NaNoWriMo 2024

I am writing…

The book I’m writing this year is non fiction. I have put a lot of hours into researching it. That means I talked to a lot romance scammers–mostly from Nigeria–from my own fake accounts. The result…

Well, that will be the whole book or more than one book if it gets too big. I haven’t decided on that yet.

Every day, I will show up with my word count for the day and give you a small update on how my writing is going.

Day 1
I spent most of the day writing the intro and basic information about romance scams. The rest of the day was more about restructuring the book and planning the next day.
Word count: 3333

Day 2
Today I worked on military romance scams, wrote the intro to this type of scams, tidied up conversations I’ve had with scammers who were posing as military personnel and added chapter specific red flags.

Today’s word count: 3232
Total words written: 6565

Photo below is a scene from my desk. That framed ‘friends’ photo is a gift from my soul sister, a fellow scam fighter and an incredible human-being. I’ve had the privilege to meet her face-to-face in the UK this year. I will forever cherish those memories and I hope one day the world will appreciate her efforts of keeping the world scam-free.

word count for the day: 3232
Total words written: 6565

Day 3
I’m almost halfway through 50,000 word bench already but adding my word count slowly to NaNoWriMo website because a huge chunk of those chapters will be edited and that will leave me with less written words. Tomorrow I will have reached 10,000 words though and that means I will earn yet another badge on top of all the other ones I’ve already earned.
Let’s have a look at todays numbers:

Word count for the day: 3022
Total words written: 9587

Day 4
I’ve spent most of the day tidying up a very long conversation I had with one particular scammer from Nigeria who was incredibly annoying since I pushed all his buttons and pinpointed his lies. It was 35 pages of text but I managed to reduce it down to 16 pages in the end.

Additionally, I’ve taken more notes on victim profiles and how they feel after being scammed. Let’s check out the numbers for today before I go and pick up our washing and decide what I’m cooking for tonight:

Word count for the day: 4444
Total words written: 14,031

NaNoWriMo Day 5
It’s incredibly common for romance scammers to use stolen photos of innocent people but…
Some of those scammers sometimes use thier own faces. You might think that they’re being truthful but in the end, the purpose is the same. They still want something from you. It could be a visa to come to your country or some money to help with feeding their family. It’s still not right regardless of their initial purpose they present earlier on.

Well, today I wrote about one of those scam stories using their own faces.

It was so clear that he was talking to someone with a hidden agenda. He just didn’t know that he was talking to a scam-baiter.

Now I’m going to head down to my kitchen and make some asparagus pastry. They’re in season at the moment and I managed to get some really young ones. Not imported from Peru or Mexico. I’ll wrap them up in blankets with pesto and parmesan then I’ll bake them. To go with this awesomeness (a word I picked up from scammers along the way), I’ll make pepperonata. My style; not Sicilian or anything. I make it may way.

Before I go and create wonderful dishes in the kitchen, I’d like to add my word count for today…

Words written today: 4332
Total words written: 18363
I’m getting there, Peoples 🙂

Day 6 and I’ve reached 23645 words. Almost halfway there.

I had to laugh at one of those fake doctors whom I talked to while I was doing my research for this book. He told me that his wife died of prostate cancer 🤣 He didn’t even know how to spell prostate cancer; it was ‘prostrate cancer’ 🤣

Thank God, some of them are too ignorant and not so good at getting their story right.

Day 7
… and I had a lovely surprise today. I surprised myself, to be precise.

I was bracing myself to deal with a large volume of transcrips after I got back from the gym today.
This particular account is a tricky one because I talked to this Nigerian scammer twice from my own fake accounts and twice from his fake accounts. But to my surprise, I didn’t have to do anything! I must have done all the tidying up and putting transcripts into very handsome order some time ago. I just forgot, didn’t I?

Well, that was the end of book chapter about scammers who use their own faces to scam people.
And my word count for today is 4766 and the total word count is…

28,411!

Today, I’ve passed the halfway mark and treated myself with listening some beautiful jazz by Salena Jones. I also hung her Aylesbury concert ad on my wall (photo below). I learnt how how to sing jazz by listening to her cassette tapes and immitating her. Named my very first dog after one of the songs in one particular cassette tape. Jesse, that is. She is one true artist and I got to meet her in the UK this year and told her what her singing still means to me after all those years. She still rocks, by the way 🙂

Day 8
I have just started a new chapter about pig butchering (investment frauds combined with romance scams. After I finished reading a book I started on Monday, I sat down and tidied up a conversation I had with a scammer who was into pig butchering. Reading it all over again made me sick because I talked to this scammer from my private Instagram account as well, not knowing that he was a scammer.

Today was also my washing day and I had to a little bit cleaning as well. I’m exhausted now. Heat doesn’t help, either but I suppose I can relax now until dinner time.

Today’s word count: 3355
Total words written: 31,766

Yes, I’m getting there!

Day 9
Today I continued working on one and only pig butchering example I have for the book and now it’s completed.

Today’s word count: 4322
Total words written: 36,088

Day 10
I tried to sleep in this morning, being Sunday and all but Little Missy wouldn’t let me sleep as if that 4AM nature call wasn’t enough.

Anyway, I am now working on engineer scams and tidying up 2 transcripts of the most annoying romance scammer I’ve ever had the pleasure talking to (sarcasm alert!). It was such a pleasure to finally get his account deleted in the end.

And my total word count passed 40,000 YAY! 😊

Today’s word count: 4702
Total words written: 40,790

Day 11
… and I’ve almost reached 50000 word count. Very tired, though. Here’s today’s numbers:

Words written today: 4768
Total words written: 45,558

Day 12
I did it!
For the 9th time!

I actually thought this was my 8th year doing this but NaNoWriMo knows these things better than me by the looks of things.

This doesn’t mean that I will stop writing though. Today, I’ve moved on ‘offshore workers’ section of the book and I will be adding my daily word count every single day until the competition is over.

Now…

Today’s word count: 4833
Total words written: 50,391

NaNoWriMo Day 13
I may have won the competition but the book is still going. I still have a lot to add to it.

I have just finished a conversation I had with an engineer who claimed to be working at an oil rig in Irish Sea.

I talked to him twice and he was also incredibly annoying. He never answered any of my questions and always dished up some pathetic excuses and lies.

Before I reported his account (he was using Sergio Alberti’s photos), he removed his profile photo. Then changed it to semi-visible photo of a man with a beard. Eventually, I got him through ‘harassment’ complaint. Certain accounts need different methods to kill and this one was one of them.

Anyway, let’s talk about numbers, baby!

Today’s word count: 4777
Total words written: 55,168

Day 14
I must admit, I hate those scammes who try to lure you away from the platform where they found you. If you accept, then you have some messy chats to tidy up later.

This is exactly what I worked on. And this guy was one of those sticky, slimy romance scammers I’ve ever had the (dis)pleasure to talk to.

Anyways, here’s the word count for today:
Today’s word count: 3388
Total worsd written: 58,556

Day 15
Halfway through NaNoWriMo but I’m not done yet. I still have a way to go in terms of adding more content to the book and tidying up some conversations to make them easier to read and follow. Gosh those uneducated scammers do not make it easier for me as their responses are all over the place! Still working on one account. Geez!

Anyway, today was still a good day. Here’s the numbers of the day:
Today’s word count: 4286
Total words written: 62,842

Day 16
Mostly research organisation today. I didn’t realise I had several folders and Scrivener files for this very topic I’m writing about. Too many duplicates as well.

And now for today’s numbers…
Words written today: 3845
Total words written: 66,687

Day 17
Finally finished one of the conversations I had with a solo-working romance scammer from Benin. He admitted that he consulted ‘black magic’ to make his ‘scamming business’ lucrative but I actually don’t see that happening for he was a terrible scammer (luckily!).

Anyway, let’s have a look the numbers for today…
Today’s word count: 4437
Total words written: 71,124

I’ll be back with more words tomorrow. Stay tuned, Peoples!