AnNoWriMo Count

The Goal: 60,000 words in 30 business days

The Period: November 2, 2009 to December 15, 2009

The Story: DeCo (working title)

 

3,000 / 60,000 words (5% done)

 

This post will remain at the top of all others through the AnNoWriMo period. That way, you can see my progress and know when to tease me about falling behind.

Notebooks are Lovely, but…

My computer is back from the PC repair shop! More than two weeks ago, it caught several viruses. The library limits the use of their internet-connected computers to an hour a day, so I feel like I’ve fallen behind on social networking and job searching.

Talking of falling behind, I’m about 6,000 words behind on AnNoWriMo. I’m guessing at the count, because the story draft is currently all on paper and manually counting each word is annoying. I’ll type the existing pages into Word for an accurate count. Then maybe, I can catch up. Typing is easier than writing by hand when you don’t need to see corrections.

AnNoWriMo

A feverish insanity strikes the world of writers this time of year. Despite my efforts to strengthen my mind against this recurring outbreak, I’m not immune.

That’s right. I’ve caught the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) bug.

However, I’m not precisely following the NaNoWriMo rules this year. So that I can work on DeCo (a somewhat existing novel), I’m modifying the challenge.

Between November 2 and December 10, my goal is to write 60,000 words of new story draft for DeCo. I intend to work from a new outline.

This is AnNoWriMo (Ann’s Novel Writing Month), which sounds better to me than MoNoWriMo (Modified Novel Writing Month) and shouldn’t mislead anyone.

I’ll post on my status during this period. Good luck to anyone participating in the official NaNoWriMo!

The Literary Lab Genre Wars Contest

Want an excuse to write or polish a less than 2,000-word short story?

Here’s one. The Literary Lab is accepting submissions for the 2009 Genre Wars Fiction Writing Contest through December 1.

This contest is free. Twenty to thirty winners will be included in a print-on-demand anthology that will support an as-of-yet unidentified non-profit reading/writing group. Six genre class winners will see their short stories and an interview on The Literary Lab blog, plus they will receive at least one token gift card to any bookstore. One of the genre class writers will win bragging rights as the overall winner.

The genre classes:

• science-fiction/fantasy
• horror/crime
• literary
• romance/women’s fiction
• children’s literature/middle grade/young adult
• experimental

More information, including how to submit, is available from The Literary Lab’s announcement post.

Where, oh Where, can Ann Be?

Hi. I thought I’d let you know how I’m doing on my non-writing goals, as well advertise a writing contest that ends today.

My goals and progress:

• Get a steady job, or jobs, that will cover at least half of my household’s expenses.

Yeah, I haven’t worked much on this. Though my current job ends at the end of the month and doesn’t cover enough expenses, I’ve allowed other activities to distract from job hunting. Not tomorrow! Tomorrow, I’m visiting several businesses to hand in applications.

• Progress our fledging business enough that my husband is teaching paying students.

I’m waiting on a quote for liability insurance. Lawsuits probably aren’t fun at all.

• Clean, fix, and decorate my house so that I’ll feel comfortable with visitors.

Some walls need new paint, the library needs more bookshelves, and several areas need re-caulking. Other than that, I’ve accomplished this goal. A few friends dined at my house last night, and I was comfortable for part of the night.

~ ~ ~

Literary agent Nathan Bransford is running a first paragraph contest. Anyone may enter by including a first paragraph (presumably for a novel) in a comment to the contest blog post. The deadline to enter is today at 4pm PST.

I may throw the current first paragraph of DeCo against the thousands of other entries, just for fun.