Saturday, November 19, 2011

NaNoWriMo Day Nineteen Update

It's been a crazy week.

I did really well on Monday, writing 2,017 words, tying for my third best day so far this month. Tuesday was an average day, at 1,748 words.

Wednesday was my worst day all month. I only wrote 183 words that day.

It's generally been more difficult for the last couple of weeks. I try to write about 400 to 500 words every morning before work. It's quiet, and I can get started on a scene. When I get home after work, it's relatively easy to pick up where I left off and then reach my word goal for the day.

Since the smartboard was installed in my classroom, I've only had a couple of days when I've been able to write in the morning. I've been spending my time adapting my lesson plans to the smartboard.

On the other hand, it's been fun putting the pep talks from the Young Writers Program website into the smartboard software to share with my students. Not all of them have logged into the site, so I'm able to share the pep talks with them this way.

Wednesday was a particularly bad day for writing. I worked all day. Then I spent an hour with my kickball co-coach on the first day of our school's kickball team tryouts. Then I rushed home, picked up my younger son, got us all fed, and back to San Francisco for Family Math Night. We didn't get back home to San Bruno until 9 p.m. I was so tired, I only managed 183 words. I kept falling asleep sitting up at my laptop.

I gave up, updated my pathetic word count for the day on the NaNoWriMo website, and thanked my lucky stars for the word buffer I'd been able to build up so far this month.

I got back on track on Thursday with 1,731 words. Friday, I was very tired, and only wrote 1,045 words. I figured I'd easily reach my wordcount goals on Saturday and Sunday, so I could slack off a bit on Friday.

It was also a good day at school on Friday. Two of the girls in my class have already reached their word goals for the month. I filled in the progress chart hanging up in my classroom for both of them, and gave them their First-Class Novelist buttons. I hope they both keep writing until the end of the month.

Do I really keep track of how many words I wrote each day? Yes, I have an Excel spreadsheet where I do just that. (Yeah, I'm really that nerdy.)

Right now, it's early Saturday afternoon and I've already written exactly 1,600 words. I'll write more this evening after dinner. I'm shooting for about 2,000 words again today.

Tomorrow, I go to the Night of Writing Dangerously. I'm so excited. They reached the goal they wanted, with $50,587 raised. There have been 327 people fundraising for NaNoWriMo, with 216 of them making it to the Night of Writing Dangerously. I'm honored to be one of them, and so grateful to everyone who contributed. I'm sure I'll have lots to say about the Night of Writing Dangerously.

Who knows? I might even post a blog entry from the event itself.

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