One more day of April JNoWriMo.

One more day of JNoWriMo, and the shock of it is I’m ahead of schedule, and closer to the finish line than I originally thought. I wasn’t nearly as savvy a planner this month as I had been other months. In addition to those “eek” moments every now and again, I entered the final weekend thinking that I would just write as much as I damn well could and see just how close I was to the finish line, which was about 10,000 words.

Turns out, it was exactly what I needed.

On Friday I should have done the sensible thing and tallied up my word count to see how I would have to spread out my writing over the weekend. I went out on Friday and was gone all day for a race on Saturday, which left Sunday as my only day for writing. Well, I wrote a gangbusters 10,800 words on Sunday alone, and when I tallied the words at 10:30 last night in my bed, I discovered I need only 300 or so more to complete my goal for the month--yes, you read correctly: three hundred.

How’s that for luck??

And in retrospect, I think it would have been worse for me had I known the exact number of words to write by midnight tonight. It would have psyched me out...paralyze me and thus keeping me from attaining my goal.

So after I complete another successful writing month and get ready for another month off, I have to analyze exactly what is next and how much I put off writing in the story that actually needs to be finished—Kray.

I’ve discovered while writing this month a few things that are good “hooks” for my readers to continue on with the series, questions that will get them through the next few books as they search for the answers. Señor Sebastyan Ruiz, my hero from Kailyynn’s book (#5, I believe), makes his debut in Kray’s story completely by accident after I assumed that it would happen in Kayt’s story first (the only cameo until his own story). I’ve solidified him as a go-to for many things forensic-focused in the Universe, and that pleases me, for I’ve been worried that Sebastyan’s character wasn’t going to be strong enough to create a lasting impression on my readers. (Although, how could he not? He is, arguably, my finest creation of all seven Defenders and their spouses. And he’s damn sexy. I have to work harder to make the sex scenes that much steamier, too!)

So with that, I'm off to write 300 words. And then I'm going to watch a movie and not think about writing for a day or so.

So, until next time, I’m off!

JLH

Touchbase for April JNoWriMo.

As is standard for most Na/JNoWriMo's, I had an "eek" moment that turned out not to be that bad. Unfortunately, this "eek" moment had to start with day #2 of April's JNoWriMo.

That first week absolutely suuuuuuucked for writing, even after that gangbuster April Fool's Day of 3,000+ words. After a week of writing barely in the hundreds each day, I feel I made up for it between Monday and Thursday of this week. At end-of-day Thursday, I had 31,027 words; by EOD Sunday, to remain on schedule, I should have 40,326.

As is my goal for every weekend, writing 9,000 words should not be too much of a trial, and I fortunately have no plans which could interrupt said writing time. Last night while I should have been writing, instead I was creating my fantasy series family tree. It was two hours that should have gone to "Kray", but at least it was related to the stories. And it was something I got to cross of my TTD list.

JLH

Er--10,000 in the next three days.

Not so good of a start. I have a self-imposed goal of 10,000 words by EOD Sunday, which is 3,333 every day for the next three days (yeah math!) I'm not sure if 10,000 will bring me up to speed with my necessary 1,800 daily goal, or if that's to surpass the point in the hopes of providing more padding for more oops days--too afraid to count up my total thus far.

I've written 12,000 in three days before, so 10,000 should, theoretically, be no trouble. But as I am sticking with my "Kray" story, delivering words is more of a challenge than I care to admit. However, the big battle scene is fast approaching. The problem is, I have no experience and no real interest in writing battle scenes. It's integral to the story, and every subsequent novel has one, so, alas, I must suffer through it.

And as I'm distracting myself with stupid blog entries (*cough*...) I'm wasting time when I could be writing 3,333 words with an hour left of the day...

JLH

A not-so-auspicious start to JNoWriMo.

April Fool's Day started this month's JNoWriMo with a bang--3,197, and then it went downhill from there. Thanks to 4/1's writing outcome, I'm only off by about 50 words or so. But I've already found myself in the quandry of not wanting to write in "Kray". Keep pushin'...keep pushin'.

JLH