Halfway Home with NaNoWriMo and Publishing News

By

Scott D. Parker

NaNoWriMo - Halfway Hoome

So this is the exact halfway point in November 2014. How many of y’all are on track? If you write 1,667 words/day, you should have a little over 25,000 words to this point. I’m only doing a novella this month and I’m more than halfway with word count (13,500) and chapters (11) and well on my way to completion by the end of the month. I’m actually looking to finish by Thanksgiving or sooner. It’s easily doable, as long as I deal with the slight turn I discovered today.

If anyone is discouraged at not having 25,000 words, just keep writing. While 50,000 in a month is a steep wall, consistency is also important. Maintain your consistency and keep writing. If necessary, reset your goals for the month. But keep at it. Find those little moments in the day where you can squeeze in five or ten minutes. I’ve written a lot about writing on my iPod Touch. Maybe that’s something you can do. Good luck.

Publishing Update

When you decide to start a publishing company, you'd be amazed at the number of things you have to consider.

There's the name, obviously. I've got my name but I'm not going to reveal it today because I want to have my website up and running when I do.

Website. Wow, another crazy big thing to think about. What will it look like? What kind of color scheme to use? Where do I put the logo and masthead. What kinds of content will it feature? A preliminary sketch I have here at the home office shows the basic design that I like (and hope y’all will, too). Now, I just have to learn the ins and outs of web design with WordPress. The closer my launch date gets, the more I might be willing to outsource at least the initial pages.

A goal of mine is to do as many aspects of a publishing company as possible. The graphic element is the big wall. I know some things but not nearly enough. That’ll be my long-term, year one goal: learn the software for graphic design and cover design and make my own covers. I have a few templates in mind to unify everything so it shouldn’t be a huge deal. But, still, it’ll take time.

That’s the key thing, too: time. While it’ll be exciting to launch this new business in 2015, I know that I’ll be in this for the long haul, building things piece by piece, book by book, design by design, choice by choice. I’m just trying to make as many good ones as possible out of the gate.

The best thing about it all? I’m having fun doing it. I’m really looking forward to sharing it in 2015.