25k in just one week

Yes! It's April, which means it's Camp NaNoWriMo. I decided to speed up and see what I can do in a week. Well, hello... I passed 25 000 words in less than seven days! It actually feels amazing! I know I can do another 25 000 in a week, but I've decided to focus on a really good second half and I especially have to nail the ending. 

I am working on my first cozy mystery and I'm not sure if I'll be able to do it. I'e been doing a good job so far, but I am a bit concerned about the end. I've read many thrillers. Some of them have been excellent, but then the ending has been just bad writing. Maybe not even bad writing, but bad thinking. 

How will I avoid this? Don't know! Only time will tell. The purpose of Camp NaNo is to get 50 000 words written in just a month. People all over the world try it and people all over the world succeed. I have no clue what happens to the novels after thirty days. I will edit my book (yes, I'm already talking about it as my book), try to improve it, and then my plan is that my beta readers can enjoy it this summer. I will then edit it again and hopefully this fall some agents will get query letters from me.

Good old cozy mysteries. I really like them. I hope you will like mine! 

Off to a good start

Oh yeah! Nearly 10 000 words written in two days. It's Camp NaNoWriMo you suckers :D

It's been great to write! It's my first murder mystery ever and I've never ever thought I could write a murder mystery like this. Let's see how it goes. By the end of April I'll know what happened. 

I don't actually know what'll happen in my book. I know who the killer is, but that could change. I've finally gotten to know my suspects and they turned out to be totally different from what I had thought. That's what's fun about writing. Things just happen. I've also created a fabulous PC and a disgusting Police Chief. Great characters make the book, right?!

Editing and planning

I've been meaning to write about how my book is doing, but I've been writing, editing and also planning my next book, so there has basically been no time for this blog. Yes, I work during the days, too...

Anyway, the first draft of my book finished in 57 days.  My final word count was 80 000. I have to say it was an interesting journey! I wrote everyday. Once I wrote 5500 words (wow) and on the day of my grandma's funeral I wrote only 1015. Usually I wrote about 1200 - 1500 words a day.

I actually enjoyed the line getting closer and closer to my goal, telling me how many words I have left, until the day it said "You have reached your goal". Fantastic!

It was, as a matter of fact, easier than I could ever have imagined. I'm quite pleased with what I achieved.
This March I've been editing my book to be. It's exactly as fun as it sounds. It's not fun at all :)
So far I've done a good job. I'm only editing for thirty minutes a day, but I'm fine with that. After I'm done with this stage of editing I will give my book a rest and after a month I will read it and do some more editing. Hopefully some of my friends will be reading this draft during the summer. Everything is going according to plan!

I have however also been working on my next novel, a murder mystery. This is a big challenge for me. I think I have a solid plan. I have the victim, the murderer, suspects, a PC and a PI. The setting is excellent. At least I think it is. Can't wait to see if I can make it.

I'm participating in Camp NaNo in April.  A murder mystery is hard, because I have read many disappointing stories, where I've figured everything out too soon, the plot is unrealistic or that the last few pages made the whole book a waste of time. I am willing to give it a try though.

50 000 words in April, here I come!

KEEP ON GOING!

I have reached the 60 000 line and I'm way past the line now. It feels great of course, since I still have 23 days left and less than 20 000 words. The only problem is that it starts feeling like "are we there yet?". It's so close, but oh boy it's still so far away.

I now know it's possible to write a book. It's possible for me to write a book. I can even do it in a short time range. I can put the pressure on myself without slacking or feeling like this is way too intense.

I have written every single day of this year. I have written more than 1000 words a day. No one is applauding, no one actually cares, but me. I have to start thinking about how I will celebrate the milestone of 80 000 words. I will actually celebrate it with EdMo, editing it for more than 50 hours in March. Well, that's not celebrating.

Tough luck. I've decided that this year it's going to be THE year of writing for me. I know that a lot of people dream about writing a book, but I'm soon there. OK, it's the first draft, far from ready, but still... You need to get the first draft written before the first draft can ever become a novel, a book. A book. Now I'm actually this close so I can start talking about my book :D

50 000 Words

Yes! It happened yesterday! 30 days and 50 000 words. It wasn't actually as tough as I had pictured it in my head. In the end it was more fun than I could have imagined. I now know you really need to be in love with the story. I tried this once before, to write a book, but I got bored. The story itself is good, but it wasn't the real me.

I'm sticking to my plan... 80 000 words by the end of February. That shouldn't be a problem, because I have less than 30 000 words to my goal. In March it's time to edit it for at least 50 hours. Then I'm heading for Camp NaNo in April. What a writing year!

Not everything has gone according to plan though. My computer did something it had never done before - it went crazy. Anyway, nothing else was missing, except for my book to be on yWriter. I was not happy...

Luckily I have my backups, so in the end it wasn't a major problem. It still took a while to get everything back in order. What I kind of misses was that I had lost my daily writing log, but I had luckily backed that one up too, in my calender. 

Now I'm in this weird phase. The story is pretty much written, the beginning and the end are both fine, but now I need to fill in the missing parts here and there. There will of course be a lot more of hat while I'll be editing, but still...

I also had one interesting black out. I was sure I had written this really interesting chapter. I can still remember it and I have a lot of film running wild in my head. However, I couldn't find it. Turns out I had been dreaming. Once I realized that I of course wrote the chapter. At one point before I understood what was going on I though either the computer had destroyed that one chapter or that I had finally gone insane. 

20 k +, 30 k +

Oh yes, more than 20 000 words written! It feels really good. It's 25 % of my goal. The plot seems pretty solid and I'm satisfied with my main characters.

Wow! More than 30 000 words written! Amazing feeling... But, that's when I started slowing down. Anyway, I'm soon half way done. Never been this close to writing an actual novel.

My best writing day I produced 5046 words and on my worst day 1065 words. I have used 35466 different words and the word 'the' 1910 times.

I started out writing the beginning, quite a few chapters and then I went on writing the last few pages and one major turning point towards the end. haven't had to make any big changes along the way.

At one point I got really into the part why I decided to write this book. It's the fun part to write. These parts, there are several of them along the way, are the factual parts mixed with the fiction my characters are living. It's also the most repelling details in the books, but they are there to educate readers a bit, but only for a few pages at a time. I really like my concept :) I guess you really need to love what you're doing if you start a crazy project like this.

Btw... Got to say I love yWriter! It's been such a good tool for me. I'm eager to try out all the other programs I've had my eye on, but when writing books like this I'll definitely be using yWriter!

So, I still have the whole of February and the rest of January to write. I will write everyday. In March this novel will go through EdMo, yay!