Sunday, November 02, 2008

Yes, It Does, Too, Count

So today was the first day of NaNoWriMo. Yes, I know it's after midnight, which makes it technically day 2. But I haven't gone to bed yet, so it's day 1.

It was quite a day, too. November 1st should never be a Saturday. I had my local RWA chapter meeting this morning. Then I had to get Number One to soccer (her team lost 1-0, but they will still win their division, and we'd already beaten the team three times this season, so they were due; it was a good game--Number Two won hers, barely).

I was going to start writing before the meeting, but I ran a bit late. So I was going to write while Number One warmed up, but my father-in-law arrived early, and I had to tell him all about seeing his cousin at my meeting this morning. After the game I had a little time, but I had to eat, 'cause I hadn't eaten all day. Then I had to critique a chapter, and do some e-mailey things, and IM with three people, one of whom just lost her stepmother. Now I have a big revision project to do Monday that scares the bejeesus out of me.

I got some writing done, but Number One was way ahead of me. I suspect she ended the day somewhere close to 2,000 words. She co-opted my Neo, too! I'll be lucky to be able to pry it out of her hands, if she doesn't hide it from me.

So around 10:00, J wanted to watch some TV. We have some shows recorded from earlier in the week. I planned to write some more, but it would be after midnight when I finished, and I didn't want the stats to show a zero count for the first day. So I input the 1894 I had done, which was enough to be on track to meet the NaNo goal of 50,000. But it wasn't enough to hit my record (see above right), so I kept going. Even once I hit it, I was in one of those spots where you know what's happening next and it's just as easy to write it as it is to make some notes and you don't want to lose it so you just keep going. So I just kept going.

And I made it! I also beat Mary's incredible day 1 count, which was unintentional but gratifying. She's going to be challenging this year.

So my day 1 count is 3894 words, even though my NaNo stats show it split across two days. And yes, it does, too, count. :P

Anyone else doing NaNo who isn't already my buddy? I love seeing how people are doing, who's on track, who's behind, and the competition (even if they never know about it) is directly responsible for my success. If anyone wants to buddy me, I'm here.

5 comments:

Marianne Arkins said...

It absolutely counts! What a great day :-)

Thanks for visiting and the encouragment -- it really does make all the difference.

Good luck with day 2!! I'm buddying you as soon as the NaNo site lets me in.

MJFredrick said...

Dang, I need to get crackin'! My widgets aren't working for my word count, though! They're showing red! When I went to the Nano website, some of the others showed my progress, but I like the calendar and the graph :(

Natalie J. Damschroder said...

Thanks, Marianne! I'm buddying you back. :)

I haven't looked yet, so I hope you had a good day 2 and will have an even better day 3.

Mary, don't worry about the widgets. They'll be okay after the initial rush. Just focus on that word count! *wags finger* :)

Anonymous said...

I'm not doing NaNo. Good luck with it!

Natalie J. Damschroder said...

Thanks, Cindy!