Summary: Well, that just about does it! 50K words, and I
have successfully completed roughly half of the plot. Now I can rest up for the
remainder of the holiday, and enjoy returning to old projects and releasing my
first publication, Princess of Undersea!
Thanks for joining me on this journey, and I hope you will stick around to
watch the chapters show up on Wattpad! Sign up for your free account now, so
you don’t miss a single moment of this epic adventure!
Tuesday: Phew! After starting the week at 40K, I still managed to hit the requisite 1,667
words for the day and maintain my profound lead! (even if it took a bit of finagling to do it!) I tell you
what, it was almost hard to accomplish the build-up after the huge break-out
between the characters. I mean, writing out Janet’s complaint and the whole
disconnect between Ben, Justin, and Edith was just fine, but it was the
aftermath, where everything still had to stay tense, but I needed to find
closure for the chapter, and it was harder than my piddly little notes let on!
But I made it, Chapter 5 is ALMOST DONE, and I only have 2 more chapters to go,
and then it’s back to the fun part of the story!
Wednesday: First day of Thanksgiving vacation, and I manage
to pull off ALMOST THREE THOUSAND WORDS in my first writing session!
Hallelujah, and let’s get this over with. Chapter 5 is officially finished,
weighing in at just over 5 thousand words, compared to the others which were more
like 3 thousand or so… probably going to have to restructure to even things out
a bit more, but also, I believe that I know exactly how it is. The main fact of
the matter is, I successfully created a plausible emergency scenario, while at
the same time created an opening for my headstrong and staunchly independent
group (well, some more than others) to successfully escape the masses and the
traditional emergency protocols, without actually disregarding said protocols.
They exist, they are happening—it’s just that my characters in particular
weren’t having any of it. At the second writing session, I managed to finish
off Chapter 6, clear 45K words, AND I got myself all geared up to finish
Chapter 7 without too much continuity
errors (it was a little hairy there for about 30 seconds when I got everyone to
the boat with virtually nothing in hand… then remembered that by Chapter 8 they
at least have enough stuff to set up a small survivor camp… so of course they
needed personal things to start with!) and for sure start a little bit of
Chapter 11 just to fill out my 50K!
Thursday: DONE. DONE. DONE-DONEY-DONE-DONE!!! Holy mackerel,
that last 2K was the HARDEST FOUGHT because I was kind of more focused on
getting that tiny word count than “losing myself” in the story, the method I
would use sometimes in the parts where it was easy to imagine all of the little
details. I would picture myself inside the scenario, or mapping out a scene
from a movie, and I would just feel like I was “free-writing” but everything was
absolutely a detail of the story. Who knew it would be so difficult to get
people down a tropical river where there really ought to be lots to see—but how
much detail? And if I do put a lot of detail, how do I know if it’s the right
details? Wouldn’t want to go rambling on and on about something, only to
discover later that IT NEVER EVEN EXISTED IN THAT LOCATION! But I made it
through, I FINISHED Chapter 7, and now I
am DONE with NaNoWriMo!!! FIFTY. THOUSAND. WORDS. And I am immensely proud of
every last one of them. There has been a HUGE difference this year than in
years past, since this is essentially the FIRST time I have actually WON NaNo
with only ONE novel. The last two years were my first times winning ever, but
in 2014, if you remember, I did the “Clay Heroes” story, but that only ended up
28K, so mid-month I had to scramble to find something else—which was actually
okay, because I was stuck in the middle of “The Last Inkweaver” at that time,
so I was able to use the rest of my NaNo word count to add chapters to that,
and I ended up winning. Last year, in 2015, I felt like adding to the ReBible
series, since I had a whole bunch of new ideas that I wanted to try out, and I
hadn’t touched it in a while. So I picked four ideas and ended up getting that
fifty-thousand word count between them—but, again, that was more than just one
idea. The other three years, when I did have just one idea, I never made it to
50K. (Well, 2011 and 2013 for sure—but 2012 was the year I wrote “A Writer’s
Tale”… a month too early, so I really couldn’t know whether or not that would
have been a win or not!) This time? This time is different. This time, my win
is legitimate. Of everything I wrote, it all boils down to just the one novel, The
Amazon Triangle, and I FREAKING DID IT. I’m
going to go have my Thanksgiving dinner now, and I am going to really enjoy the
rest of this month.
So What’s Next?
What’s “Further Upstream” for me? Well, releasing Princess
of Undersea, for one thing, like I
mentioned. As for writing projects, I know I only have a few more chapters to
the end of “Commander’s Courage”, so there is finishing that up… Also I am
going to get back to writing “The Water-Man” on Wattpad, while I’m posting the
chapters of “The Amazon Triangle” for your enjoyment. (For those who are not
aware, you’ll be able to see updates more frequently from me on the development
of my new phase as a published author, and updates from other writings not
on my blog if you go to Facebook and “Like”
my Author Page, “Leslie Conzatti—The Upstream Writer”) And, coming in the new
year, it looks like I’ll have to find something to do… Meanwhile, please could
you, Person Reading This, follow this hyperlink to the Serial Saturday series I
was doing in the months leading up to NaNoWriMo, called “Clan of Outcasts”, and
if you could, just read it and PLEASE leave a comment to let me know if you
want me to continue it? I can’t help feeling like maybe it just didn’t get very
much notice when I was first posting it, but if it really isn’t interesting, I would very much like to know that
feedback, too! I’ve only heard that one person enjoyed it… if there are any
more, please let me know, and
maybe I will post more, if not in December, then starting in January! Thanks a
bunch for your continued support, and I hope you enjoy what you see here!
Catch you Further Upstream!
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