. I used this chart last year to help motivate me to finish NaNoWriMo. Enjoy! :)

Anyone else here have any other tips? Feel free to post them in the comments. I'd love to hear from you!

Elle

Find me in the NaNoWriMo Forums @ Typing Rhino

NaNoWriMo Goals

Beyond trying to finish a book I have a lot of goals for myself this NaNo.

Last year, my frist Nano, I set out to write 200K words. In the end I only ended up with 65K words but I was just looking over my charts from last year and I barely wrote for half of the days of November 2012. That is very encouraging for me because if I write everyday that's surely to bring my numbers way up. That being said I want to conquer that goal this year. Come December 1st, 2013 I want to say that I actually did it!

My NaNo 2013 Goals are as follows;
- Be prepared for NaNo ie have all outlines finished
- write 200K words, split between 2 novels of 100K each
- beat my Most Ever Written In A Day Record of 9K
&
- write every day of November no matter what (even if it's only 100 words)

I think that's enough for this year. :) What are your NaNoWriMo goals?

Elle

Find me on the NaNoWriMo forums @ Typing Rhino