Wednesday 2 November 2022

Writing Book 2 - with NaNoWriMo

 


Having completed a second draft of Murder At Her Majesty's, the first and hopefully hardest to write of my Murder Mystery series that I've embarked upon (it stands, frustratingly, at 49,225 words and now needs to settle for a bit before I can go back for a third draft and get it right), I've now started on a second.

And this time, since I've started in November, I've decided to join NaNoWriMo and see if that "write a book in a month" ethos helps me. So far the useless metrics on screen, see above, are very helpful.

Having started on Tuesday Nov 1st with 1000 words of plotline written, by 8pm I'd made that up to 3195 words.

It's Weds Nov 2 at 8pm and I'm up to 8017 words, which NaNoWriMo helpfully tells me is a rate of 4008 words a day. At this rate it says I'll be done by November 12th. Which is not exactly right, because that's their target of 50,000 words. And, though I'd have been happy to get the last book up to the 50k mark, my true target has always been 70,000 words, and that's what I'd really like to achieve for this one.


Book two is called Dead Man's Jest, by the way, and is the murder mystery featuring comedians. It's one of three plots that I wrote, in a sitting, back in September, and it's proving, on the first day at least, easier to write than its predecessor.

That said, I seem to remember the first 20,000 words of the last one being way easier to write than the subsequent 28,000. My problem is having written a plot that really didn't extend to a full book, so having to go back in and insert subplots. I think this time I've started off on a better footing, though I did find myself making up two new subplots today.

Onwards and upwards.


UPDATE Nov 29: Approaching the end of the month you can see, from the NaNoWriMo graphs above, that my early promise didn't continue through the month, and I'm currently standing on 36,474 words, which the algorithm suggests would see me finish (ie reach 50,000 words) by Dec 10th. 

A gap of nearly a fortnight is largely to blame here, because I had a long run of schools, and at the same time had the big blow of losing my Amazon KDP account which knocked the wind out of my sails and threw my confidence for a bit. But I've explored going "Wide For The Win" so we'll see what happens when I actually get the damn books finished. (Two on the boil, neither satisfactorily complete yet).


UPDATE Nov 30th, we end the month on 41,439 words. Not bad. Getting there.

Dead Man’s Jest - A Lady Lucy In Theatreland Mystery


Tues Nov 1 5pm (1000 words is the plot outline) 5.50pm 1892 words 8pm 3195 words

Weds Nov 2 8pm 8107 words

Thurs Nov 3 6pm 12,231 words 8pm 12,712

Fri Nov 4 2.30pm 16,263 5.40pm 18,109

Tues Nov 8 6pm 19,172

Thurs Nov 10 6pm, 20,376 8pm 21,170

Fri Nov 11 8pm 23,108

Weds Nov 23 (first look in 12 days) 5.30pm 23,952

Thu Nov 24 12pm 24,9214.30pm 27,033 8pm 27,814

Fri Nov 25 12pm 28,250  6pm 30,932

Mon Nov 28 8pm 32,492

Tues Nov 29 (midday, Robins & Day) 35,041 6pm 36,624

Weds Nov 30 lunch 37,280 5.15pm 40,019 8.15pm 41,439


Dec 5 42,160

Dec 6 6pm 46,674 8pm 47,200

Dec 7 5.30pm 50,344

Dec 8 4.30 51,734 6pm 52,255 8pm 53,907

Tues Dec 13 8pm 55,675

Tues Dec 20 5pm 56,218



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