End of November Events

I will be doing a series of speaking/writing engagements to cap off November.

On Wednesday November 27th I will be the featured author during the Brantford Public Library's Aspiring Author Gala Showcase, which is a chance for authors from the community to meet, share a bit about their work and then learn from a colleague.  I'll be sharing a bit about my publishing history, how I have embraced both traditional publishing and self-publishing and also do a reading.

Brantford Public Library, 173 Colborne Street, Brantford, ON -  6:30 PM  - FREE EVENT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

The lovely poster that the good folks at Brantford Public Libary made for this event

On Thursday November 28th I will be speaking with the Sudbury Writers Guild on a talk entitled EMBRACING ALL OPTIONS. I will discuss self-publishing, digital publishing, outlining the various options available to writers. While I will be covering a multitude of opportunities for writers I will, of course, be sharing detailed insights and about all that Kobo Writing Life has to offer to writers and help authors who are taking advantage of eBook publishing to sell more.

Kinsmen Room B in the Parkside Older Adult Centre at the YMCA (140 Durham Street , Sudbury, Ontari) - 6:30 PM -

On Friday November 29th I will be signing copies of SPOOKY SUDBURY at the Coles in New Sudbury Centre between 1 and 3 PM.  To celebrate BLACK FRIDAY, I'm offering all shoppers free copies from a selection of my eBooks at Kobo. (And, no, you don't need to own a Kobo reader in order to read them - you can use one of the FREE Kobo apps on virtually any device. Also, the books in which I own the rights to have no DRM on them, so the ePubs can be moved onto any device that reads ePub files (like a Sony or Nook reader - although, let's be honest, the Kobo readers are the best ones on the market anyway - and yes, I suppose I'm a little biased)

And on Saturday November 30th, I'm going to desperately try to finish my NaNoWriMo novel. I'm in the home stretch now, with less than 10,000 words to go......

NaNo NoNo's

So NaNoWriMo is half over.


At just over 20,000 words, I'm slipping behind. I can blame the extremely long hours that I work, all of the traveling I have done these past few weeks and the fact my job is one of those 24-7 ones where I dip into email at virtually any hour of the day.

But, ultimately, I have NOBODY to blame but myself.

My stats as of 8 AM this morning - I wrote for about 1 hour and produced 1000 words. I need to write at least a few more hours today and a few more hours on Sunday to get back on track

Here are a few things that I have done wrong.

1) PLAN & OUTLINE
I fully intended to outline the entire novella I'm working on in advance. At least get the beats down. And I had started on it - I had made some notes regarding the generic story arc, but I never completed more than the first third of the novella's detailed story beats. So far, it has been good, and I have (as always happens) discovered characters and situations and scenes that never occurred to me while planning the story -- but that has also slowed me down, meaning I might produce 1000 words on a particular day rather than the 1667 required.

2) EMAIL & OTHER DISTRACTIONS
I have dipped into email first thing in the morning, where I had originally budgeted a half hour to one hour slot for writin, and ended up falling down the rabbit hole that my 24-7 job can often become. The work will never go away, there'll always be well more than I can tackle. Thus, if I don't put writing first before digging in to email, I'll never get back to the writin.

3) NOT WRITING EVERY DAY

To get 1667 words per day, I need to plant my butt in a chair and produce words. Simple enough. I must remember my favourite writing quote, which comes from Hugh Prather: " />If the desire to write is not accompanied by actual writing, then the desire is not to write."

Here are a few things I have done right:

1) I have taken advantage of unique fresh time-slots and locations to get extra writing done - at the airport, on the airplane; writing instead of watching TV at night, etc. I have also used an audio dictation while in the car to record notes and story beat ideas

2) I have done my best to shoot for 2000 words rather than 1667 words, so I can buffer myself for those days I don't write, or don't write as much. The reality is, those no writing days, or less writing days will happen, so that buffer has helped.

3) I have kept at it and not let myself get discouraged. When I look at the monthly chart above, I see more green than red, so far. Sure, I'm behind, but I'm still fighting the good fight.

I look at it this way -- even if I don't hit 50,000 words, the fact that I have dedicated time to getting writing done is a GREAT thing. In my mind, EVERYONE who writes at least SOMETHING during NaNoWriMo ends up ahead.

I plan on getting back on track this weekend by investing a bit more time and ensuring that I can hit this forthcoming week AHEAD of the curve, rather than continuing to fall behind.

We'll see how that turns out.

NaNoWriGo

It's crazy that I haven't posted to this blog since October 10th - particularly since this has ben the most wonderful time of the year. And I'm not just talking about the great Halloween season that I adore, but about the release of SPOOKY SUDBURY and all of the promo, events, book signings for the Sudbury book as well as HAUNTED HAMILTON, the release of another short story in TESSERACTS SEVENTEEN, taking place.

But, alas, work has been absolutely crazy, and taken away virtually any free second I have had.

Which is what makes November, and NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) that much more important.

I have signed up and committed to writing 50,000 words this November as part of NaNoWriMo. Last time I signed up (2006), I wrote only about 40,000 words, but that work turned into the forthcoming novel A CANADIAN WEREWOLF IN NEW YORK (which I'm rolling out a draft version of on Wattpad)

This time, I'm writing a novella tentatively titled EVASION.  And, though I have some notes and an outline for the novel started, I haven't written a single word yet.  Here's my NaNoWriMo profile page.

Today is the start of that, here is my tracker (so far 0 words written).

I'm traveling today for work, but do plan on taking advantage of some layover time to get some writing done today - and for the rest of the month will have to sneak in short bursts of writing time amidst all the other things keeping me busy......

Ready, set . . . GO!!!!!