#NaNoEstrada results

It seems that for many people the month of November was all sorts of crazy for so many reasons. Apart from the myriad of things that were going on, NaNoWrimo was also in full effect and although I didn’t do full on NaNoWrimo I wanted to push hard for a lot of my projects.

If you’ve been following me on social media, you’ve seen the progress. As does tend to be the case when I have a lot going on, I was able to tackle the smaller goals and the larger ones got progressed but not completed. The reason for this format was that I did expect November to be a tough work month and BOY did it not disappoint lol. Long hours, several projects and in one month probably produced about 8 radio spots, two campaigns, plus I went on a mini vacay to Orlando with the missus which was lovely and a half.

That said, I wanted to retake several projects and before I give you the total, here’s why I did what I did.

Blog posts – I felt I was not writing in my blog nearly as much as I should and I wanted to rectify that while also challenging myself to write either something deep and heartfelt or something funny. I wanted variety and to show just how random my mind can be.

Songs – Although I’ve posted many songs on my youtube channel this year, I’ve often gone into recording the vids without lyrics. This is something I want to change because I want the songs to have an identity so I can grow more accustomed to playing them.

Poetry collections – I have several collections going at the moment and chose the two that were more ahead but still had to complete, transcribe, edit, and polish. It was the thing I wanted to tackle the most and I’m very happy with both collections and how they turned out.

Podcasts – In my search to connect to more people and further challenge myself while also doing my best to make a positive impact, I experimented with a few things on my Soundcloud page. Although I don’t have many followers there, some people did enjoy the podcasts and in a few instances words resonated.

YA novel – Finding time to get in the mindset to work on this was basically impossible. I got interrupted about 10 times when I got time to work on it. Still, this project is very important to me and will be one of the books I take to the 2017 Puerto Rico Comic Con.

Sci fi Novella – I’ve had this novella sitting around too long and want to get to it and finish it. That said, this was a bonus goal and it took a lot to not dive in when I hadn’t finished the YA novel. Although I’m normally adamant of flowing from project to project, I’ve decided to finish the novel first, then this novella.

Spanish content – For a long time I’ve been mentioning I would be doing more Spanish content and I wasn’t delivering. I changed that with a couple of things but expect more Spanish content because I want to and because it’s important to me.

So that said, here’s the final tally with links to each item that has a link.

15/15 English blog posts - DONE (TOTAL WORD COUNT: 10,995)

• No NaNoWrimo but yes NaNoEstrada
• Driven Volume 2: Veronica Brannon
• Peel Off those Labels
• The Estrada Interview Depot
• Four legged angels
• Method to Madness: Soundcloud and Youtube
• Finding your Second Wind
• Hope is my choice
• The Long Lost art of giving a compliment to women
• Liking Crap because it’s what’s cool
• The Free Book Fandango
• Standing Rock and Beyond
• Don’t Read Me
• The Raven Writing Desk & Data vs Data conundrum
• The Violence Stuffed within

10/10 English Videos - DONE

• NaNoEstrada – not NaNoWrimo but good enough for me
• 5 Random tips for writers
• The Estrada Book tour
• Tea with JD – Finding your Writer Voice
• Tea with JD – How do you know when a story is ready?
• Tea with JD – 5 unconventional writing tips to break the block
• Tea with JD – write something only YOU can write
• Tea with JD – Calling creativity
• Tea with JD – Voices in the Head
• Tea with JD – 100 Random ass facts about me

3/3 Spanish blog posts - DONE (TOTAL WORD  COUNT: 1,587 words)

• De dónde soy y dónde vivo
• Sin padrino pero con ganas
• Un Boricua en Georgia #1

2/2 Spanish videos - DONE

• JD Estrada en español – lo prometido es deuda
• JD Estrada en español NaNo Estrada y más allá

5/5 podcasts - DONE

• ThinkWalk 10 – The Need to Believe
• Morning Drive Volume 1 – Morning Routines
• Morning Drive Volume 2 – important steps in life
• Morning Drive Volume 3 – Living a creative life
• Morning Drive Volume 4 – What to do when you’re tired

2/2 poetry collections - DONE

ROR - (TOTAL WORD  COUNT: 8,666 words - no acknowledgements or foreword)

BTA - (TOTAL WORD  COUNT: 3,811 words - no acknowledgements or foreword)

2/3 songs - INCOMPLETE

• The River
• Hands Off 

0/1 YA novel - INCOMPLETE

• 2 chapters written 6 to go

0/1 Sci fi Novella - INCOMPLETE

•  19 scenes pending to be written

Before

After

All in all, not a bad showing with 25, 059 words in between my projects, without counting the chapters in the novel. But will admit I’m a bit peeved I didn’t get to the bigger projects… so NaNoEstrada continues until I finish and will give myself til the end of the year for the YA novel at least. Stay tuned.

Thanks for all the motivation, encouragement, comments, likes, and shares. To those who actually bought or reviewed my work in November, thanks as well and here’s to pushing for our dreams.

Peace, love, and maki rolls.