OK this is for all participants in NaNoWriMo, to keep us up to date with your progress! You can also post in area-specific forums to get specific help in those areas .

I'm writing a nature-mystery and I began it today at 4:30pm. I ended writing at 5:30pm. I finished my first chapter, and wrote 2680 words. So I'm on my way! I enjoyed it a lot. It was great fun.

I had gone out to the woods earlier in the day, so the smells, sights, and sounds were all fresh in my mind. And we even passed a ranger while we were in there, so now he's in my story!

That is great news, Lisa. Congrats on the good start I have just finished writing for the evening and managed 1,720 words.

That's fantastic news Clare! Good for you!

You're getting your mind well oiled and spinning!

Thanks Lisa, I was so pleased to hit my target today. You have done brilliantly, keep up the good work

1,754 on a sci-fi piece. I've never written that much in one day. What a good feeling!

Now I'd better finish my bellaonline writing.

Dear Alice -

That is awesome news! That's exactly what NaNoWriMo is about - to push you out of your comfort zone and show what you're capable of! Congratulations!!

I adore SciFi. Are you posting in the SciFi forum about the novel's content?

I just wrote for 50 minutes and wrote another 2,175 words. So that's 4,855 total for me so far. I'm enjoying this immensely. I am doing it a scene at a time so since I already have the scene envisioned, from "walking through it" before I write, I then just write what I imagined .

How are you guys doing today?

I wrote 2226 words today for total of 7081 total. Again I wrote for about an hour today.

Today was my first "day with distractions". My son decided to come over for the weekend, and Bob was out shopping. So first I was writing in James' room while he did computer stuff, but then he decided to start watching videos which was quite distracting. And then Bob called part-way through to ask what type of Chinese he should bring home for dinner. So I was trying to write from 4:20pm to 5:30pm. In the middle was 5 minutes (I timed it) on the phone with Bob and then 5 minutes when I gave up on working there and moved my laptop and stuff all downstairs to the living room.

Still, despite the distraction I had great fun writing out today's scene. Today with James being here I didn't go out and "walk the ground" as I'd done the first two days. I had to just write about going to Paul's house instead of actually going there as I'd wanted to. Still, I've been there enough times that I could describe it well, and I used the actual weather and such. Much of today's writing was laying out the field of suspects, so that dialogue was not dependent on physically being somewhere.

So far so good! I'm enjoying the story flow immensely, and enjoying how the characters are developing.

I'm not going back to revise or edit at *all* right now. I'm simply staying with my one-hour-a-day project to see how this could work for others who are thinking about attempting NaNoWriMo and who have limited free time.

Every time I try to post about my writing something happens and messes things up and suddenly my "nearly finished" post gets deleted. So, I'll try one more time and hope to get it posted.

I've been doing my writing shortly after midnight each night (and once a little bit before). I'm still a couple hundred words ahead, but I'll be getting a little bit behind tonight due to getting up early tomorrow for meetings.

This is the longest I've stuck to my NaNoWriMo in the previous years of signing up to meet the challenge. But, this year, I believe I actually have it in me to win.

PS I'll gladly take all the words of encouragement I can get.

Dear Beverly -

I'm sorry to hear about the forum, hopefully it is behaving better now!

That is great that you've found a schedule that works well for you, and you're even ahead of things! Congratulations!

You definitely can do it. I absolutely believe in you . Take it one day at a time!

I'm just joining the Bellaonline community all together. I signed up as member probably about two months ago but it wasn't until I was just accepted as an editor last week that I've really started learning my way around the website. I've been reading all your posts about NaNaWriMo and think it sounds like a great challenge! As a preteen and teenager I use to write all the time. In fact, I have five fully finished handwritten novels in some box back in my parents home, but I haven't challenged myself to write a novel since I left high school. I've been thinking about it for a year now and finally started writing one again about the time I found Bellaonline. I'm 6500 words in so with this being the 5th day, I think I'm about a day behind the daily goal Lisa mentioned in her earlier post but I'm going to try my best to see how close to the 50,000 word mark I can get by the end of the month. I'm not very optimistic that I'll make it with a full time job and two small children but it's a challenge worth trying. I wish you all the best of luck and would love to hear more about what you're writing.

Dear Angela -

Welcome - it's great to have you! That is fantastic about your finished novel. You should find them and publish them! We would be happy to help. Self publishing is quite easy and many of us have published novels we wrote when younger. I myself have published medieval novels I wrote in high school and post-high-school. It's a great project!

It is fantastic that you are working on NaNoWriMo! So much of this is about mindset. A negative mindset can affect our energy so much! Put away all thoughts about "it won't work". Erase those. Know that you can do it. Know that many people out there are doing it with kids and jobs.

Yes, absolutely be gentle with yourself. It's OK to miss a day! It's ok to have hurdles! The point is not to be rough with yourself. The point, instead, is to have glowing energy. It can work. The more you know something CAN work, the more it DOES work. And the more you're gentle with the normal hiccups, the more they fade away.

This is all training for real life. The more you build that glowing, solid energy within you, and the more you can ignore the nay-sayers, the more *everything* becomes easy in life. The more *every* project finds success. That is what this is all about!

What type of novel are you writing? I'd love to hear more about it in that novel's area! For example mine is a mystery so I'm posting the specific details in the mystery books forum .

I am now on Day 5 and I have reached 12,560 words. My average is 2,512 words a day, at an hour or less a day. I am striving to stay within the hour to show everyone that this CAN be done even on tight time. And I am not rushing at all. I am not "frantically typing nonsense" . I am flowing out scenes and characters that I adore.

I think that is a key thing to keep in mind here. It is about creating a mindset that it CAN BE DONE. Believe in yourself. Believe in your characters! Let all judgement go. Know that the story you have within you deserves to be told. This is a first draft. That is fine. Release that writer's block and critical voice and simply let your mind do what it was meant to do. The more you do it, the better your mind gets at it. The more you practice, the better you get.

The NaNoWriMo interface is very cool. It encourages you to keep going. Here is my screenshot for the day.



How are you guys doing? It is OK if you hit challenges!! Challenges are normal. Challenges are fine. Keep going. Perseverance is what wins out in the end. So many people who have "succeeded" in life say it's not about brains or brawn or money. It's all about sticking with it. Harry Potter's author was turned down 20+ times. WalMart's owner failed several times. So did Macy's. Just keep at it. It's keeping at it that gets you through the hurdles and to your goal.

Made it to 8000 words tonight. Lisa, I guess it would be considered literary fiction. Do I just post it as a new thread in the literary fiction forum or under which existing thread? I would love some feedback so I'll post information on it once I learn where soon. Thanks for the encouragement.

Dear Angela -

That is *awesome* !! Congratulations!

Sure, make a new thread in Literary Fiction! I would love to hear about your work there.

Today I wrote 3052 words. Today was election day so I voted and then we went to a farm stand and then to a local Italian restaurant for the story. The restaurant was deserted. So it was interesting to integrate that into the storyline.

I wrote for an hour. My words for today were 3,025. Again I want to make clear that I'm not pushing or rushing. I'm simply writing out what is happening.

Hi Lisa,

I just read your question about posting in the sci-fi forum about the content. I have issues with discussing too much of a work in progress. It always seems to stop the flow. The most I do is throw out a few ideas at hubby. With it being sci-fi, if he gets excited about it I feel like I'm on track.

I'm at 8,052 so far today. A bit behind for nano but way ahead of what I thought I could do.

Thank you all for such a supportive writing environment.

Alice

btw - I can't even imagine typing 3,000 words in an hour if the story were sitting right in front of me. That is impressive!

Ugh, this is a tough year! Not so much because of the story, but because of time restraints... we're in the process of doing some work on the house to get it up for sale, starting to work out the logistics of a move to another country, on top of work and work and more work. My husband works 80+ hours a week, so when he's home, we spend what time we can getting some fun things in.

That said, I'm right at the 10,000 mark. Hoping to get ahead today, as I have the day off from work... we shall see. My dogs aren't thrilled with mom sitting at the computer all day... but the occasional game of fetch will at least quiet them for a little bit.

Lisa - love the idea of writing in different places... I find that, too, that there's something about your surroundings that can really spark the creativity - especially when you're in the place you're writing about!

Good afternoon, ladies, I posted a synopsis type of thing that I sent to my sister awhile ago about my writing project in the literary fiction forum. Feedback and direction would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. And happy writing to everyone.

Dear Alice -

Absolutely we are all different and we want to make sure your flow goes smoothly! Whatever works for you in terms of having that go smoothly. What I find for me is just making even quick daily posts about how I'm doing helps me stay motivated. It gives me yet another reason to sit down for that hour and write.

In terms of typing 3,000 words in an hour, that is a rate of 50 words a minute. Apparently the average professional typist types from 50-80 words per minute. Advanced typists go at 120 words per minute. So absolutely we all have different typing speeds, and that is fine! The more one practices, the faster one gets, and being able to type quickly is definitely a benefit for SO many aspects of modern life. So in a way this is excellent practice for building up one's typing speed!

If you're curious, we have an online typing test -

BellaOnline Typing test

It rates my speed as 112 words per minute. So yes that's fairly quick, which absolutely helps me in all my writing tasks. I build that up over years of practice and I'm very happy that when I need to write my fingers fly as quickly as my brain does.

Another option if you don't want to take the time to build up finger speed is to get Dragon or other speech recognition software and simply speak out your writings. In my case, I type faster than I speak, so the typing is the quicker route for me.

Debra -

You are incredibly inspiring! Absolutely other editors will take heart - if you can find the time to write 10,000 words in six days, with your challenges, then everybody else can too! It shows that this is definitely possible. It's all about taking little chunks each day and focusing. This whole project is about learning to focus and to shrug off distractions. These are skills that serve us well in all parts of life!

Dear Angela -

I'll go take a look in Literary Fiction! Thanks for posting!

OK we are on Day 7 - officially one week of NaNoWriMo progress! Hurrah! Isn't it amazing how quickly that week went by?

I am now at 18,097 words total. Today I wrote 2,512. I wrote for about an hour. Things were a little slower for me today, because it wasn't as much about action or describing forests or nature or such. Instead, it was explanatory dialogue as the characters are trying to sort out what is on the dead man's hard drive. So instead of just streaming out a description of the forest path with its nuthatches and turkey tail mushrooms, I had to craft the dialogue more carefully.

And also I didn't spent as much time between yesterday and today plotting out what today would be about. So I had to stop and think about where I wanted to go with the story today. Usually I have that all decided and just write it out.

Still, progress!

How are you guys doing? How has your first week gone?

Day 8 is here!

My tally is 2,157 words for today. I was writing while eating sushi so it was sort of an eat-and-write time period. Also, this was "background filler" for my story, to catch up on some details, which I'm less fond of writing. It wasn't all the "walking on a trail in the woods" scenes that I adore. But it had to be done .

So I'm at 20,254 total, and chugging along! Tomorrow I get to go out and eat with a couple so that should be nice.

Chime in with your story!

I'm at 10,238 and starting on Day 9. Hubby didn't care for yesterday's "big idea" but I'm going to ignore him and move on, keeping his thoughts in mind to maybe change some things later.

He doesn't read my work. I just bounce ideas off him. Sometimes before writing and sometimes after.

That's great news on your progress, Alice! Congratulations!

Yes, absolutely, write what you want to write. Nobody knows the full story and background the way you do. You know how everything will fit together and how the emotions move. Trust in your instincts!

Day 9 had me going to a local restaurant to scope it out. The chapter for the day was then about me taking a suspect there and questioning him. So that was fun.

2,363 words today, for a total of 22,617 overall.

Tomorrow should be fun too! Another "location visit".

How are you guys doing?

Thanks, Lisa!

Approaching the 16,000 word mark, with the next two days off from work and the goal of getting ahead of where I should be. So far so good? Dare I say that? As long as I don't go back and re-read, I might be ok!

That's so true that what we learn from Nano serves us in all parts of life. Sometimes we just have to put our heads down and plow through... sort it out when we come out the other side!

That is wonderful news, Debra, congratulations! You sound like you're doing great!

I agree that focus and sticking-with-it are great skills to work on!

Bob's band had a gig last night so we got home after midnight. Since I wanted to work the gig into the story I didn't write "yesterday's chapter" until today. SO I just finished that now. I wrote for an hour and wrote 2,183 words. My current total is 24,800 words.

I'm about half that at 12,246 this morning. Getting to work now for some catch up time.

You are making great progress, Alice, we all go at different rates! And that is quite fine

I had thought about double-writing on a day to make up for the day I "missed" - but then I thought this would be an even better way to maintain the experiment. People will miss days. So I will go forward with my desire to see if this can work with only one hour a day and sometimes missing a day. So far it's looking good!

Today I wrote 3,091 words in an hour and have now officially crossed the halfway mark. I am at 27,891 words. The words flowed smoothly, I was done at the hour mark with what I wanted to write, and I'm content!

Yesterday ran late so I wrote up yesterday's events today. We had a most gorgeous sunset so I added that into the story, as well as the restaurant I ate dinner at.

So today's writings about that were 55 minutes, for 2252 words. I am now up to 30,143 words total.

I'm filling in background in the story, because I can't interview the final suspect until Thu or Fri.

How are you guys doing?

I'm at 15,615 and hanging in there by my fingernails. Worked on a bit of an outline today so there's lots of new ideas for tomorrow. Crossing my fingers on that.

Dear Alice -

That's great news! Congratulations!

I had dinner with a friend, and we were talking about writing. She's read many biographies of writers. What she found (and many talked about) is that in the end tenacity is key. There are many awesome writers out there that we've never heard about, because they didn't stick with it. They gave up. They stalled. The ones we *do* read and hear about are the ones that made it through. In many cases they weren't even "the best writer". They were simply the one that hung in there and got their story done.

So it's a key for all of us - to build up that stick-with-it skill!

Today was a good day. 2,075 words for a total of 17,690. It's finally clicked in which direction I need to go for an actual plot. Now if I can keep up the steam.

You are inspirational Lisa. Plus I just heard from a friend in my writing club that she's involved in nano. We're a bit competitive and about at the same level in our writing.

Great job, ladies! I've been checking in here and there. Been writing daily but not always on my story. But I am at 12, 057 words and I spent one evening outlining each chapter so I feel like that is giving me more direction and guidance. Who knows how closely I'll stick to it because you know some new idea always comes along but at least it gives me a skeleton to build off. Keep up the hard work!

Dear Alice -

That's wonderful news, I'm glad the plot is settling in for you! Remember, you can always edit later. That's fine! For now, plow ahead and see what inspiration connects with you .

That's great that you have a fellow writer to compare notes with!

Dear Angela -

That's great that you're writing daily. It's such a good skill to build up in life! The more you write, the easier it gets, the faster you type, the more your brain's wheels spin smoothly.

I agree on the outlining idea. I have a general idea of where my story is going to go - but I'm also willing to let it diverge and spin, as it develops!

Today I reached 40,655 words. I'm still making sure I write only for an hour or less each day. So for those of you out there who feel you "only" have an hour a day to focus on your writing, you can do it! That hour is more than enough to make your dream of writing a novel come true. Take that first step and get it started!

It doesn't have to be for NaNoWriMo. It can simply be because this is a dream of yours .

Today I reached 40,655 words. I'm still making sure I write only for an hour or less each day. So for those of you out there who feel you "only" have an hour a day to focus on your writing, you can do it! That hour is more than enough to make your dream of writing a novel come true. Take that first step and get it started!

It doesn't have to be for NaNoWriMo. It can simply be because this is a dream of yours .

Today I wrote for 60 minutes. I wrote 3,168 words and have a total of 43,823 words down.

I'm on a roll now that my roadblock of eating at that restaurant is done. I can finally move my plot forward and it feels great. I knew exactly what scene I wanted to write today. Tue, Wed, and Thu will all be quite easy too because they're based in part on real life things I am doing. So I'll get to describe the places and people which is always immensely fun.

I'll miss this project when it wraps up! I'm loving it .

How are you guys doing?

My nanowrimo story is now up to 47,253 words. It's nearing the target point of 50,000 words!

I'll keep writing past that milestone, since most of my stories tend to be about 80,000 words minimum. My story arc aims for the story to end on Nov 30th, so we'll see what the final word count ends up being.

I wrote for my 60 minutes today.

Keys for me for smooth writing seem to be:

* quiet, focused atmosphere
* think about the story during the day
* take mental notes on weather / nature during day
* then just write. Let it all flow out smoothly and easily. It's like writing in a diary. I simply write what I see and thought about.

What do you guys find help you?

Today I'm sitting on the 6th floor of the Holiday Inn looking out over the beach and the endless ocean. None of which fits into the sci-fi that I started on unless my heroine dreams about living on the planet earth. (:

I love your idea of using moments of your real life in the story.

Dear Alice -

LOL or she could visit a water-world, one that is all ocean I suppose that's the cool thing about sci-fi, that you could create any planets you wanted to, with any wild atmospheres and terrains!

Hurrah! I can report success! I have officially crossed the 50,000 word mark today. I have "completed" National Novel Writing Month, on day 22. I wrote only 60 minutes or less on a given day. I skipped a few days when my schedule got busy. And even so I have the full word count in!

The story is not done yet. I'm going to keep writing until November 30th so I can finish out the plot. I still need to have the culmination of the investigations and the unmasking of the culprit and so on. So still a ways to go.

My target novel length is about 80,000 words so that will make sense.

Still, I'm extremely pleased with the story I've written. I enjoy the dialogue, I enjoy the natural references to sunsets and mushrooms and the call of a nuthatch. I relate to the characters. So this is very much a "real story" that will just need some polishing when the initial novel is completed.

I highly recommend that people think about doing this next year! It absolutely *can* be done. If you've dreamed about writing a novel, this could be the perfect way to push past those excuses and get it started!

This goes to show how important a goal is. Once I reached my 50k goal for nanowrimo I stopped.

I finally prodded myself to write for an hour today, but that means I "lost" the intervening days in my story in terms of timing them to my real life. What I wrote about today was the Thanksgiving dinner, which I definitely wanted to include. The previous day I'd written about was the pre-Thanksgiving day which story-wise made sense.

But that means that I don't have my chapters written for Fri, Sat, or Sun (today). And with the story moving fairly quickly now I don't want to have an entire day go by without anything happening. That would seem odd.

So I think since I've achieved my 50,000 word goal of only-one-hour-a-day I may now allow myself to "cheat" and write more than an hour in a day, to catch up. That way I can keep doing my "write about today when it happens" style which I was enjoying so much.

I still want to enthusiastically say that if you have only an hour a day that you CAN achieve your dream of writing a novel. I just wrote 50,000 words in just an hour a day, in under a month. You can do it!

My nanowrimo story is now at 61,791 words and I've written through Sunday night in terms of "real time". So Tuesday afternoon when I wake up I'll write about Monday's activities and be caught up .

Part of my challenge is that I no longer have "places to go" to research my story. I really like writing about a new place and its looks and textures and so on. Maybe I need to find another place or two to set my final scenes, so I can get out of the house and explore them.

My aim is to have the final reveal on November 30th. So I have four more days of "final investigation" here before I get to writing up Friday and catching the killer. Then December 1st is a Festival of Lights here, so that will be the epilogue chapter with the happy couple.

ADDED: In terms of page count, I am at 209 pages right now. My shortest novel out of the 10 medieval novels I've published is 230 pages, so I'm on track to be within that range when I finish. So that's good too.

My 12 year old daughter Joanna decided to aim for 18,000 words for NaNoWriMo.

This morning she was at 15,000 and has written on and off all day.

With 2 hours left in the month of November, Joanna has finished her second novel. "My Adventures in Aeternum." She's written 18,171 words for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) since November 1st.

Now the proofreading begins...

Dear Tina -

That is fantastic news, congratulations to your daughter! That is fantastic that she is developing these perseverance skills .

Aspen Allegations, my murder mystery set in Sutton Mass, is now complete! Hurrah! I'm beginning the publishing process .

I've won a gold! I've won a gold!

Aspen Allegations has won the GOLD award for best regional ebook east of the Mississippi River! That's a huge category. I am just SO thrilled.

Thank you SO much to everyone who encouraged and supported me through this process. It is thanks to you all that I was able to achieve this!

And this shows that NaNoWriMo absolutely can work!