Welcome to Day 9 of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)! Keep reading for the latest updates...

I haven't blogged in awhile because I've been so swamped with work and a couple of music rehearsals. Plus, all my spare free time has been devoted to writing as much as I can for National Novel Writing Month (http://www.nanowrimo.org/).

My latest music gig was playing with some awesome guitarists this past Sunday. I'm in a band called The Great Deceivers (http://www.myspace.com/tgdkingcrimson). We are a King Crimson cover band. Our original guitarist had to leave LA, so we need a new member. It was a lot of fun playing with the people who auditioned. The audition songs were Larks in Aspic 2, 21st Century Schizoid Man, and Exiles. Below is a picture of me once again commandeering the drum kit and trying to be a drummer! LOL!

Aside from music, I've been getting used to working full-time again with my new TV job. So instead of having the luxury of writing all day at home, I have to budget my time wisely. This means writing every morning from 8 to 9 a.m. and then at lunch time or when I get home at night. 

A friend had told me about the "Pomodoro Technique" which is all about working in 25-minute spurts with a four minute break in between. I don't think this works well with writing but I have found it helps me focus when I only have one hour to write. I tried using a fun Pomodoro timer from Focus Booster at this link: http://www.focusboosterapp.com/ and to my surprise, focusing intensely for 25 minutes this morning led to me writing 568 words! So that's my writing tip for the day if you are stressing about not getting enough writing done or if you feel you have very little time to write. Try focusing for 25 minutes with a timer! For more info on the Pomodoro Technique, go here: http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/

Because my schedule has been a bit crazy with the new job, I haven't been able to write 1,667 words per day as planned. (According to the NaNoWriMo folks, if you can write 1,667 words per day for 30 days, you'll reach your 50,000 word goal!) So far, in nine days, I've only written 6,610 words. Fortunately, I am very happy with these 6,610 words!

I do have a bit of a confession though... with NaNoWriMo, you are supposed to write a novel from scratch. They do allow you to brainstorm and outline and do everything but write your novel before the November 1st start date.

I had started an adult novel over the summer. I had been taking notes and brainstorming/outlining the novel over the course of two years. It changed drastically - the original idea and story/characters changed 100 percent to something completely different within those two years. By July of this year, I felt ready to write it, so I started writing and in about a month, I had written about 23,000 words. It's going to be a HUGE novel, about 80,000 to 100,000 words, so I figured I'd use NaNoWriMo as a way to push myself to get the next 50,000 words written! So if you add up my latest NaNoWriMo words, I have about 29,000 words written. Not bad!

I must try and write for the next 25 minutes during my lunch break, so I leave you with some fun pictures of my cat Oreo trying to disrupt my writing last night. I had printed out the latest version of my novel and was line editing, and he kept insisting on taking over...

Here's a curious Oreo wondering what I am doing...

Oreo decides he wants to read what I've written...

Oreo decides he doesn't like what I've written and gives me some notes. He then sleeps on my draft while I head back to the computer to rewrite everything...

 Well, time to go write. Every little bit counts, including the 45 minutes I have left for lunch! Good luck to all you NaNoWriMo participants! Remember, be my writing buddy here: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/170463

Happy Writing!