Another year, another chance to work every day and make our own goals. I won’t do a 50k month as I am not that well, but I want to try to do a small game this month that is my goal.
Anyone is free to post every day and set their goals and struggles
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I’ve set myself a tentative goal of 500 words per day, but more importantly a snippet every day. Although I’ve already been waylaid by the fact that I suddenly remembered I have a Halloween-themed drawing at works, and I’ve been trying to finish it before it goes out of the season. 
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I will be back to working on Quiver tonight now that I’ve submitted my Halloween Jam entry in time. I hope to reach a steady 1,000 words a day and complete Chapter Four.
Edit: I’m going to stick to some planning tonight and officially start working on Chapter Four tomorrow.
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I’m in!
Day 1: 0 Words
Blue Jays tonight and spending my writing time setting up my files. Bit of a starting hurdle.
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Nothing novel-shaped for me, but I need to get at least 40,000 more words done on Spire, Surge, and Sea revisions by mid-month so I can send it all off to Jason. (This’ll bring the game up to about 450k.)
Day 1: 3,000 words!
Total: 3,000 words!
I am usually a very slow writer but I guess the words come easier when it’s part of a project I’ve already been working on for two years and I have a really good idea of what specific tasks I still need to do. Also this took me four hours. 
And I only got slightly distracted looking at juggling tutorials. (I cannot juggle. At all!)
Best of luck to everyone else working on things this month—and as a many-time NaNo loser I will add that “failing” doesn’t make you a failure. It means you put yourself out there and tried your best!
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Day one result: >500-word snippet written, and also made some headway with that drawing. 
The MC is infiltrating a prison behind enemy lines to rescue their captured comrades-in-arms.
The control room is small, which isn’t surprising for a workspace for a single person. The current warden-in-duty sits in his chair, facing the front door and thus away from where you’re hiding, surrounded on three sides by an impressive array of security monitors. He doesn’t seem to have noticed you, which is good; if there’s one place you wouldn’t want to raise an alarm in, it’d certainly be the control room. Now that you’re this close, though, you’re confident you can take him fast enough; you could practically tap his shoulder if you stretched out your hand.
You step out of the shadow and cock your gun, pointing it at his head. “Hands in the air.”
The deputy warden tenses up, but does as he’s told. You keep your gun leveled on him as you round the table so that he can’t surprise-reverse his chair into you, but he does seem to get the hint and stays put, merely keeping an eye on you as you move. Seems you’re both equally wary of each other, which is, admittedly, a refreshing change of pace. Way too many gun-ho personnel in this place for the comfort.
Now in better position for the next phase of your plan, you shift your full focus back at him. Then you both freeze. You know this guy. And he’s not someone you expected to run into here. This is not some random backwater deputy warden; it’s [D]. And he’s someone who should be dead.
“[MC],” he says, voice flat. “So you’re the reason my cameras went black.”
“[D],” you manage, your gun-hold faltering for a moment.
[D] takes that as his cue to seize the moment. In one smooth movement he stands up, punches you in the face, and sits down again, all before you can manage to finish processing what in Space is happening here.
The hit makes you stumble back a step, but you manage to not drop your gun, and you train it to him properly again. “What was that for?!”
“You deserved it,” he calmly responds, but doesn’t make any other theatening moves.
“Since when have you been deputy warden Vargenstjärna?”
“Since you left me to the wolves.” There’s an accusation in his voice.
“I thought you were dead!”
“Despite what people say,” he states slowly, “I am very good at my job.”
You stare at him.
“He wasn’t a very nice guy anyway,” [D] continues, as if this all makes perfect sense. “My turn. I assume this is about your comrades-in-arms? What are you doing here?”
You blink. “Security system shutdown?”
“I can see why you’d think so, but that’d just raise a general alarm. You do know there’s a garrison just five minutes away, yes?”
“Well, it was that or dragging the warden-in-duty all around the prison.”
“Fair point.” He points at your gun. “But I can’t say you’re not giving the impression you’re not dead-set on that plan.”
“I mean,” you say. “Are you going to punch me again?”
“Nah, I think I got that out of my system.”
You holster your gun. “I did deserve that, didn’t I?”
“You really did.” He checks his screens. “But luckily for you, I am deputy warden Vargenstjärna, so I can help you here. If you let me interface with your tactical.”
“…can I trust you?”
“I’m not the one with the habit of abandoning my allies.” He gives you a look. “I think that’s my line.”
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Day 1: 1340
I posted this in the writer’s support thread, too. Here’s my friend’s Trackbear link to help with tracking wordcount. It’ll also have a graph to see where your goal is compared to others, if you like that kind of thing.
My first day, I fumbled out of the gate, and I’m not sure if I can make it up today. I’m not too far behind, but still not a good start. I woke up early yesterday, then took a nap before I could finish. I ended up otherwise occupied the rest of the day.
I ended up getting sick last year and am hoping that doesn’t happen this year.
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Day two: 557 words
Total: 1133 words
It is night, and the MC is leading a commando unit behind enemy lines, where a bunch of local village folk is helping them with their mission.
Sharp whistle from the hills behind the village stops the farmer on her tracks, so you stop as well. Around you, people start running around, carrying this and that, disappearing into buildings with their cloak-wrapped bundles of vegetables, spoons, hammers, and engine parts. Dogs start barking, first a single one behind the abandoned-looking house, then a second one sitting on the roof of the yellow one joins in, and one by one, the barking chorus grows.
“What’s going on, LT?” [P] asks.
You don’t really have an answer to that. “I don’t—”
“Soldiers,” the farmer cuts in, starting to move again. “Probably looking for you.”
That doesn’t sound good.
“Then what’s everyone else doing?” [J] rushes after her.
“Might not be all they’re looking for.” She walks briskly and with purpose. You follow, and before long you’re all standing in front of some kind of smallish outbuilding. Garage? Woodhouse? Do these people use firewood? That feels way too low-tech. She opens the door, revealing what can only be described as barn, and ushers you in.
You and your team swiftly hide into the haystacks. There’s a lot of it, but the space isn’t too large, and there’s a lot of your team in comparison. It’s impossible to cover everything, no matter how deep you burrow. But the only light comes from the door and the cracks of the walls, and the shadows help. You do your best to blend in.
The farmer closes the door, and you settle in to wait in the darkness. Nobody speaks, nobody moves; all you can do is listen.
It takes a while longer. but before long the soldiers reach the village. Shouting at the edge of the village, marching boots, insistent knocking. Angry words exchanged, too fast and too far for you to decipher. In one direction, wood cracks as a door is kicked in. In other, someone screams, the sound cut short by a gunshot. Sounds coming closer, on multiple sides.
The door creaks open. A soldier appears in the doorway, stepping in the pool of dim light from the lantern on top of the door like an actor steps on spotlight, and you catch the glint of a cranial implant edging their eye. They peer in, look around. Stop to stare on a glove innocently lying on the ground. A subtle shuffle in the haystack, and their head jerks towards the sound. Spasm in your arm, and they lock eyes with you.
Everyone freezes.
The soldier’s arm twitches. Then they take a sudden step back and out of your view. The door slams shut, with a little bit more force than necessary. Footsteps, retreating. Several footsteps, coming closer.
Your hand falls on your sidearm. Quick glance around confirms everyone’s gripping their rifles.
“Find anything?” a voice from a bit further away shouts.
“No,” a voice in front of the door replies. “Just rats.”
On one side, someone laughs at that.
“Didn’t we go through this village already?” the voice in front of the door continues. They fall silent for a moment, then speak again: “All right, then. There’s nothing here. Let’s go.”
Agreeing murmurs from all directions, then multiple footsteps march past your hiding place. In a surprisingly short order, the voices grow dimmer; then they fade away completely.
You let out a breath.
“What,” [J] whispers, “just happened?”
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Words today:… 0!
Total words: 3000!
Good thing I got a lot done yesterday.
(I did put up a small fence to keep the dog out of the garden, pull up a bunch of dead/rotting vegetables, and now our 16yo is going to drive us to a nearby town to practice his driving. But 0 words!)
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Day One: Zero words.
Day Two: 1563 words (although the actual count is probably closer to 2000 as I’ve deleted a planned scene where Robin would have been able to choose a second talent for his swordskill and bowskill as I decided I’d prefer for Robin to only have one of each.
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Day 3: 584+1189
Total: 1717 (2906)
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Day One: 0 words
Day Two: 1563 words of Chapter Four
Day Three: 1229 additional words for Chapter One (reworking the Yeoman origin slightly).
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Day 3: 1469 total
Busier weekend than expected, exhausted with a Monday at work. Super low number to reach the 50k, but had to sort some coding and formulate some game mechanics. Most importantly, I got some progress made. I wanted to squeeze in something. Starting hurdle, slow start, but in for the marathon.
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Today’s words: 1600
Total words: 4600
Not as effective today as day 1, but at least I got a good chunk of scene done. I really struggled to focus for most of the day today and am going to blame Daylight Savings Time for that. 
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Day One: 0 words
Day Two: 1563 words of Chapter Four
Day Three: 1229 additional words for Chapter One (reworking the Yeoman origin slightly).
Day Four: 2678 words for Chapter Four.
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Day 4: 1 006 + 1 126
Total: 2 723 (5 038)
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Day 4: +415 to 1884 Total
Small steps.
Another 1500ish words for me today, bringing me to just over 6000 words. (Honestly, a lot of these are probably repeated chunks of code…)