Tag Archives: personal

#NaNoWriMo2021 – Days 8-30

PolyWogg.ca
December 12 2021

Way back at the start of November, I committed to the National Novel Writing Month goal of 50,000 words in a month.

I’ve done lots of writing in the past, never thought I’d do a binge one, but was feeling a little lethargic about my HR Guide. I want a full update for January, so I buckled down and wrote, wrote, wrote.

I had hoped to reach 70K, but life intervened. I found it difficult to write much at night, and I was using a poor physical setup to write close to my son’s computer. He was also writing and I was impressed with his commitment. Not sure how we’ll maintain that going forward, but we’ll find a way. He’s got a good idea, but keeping the faith will be hard for him.

I set a blazing initial pace, hitting 30K+ easily by the mid-point. Then, I got kind of distracted. On the last day, I was about 2000 words short of the 50K goal. So I stayed at my computer until I finished the section I was on, blazing to a final total of 50,925. I’ll do the rest after Christmas probably. We’ll see, I need to do some more planning and outlining this week so I can finish on time.… Read the rest

#NaNoWriMo2021 – Days 5-7 – Chapter 4a, b, 5a, 8156 words

PolyWogg.ca
November 8 2021

Over the last three days, I’ve finished a long chapter on understanding the HR process, added a section on acknowledgements, and drafted most of a chapter on searching for government jobs.

Friday (Day 5) was 3865 words, Saturday was a light day for writing (918 words) but I did a bunch of research, and Sunday (Day 7) was back up to 3373 words. Call it 8156 over three days. My new combined total is 24,378 words, or about 34.8% of my 70K estimate for the guide.

HR Guide
34%

Jacob added 500 words on Friday and took Saturday and Sunday off. This brings a total of 2137, or 24.2% of his revised 8800 words goal for the month.

Fantasy novel
24%
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#NaNoWriMo2021 – Day 4 – Chapter 4a, 4481 words

PolyWogg.ca
November 4 2021

Tonight was a bit of a tough slog for content, part of a very long chapter for the HR guide. I did about half of it.

Understanding the HR Process
…Overview
…Understanding Merit
…Step 1 Needs
…Step 2 Advertising (including clearance, etc.)

I managed to get 4481 words today. My new combined total is 16222, or about 23.2% of my 70K estimate for the guide.

HR Guide
23%

Jacob added 481 words to his fantasy novel, bringing his total to 1637, or 13.6% of his 12K goal for the month.

Fantasy novel
14%
Stylized signature block to say happy reading in most posts and pages

#NaNoWriMo2021 – Day 3 – Chapter 3, 4318 words

PolyWogg.ca
November 4 2021

About 2.5h tonight of actual writing, but a few hours earlier of research and collation of bits to help me write later.

Today I was on to chapter 3, understanding types of government jobs.

Types of Jobs

…Functional classification

…Life beyond the three big categories

…Departmental Roles

I managed to get 4318 words today, which generally flowed pretty well. I’ll have to cut it down in editing, but it’s not bad as it is. My new combined total is 11741, or about 16.8% of my 70K estimate for the guide.

HR Guide
17%

Jacob added 277 words to his fantasy novel, bringing his total to 1156, or 9.6% of his 12K goal for the month.

Fantasy novel
10%
Stylized signature block to say happy reading in most posts and pages

#NaNoWriMo2021 – Day 2 – Chapter 2, 3887 words

PolyWogg.ca
November 3 2021

I was so happy with my progress on day one. 5500 words, I noted. It seemed high, but I didn’t really question it. I do write fast, it’s non-fiction, and I’m working from a solid draft even though it’s pretty much a complete rewrite of the earlier version. I’m not keeping much at all.

And today, I worked about the same amount of time, but had 2000 fewer words. Wait a minute…oh, I see what I did. I wrote down 5500 instead of 3500 yesterday. It’s actually 3536 and I just duplicated the 5. Oops. Well, okay.

Today I was on to chapter 2, knowing yourself.

2. Know yourself
…WFH changes to work environment

I managed to get 3887 words today, which was 11 for a title page, 84 for a copyright page, 26 for a dedication, 738 for an executive summary of the “welcome” chapter, and 3028 for Chapter 2 on “knowing yourself”. I kind of like the way that worked tonight. I took Chapter 1 from yesterday, duplicated it and reduced it down to 700 words for an executive summary version, and then worked on Chapter 2. While my goal is to get the ExecSumms down to about 300 words or so, I’ll leave Chapter 1’s summary long for now and edit at the end of the month.… Read the rest

#NaNoWriMo2021 – Day 1 – Chapter 1, 3536 words

PolyWogg.ca
November 2 2021

As I mentioned in a previous post (#MoreJoy – Day 31 of 31 – NaNoWriMo), I had a number of “works in progress” for consideration as my WIP this November. Ultimately, I chose to commit to working on my HR Guide. I want it fully written, revamped, edited, and published by January 1st, so blasting through now isn’t a bad idea.

I have written the intro multiple times. 2014, a revision in 2017, an earlier revision of the current version in 2020. And yet, I wasn’t happy with the flow. It was solid, a good draft. Certainly addressed the content I wanted it to, at the time.

Now? I hated it. So I completely rewrote it from scratch. For my “checklist” tracking on my dashboard, I dealt with:

1. Introduction
…Competition vs. selection
…Myths

I managed to get 3536 words done (**for some reason, I wrote it down as 5500, a bit too ambitious), but I’m expecting to go to about 70K. Either way, Chapter 1 is relatively “done”, at least as a draft.

HR Guide
5%

Jacob is also joining me for a writing quest this month, and he managed 398 words for Day One for a fantasy novel.… Read the rest

#MoreJoy – Day 31 of 31 – NaNoWriMo

PolyWogg.ca
November 1 2021

For those of you not familiar with the acronym, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing in a Month. Ignoring the awkward construction of the title, the premise is simple. People around the world are encouraged to write, write, write every day for the month of November — binge-writing, if you will — to produce a 50,000-word manuscript.

There are LOTS of views about NaNoWriMo, ranging from “everybody just writes crap, it’s quality that counts” to “what a great way to just blast through and remember what’s fun about writing.” There is an equal number of views about HOW to do NaNoWriMo, including from those who plot and plan in advance (plotters/planners) or who write by the seat of their pants (panters).

But I really enjoy the premise. This isn’t a Hallmark commercial thing, the “organization” that came up with the idea is a not-for-profit. Sure, there are lots of commercial options out there tied to NaNoWriMo for trackers, notebooks, mugs, websites, webinars, writing groups, etc., but at its core? It’s writers talking to writers and encouraging them to do nothing more than put their butt in their seats and write. Maybe the 50K will never amount to anything more than the wordcount itself.… Read the rest

Since I blog about writing

PolyWogg.ca
September 27 2021

Way back in 2012, practically the dark ages of the internet, I bookmarked an article by author Veronica Sicoe called 13 Types of Writers’ Blogs – Pros and Cons. Fast forward 9 years, and it is still one of the better lists that I have seen of blogs / websites that authors use.

Sooooo, considering I’m a wannabe writer, and I do have a website, what elements interest me? I blogged the other day about not wanting to monetize my site, but this isn’t quite the same thing. This is more about using my website to promote potential book sales. It’s a very fine-line for a distinction, but it is a distinction of significance to me.

General writing advice — I have no extensive expertise to offer, but there are a few blog posts here and there where I have had an opinion that I hoped was worth sharing about small narrow areas. A different take on an issue, for instance. But, as noted in the original article, the posts are generally of interest to writers, not readers, so it doesn’t do much to sell your books.

The Writing Industry / Self-Promotion — I am a good analyst, and one of my skills is the ability to take a lot of info and synthesize or condense it down to meaningful, digestible chunks.… Read the rest

Writer’s Block, Time Management, and Other Unicorns

PolyWogg.ca
September 30 2011

Hi, my name is PolyWogg and I’m an ‘writing RSS/newsletter’ addict.

There, I’ve admitted it. My first step in, umm, a 12-step program for sharing? Oh wait, I’m not planning to change. Particularly when I get golden nuggets of information like I did earlier this week.

One of the feeds I read is C.J. Lyon’s site called “No Rules, Just Write”. I don’t always agree with everything she writes, or find it completely applicable to me, but it is always interesting. This week’s freebie was a link to an ebook called “20 Creative Blocks And How To Break Through Them” (link expired) by Mark McGuinness and Marelisa Fábrega.

It’s interesting to wander around the web looking at various writer’s sites and see what they have to say about writer’s block. There are decidedly three camps — first there’s the group that says there’s no such thing as writer’s block. I call this the Nike group — they say you should just sit your butt down and write. It may not be fantastic writing, but you’ll write. Something. Dean Wesley Smith is definitely of this variety — arguing that professional writers write, only amateurs get something called writer’s block. By contrast, there are the members of the Passion group at the other end of the spectrum — the group that argues that if you are blocked, it’s because you are not really following your passion.… Read the rest