NaNoWriMo 2021 Week 3

Happy Monday!

How did week 2 of NaNoWriMo go for you? Did you hit all your goals? Did you miss all your goals?

The important thing is that you’re still trekking along, whether you’re ahead, on track or behind.

Before diving into this update, make sure to check out my week 2 update to hear about how week 2 went and what my goals for this week were.

NaNoWriMo Week 3 Update

Week 3 has probably been my best week this entire NaNoWriMo. I hit two out of three goals, which is good enough for me!

  • I wrote everyday Monday-Friday
  • I wrote at least 800 words per day

However, I didn’t hit 15k. But that’s okay! This week was absolutely crazy. Not just for me, but for everyone who lives in my city. This isn’t writing-related, but this week has been out of a sci-fi movie or book, so I feel like it’s applicable to share.

On Sunday night (November 14), B.C. got hit by a horrible, horrible rainstorm. It was so bad that it wiped out major highways and basically, flooded everything. I live in Victoria on Vancouver Island, and I wasn’t able to go to school on Monday because the road I take was completely underwater…literally.

Some massive semi-trucks were driving through it but they were struggling, and several other vehicles were on the side of the road flooded and broken down after trying to get through the road. My tiny little Volkswagen Beetle would have no chance.

Anyways, thankfully, things dried up by Wednesday, but that’s when the next “disaster” struck. Due to the heavy rainfalls, the Malahat (our main highway connecting us to the rest of Vancouver Island) was shut down for repairs. However, this is how we get certain items, such as gas.

Do you see where this going?

On Wednesday, I had planned to fill up my car around 11 am on my way to school because I was almost empty. My drive to school is a 10 km drive each way, so I definitely needed gas to make it home.

Around 10 am that day, I get a text from my boyfriend: “You might want to fill up your car now. There’s a gas shortage.”

What?

I didn’t really understand or believe him, but I was like okay, I have a lot to do (I had just gotten home from the gym and showered, but now it was time to get started on blog writing for my clients) but I really need gas. So, I went to the gas station, which is about a one-minute drive away from my house and tried to fill up my car. I spent $0.70 before it ran out!

I am fortunate enough to have never experienced this before and it was weird because this is something that I didn’t see coming this soon.

Lots of people had started to arrive at the gas station and I felt a little panicked. I really needed to make it to school that day and realized I was going to need to fight for gas (LOL).

Anyways, I drove a few km up the road to the next gas station…it was completely out of gas. I drove to the one across the street where a small line-up had formed, however, they had gas! I re-filled my car and lived happily ever after.

There are gas trucks filling up gas stations around Victoria, however, people chose to panic and hoard gas so even today when I am writing this (Saturday), there are still people who aren’t able to get gas to drive to work or school on Monday. Thankfully, the gas stations have limited everyone’s gas intake to only 30 litres, but this still causes some complications for people who need extra for work, like my dad does for his landscaping business.

Isn’t that crazy? This is a reminder to never hoard items, whether it’s food, gas, or toilet paper. Only take what you need!

Okay, now let’s get back into the writing stuff.

Here’s how much I wrote each day and my total word count for the week.

Monday, November 15: 1,047 words

Tuesday, November 16: 1,138 words

Wednesday, November 17: 886 words

Thursday, November 18: 1,058 words

Friday, November 19: 907 words

Total Week 3 Word Count: 5,036 words

Total Overall Word Count: 13,628 words

I’m pretty impressed with this and think that this pace of 5k words a week is manageable for me.

Week 4 Writing Goals

  • Write 1,000 words per day
  • Write Monday-Friday
  • Hit 20k

I am going to count week 4 as November 22 to the end of NaNoWriMo, so my next update will be going up on Wednesday, December 1. Therefore, I think these goals are very realistic for me. Especially since the end of November is the busiest month for students like me.

Let me know how your NaNoWriMo is going in the comments below, and I will talk to you in my next update πŸ™‚

Check out my Instagram for live NaNoWriMo updates!

My Camp NaNoWriMo 2019 Plans!

Happy Monday!

I wanted to start this week off with a productive blog post so that is why I am going to share with you all what I plan to get done during the first round of Camp NaNoWriMo this year in April! Let me know if you are participating and what your goals are in the comments below because I would love to know! If you have no idea what Camp NaNoWriMo is, then read this blog post HERE where I explain all of it! Anyways, onto the blog post.

This year, I’m doing Camp NaNoWriMo a liiitle differently. Basically, instead of working on one single novel idea, I’m working on about 5 different essays and stories. April and so forth is the beginning of lots and lots of scholarship deadlines so I will be using Camp NaNo to get those essays and stories written AND edited completely. Here are my specific writing projects:

  1. Ayn Rand Essay Scholarship Contest – For this scholarship contest, I have to write an 800-1,600 word essay on Ayn Rand’s book, The Fountainhead, on one of their 3 given topics. The deadline for this is April 25th so this will be my first priority during Camp NaNo!
  2. Grandfather’s Clock – This is a short story I’ve been working on for years, and while I just wrote 6 whole drafts of it in the last month, I am going to write another draft or 2, edit that and add it to my portfolio for a scholarship. The drafts always fall between 2,000-2,500 words so I am sure this one will be around there too.
  3. Another Scholarship Essay – I am very excited to write this scholarship essay because it has a travel-themed prompt, being “If you could live anywhere outside North America, where would you go and what would you do there?”. My answer is writing related because it is going to be Edinburgh, Scotland, a very writerly place. The maximum word count is only 500 words so it should not take me long to write at all.
  4. The Night Market Short Story – I have been writing and writing this short story since FOREVER because it NEVER turns out how I want it to, but I think I’ve solved my plot and pacing problem. So, I am very excited to give it another go this April. I am guessing this story will be around 5,000 words…somewhere on the longer side because it does have fantasy elements and those always take longer to develop.
  5. Project Mystic – I guess I am kind of going to be working on my novel project, but I only plan on writing like 10-15,000 words for it. Whatever amount I manage to write during whatever time I have left because the projects above will be coming first. I am very excited to pick this project back up though! It’s been a while.

Overall, I plan on writing around 20,000 words this Camp NaNoWriMo, but I have a feeling I will write a lot more than that. Don’t hold me to that though. Who knows what April will hold! If more scholarship essays come up, I will obviously add those to my project list and that means Project Mystic will get pushed back. However, I will be working on my passion project the first moment I can, whether that is at the end of April, beginning of May or sometime in the summer. My graduation is fast approaching and all the fun but stressful things that come with that, so it is really a touch and go process. Anyways, I am very excited to work on all my projects this Camp NaNoWriMo, and I hope all of you who are participating are excited as well!

Anyways, don’t forget to check out my last blog post as well as all my social media accounts linked down below. Thanks for reading πŸ™‚

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