Liam Livings
Twitter
  • Home
  • Books
    • Kieran series >
      • Kieran's Out
      • Kieran's Pride
      • Kieran's Prince
    • Kev Series >
      • Adventures in Dating...in Heels
      • Rocky Road of Love...In Heels
      • Kicking Up My Heels...in Heels
    • Regiment of Majestic Gays Series >
      • The Regiment of Majestic Gays
      • I Should Be So Lucky
      • Say You'll Be Mine
      • Don't You Want Me
    • Christmas Books >
      • Plus One Christmas Elf
      • Coincidental Christmas Boyfriend
      • Bear Best Friend
      • Mistletoe Kisses
      • A New Life For Christmas
      • Silver Daddy Jingle Bells
    • Standalones >
      • And Then That Happened
      • Wrong Room, Right Guy
      • The Guardian Angel
      • The Player and the Geek
      • The Journalist and the Dancer
      • Unlocking the Doctor's Heart
      • Guarding the Prince
      • Wild for You
      • Love on the Dancefloor
      • Finding Home
      • Perfect Catch
      • The Trouble With Rent Boys
      • When Robbo Met Daniel
    • Non-Fiction >
      • Marketing the Romance
  • Contact
  • GHOSTWRITING SERVICES
  • Liam's Lovely News

How I Won Nanowrimo 2015 in 15 days

30/11/2015

3 Comments

 
Yep, you guessed it, I've only been and gone and done it again. Not wanting to be too boasty and smug, but I've won Nanowrimo. As before, I responded well to a deadline. I made the most productive use of all time I had, and wrote on planes, mainline trains, Tube trains, at home early morning and outside in the bright sun. Here's how the word count went.

I wrote it all on my Alphasmart Neo, which is why I could write it in so many places, if I'd have used my laptop I couldn't have written on the plane or outside, and it would have been unlikely I'd have written on the Tube because it's a heavy laptop to lug about. It helped with my early morning, bleary eyed writing sessions at home because there was no 'I'll just check my email or facebook' when I turned it on, it was instantly on, and I was very soon writing, and only writing.
Week 1

  • 7 November – 6500 words – on the flight to Tenerife
  • 8 November – 3500 words – outside on the terrace in Tenerife
Week 2

  • 10 November – 5177 words – outside on the terrace in Tenerife
  • 12 November – 5334 words – outside on the terrace in Tenerife
  • 13 November – 4260 words – outside on the terrace in Tenerife
  • 14 November – 5366 words – on the flight home from Tenerife
Week 3
  • 16 November – 3203 words – in my local library – my new favourite place to write, plenty of space and seems to give me a welcome change from writing in my spare room where I usually write at home.
  • 18 November - 2728 words – on the London Underground
  • 19 November – 2633 words – at home
  • 20 November – 2244 words – on the London Underground, Docklands Light Railway and a flight to Amsterdam
  • 22 November – 1032 words – in a friends' flat in Amsterdam. I then plotted the missing scenes needed while on the flight home from Amsterdam and waiting in the lounge at the airport. No words counted, but still time spent on the novel.
Week 4
  • 24 November – 2854 words – at home
  • 25 November – 2415 words – at home
  • 28 November – 3113 words – on the London Underground
  • 29 November – 3418 words – on a train to Swindon and back.
Week 5
30 November – 0 words, formatting into double spaced and indented paragraphs and integrating the extra document into the main document.

The statistics

For some reason there's a 1000 word discrepancy between the Alphasmart's word count and my laptop's word count, but I'm told different devices can do this, so I'm not too worried. Using the lower of the two totals – 53479 words, over 15 days, that's an average per day of 3565 words, or an average per week of 13369 words.

And finally

Yes, it's rough. Yes, there are lots of spelling mistakes and lines with xxxx FIX THIS SCENE or xxxx RESEARCH THIS or sometimes xxxx THIS SCENE IS TERRIBLE, but I am a great believer in a sh**ty first draft that's only for the author. Yes it'll need a really thorough self-edit before going to beta readers and more fixing after that, before it's ready to submit, but now, I have the words on paper, now it's not just a 'wouldn't it be nice to write this story' idea floating around my head. I have made it happen. And in my experience, that's the difference between all the people who say they'd like to write a novel, and wish they had the time, and wouldn't it be lovely to actually write a whole novel, and the other people who sit their bum in a chair, and put their fingers to the keyboard and actually write the novel.

I'll blog about what the story is about and maybe include a very rough extract, but that's for later.
When people ask me how on earth I can write a whole novel, I simply reply, 'One word at a time.'
How did your Nanowrimo go this year? I'd love to hear from you.
Liam Livings xx

PS: In the meantime, here's the pictures that inspired me to write the story.


Picture
Picture
3 Comments
Becky Black link
30/11/2015 11:18:22 pm

Well done Liam! I;ve reached the 50k in 15 days before, but I don't push myself that hard these days. :D

I got to my 50k on the 29th of November. It was mostly a steady progress kind of month, just keeping up to the target most of the time, and even a little behind for the last couple of weeks, before a catch up on the final weekend. I took the 30th off.

It's my 10th NaNo win in a row. Thinking of making this my final year, but I can imagine as autumn rolls around next year I'll be thinking "Hmm. NaNoWriMo, yes or no? :D

Reply
Liam Livings
1/12/2015 06:25:33 am

Thanks, Becky. I don't find it as pushing myself, more that I tend to write in bursts of approx 3 - 4k each time. I love Nano, the rush it gives you, the focus it makes you have. My first Nano novel is published this month, The Guardian Angel - and without you and Anna Martin telling me about Nano at UK Meet all those years ago, I doubt the book would exist!

Reply
Becky Black link
1/12/2015 01:54:36 pm

Ah yes, the rush and the focus. It's a great way to refocus on the core mission as it were, and prune back all the time wasting stuff that creeps in gradually.

I love seeing people's NaNo novels published. :D




Leave a Reply.

    Liam Livings

    Gay romance & gay fiction author

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

    Archives

    February 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    March 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    December 2018
    September 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.