Goal of Logical Dreams: The End of NaNoWriMo 2018 and December goals

It’s December, which means November is over, as is NaNoWriMo.

Logical Dreams was quiet in November as I was focusing on the madness that was NaNoWriMo. 50,000 words in 30 days is no small number.

But I did it. Even if I ended up falling sick along the way. It was a good experience. I found other writers in my area, learnt that writing ‘a little’ was much better than writing ‘nothing at all’ on busy days, and discovered parts about my characters that I hadn’t known about before the month began.

On the last day of NaNoWriMo, I remembered coming home, having already reached the word goal, and instead of pulling out my book (I wrote everything by hand for NaNoWriMo), I just stood, a little lost. The story was complete, what now?

Well, it’s new month, which means new goals. It’s time to switch gears from writing one continuous project where quantity is emphasized over quality to posting one short story a day where every word counts.

Do hang around and I hope you enjoy the stories.

PSA: If you’re looking for writing prompts

This is kinda embarrassing, but I only noticed Daily Post ended its daily prompts a few days after they stopped. Turns out they already announced that they were stopping much earlier.

Reading the comments, there are many people who are sad to see Daily Post close, not just because they have just lost a very good source of prompts but because it is the end of a community.

Wait, community?

The Daily Post was more of a story kickstarter for me rather than a community. Occasionally, I would check out the other entries, hoping to find other stories and finding instead poems and introspective posts. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It just wasn’t what I was looking for.

It is only now that it is over that I realise all the connections I’ve been missing out on. Exploring and commenting on other people’s posts isn’t something I’m good at. This is a good reminder that writing may be a solitary activity, but it doesn’t have to be done alone.

 

Since Daily Post is no longer providing prompts and a common platform for bloggers to meet, what now?

The Daily Post has been an important part of many bloggers’ blogging journey. Just because the site will no longer run doesn’t mean that the prompts or community have to end. Here are a few people who are picking up where the site left off.

 

This group will post their prompts on different days of the week.
Monday and Friday: Dee Kelly
Tuesday: Kate
Wednesday and Saturday: Kristian (you’ll need to search for ‘prompt’ to find them)
Thursday and Sunday: Cyranny’s Cove
Prompts will be It also looks like the prompts may be compiled on Meet the Bloggers.
Edit: find the prompts on Word of the Day Challenge.

I’ve only just found out about these things so I’m not sure how this works, but at least you have a point to start from if you’re looking for prompts. Feel free to let me know if there are any errors or if you know more places where you can get your daily prompt dose.

Happy writing!

The Story Behind Camp NaNoWriMo 2017

In April 2017, I embraced NaNoWriMo’s ‘No plot? No problem!’ mindset and decided to write a 15k story in 30 days without planning anything before hand. The only thing I planned before April was the first few lines because I needed to start somewhere.

Going into the challenge, I also wanted to practice one technique: hooks. I’ve read plenty of stories that didn’t have the best writing or storyline, but threw a big hook early on that compelled me to keep reading until the end. I decided to try that out with Camp NaNoWriMo. In every single part/chapter, I made sure I introduced a new question that I hope would make people want to keep on reading to find out more.

Because of that goal, I spent almost the whole of April doing something like this:

When writing the post: Let’s throw a question/new element/twist/hidden secret/cliffhanger at the end so people are compelled to continue reading

After posting: *freaking out* What’s the answer/secret/thing that happens next/history/truth?

For most of the month, I was discovering the story as I wrote. Which was pretty interesting. I didn’t expect all the extra people and family history that turned up in the end.

Another trick I used when I wrote was to start from the character who knew the least information. Most of the time, that was Darius, but throughout the story there’s always someone who knows more than everyone else. That way, I can focus on what’s happening, and in the next chapter, revisit the scene with another viewpoint character, but this time fleshing out the why/who/how and progressing the story. It’s also a great way to add words 😛

The story is still pretty rough, and I’ll need to do a lot of editing, but I wrote a 15k novelette in 30 days! Will I do it again?

…

We’ll see.

NaNoWriMo Day 15-19

I’ve been doing variations on the same strategies to churn out words in the past few days. On good days, I aim for at least 2k. On bad days, I aim for at least 500. It doesn’t sound like much, but every little bit counts.

We’re stepping into the last third of NaNoWriMo, and I’ve only just reached the halfway mark. This will be tough. If I don’t update very often, it’s because there isn’t much to add, and I’m throwing all the words I can into my NaNoWriMo project instead.

Fellow NaNoWriMo participants, don’t give up. Approaching deadlines have a funny way of bringing words out of hiding 🙂

 

Current total word count: 27046

NaNoWriMo 15

I did so well yesterday… that I didn’t feel like writing much today.

Well, I had other things to do too, and I wasn’t going to slack on my other responsibilities just to hit one goal.

I’m halfway through NaNoWriMo, and now I have a more realistic grasp on which days are actually good for writing and which days aren’t. Armed with this knowledge, I hope my second half of NaNoWriMo would be much better.

To everyone else doing NaNoWriMo, hang in there. Only half a month left to go.

Today’s word count: 896
Total word count: 21069