Tuesday 26 November 2013

It's the end! Of this year's NaNoWriMo attempt that is...

After a few weeks of crawling along tapping out a few hundred words at the occasional stolen moment on a couple of half formed and part baked novel ideas I've decided to call it a day on my NaNoWriMo attempts for 2013.

I've decided to take the opinion that any words written this month are wins considering the tiny amount I managed to write in the last three or four months prior to this one.  Ok, it's difficult if not impossible to write with a newborn but I thought that after a few months things might get easier but it seems that I'm not quite organised enough to crack the writing regularly thing just yet.

So for now I'm going to have to write 2013 off as my least productive NaNoWriMo attempt so far but there will be other years and who knows maybe in the future I'll be able to persuade my son to write his own novel with me.

Tuesday 19 November 2013

Not now NaNoWriMo.

I've only managed to crawl forwards a few hundred words from where I was the other day, so it seems like the momentum of my new story has proved short lived.

After reviewing my record over the last few weeks it doesn't look like I'll manage to write anything significant over the remainder of the month if I keep up my current form and to be honest it's hard enough just keeping my head above water at the moment.

I had thought that it wouldn't be too hard to write with a baby but I feel rude if I contemplate writing whilst my son is awake and when he's asleep I need to sleep myself, do housework or just relax from trying to stop the crying! (Ok, he doesn't cry all the time but when he does it's emotionally draining...)

 I've decided that I'll see what I can do over the next week and then make my mind up about whether I'm continuing with NaNoWriMo or not. Nearly everyone else I know who does NaNoWriMo as well as a full time job have given up so I wouldn't be in bad company if I did but part of me wants to carry on and have something to do other than housework and cat/child wrangling.

Friday 15 November 2013

Yet another NaNoWriMo update.

So I decided to bite the bullet and put my previous story on hold and start the other one which has been plaguing my mind. It kept interrupting my train of thoughts then butting in when I wanted to write the other one.

I don't think either story is great but I'm feeling a bit better now I've encapsulated the start of my other story in a file.

As I'm finding it hard to write anything due to time, energy and Paul stealing my laptop in the evenings to play Minecraft I'm counting the extra thousand words this has given me.  For all I know the two stories could merge into one at some point.

Ok, it's not likely but some words written are better than having no words written!

I'm still woefully behind and think that it would take some kind of miracle for me to catch up to where my word count should be this year let alone win NaNoWriMo. Then again no one would ever get anywhere if they had that attitude all the time would they?  Wish me luck! I'll need it going forward.

Monday 11 November 2013

NaNoWriMo the saga continues...

So despite it being slow going I've decided to carry on plugging away at this prose based challenge and keep trying to hammer a few words out as I sit next to the Moses basket and my son sleeps.

Unfortunately the young do not have all that predictable or useful sleep patterns. At least my son doesn't seem to! I have to be prepared for one of his few 15 minute naps and then leap upon the opportunity. Squandering it by making a drink will doom the writing session to the likelihood of the child awakening and demanding sustenance or the onset of the procrastination ogre.

So progress has been made, about 800 words which isn't bad considering but it's not going to help me meet any sort of deadlines I may have had. I am starting to think about giving up this year as a bad job.

Saturday 9 November 2013

Further tales of woe from the NaNoWriMo front line.

So after my blog post the other day I've had a bit of a word with myself and tried a bit harder to hammer some words out.

I've found that it helped to remove some of the word count pressure from myself and am now starting to approach the 2,000 word mark.  Sometimes you have to remind yourself that if you haven't written for a while you will be rusty and anything you get down is better than nothing.

Now if only I could convince myself of that then I'd be laughing!

Friday 8 November 2013

Carnation tin Chocolate Fudge recipe.

I was going through my cupboard looking for something to eat and I saw a recipe on the side of a tin of Carnation Condensed Milk.  Obviously it seemed like a brilliant idea to make some Chocolate Fudge and not at all like procrastination from my novel....

...suffice to say it was very tasty.  (The baby was annoyed with me for baking mind.)

If you would also like to make this fudge the recipe can be found here. 

You can also you make this recipe using supermarket own brand condensed milk if you wish to boycott Nestle or save a few pennies on your budget. (I made a second batch with ASDA chocolate and condensed milk which also tasted good.) I ended up giving most of this fudge away for Christmas, the bits that didn't disappear down my gullet that is. Heh heh heh!

Thursday 7 November 2013

Another NaNoWriMo update.

So another few days have elapsed and I've only just managed to crawl forward a few hundred more words so I've finally passed 1,000 words but am way behind my 11,667 word target at this point .

I'm not sure if this is more to do with the fact that I'm not keen on the story I'm writing or because I have no sort of peer pressure to keep me moving forwards.  In previous years I've posted about my writing on Facebook and updated my status on a daily basis about my word count but this year I haven't done that. (More fool me!)

To be honest it doesn't help that whenever Dylan's asleep I feel like sleeping myself and half the time I do because my night time sleep is so fractured at the moment. Maybe I ought to revise my word count target to 25,000 words... or less!

Monday 4 November 2013

NaNoWriMo update.

So it's taken me a while but I've finally got around to starting one of my novel ideas.

It's very slow going as I have to wait until the baby is asleep before writing but I'm making more progress than I did last month even if I am miles behind where I was this time last year.

I just need to remind myself that this year isn't the same as last year I can't get up early to write before work or write on lunch breaks,  scribble ideas down on the bus and get my head down to do some serious writing in the evenings as there is no time before work anymore or travelling to work let alone free time in the evenings!

I've looked on a forum for people writing with babies and some people are doing amazingly which makes me feel a bit lazy but thankfully there are a few other parents on there in the same boat as me.

I'm still hoping that I'll be able to catch up to where I need to be but as I've only written 812 words and I should have written 6,667 to hit my 50,000 word target by the end of the month it looks unlikely.

Friday 1 November 2013

NaNoWriMo 2013.

For the last two Novembers I've challenged myself to do NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) where I neglect housework, stave off watching much TV, ignore Paul and the cats to attempt to write 50,000 words in a month.

This year I didn't think I was going to do NaNoWriMo after finding out about my changed circumstances and failing to write a short story in June but I've been talked around and am currently trying to work out a story idea to launch into.

Obviously this will be hard work finding time and energy around breastfeeding a baby but what is life without challenges?

Wish me luck I think that I'm going to need it!