NaNoWriMo-Mo(nday) Week 2: Keep going, keep fighting, keep hoping

I considered not posting at all this week. I’m not going to lie. I’m really sad and scared. I think everyone I know and love is really sad. And I think it’s really easy to fold into yourself during moments like this.

I’ve lost people I love to illnesses that took them too early. And the way I felt this past week was so similar to how I felt then. I felt like I was in mourning. It’s frightening to lose your sense of security. And though, as a female POC, I’ve felt unsafe at times, I’ve never been so viscerally scared for my safety or the safety of others. I also know that there are some in this country who have always lived fearing for their safety and that of their loved ones and that just makes this all worse because when will we learn?

But, after talking to people I love and respect, I realize that I have something now that I didn’t have when I was in mourning before. This time around, I still have everything and everyone I had before and I can fight to keep them safe and happy and hopeful. And in order to do that, I have to be hopeful too.

So, I did the only thing that ever helped me cope in the past, I wrote. Hopefully, everyone is finding something that can help them cope as well.

Here are some pieces of hope shared with me this week. My wish is they might be helpful to others as well:

Tammy Duckworth was elected to Congress in IL

John Legend’s Love Me Now Music Video

Because I promised myself I’d be accountable this NaNoWriMo. I’ll do a quick run-down of my week of writing.

Here are my stats so far:

Words written (overall total) – 14,294

Words written (week 2 total) – 3,407

Words written (average per day for week 2) – 486

Most productive day – Sunday (1,104words)

Least productive day – Wednesday (0 words)

I hope that people can find something that helps them smile in the coming days, weeks, months. My hope is that perhaps I can do something in my own way to help people smile.

NaNoWriMo-Mo(nday) Week 1: Prep and getting started

It’s been a week on NaNoWriMo. How’s everyone doing? Still hanging in there? Still going strong?

Here are my stats so far:

Words written (total) — 10,887

Words written (average per day) — 1,814

Most productive day — Tuesday (4,162 words)

Least productive day — Thursday (32 words. whomp whomp)

Here are some resources I discovered and/or used over this week:

Rachel Aaron/Bach’s “How I Went From Writing 2,000 Words a Day to 10,000 Words a Day”

(She also wrote a book about the subject: 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love)

My week started out STRONG. I had a great day on Tuesday and wrote over 4,000 words.

Then I wavered on Wednesday because, you guys, the Cubs were in GAME 7 of the World Series. And it was THE BEST GAME 7 EVER. Like such a nail biter but TOTALLY WORTH IT!

Then, I got distracted by post-World Series high on Thursday and that just caused me to write like 6 words. I also migrated my blog over here to WordPress.

(What do you all think of my amazing blog building skillz?? ::wiggling eyebrows::)

So, Friday was my make-up day. I was actually sick that day (sadness) but not so sick I couldn’t camp on my couch and just write all day. I did get distracted slightly because I was mini-stalking the Pitchwars YA entries that went up on Friday night.

Saturday was another write-all-day-if-it-kills-me day.

Sunday was pre-birthday celebrations with my sister (so I had to prep for this day by writing all day Friday and Saturday)

Also, for the first NaNo ever, I’m using Scrivener. The pros are how organized it is. EVERYTHING in one place! (I might do a separate post about Scrivener and how I’m using it). I love that I can have a folder for my characters, a folder for my settings, a folder for my research, and then a whole folder for my actual MS. But it’s still all in one place.

I prepped for NaNo this year by doing a lot of research and collecting it into this Scrivener document. I also created scene documents out of ideas I had for individual scenes or intros or pivotal moments in the story. I don’t really write in linear order, so this was very helpful for me since it allowed me to skip around but still keep everything organized and easily accessible.

So, I started out with the best intentions. And then I ruined it all! Because I wanted to be able to access the document from any computer and to do that I always leaned on Google Docs. So, I took all of the outlining I did in individual little folders and copied them all and dumped them into a giant Google Doc. #fail

Plan for Next Week:

I set up the introduction of each character and their motivations this week. So now I want to get into the inciting incident story and try to establish the relationship between the three main characters

NaNoWriMo Time & Intro of "Kat-Cho-NaNoWriMo-Mo(ndays)"

Reasons I love fall: apple cider, Thanksgiving, pretty trees AND NaNoWriMo!

National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo as the cool kids say, is a challenge to write 50,000 words in the month of November.
(If you want to find out more, go HERE for a quick guide on how to NaNo and what the site provides you for FREE)

NaNo starts NEXT WEEK! (Eeek, I can’t believe November is almost here!)

I do an intro post for NaNoWriMo almost every year because I think it’s a pretty great event (and as a pantser it’s my jam)

It also binds us together as we all slowly fall into a deep pit of writing depression while trying to meet word count. (Just kidding…mostly)

But not kidding about the fact that NaNoWriMo does bring us together. There are great regional groups all over the world and they host things like write-ins and word sprints where you can try out new writing spaces and meet new people! (There is no requirement to share your work at these events, just a way to get motivated by merely being around other writers)

This year, my main intro to NaNo will be on a NEW blog site started by a few friends and me called ChiYA for Chicago YA writers. Since we’re all at different stages (and have experienced things like querying, getting agent offers, and going on submission) we would love to share our journeys and a bit of advice that we pick up along the way. So, if you’re a Chicago writer (doesn’t matter if you write YA or not) then please check out the new blog site!

I participated in NaNoWriMo for the past three years. I loved it, I loved meeting new people and working on a new WiP. I got super inspired (often times halfway through NaNo) to write new MSs. And I got my agent with an MS that was finished during NaNo.

So, there you go.

Anyway, I love the idea of NaNoWriMo. I like anything that gets people to write and to get excited about writing.

If you want, you can find me on the site and we can be NaNoWriMo pals! (I’m katjc589)

This time around I’m going to try to do a check in every Monday of the month of November. Partly to share my journey and partly to keep me accountable. I want to have actual content for these blog posts, so I’ll try to write and experience as much as possible this Nano.

I’m going to call it NaNoWriMo Mondays. OR Kat-Cho-NaNoWriMo-Mo(ndays)

So, to start it out, I’ll intro the brand new WiP I’m writing. It’s based loosely on the premise of the K-Drama Goong (Princess Hours). The idea is that the Joseon Dynasty (the last king-lead dynasty of ancient Korea) never ended and there is a modern day monarchy. So, it’s an alt-history setting. And the reason it never ended is that one of the young princesses of the Lee family gained control of a dragon in the early 1900s. So it’s also a modern-day fantasy. I never knew how much I loved contemporary fantasy until I wrote my last MS, Gumiho!

So, there you go, I’m going to try to write about Korea (again) and dragons and princesses and adventure!