I finally finished my NaNoWriMo challenge on 4 December.

NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It is an international challenge to write 50,000 words in November.

Knowing that I would find that difficult to achieve, I set myself a goal of adding 18,000 words to an existing manuscript that will hopefully turn into book four.

22 November – day 25

Goal: 539 words                               Achieved: 564 words                                      Total: 12,625

Intended to get up early to write before work but ignored the alarm and went back to sleep! Managed 564 words quite easily after dinner. A new plot line so very sketchy and will need fleshing out.

23 November – day 26

Goal: 475 words                               Achieved: 414 words                                      Total: 13,039

I went to a café on the way to work this morning and wrote 414 words by hand. I also made a lot of notes about one of my characters (a local MP) and her backstory. I really like this character and although she is no longer a POV character, I think I will want to use her again in another novel further down the line.

24 November – day 27

Goal: 961 words                               Achieved: 1,529 words                                  Total: 14,568

Another virtual write-in with my writing group this afternoon. We meet over Zoom, chat about writing for a bit and then do some focussed writing, checking in every 90 minutes or so to cheer each other on.

1.30pm – 2.30pm

Session one – merrily typing away when I came to a section that was basically a long rant and no longer relevant to the plot. Had to delete about 500 words which put me right back to the beginning again so only managed to add 119 words. ☹

4.15pm – 4.45pm

Session two – Added another 315 words. Definitely taking one step forward and two steps back at the moment and deleting a lot of words as I go along.

7.30pm – 8pm

Session three – lifted another chapter from the first draft, adding another 1,095 words. Needs some tidying up though.

25 November – day 28

Goal: 532 words                               Achieved: 572 words                                      Total:  15,140 words

Day off. A productive day with a chat with my agent this morning and lots of stuff done on the new house but unfortunately not many words written. Eventually I forced myself to write in the evening and managed 572 words – a new chapter towards the end of the book.

26 November – day 29

Goal: 360 words                               Achieved: 819 words                                      Total: 15,959 words

Planned out the chapter by hand at lunchtime then wrote up my notes while cooking dinner. Had to delete some of the words I wrote yesterday but added another 379 words in about half an hour.

After tea I took some more words from my first draft and copied and pasted them into the manuscript, adding another easy 440 words. Happy days! Just over 2,000 words to do now before the end of November.

27 November – day 30

Goal: 541 words                                               Achieved: 0                                        Total: 15,959 words

Horrendous night and day thanks to Storm Arwen which cut off our power. No words written as I tried to sort out the house and heating, etc.

28 November – day 31

Goal: 0 words                                                    Achieved: 0                                        Total: 15,959 words

Family day, no words planned. At this rate, I am not going to hit my target. Another bad day weather-wise and ended up staying with relatives instead of going home so no words written again.

29 November – day 32

Goal: 541 words                                               Achieved: 896 words                      Total: 16,855 words

Moved across the final bit of text from the first draft and by doing so, built up the word count by 896 words. The last half of the book still needs a lot of editing.

30 November – last day of NaNoWriMo!

Goal: 1,145 words                                           Achieved: 0                                        Total: 16,855 words

I don’t think I am going to achieve this goal and hit 18,000 words but I’m going to try!

4 December

Goal: 1,145 words                                           Achieved: 1,151 words                  Total: 18,006 words

I finally hit my target on Saturday, 4 December, finishing the challenge with 1,151 words.

The manuscript now stands at 60,006 words. I don’t think I am going to have much chance to work on this again until April, as I will be working on book three.

It definitely worked for me to set a smaller target than the suggested 50,000 words and I enjoyed tracking my progress on the website.

Did you do NaNoWriMo this year? How did you get on?

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash