Distracto-Nano, Day 18

Crikey, it's coming toward the end, and I'm not even close, or that's the way it seems. I'm in a stuck place and all day I wanted to go for a long walk in the woods to clear my head, but I couldn't because I might get it blown off. Effing deer season. Yesterday when it was nearly dark (at 4:30 p.m., mind you) there were still several trucks tilted along the grassy shoulder of our road. Of course the vast majority of hunters know what they're doing, but we also know people whose houses have been shot. So there you have it.

The good news is I'm in a place where I need to start creating a few new scenes, so it will feel like genuine Nano writing for the next week or so. If I can get myself out of editing mode. Which is what Nano is designed for...

And I've realized I've been thinking about the whole social media thing the wrong way (Sssiiiiiiigh.....! You mean I have to do ANOTHER thing besides actually writing???) Today I looked up the hashtag #amprocrastinating on Twitter and found a bunch of other writers who were also procrastinating and it made me feel so much better! It was like a 30-second support group. I followed them all. A bunch of them followed me back. It was awesome! Go, procrastinating writers!

Edit-o-wrimo, Day 11

It's like I thought -- word count is declining. Today the manuscript is at 80,837, which is good, because it means I'm getting rid of the fluff and duplication. I'm about halfway through the manuscript as it stands, with a few early scenes that still need a superficial edit & a few later ones to add in. It's so much better to work on editing every day because it's far easier to notice things that have already been said, or to see the words that get repeated and overused. More tomorrow.

Fake-o-nano, Day 8

I'm at 80,708 today on edits/revisions to my new novel. Slow going this morning; running myself down. Down time is at a minimum overall -- I need to take a breather, a cabin-in-the-woods getaway (not the Joss Whedon sort). Overloaded, drained, distracted...