Moving Forward

The only thing a person can ever really do is keep moving forward. Take that big leap forward without hesitation, without once looking back. Simply forget the past and forge toward the future.
— Alyson Noel

Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.
— Napoleon Bonaparte

March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life's path.
— Kahlil Gibran

NaNoWriMo ended just in the nick of time. Saturday (last week) my NaNo Mojo started wearing off, so the last few stories were a real struggle. But I did it, 30 stories in 30 days. A grand total of 65,846 words for the month. Whew!

The shortest story I wrote was 1,402 words, and the longest was 2,828 words. All but the last were written from prompts from Writer’s Digest. My two favorite stories are the first one and the last one. The first one changed its direction when I was about halfway through it, so I’ll be doing some changes to the beginning so it makes better sense.

The last one, however…I knew how I wanted it to go, but I was running out of time and a couple of the key points of the story eluded me. So I came up with an alternate ending, which is okay but not what the story is going to ultimately be once I figure out the motive for murder. Or maybe I’ll leave the ending it has now, which is kind of a happy ending but not the love story I intended.

Would I do a story a day for another NaNo? You bet I would! BUT I would plan ahead. I still like my themed anthology idea, but I would want a solid idea for each of the 30 stories beforehand. And I had another idea for a themed anthology, which would also require pre-planning.

There were a few times when I struggled with one prompt, finally give up and pick a different one, only to go back to the first one on a different day. And I have about three stories that never got past 200 words that have been consigned to my idea file. Sometimes they just required too much thinking about.

It felt a little strange on Wednesday to not be thinking of the next story. I was going to take the day off but I started feeling antsy and started going over some options for this year’s book flood anthology. Then I started writing a poem for Friday’s post. Thursday, I finished the poem, which I think is the best Sestina I’ve ever written. Friday, I read my reward book (the book I picked up in October to reward myself after NaNo). The Saturday I started putting together my book flood anthology.

Now you may be wondering what’s wrong with all that. Well, I’ll tell you because it’s part of the magic of this year’s NaNo. Normally after a NaNo that’s pretty much it for the rest of the year. I usually even scale back on the blog posts, never mind any other writing or editing. This year I just seem to want to keep up the momentum. It’s downright weird!

AND as soon as the book flood anthology is done, I want to dive right in on the rewrites of An Elemental Spirit. And yeah, it does need to be rewritten, not just edited. The plan is to print off what I have, then delete the thing and start from scratch using the print out as a guide. Yes, it’s that bad.

Finally, I’m back to feeling like a writer again. :-D

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Wordage Report

NEW WORDS:
Flash anthology – 5,952
Blog Posts – 1060+737+833=2,630
Total = 8,582 words

Well, I did warn you to expect a drop in words going forward. Almost 6,000 words for the flash anthology is pretty good, considering I only had three stories to go. But my over all total would have been better if I’d done my spice post last week.

EDITING:
Started editing some pieces for the book flood anthology.

WHAT I’M READING:
I finished reading Local Hero and All I Want For Christmas by Nora Roberts rather quickly as it was a yucky week weather-wise, and I felt more like reading than writing. But I waited until after NaNo to read my reward book, Mile High With A Vampire, by Lynsay Sands.

I finished Fated Mates, by Alicia Montgomery and guessed right as to why the heroine was eating so much. LOL Now I’m starting Treasured Find by Nancy Corrigan. How about that? I remembered to write it down this time. LOL

GOALS
I completed my goal of finishing 30 stories in 30 days for NaNoWriMo – go me! Now I just have to edit those suckers. LOL

Apparently I must do better when under pressure. The spice post did not get written last week. In my defense, I had a busy weekend, which is when I usually do my research, and Monday and Tuesday weren’t much better. I focused on getting my stories done, and I have no regrets in that department.

I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do going forward, but I think I’m going to refine it and start in the new year.

THIS WEEK’S GOALS
1. Do better on the blog posts.
2. Pull Elemental Spirit out of the mothballs and start editing.
3. Work on this year’s book flood book.


Write on.