NOVEMBER STATS
Days Writing: 19
New Words: 5,643
New Chapters: 1.5
Total Word-count: 99,747
Total Chapters: 27
November didn’t quite hit the lofty heights of October, but it was still a great improvement over the summer months. I lost a day or two over the Thanksgiving weekend and also a couple when I ran out of my buffer on this story blog and started prioritizing that over the novel.
If you recall, I mentioned at the end of October that the buffer on my blog had slipped from two weeks to one, and then about halfway through this month it got to where I was finishing blogs on the very day that they were being posted. I’ve since clawed back to having a buffer of about three days, and I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to continue building that further while also giving the full measure to my novel.
For the time being, I’m okay with the fact that I did a little less on my novel this month and gave more priority to the blog. My goal for the year was to finish the first draft of my story, and with one chapter left to go I should still be able to achieve that comfortably. After the end of December, though, one of my New Year’s resolutions will be to put my novel back as the top priority.
Come back next month when I let you know how it feels to have finished the first draft. Until then, here’s a small snippet from the material I wrote in November.
“Won’t all these workers need a place to sleep?”
“That’s true, they will. I suppose some sort of communal barracks down by the field.”
“Hmm, maybe to start off with,” Eleanor says, “but I’m sure they would eventually prefer to each have their own little cottage, like we do.”
“So that their families can stay with them!” Clara adds.
“Now that’s an interesting idea,” William says. “I had only been thinking of a few, isolated workers, ones who came at the start of each season and went back to the mainland at its end, but what if we did make a more permanent residence for them? Wouldn’t that be something if we started to build a small community here?”
“A town!” Clara exclaims.
“I’m sure we’ve all benefited from the insights we gained by doing this work ourselves,” Eleanor says, “but I’m also sure a little social variety would also do us a lot of good, too! Of course, if we are to have families living here with the workers, then we have to consider the diverse needs that they will bring with them. Children require a school and curriculum, and training for future trades.”
“And a diverse array of trades it will need to be as well,” William adds. “If we are building an entire town then we can’t just be hiring field workers, we’re going to need people who know about construction, farming, carpentry, and textiles!”
Give Me Pen and Paper 