Hello #WIPmo crew! We’ve made it to the finish line. I don’t care how you got here or what you did, but we started from the bottom now we here.
Kudos to everyone who worked through the month whether you did the Nano thing or solely the Wipmo thing. I’m proud of us and I’m proud of me. Okay, I wish I was a little more proud of myself than I actually am but to be honest, I’m always a little hard on myself. I should/want/need to do more. Bleh. It’s the writer’s way!
This month I did edits, which included a little revision and a new chapter/scene, copy edits, and wrote an author’s note. Aaaaaand I did work on my WIP. I finished a scene-by-scene list from the whole ms which took a crap-ton of time. More than I’d expected. I wrote two short, new chapters for it as well. And I figured out the stuff I need to add and probably cut. I’m excited to revise it (again!) in December. Screw the holidays–I need to finishFINISHfinish this book!
How about you guys? Please comment below to celebrate and share your victories!
Ami with an I 
Name: Ami
Twitter Handle: @amilouiseallen
What I did this month: see above post!
Did you meet/exceed your goal? Are you happy with your work?
December writing plans: Freaking revise!
December fun plans: Get pumped for my Puerto Rico (anniversary & turning 40!) vacation in January. Eat cookies and enjoy the family and holiday season.
OMG, it’s my third WIPmo. How crazy is that? Look how far we’ve all come! I’m getting a little weepy :’)
Name: Sonia
Twitter Handle: @SoniaHartl1
What I did this month: Lots of CPing, finished final edits from my agent on last year’s WIPmo ms, which is now out doing that thing that writers never talk about.
Did you meet/exceed your goal? Not even close, lol
Are you happy with your work? I’m learning to be happy with the work I accomplish, and not stress the things I think I should’ve done.
December writing plans: Finish draft of my MG, start plotting next YA
December fun plans: If it snows, there is a massive hill by my house and a sled in the garage. I’ll think about bringing my kids along 😉
Three years…BUT REALLY WHERE HAS THE TIME GONE?? I’m so excited for you to have your book on “that thing we don’t talk about.” Feel free to msg me anytime with excitement, angsting, and whatever else! You did a lot of #WIPmo work–congrats! And hope this month is great for writing—and sledding too! : )
Name: Mel
Twitter Handle: @paintandwords
What I did this month: Fiddled with what I wrote AND managed to move WIP forward all in the midst of crazy life decisions which involve emigrating for a third time….
Did you meet/exceed your goal? They were too vague to not meet them! Are you happy with your work? Kinda
December writing plans: Keep going!
December fun plans: Try and find fun in the midst of a life crisis! Stay in the moment and enjoy Christmas with my family, wherever we are. Find a recipe for mulled wine and make some. 🙂
It sounds like we had similar #WIPmo situations! I hope you can keep grounded and take care of yourself with some fun and writing this month. It’s so hard to do that when “life happens,” but you can do it. : ) Thanks so much for hanging out with us this past month!!
Name: Sandi
Twitter Handle: @thethirdmother
What I did this month: added 11k to the WIP and sent four query letters. Created a post-it wall for plotting – although it’s not quite finished!
Did you meet/exceed your goal? YES! Are you happy with your work? Yes, I needed to set reasonable and attainable goals so that I could keep moving forward. So often writing gets pushed to the back burner of life and the weekly goals/encouragement from Twitter peeps helped make it a priority. Thank you everyone!
December writing plans: I’m officially past the halfway point in my WIP and hope to keep up the momentum. (Would love to have the first draft done by March/April.) I will continue to use the spreadsheet I created for November and try to maintain the 2.5-3k a week goal (It turns green when I hit my goal. Gotta love the little rewards, right?) by setting aside writing time at least three days every week.
December fun plans: It has not snowed here yet, which is crazy! Hopefully we’ll get some white stuff and can go sledding. Hubs and I want to take the boys on a holiday light tour of local neighborhoods – just cruise around in the minivan sipping hot coca and singing Christmas carols.
Great job everyone! Keep in touch! And thanks again, Ami!
You’ve done so much work!! And congrats on getting more queries out! The local light tour sounds so nice. We used to do that when we lived in GA so I think we should do that this year. No reason to ditch all the fun just bc we moved to NJ! Enjoy the holidays and keep up the great work on your book!! Keep me posted on how the querying goes!
Name: Eva
Twitter Handle: @EvaVBGibson
What I did this month: Wrote nearly 30k words, located the direction of the plot, had a midpoint epiphany, and wrote every single day except for Thanksgiving and Black Friday.
Did you meet/exceed your goal? Are you happy with your work?: My original goal of 70k was revised to 60k about halfway through the month, when I realized it just wasn’t realistic. As for the 60k, I met that word count with an hour left in the month. Yay!
December writing plans: I’m going to shoot for having a finished first draft by New Year’s Eve. If it doesn’t happen, that’s fine, because I already know this is going to be a busy month. My biggest hurdle is tackling the central conflict in depth, because I’ll have to go to some dark place to make it what I want it to be. That’s half the fun for me, but it’s also taxing.
December fun plans: The husband and I are spending our first weekend away without the kids since we had kids. I’ve literally never been away from both my kids overnight simultaneously in more than six years, so this is monumental.
Thank you so much, Ami, and the rest of you for the support this past month! I got so much more done than I would have, just knowing I’d be updating other people on my progress. Best of luck to everyone!
You had an amazing month! Everyday but Thanksgiving and Black Friday is pretty impressive!
I have the same Dec plan basically but I’m not setting anything in stone because it’s only the 3rd and I’m already like THERE IS NO TIME!! Thanks for being here too! It’s been great—can’t wait to get an update on your finished works!!
Name: Geni
Twitter Handle: @agenip
Unsolicited comment: THANK YOU AMI! I’m with Sonia– this is my 3rd WIPmo and I have come to love it and look forward to it like nothing else. Having this team together for a month has done so much magic for me: it motived me, it inspired me, and it made me feel like a writer for a little while. I am so deeply grateful to you for adding coordinating and cheering all of us to your already busy schedule. Please @ me anytime you need a sprint or a cheer (except next week, see below). And now I will actually answer the questions.
What I did this month: I revised my current WIP from disastrous first draft to something I can send to readers (which meant a lot of cutting and the addition of about 11k sparkly new words)
Did you meet/exceed your goal? Are you happy with your work? Yes & Yes. Ok, I didn’t also plot my next ms, but really, getting this one done and ready for Beta readers was the big thing for me, so I am happy with that.
December writing plans: 1) send WIP out to readers, 2) final final revisions on ready-to-query ms, 3) querying (although that might start in January because…).
December fun plans: Going to Disney!! Yep, I finished and I’m going to Disney World. Really. Next week. I’m taking the almost 5 y.o. to meet as many princesses as humanly possible in a 3 day period. Bring on the tiaras!
Geni!! You are totally a writer! And actually, an author. Before I even had an agent I changed my bio to say “YA author” bc I’d read a great blog post about that. ; )
I’m excited for you getting a complete draft ready to be beta’d!! That’s awesome and what a great feeling. Crossing my fingers that you won’t still be working on it two WIPmo from now. (like me!)
Have fun at Disney!!!! We went this summer with our 14 y/o and now 5 y/o *she was 4) and it was soooooo fun!
I totally missed this earlier this week! Ack!
I love reading all of these successes. You all rock!!!
Name: Michelle
Twitter Handle: @michellehulse
What I did this month: Wrote 25k for the first draft of my new MG WIP.
Did you meet/exceed your goal? Are you happy with your work? Yes! It was so different from my last two projects, but it was really fun to write.
December writing plans: NOPE. Haha still querying, and I might fill in some gaps in the new WIP, but that’s it. I wrote a lot this year. Time to recharge. 🙂
December fun plans: mulled cider and cookies and glitter and lots of walks with my girls and our dogs. 🙂
These December plans sound right up my alley. 🙂 I’m also glad you’re taking a bit of a break. Sounds lovely!
25k of a new project is fabulous!! And an MG–so cool & fun. Good luck in finishing it up it’ll be nice to talk about with any potential agents on the way. So, good luck with the querying and hope you get lots of requests so we can celebrate the good news with you!