Oh Me, Oh My ... It's NaNoWriMo

This right here, is my graph. The graph of my writing progress on Maverick Touch: The Highway. It's been a hell of a month already. Day 10 and I have no idea what the hell these characters are doing inside my head. Yesterday I pumped out over eight thousand words and today I'm looking at my laptop going, "Ughhhh no! I want to put you away for the day!" My husband leaves me alone for three nights and I practically kill myself with Microsoft Word.

Friday night I finished the last minute touches on Bud's Christmas Miracle and uploaded all the links for pre-orders. Now I was able to focus on Maverick #2. I have no idea how I was able to pump out that word count. I mean I do, I had people pushing and encouraging me but damn. Now today I have to make sure I write my seventeen hundred words or I'll fall behind again. But I also have edits for Special Assignment I need to do.

Sighs - if I didn't love this job I'd be in trouble. It's just a bit overwhelming sometimes. All the things you have to do when you indie publish. The most important part of course is the writing. Gotta have a product to put out there. But I think the other parts can get over looked. It's not just the words on the page that are important. You have to manage all your own editing. Whether it's trading services with other authors, paying for your own editor, or learning how to edit yourself. Then the formatting. And of course it's not just one style of format. Print books have one, Amazon Ebooks have another, Smashwords has their own, and then the PDF version. Don't forget the marketing, almost as important as the others. Gotta update websites, pay and create ads, schedule posts ahead of time, and of course think up ways to drive traffic to your sites and bring interest in your books.

So now I have NaNo on my brain along with Jake and Charlie from Special Assignment. I'm torn at what my mind wants to write and what my fingers are pumping out. So somewhere I just decided to write a blog.  Too bad these words don't count in my sum total of words for NaNo. I'd be close to 50K by now. I can blog all day long.

I wish there was a way to pause time over a weekend to be able to get everything done ahead of time for the week. That way I could work all weekend and rest during the week in the evenings. I think sometimes people think the life of an aspiring author, indie or traditional, is fun. While yes, the writing is fun, the other crap is tedious and almost more important than the words on the page that you type.

So while I push myself to hit that 50K for the first time in just 30 days I have to remind myself that I can't forget the rest of my 'author' life just because NaNo is demanding my time. What I found really helps me is that support of others in the same or similar situations. Be it fellow NaNoers or authors who are doing the same struggles you are.

And now I'm reading over my randomness and I am laughing. Once again the things on my brain are not what my fingers type. I'm stuck in this complete trance of organic writing and I can't plan anything. Very frustrating yet so rewarding.

Now off I go to finish first rounds of edits on Special Assignment. My editor has gotten tough on me and she's working me over hard. Hopefully tonight after date night with the hubby I can crank out my seventeen hundred words and remain on track for that NaNoWriMo Award!