#i bought scrivener and only go to google docs for my friends

[tobytothemoon]

Every time I think "i really need a beta reader", i then remember that i'd have to transfer all of my writing to fucking google docs and I just don't have that energy

[nadiawrimos]

NaNoWriMo 2023 wrap-up

this november really wasn't like other nanos. but the HQ/nanowrimo board/forums thing aside, it was a good month and I won my 12th event and wrote my 14th nanowrimo novel (because yes for both 2010 and 2015 events I was an overachiever and wrote 2 novels)

what worked for me, similar to last year, was getting into the habit of waking up earlier so I could get some words in before work. I also enjoyed having the house to myself on thursdays and fridays while my fiance was working from the office so I could pace around and dictate my novel into my phone, which I would later fix and add to the google doc.

I also think I was very balanced this year by waking up earlier and using the time I would have otherwise been sleeping to create, because it meant I could still be fully present while not actively writing. sprints were very needed, and my little discord group was so supportive and that made the writing so enjoyable. I did not participate in any word crawls this year but I did BG3 "fighting and writing" sprints where if my fiance entered combat in baulder's gate I'd sprint for as long as the fight lasted and then go back to playing with him (925 words during construct grym and 473 words during autie ethel fights)

what I'd like to improve for next year: do more outlining BEFORE the month starts to have those character and worldbuilding details and story beats all plotted before beginning, get a new laptop that isn't so old it doesn't open scrivener properly :'), make sure I still prioritize yoga even if it's gentle and relaxing yoga (I did a lot of yoga in October and... not so much in November) BUT my wrists also complained a lot this last month so taking a break from chaturangas and now that it's december I'm trying to be mindful and type less (kind of hard to do when your day job is live chat but oh well, I deserve to slack a little bit!)

I still hate numbers but here's some stats

my outline going into the month was 3,000 ish words

draft 1 totalled 45,908 words

'save the cat saves draft 2' (my re-outlining/development doc) added another 4099 words

since I only counted words written during the month of November, my nanowrimo total was 50,007 and I finished writing the last words about 15 minutes before midnight on November 30th

wordiest day: November 15 3881 words (mostly written during my discord group's mipoint meltdown boozy writing night)

least wordiest day: November 20 with 65 words (still counts! I was able to get the write every day badge so that's a win for me)

What's next?

In terms of goals for the project moving forward - I bought the most beautiful new notebook and some stickers and I feel inspired so my plan is to revise and then self-publish/print on demand this book for friends and family (and myself hehehe)

am I using a nanowrimo novel for the second time as yet another project to avoid revising my NaNoWriMo 2020 novel Good People, the story that I actually want to publish as a debut, because I'm too afraid of the vulnerability needed to pursue my dream?

no comment.

[ladykf-writes]

@lilly-white

lilly-white replied to your photo “NaNoWriMo: JUST DO IT. XD Day 4: 2213 Total: 7,273 / 50,000 \o/...”

Also I'd love to add you as a buddy!! I'm Lilly White over there!

I added you! We might have been buddies before, I genuinely do not recall... I’ve been on there since 2014 and I wish I’d had the thought to write down who my buddies were to re-friend them on the new site - it’s the one thing that hadn’t translated over!

And yeah, that “Project Targets” page is absolutely from Scrivener. XD It’s my favorite writing tool, unless I’m doing a collaborative piece (then it’s Google Docs); I only use Word for moving fics from Scrivener to Google Docs, or to FFN. (And tbh, I also use FFN because you can C+P from the FFN window straight to Ao3 without having to fuss with it.)

I actually found out about it and bought it due to NaNoWriMo; did the NaNo Demo for November, won that year and got a 50% discount as a winner goodie. You can get 20% off just for participating (the code is NANOWRIMO), but if you think you might win, go ahead and wait for it because they’re doing that this year too.

[daniellethamasa]

Hey all, Dani here.

It’s my birthday today.

As usual with my monthly wrap-up, let’s start off by checking in on my overall goals for the year.

Reading: So…for some reason I thought that this month was going to be a slow reading month, because I had a week where I only read a couple hundred pages, and I was expecting my month wrap-up to only be like 15 books. But no, I somehow wasn’t thinking about quite a few of the books I read in July–probably because my days/weeks are blending together. I’ve actually read 25 books this month. That takes me up to around 175-180 books read for the year. I raised my reading challenge goal from 125 to 200 a couple months ago, and it looks like I’ll probably need to raise it again in the next month or so. Cool.

Blogging: I will freely admit that I wasn’t the greatest at blogging in the month of July. I eventually got up the posts I had planned to write up and all that, but many of them did not go up on time, and I’m sorry about that. I’ve been so stressed with our internet issues and all the time I’m spending on both my jobs. Then add into it the stress of likely needing to completely reschedule our wedding…because I really don’t see the USA getting things under control by October. I’m so upset about that, because I loved the idea of our wedding anniversary date being 10/10/2020. I’m hoping I’ll be a little more on top of things for my blogging in August.

Writing: I wrote up a couple backstories for some D&D characters…and that’s basically the extent of my creative writing for the month. I have copied over what I’ve drafted of my D&D romance book from Scrivener to Google Docs so I can work on it no matter where I happen to be or what device I’m using, and I’ll be doing a quick re-read over it all so that I can hopefully manage some progress in August. I hope.

Conventions: Well, I’m currently sitting in a hotel room participating in Gen Con Online, so I guess this counts as being at a convention? It’s a weird experience, for sure, but we’re trying the best we can to still enjoy our geeky hobbies. A couple days ago they announced the cancellation of Cincinnati Comic Expo, so I guess we’ll just have to start marking our calendar up for next year’s conventions. But my friends at Colorworld Books are still doing Colorworld LIVE convention style events just about every week, sometimes two a week. They gather up three or four awesome voice actors, hold a livestream panel, then a VIP panel for anyone who buys some signed merch, and of course you can get shirts, metal art prints, and more with characters these actors have portrayed. It’s pretty cool.

Okay, now that the general month wrap-up is over, let’s go ahead and jump into the specific reading wrap-up. As always, if I have a review up already then I will include the link to it, because my weird posting schedule might have meant missing some of my posts. So, let’s go over everything I read in July.

Fruits Basket Collector’s Edition Volume 5 by Natsuki Takaya — 4.5 stars

Fruits Basket Collector’s Edition Volume 6 by Natsuki Takaya — 4.5 stars

Fruits Basket Collector’s Edition Volume 7 by Natsuki Takaya — 4.5 stars

Fruits Basket Collector’s Edition Volume 8 by Natsuki Takaya — 4.5 stars

Not Like the Movies by Kerry Winfrey — 5 stars

Blood of the Earth by Faith Hunter — 4.5 stars

Stranger Planet by Nathan W Pyle — 5 stars

Mayhem by Estelle Laure — 4 stars

And Demons Followed Behind Her by Russell Nohelty — 4 stars

The Price of Creation by Lance Conrad — 4 stars

Shielded by KayLynn Flanders — 4 stars

Restaurant to Another World Volume 1 by Junpei Inuzuka and Takaaki Kugatsu — 3.5 stars

The Weirn Books, Volume 1: Be Wary of the Silent Woods by Svetlana Chmakova — 4 stars

How to Build Your Creative Career by Russell Nohelty — 4 stars

Teleworld by Rachel Kelly — 5 stars

Shadoworld by Rachel Kelly — 5 stars

Curse on the Land by Faith Hunter — 4 stars

Hounded by Kevin Hearne — 5 stars

Lobizona by Romina Garber — 4.5 stars

My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero’s Volume 2 by Matsuri Akai and Hiroyuki Aigamo — 4 stars

Flame in the Dark by Faith Hunter — 4 stars

Circle of the Moon by Faith Hunter — 4 stars

Spells for the Dead by Faith Hunter — 4.5 stars

My Hero Academia Vigilantes Volume 7 by Hideyuki Furuhashi and Betten Court — 4.5 stars

The Shadow of Kyoshi by F.C. Yee — 5 stars

Whew, okay, with all of that done, now it is time to move into the book haul and OwlCrate unboxing portions of today’s post.

Yes, most of this book haul is from my “birthday trip” to B&N just a couple days ago. It is the biggest stack I’ve had in a single trip to the bookstore in a long time…21 books in total from me, though I also took a photo of the 5 books Damian bought himself, and the 1 book he bought me for my birthday (as well as “My Neighbor Totoro” chopsticks).

Okay, and here’s the OwlCrate. I am actually very happy with the OwlCrate exclusive cover this time around. The color change really makes this book stand out, and the shimmery sprayed page edges are gorgeous; the photo really doesn’t do them justice.

Now I guess it’s time to talk about my August TBR. Noura at The Perks of Being Noura is hosting the Diversify That Shelf Readathon August 10-19th and it sounds great, so I want to participate. You can find out all the details at her post.

I still need to narrow down my choices for the readathon, because I want to continue reading diversely the whole month of August, like I have in June and July.

However, here’s some of the books I’m planning on/hoping to read in the month of August. Also, I will definitely be adding The Faithless Hawk by Margaret Owen to my August TBR, but that book will be out on August 18th. Oh, and I’ll have a Blog Tour Review for Where Dreams Descend by Janella Angeles. And if I have time this month I’d also like to read Ignite the Sun by Hanna Howard (release date Aug 18), Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar (release date Aug 11), and Vicious Spirits by Kat Cho (release date Aug 18).

So overall it could end up being a very busy month. We’ll see what happens.

July Wrap-Up and August TBR Hey all, Dani here. It's my birthday today. As usual with my monthly wrap-up, let’s start off by checking in on my overall goals for the year.