NaNoWriMo is beginning to loom once again, and I'm trying to get geared up for writing. I was able to keep an average pace of about 2,250 words per day during last year's event, but I have proven that I'm not a writer. I'm not talking about the story that came out of my last NaNo attempt. I just re-read my story, and for a first draft, I'm actually pretty happy with it. I'm referring to the fact that since NaNo last year, I have not written every day. I have not written consistently week to week. I've not written much of anything story-wise, really.
I read a lot, between books and blogs. Several of the blogs I read are about writing. One such blog, written by Cherie Priest, keeps frequent track of how many words she has written on her stories in a given day. She posted a blog back on April 15, 2008 (http://www.cheriepriest.com/2008/04/15/april-15-2008/) in which she explains her word count scale. It looks like this:
1000 words - Marginally acceptable
2000 words - Fair
3000 words - Good
4000+ words - Glorious
So on this scale, I had seven days that were too low to count, three that were marginally acceptable, five that were fair, six that were good and one that was glorious. My average pace of 2,250 words a day is just north of Fair.
Or is it? I ask because often, Cherie also makes a little comment about how she feels about her word count. I think the scale she actually holds herself to is a little more strict than what she quoted in April. Based on her blog word count comments, I came up with this Real Cherie Priest Word Count Scale:
Under 1,000 words: Boo. Not good.
1,000 to 2,000 words: Meh (though I've seen Meh range as high as 3,211, I'll consider that an outlier.)
2,001 to 3,750 words: Now we're in the Not Bad to Pretty Good range
3,751 to 4,050 words: Very good. It's a small range because over 4,050, she gets a little more excited.
4,051 up: BOOYAH! HUZZAH! GLORIOUS! RAR! HELLS YEAH! SWEET!
On this revised scale, my average NaNo pace is Not Bad. I had one BOOYAH day (at 5,986 words), a week of Boos (three of which were total non-writing days), three Mehs and eleven Not Bads in my 22 days of writing before my trip to Dallas. I wonder if I can get my average up to the Very Good range this year. I'm competitive that way sometimes.
As an aside, I have to say that I have consistently enjoyed reading Cherie's blog, including the stories of her cats, costumes and steam, as well as the links she shares. One of these days, I will have to pick up one of her books to read. Time and money being what they are, though, I don't know when that will be.
