Last year around this time, I put up a post on ways I’ve found to deal with all the extra stuff we have to do around the holidays, that can add greatly to our stress level if we aren’t careful. One of those was evaluating which holiday events we really need to attend… and which we can gracefully decline.

My primary decision-making process for this is quite simple: just ask yourself these questions:

• If I don’t go, will someone be disappointed or hurt?
• Are there people there I care about, who won’t understand why I can’t make it?
• If I don’t go, will it adversely impact me (for example, career or business issues)?
• Are these people who don’t live nearby, and whom I don’t see at other times of the year?
• Do I really want to go? (<- This one is the most important!)

I also got some work done, including my ROW80 goals for the week! Here are the details:

• Hangar 18 – finish type-in – Done!
• Hangar 18 – get answers for new/remaining few research questions, and send to editor – Done!
• Hangar 18 – put together book info sheet – Done!
• Physical activity 5x this week – Done! (Good thing I did it Monday – Friday!)

If you’re participating in ROW80, how are you doing so far? Do you have any tips on beating holiday stress? If so, please share – I’m always looking for more!

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.

Wednesday night, I hit a milestone: at last, the word count meter in the status bar of WriteWayPro registered 50,123. I was done with my NaNoWriMo novel!

I actually finished the novel a few days earlier, on Sunday night… with a word count of only a little over 46,000. Not enough. But I’d left a bunch of plot holes and dropped subplot threads, which I’d normally tackle in revision. Instead of moving to another project, I decided to tie some of those up, and that got me to 50,123 on Wednesday night.

I was elated! I exported my document to Word, fearing my word count would change, and it did – to 50,006. But that’s still over 50,000, right?

I entered my new wordcount into the NaNoWriMo website, and the “I’m ready to validate my novel” link appeared. I pasted my whole dang book in…

And no winner bar appeared. Instead, the wordcount I’d entered now read 49,926. What???!!

So I went back and added that author’s note, just a short one. Re-exported, and re-entered. This time, I made it over 50,000 words and got my Winner! graphics.

Here’s the details on my ROW80 goals for this past week:

• Finish NaNoWriMo novel – Done!
• If NaNo novel is less than 50k, write author’s note and/or nonfiction project to add up to 50k – Done!
• Physical activity 5x this week – partial – I got it in 4x
• Hangar 18 – review and markup Chapters 13 & 14 – Done!

If you’re participating in ROW80, how are you doing so far? If you’re doing NaNoWriMo, how did you do? And either way, have you ever finished a big task, only to find out that you weren’t finished after all?

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.

…the writer will play! Or will she??

Not if it’s November, and she’s participating in NaNoWriMo!

Well, okay, maybe a little.

Oh, you want an explanation? Okay. It’s that time of the year that really helps a writer out. No, really.

It’s hunting season (the other helpful time being “football season”). How so? Well, to be specific, this week is gun season for deer in Ohio, which means my more-sociable half is away at deer hunting camp with lots of guys, lots of guns, and lots of beer (for after the guns are put away!). This means there’s lots of quiet in my house. I don’t think the TV has even been on in the past two days. The one in the room where my computer is hasn’t been on since he left the other day.

It’s been weird. And good for the word count – I finished my NaNoWriMo novel on Sunday night.

And as noted in Sunday’s post, fell short of the 50,000 words required to win NaNoWriMo – my book clocked in at only 46,000.

I was going to write an author’s note (wow, that would have to be a long one!) or do some work for a nonfiction technical piece. Then I came to another realization: There were holes in my book. Lots of ’em – maybe as many of them as there was beer at that deer camp earlier this week. But mostly, I had a fraying book – tons of dropped threads, subplots that were introduced but never tied up. This is something I often do (doesn’t every writer? No?) and then go back and catch these suckers in revision.

But usually, I need to cut words. This time, I need to add, so why not add something I’d add anyway, now?

So that’s what I’ve been doing. My NaNo novel is right on schedule for a win tonight or tomorrow, currently sitting at 48,442 words.

I’ll leave the rest of the ROW80 recap for Sunday.

Oh, and my DH is due home today, but he called yesterday with good news: he got one! Looks like there will be some good eating in our house this winter (he’s also a very good cook)!

If you’re participating in ROW80, how are you doing so far? If you’re doing NaNoWriMo, are you on track to win, have you already won, or have you already conceded that you’ll not hit that 50k (which I don’t necessarily consider “losing”)?

I haven’t spotted any new releases from my writer friends the past couple of weeks, so no WANA Wednesday book news this week. I think many of my writing buddies are doing the same thing I am – writing! If you know of any, give me a heads up in the comments, please?

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.

My NaNoWriMo book has come along quite a ways this week… in fact, I expect to finish it today or tomorrow.

And I don’t expect to hit 50,000 words until Wednesday or Thursday.

In other words, I’m running out of story. And I’m a bit shocked – if anything, my work usually runs long, just ask anyone who’s read Time’s Enemy or especially Time’s Fugitive. Even my short story, “Time’s Holiday,” clocked in at over 7,000 in its first draft, and the Home for the Holidays anthology required it to be 5,000 or under. It turned out I had some repetitious stuff, and stuff that wasn’t absolutely vital to the story that I could cut, and I whittled it down to size while making it a much better book.

The NaNo novel is already lean – there’s almost no description in it. That’s something I usually have to layer in during revision, but it’s even more scant in this book than usual. Then again, I’m just now getting to the big boss battle, and I do write long, so this may take up the words after all.

If I don’t, I have a plan. I can add an author’s note, and see how much that adds. If it’s not enough, I can start in on a little nonfiction project I’ve been meaning to write for a while – an instruction manual, of sorts, for my web design clients.

Here’s the details on my progress for this past week:

• 12,000 words on NaNoWriMo novel, to a total of 43,000 words or more – Done!
• Physical activity 5x this week – partial – got 4x in – not bad for having a holiday!
• Hangar 18 – review and markup Chapters 11-12 – Done!

If you’re participating in ROW80, how are you doing so far? If you’re doing NaNoWriMo, are you on track to win, have you already won, or have you already conceded that you’ll not hit that 50k (which I don’t necessarily consider “losing”)?

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.

My lack of planning is making my NaNoWriMo book a challenge. As a recap, I set my daily writing goals a little differently than the standard 1,667 words/day – instead, I write 1,500 words four weeknights, and 3,000 words on both Saturday and Sunday to meet my overall goal. But I didn’t get my 3k in yesterday until 10:30 PM – and I didn’t do much of anything else all day.

I have to outline, and I did outline this book, too. However, many of my scenes were just a few words of what would happen. And I’m finding that that’s not always enough. I need to know what’s the conflict, and who or  what the antagonist is in any given scene, and many of my notes did not have this. I also got hung up on details, and spent a lot of time thinking how something specific would happen, which is something we need to ditch in order to meet the high word count goals of NaNoWriMo. I did manage to get it together just in time, so my progress is still on track, although I did not get as much done on  my revisions for Hangar 18 as I’d have liked, and I had some other things to do yesterday that now will have to be done today. Things like laundry, keeping in touch with family and friends, and some graphic design work I’m doing for my brother, who’s in the process of starting a business. Good thing I have my blogs mostly set up! Oh, and I’m hosting Thanksgiving for my family. I’m taking the day before and the day after off of work – I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to get some extra time in there, and keep my wordcount on track.

Here’s my progress for this past week:

• 12,000 words on NaNoWriMo novel, to a total of 30,000 words or more – Done!
• Physical activity 5x this week – partial – Done!
• Hangar 18 – review and markup Chapters 10-11 – Partial – I got Chapter 10 marked up.

If you’re participating in ROW80, how are you doing so far? If you’re in the U.S., what are your plans for Thanksgiving, and do they affect your goal setting this week, especially if you’re doing NaNoWriMo?

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.