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Finishing Up

NaNoWriMo 2020 is almost upon us. I’m juggling my different writing projects while planning for the coming month or two. 
NaNoWriMo 2020 is almost upon us. I’m juggling my different writing projects while planning for the coming month or two.  

I’ve been editing and rewriting the noir I wrote for NaNoWriMo 2018 over the past year. After three passes, I decided I hated how bad it was and began reworking sections. Now I’m back to editing it. I hate editing. Editing is the actual work of writing. Story-telling is fun. Editing and rewriting are hard. In any case, I’m focused on getting the noir done before I dive into November. With luck, I’ll publish the noir in time for the holidays.

I’ve also been fleshing out, so to speak, the supporting characters of my Holmesian storyline. I’m really looking forward to writing it. I’ve had fun with the idea, and I hope it will be just as enjoyable to write.

This year, as I mentioned in a previous post, will be different for me. I usually write a 50K work during NaNoWriMo. This year I’m going to the full 100K. I have 99 scenes. If I assume 3,333 words per day, I could complete the novel in a month. It would be impossible to maintain that rate and would burn me out. Keeping to the 1,667 words per day of NaNoWriMo would be better.  That lets me hit the 50K goal and still complete the novel in two months. That will still be a major undertaking for me, but it’s doable.

If I assume 50 scenes per month, that rounds out to a nice 1,000 words per scene.  Of course, the scene lengths will vary. After all, I don’t want the pacing to be boring. However, I will shoot for about 1K words per scene for the initial draft.  50 scenes in November works out to a little over a scene and a half per day (or 1,667 words per day).

That’s the plan. Now all I have to do is execute it.

Word up.