NaNoWriMo 2013 Update #1

I'm still in the game this time. I've got 4,430 words written on my new novel Killer Of Dragons so far. I need to up the count to get back on track so I can finish 50,000 words by the end of the month. I'm really determined now to finish NaNoWriMo this year. This will be a great milestone for me. Even if the book goes beyond 50K in length, I win if I hit that number by the 30th.

As a writer, one of the terms I've been looking at again lately is prolific. Often, the word is something of a misnomer. Those who think you're a prolific writer consider it in terms of writing very fast and churning out the words at a breakneck pace. I've come to believe that the truly prolific writers are those that just get back to the chair often enough throughout a give day and do so consistently. 

With a full plate of duties, even that can seem like a tall order. But it comes down to knowing a little personal math when it comes to your own writing style. I've been working up to a better word count by it requires being creative and looking for opportunities and taking them with out hesitation. New words written down are the reward.

I come back to this idea of math because if you can figure out how long it takes to write 250 words (the approximate number of words on standard manuscript page) then you can make estimates on how long it will take you to write a full length novel. Seeing as NaNoWriMo defines the length of a  novel as 50,000 words, you can divide that total by 250 to get 200 double-spaced pages. If you can then determine the length of time it takes to write a page you can do some estimates.

For instance, if I can get a page written in 15 minutes that means I can, in theory, write 4 pages in an hour. That's just 1,000 words. The writing challenges sets a 1,667 words a day go in order to reach 50K by November 30th. That means you should write about 7 pages a day to get across the finish line. 

7 pages a day. That's it. Double-spaced pages, no less. It's doable even if you're as busy as I am. Of course, since it is November 6th now,  should probably up it to 1,800 words or even 2,000 just to give myself some leeway in case I miss a day or something else comes up. 

This is a challenge I mean to win and am determined also to do it again. It would be great to write a novel a month. That's a dream and a desire to think about going forward. Thanks for reading along folks. Happy writing.