I’ve mentioned it here and there specifically in my State posts, but since it’s the last day of the month, I wanted to put up the “official” notice of my pseudo-hermitage for the month of November/NaNoWriMo. I am going to attempt to write at least 50k words of a new story (the official NaNo stipulations), which means I need to make time to get out an average of 1667 words a day, though I’ll be writing by hand, so it’s going to be a more rough estimate. I decided on handwritten because the last two stories were entirely on Word, and I was neurotic to the point of paranoia about losing my work. Oddly enough, handwriting stories doesn’t take any longer than not. It’s just a different initial stage of the writing process.
Since my three State and Final Fantasy Friday posts take hours to draft, review, and complete, they’re going on the chopping block for this month. I’m also going to potentially cut down my reading or at the very least not pick up anything new (except for my lunchtime Kindle breaks). I’ll still be checking comments and reading what blog subs I can on the weekend, though I’ve turned off nearly all of my notifications or attempted to…WordPress makes that so damn difficult.
My plan is to write early in the morning before I go to work, which means 5:45 wake up times to get as much written between 6:00-8:00. I’m hoping my chronic fatigue behaves this month, but I’m not going to beat myself up if it doesn’t, and I always have the evenings/contingency plan. I didn’t do nearly as much prep as I wanted due to concentration issues, but the story’s been in my head for over a year, so I’m hoping I won’t have to force it out. The prep was mostly details about the world that may or may not find their way into the text, but need to be kept in the back of my mind as I’m writing.
If you’re partaking in NaNo, you can friend me at the website under TheShamefulNarcissist. For some reason whenever I try to find anyone, nothing comes up, but people can find me. I’m also easily reached through the contact here or on twitter @ash1rose. Also my Discord pals, you know how to find me lol, nor have I forgotten about that collaborative project, which I’ll be using the extra time on the weekends to work on, if not the evenings if I can manage to get up early in the morning.
So I think that’s it. I wanted to just make an official announcement in case anyone wondered why it went quiet here all of a sudden. I mean the site is called The Shameful Narcissist Speaks, not The Shameful Narcissist Is Silent :p
Good luck to my other NaNo friends and happy blogging to all the rest of you lovely people! I’ll be back fully in December with my regularly scheduled State and FF Friday posts along with the continuation of blog updates. Next year there will be even more exciting things in store, but I’ll talk about that when the time comes 🙂
The Shameful Narcissist Speaks 
Good luck! I just created my account as I’m taking on the challenge for my first year, It’s daunting but I’m up for the challenge. I am sending you a request as well. Gd luck!
-Luna 🙂
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Good luck to you, too! It’s definitely daunting but doable (a little bit of alliteration there lol). I’ve never made the 50k word goal. The last two times I did it, I created my own rules, but this year I actually want to see if I can write 50k words in a month.
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Handwriting?! Whew! What an endeavor – good luck and have fun!
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I handwrote my first novel actually! It’s spread across a few writing journals. I feel so much less nervous about it when I have a physical copy to fall back on. It took me a little over two years to write over 200k words and edit it (though of course it needs to be reedited). The latest WIP that I’m putting on hold for November is still being edited after a year and that was written entirely on Word. Out of the three novel length stories I’ve written, the one was handwritten and the other two were entirely on Word, and the longest one, which was on Word is the one I’m STILL editing o.O
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That’s so cool! Fantasy author Kristin Cashore writes all of her books by longhand at first, too. I applaud your writing stamina. 👏🏼
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So does Anne Rice! She’s the reason I decided to go back to it, because initially I was on the fence, but then Anne tweeted something about the benefits of writing by hand, and it just clicked 🙂
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I didn’t know that! That’s pretty cool.
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Yup! Once I read that on her Twitter I was so happy to see that even well established authors use that method. Honestly, you do what works for you!
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Good Luck Adrienne!😊
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Thank you!
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Good luck! Hope it’s a huge success for you!
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So far I’ve only missed yesterday lol. Well, I went to see Thor Ragnarok with my husband, brother, his wife, and some of their friends, so I’m giving myself a pass :p
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Good luck! My goal is one sentence per day, not the 50k thingy. I think I can manage that, hopefully 🙂
Oh and 5:45am is my normal wake up time! I’m no fun at all…
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I have been failing SO hard with the waking up lol. I set the alarm then when it goes off, I immediately say “Ef that,” and set it for later lol. I think it’s because I’ve been going to bed too late due to writing. Such a catch-22.
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It’s my usual schedule at this point so it doesn’t bug me at all. When I do want to sleep in on the weekend, I can’t… I have two furry alarm clocks with claws and no snooze button, haha.
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Oh no! We sleep with the door closed now because my husband is usually the one they’ll wake up lol. I’m not bothered when they headbutt me in the morning :p
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Now I’m trying to figure out how to adjust them for the time change… haha.
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I think mine have gotten used to it, but then again they’ll start bugging me around 2-3 if I’m home so it’s not like much has changed :p
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Good job on getting planned out and organized beforehand. That tends to be a difference maker, in my experience. Even though getting up at 5:45 a.m. is only slightly more painful than writing an entire novel long hand, in my experience.
Good luck!
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Yeaaaaah about that…I haven’t been getting up at 5:45 lol. I’ve been going to bed too late, because I’ve been staying up to work on the novel. I actually have a bruise on my thumb near the knuckle. It’s funny because I wrote my first novel by hand. One day when I’m rich and famous that leather bound journal will be worth millions XD
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Well, time is all relative anyways. As long as you’re still getting the time to write in somewhere that day, it’s all good.
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Best of luck with your writing this month! Looking forward to hearing how you did once it’s all over. It sounds like you have a really good game plan set into motion so I’m sure you’ve got this! 😀
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It’s…going lol. The beginning of the month was busier than I expected, so I missed two days of precious writing time. I’m trying to catch up, but today I only got around 1000 words written. I’m hoping this week will be a better yield. I’m trying to get to the more exciting parts, which tells me I’m going to have to probably rearrange the beginning. Every other story I’ve written I know how it’s going to begin, but with this one, I knew the inciting incident, but there’s a bit before that part.
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Aw, I’m sure you’ll bounce back, especially as you get into the more exciting parts you really want to write. 🙂 I’m sure this coming week is gonna be a rougher one for me as well, I have too much going on and a ridiculous amount of baking and stuff for work I have to do all throughout the week, so I feel you pain! ❤ Good luck! 😀
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I’m hoping to reach the inciting incident by these week/weekend (as horrible as it is D:). I gave up trying to write it by hand. My arthritis just won’t allow it, and my thumb just hurts so much afterwards. I’m working on Word now, and it’s going a bit better I think since I can type much faster than I can write to keep up better with my thoughts. I don’t think I’m going to reach 50k since I just broke a thousand, but I’m alright with that. I”m just happy I started writing the novel, which is the most important thing 🙂
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Ouch! Yeah, I could see how that would really get to your hand after a while, especially with arthritis.
Yeah, I agree about starting your novel being the most important thing. I’m so excited for you about that! 😀 Good luck with the remainder of the month’s writing!
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Thanks! How have you been doing with NaNo?
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Ehhh, my first week was better than my second week. lol NaNoWriMo’s kind of kicking my butt at the moment, but I plan to keep fighting. 😛
I’m 4,502 words shy of the halfway mark. So I’m behind, but I think I could make that word count up between the next 2 weeks if I really get to it. I’m hoping at least. 😛
How’s it going now that you’ve started typing it out instead of writing it out by hand? Hopefully your hand is feeling much better! 🙂
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You’re doing better than me! I deleted a page of work yesterday, which is really unfortunate wince I only have about three pages in Word. I did spent about an hour writing out some extensive questions/issues and potential resolutions. I have two main problems. One, I didn’t figure out what I was going to have my main character do before the inciting incident even though I introduce what it is in the first line. I wanted to do an “establishing shot” to establish what the world is like, but I’m having lots of issues with the best way to do this, and it leads into my second problem. The (future) couple doesn’t meet until at least a third of the way into the book. He’s introduced and we know who he is, but they don’t meet face to face until after the inciting incident and the aftermath, and I’ve NEVER done that before. All of my other stories the main couple meets within the first chapter, and I’m the type of writer who has to go in order…but I’m half way considering skipping to at least the inciting incident and filling in the rest later. Every story I’ve written presents some new challenge in both the content and the logistics, so I think I’d be more worried if this one wasn’t lol.
My hand does at least feel better! I have no idea how I’d be a writer before computers or typewriters lol. I even remember the time before the latter was popular :p
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Glad to hear your hand is feeling better! 🙂 I feel like my hand starts bothering me in no time when I’m drawing and writing so you are one heck of a trooper to have pushed through it for that long! 😀
Yeah, some of the parts in my project have been frustrating and I’ve just skipped ahead too. I think it’s really helped me keep pushing forward, so I hope it works for you, too. 🙂 I’m excited for you about your novel you’re working on. Sounds like you’re trying a lot of different things and I love that kind of writing since it really is a great learning experience on top of everything. Hope you’re having a great weekend! ❤
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I haven’t really worked on it in about a week, because I had this collaborative post to finish by Monday. I managed to complete it tonight, and tomorrow is editing/proofreading. I think I’m going to restart the NaNo story at the part where I started my notes then just come back and fill in what I need later. That’s one thing I’m learning. I can always come back 🙂
I hope you make your 50k goal!
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Wow! Good luck!! And I commend you for writing it out long-hand. There’s something satisfying about putting pen to paper, more than putting fingers to keyboard, in a way….
Anyway, I’m not NaNoWriMo-ing this year, so I’m rooting for you to reach your writing goals! (even though I don’t have any doubts 🙂 )
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Hehe, unfortunately, I had to abandon the handwriting method, because it was killing my thumb. Stupid arthritis. I’ve moved to Word, but I’m just continuing on from there. I don’t think I’m going to make the 50k goal since I don’t even have 1300 words written, so I’ve been averaging about a hundred per day. It’s not surprising considering the issues I’ve been having with my concentration and the fact that the beginning of the month was busy so I missed out on two days. I’m just happy I started writing this particular story, since I’ve had it in my head for over a year. I think it’s been slow going because the parts I thought of were after the inciting incident, but because I have to write in order, I need to plod through the morass of the beginning until I’m there. I can always go back and fix it if it’s too boring, but here I am 🙂
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Hope it goes well! I did add you on Twitter but, you know, you, like, you know, didn’t add me back. Just, you know, going to fume a bit more…
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Oh no!! What’s your Twitter name?? I must’ve missed it in my notifications. Mea culpa, mea culpa D:
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Excuses, excuses!! If you check your follower list I’m the one grinning like an idiot with animals crawling all over me. It’ll make sense when (if!) you see it. Best regards, Wapojif
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I found you! You tried to hide…I know your tricks :p
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Well spotted. I’ll need to be more devious in future. MWAAhahahahahaha!!!!!
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Yes you shall, touche!
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November is almost done. I am looking forward to your return.
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You’re going to force me to be sentimental. That means a lot that I was missed. I’m currently working on a list of peeps I want to make sure I get weekly notifications from, and you’ve been on that from the get-go. Reviews I can read in five minutes are always on my radar, even though most of mine are the total opposite :p
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Thank you for keeping tabs on my blog. Unlike you I can’t captivate an audience with in depth articles, which is why I transitioned to shorter reviews. Glad that the format appeals to those pressed for time.
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Psh, I only captivate the ones who don’t get bored by my ramblings hehe. I really like the short and sweet reviews. It takes talent to be concise yet still thorough.
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