There was no blog post last week, and there won’t be one next week, but I thought I could slip a quick one in today as it’s 15th November. Half way through the month and consequently half way through NaNoWriMo23. I’ve been updating my progress daily on my Facebook Author Page, and weekly on my Instagram account. (Feel free to follow me on one of those if you’re interested. Or look at this post for more about what I’m hoping to achieve with this exercise.)
I posted some of the illustrations that follow on Instagram and I got asked about the badges, so I thought I might give time to a quick post on the subject here.
NaNoWriMo23 – Day 1
If you are logged into the NaNoWriMo website, and registered as a participant, then on the first day you can ‘win’ up to four badges, I think. I got three. (The NaNoWriMo shield is just their logo borrowed for the occasion.)
The three badges are (left to right): for making an initial update after registering to participate; for having written your first 1667 words; and for having updated progress on Day 1.
Does the 1667 badge need more clarification? The NaNoWriMo idea is to write 50,000 words of a novel in the 30 days of November, and 1667 words is 1% (one thirtieth) of 50,000 words.
Yes, I know the whole business of winning badges feels rather childish. Reminiscent of Scouting badges or medals for swimming achievement. But it’s also surprisingly encouraging, and there are more badges to be won in the first week, when you (I, certainly) really need the push to move forward.
NaNoWriMo23 – Week 1
By 7th November I’d written very nearly 13,000 words and ‘won’ five more badges. Three for completing days of writing: day 2 (with a match), day 3 (with low flames) and day 7 (with more fire). I also unlocked badges for passing the five thousand and ten thousand word mark.
My achievement here was facilitated by the day I woke at three o’clock in the morning and lay awake, counting words, for half a hour before I decided to get up and actually write words rather than counting them. That day was my most productive (quantitively) so far. I very nearly wrote 3000 words. Which helped me over the hump to the 10k badge.
Week 2 started out weakly. I wrote daily and updated my accounts at NaNoWriMo, on Facebook and on my Writers’ Group Forum, but I was falling behind the 1667words/day curve again. Then two things happened in the story. I completed the long first Act and focused my attention on writing an interlude that I hadn’t planned in advance. And I started working on Act 2. Both of these led me into more interesting dimensions of the novel, with suddenly more things to write about.
NaNoWriMo23 – Week 2
Coming to end of the 14th day I could see I was going to hit the NaNoWriMo target of 25,000 on 15th November – the half way point. I started to feel I might actually get to the end of the month having written every day. I did, and unlocked badges for 14 days (raging fire) and 25k.
As you see, I also got a badge for updating my score twice the same day. That was entirely an accident. One day I mistyped my score and reduced my running total from 18333 to 1833. (It was the end of the day and I was tired.) So I corrected my mistake and ‘won’ my badge!
The feeling lingers that I might actually get to the end of November having written 50,000. I don’t know where I’ll be in terms of the book at that point. Not at the end, I’m fairly sure, but perhaps two thirds the way through? Then comes the question: Can I keep up the pace and push on to the end of the book before Christmas kicks off?
And what badges are available for that?
Watch this space!
Go John go!! You’ve got this!