NaNoWriMo2015 Diary -- Day 25



Day 25

First, HAPPY THANKSGIVING if you're in the USA. For those outside the USA, HAPPY HOLIDAYS, HAPPY AUTUMN, HAPPY THURSDAY!

Second, NaNoWriMo2015 is quickly wrapping up.Less than a week to go. I hope everyone is on track to reach 50k. I'm still aiming for 60k. We'll see what happens in the coming days. My goal is to finish this book and have it be 60,000 words. But we'll see what the story dictates, as the story is ultimately the final arbiter of word count. I don't believe in artificially-imposed word counts based on industry standards. If your YA Romance is 130,000 words and the plot and story and characterization are solid, then there's no need to edit your manuscript down to 80,000 words merely because of the perception that young adults aren't capable of reading anything longer than 80,000 words. That is stupid. Order of the Phoenix is quite long. That's only one example.

But at this stage, don't worry or even think too much about word counts. Focus on letting your characters roam about and say all kinds of weird stuff. Let the story tell itself. The word count will fall into place later.

Finally, I feel it is important to discuss back-ups. Are you guys backing up your data? You've spent nearly a month writing a new novel, which is an impressive feat. So make sure you have it backed up and saved in at least two places. At least once a week, at a MINIMUM, save it to your external hard drive if that's what you do. Save it to your USB drive/SD card every day or two after writing if that's what you do, if perhaps you have a little flash drive or SD card especially for your writing. Email it to yourself. That's what I did a minute ago. I sent myself an email with seven different files attached, all pertaining to this NaNoWriMo2015 project. I'm not certain which of those seven documents I've added to since my previous back-up; certainly the outline document, the first draft document, perhaps also the character outline document... So it's easier to simply highlight all seven in the folder and attach them to an email and send them to myself. Each time I do this, I write Back-up #2, #3, #4, etc in the subject of the email. That way, if you ever need to access the data, you simply go back to the most recent email, the one with the highest #, and open it in order to grab what you want. Easy.

Having your data backed up offers peace of mind. Do it regularly. If you're not already, BEGIN NOW. Right this minute. Go do it and come back to this blog post. If you're already conducting regular back-ups, well done; continue to do so. My friend and fellow writer Harvey Noble always says that he recommends backing up the writing at the close of each day's writing session. It is a way to protect the art you've just created. It is also a symbolic act of honoring your craft.

So, we'll move on from here. (Harvey often says that, too.)

NaNoWriMo2015 Day 26 today. We should be at or above 43,333 words as of today. Four more days!!! Can you believe it! But don't focus on that; focus on continuing to write. You can do it!

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