Writer's Grove

NaNoWriMo Post-Mortem

Every month for me is novel writing month, but I participated this year via the NaNoWriMo website to try to reach that 50K-word goal on my current project and just document my progress. You’ll never believe what happened next!

Well, you probably will believe it. Especially since I have pictures. Here’s a screenshot of my stats after the last day’s work, from the NaNoWriMo site:

That average per day is the key takeaway for me, because going into this I told folks, including myself, that I average a thousand words a day without any proof. Nice to see that confirmed. But lookit, I can break it down! 

So yeah, I started out strong! First five days were all over the 1,667 average you need per day to hit the 50K mark. And then…the election happened on the 6th and even though I voted by mail a month earlier I just worried about it all day and the next as results came in. On Nov. 10, that goose egg was for the best reason. My kid was home from college and I spent the day with family.

Then the tough part of November arrived with a double whammy. I got page proofs for No Country for Old Gnomes right before Thanksgiving and I needed to turn those around quickly and send them to my co-author, Delilah S. Dawson. That basically began a week of lackluster word counts, but I recovered in the last few days and wound up with an average word count of about 1200 words a day. 

That’s how I roll: Try to write 30K a month. I didn’t even get within spitting distance of 50K, but writing close to 36K for November was nice, especially since I’ve been trying to get 30K minimum each month on A Blight of Blackwings. I began drafting in earnest in August, wanted to be at 120K at the end of November, and I’m at 122K. I’ve decided that’s earned me A WHOLE DAY OFF. Today. Though I’m still blogging and thinking about what I’m writing tomorrow. But I’m going to take Kimberly to see her first live hockey game so that’s gonna be fun.

I hope your writing is going well if you’re a writer. And if you’re a reader I hope you have a good story at your elbow.

In other news: I have TWO! whole appearances coming in the winter, one of which is this week!

Atlanta Area Peeps

I’ll be at FoxTale Book Shoppe in Woodstock, GA at 6:30 pm on Tuesday, Dec. 4! Great time to get some books signed for gifts, eh? Also: If you come to this you’ll be the first peeps in the world to hear a reading from my new series in the Iron Druid universe! If you can’t make it, maybe someone you know can—please spread the word! Or you can call FoxTale and ask them to have me sign whatever you want and they will ship to you!

Pittsburgh Area Peeps

I’ll be in Greensburg, PA at Seton Hill University on Tuesday, Jan. 8 at 7 pm. I’m actually gonna be at the Carol Reichgut Concert Hall so please bring all of your horde. There will be only three titles for sale there: Hounded, A Plague of Giants, and Kill the Farm Boy. You’re welcome to bring anything else you’d like signed. You need a ticket for the event BUT it’s free! Click here to snag one or five or whatever you need. 

Moar Oberon!

A new Oberon’s Meaty Mystery, a coda to the Iron Druid Chronicles featuring Atticus, Oberon, and Starbuck in Tasmania, is coming Feb. 28 in Death & Honey. Right now you can preorder the signed limited edition by Subterranean Press, which includes interior illustrations as well as novellas by NYT bestsellers Chuck Wendig and Delilah S. Dawson writing as Lila Bowen. It’s gorgeous and the art is exclusive to that print edition. You can also preorder the ebook on Kindle and Nook, which has a different cover but the stories inside are all the same. The audio is coming too—Luke Daniels narrating Oberon!—but it’s not up for preorder quite yet. 

Since my blogging is sporadic at best, let me wish you warm fuzzies and hot sauce to you and yours over the holidays.