Phew!

On midnight Sunday, I wound up having my most productive day ever with over 4,000 words written in a single day! This brought the total word count to 48,333, which meant after 29 days, I finally managed to get caught up.

With only 1,667 words to write to make the 50,000 words, I was feeling relatively good. I worked for another hour and a half before heading to bed, which left only about 1,300 words to go. I toyed with the idea of calling in sick, and rejected it. I took an hour long lunch and banged out a few hundred more words. I spent my afternoon break writing a few more by hand. I thought I might get more written on the drive home, but I managed to make it through the majority of the lights.

But once I got home, it was tough going. I got kind of stuck until about 9. At 10 pm, my son called me. I listened to him and continued to type. I still had a few hundred words to go. But I knuckled down and managed to reach 50,000 words around 11:00. Feeling drained, I decided to call it a night at 11:30 with 50,264 words and 1,931 words written for the day, an improvement from last year for both stats.

I also have a grain of a possible idea for next year's Nano. And I don't think I'm going to Las Vegas in November next year. :)

The Winners' Circle

Final Official Word Count: 70,412

So there it is, the final official word count from the NaNoWriMo word count validator.

I am currently printing the whole shebang out, 306 pages, despite irritating printer problems. It is turning into a right bloody palaver. The six weeks of desk drawer time will, I suspect, pass quicker than I imagine.

In the meantime, I might torture myself by finally reading the 2006 effort.

Finale

Words Lately: 2,622
Word Count Total: 70,338

A rather abrupt end to MC #1's peroration about the fate of the empire, but the story is at an end. There will need to either be clearer prefiguring in the final version or an epilogue chapter, but this is done for now.

And, look! 70k!

This word count is a bit light since the NaNoWriMo validator which gives my official word count is a touch more generous than either wc or Scrivener (as well as having chapter headings to count, I suppose) but I know I have more than 70,000 words this month which is quite thrilling - more than I have written in November by about 12k.

Now off to print it out and bury it in my desk for six weeks!

Phew!

Wow! I did it. I surpassed 50K in one month. I still have about 20K to go to actually finish the story I started, but today, I'm going to celebrate and offer a toast to me. Unbelievable!

Uncertainty

Wow, the last weekend day of Nanowrimo 2009. Congratulations to everyone that's hit and surpassed the 50K mark!

Me on the other hand, I've still got about 4,500 words left to go. I'm not sure I'm going to make it, but I am gaining confidence with every 100 words I bang out.

So a short intermission for some household chores and tea brewing, and then back at it once more!

Dénouement

Words Today: 5,592
Word Count Total: 67,716

Action for all the MCs, as you would expect in the last three chapters of the book.

Nothing got written on Thanksgiving or the day after, but had a very good morning today and pushed to within half a chapter of The End.

I was hoping to be done by Wednesday this week, but that did not quite happen in the end. Still, nearly there eh?

I'm actually going to make it!

All I have to do is write 2000 words a day for the next four days. Just to goad myself a little further, I've already ordered my winner t-shirt. I have to win now, else the t-shirt is a dirty lie and I'll be shamed into never wearing it.

I had no idea I was capable of accomplishing a task this huge before this year. I'm so proud of myself! Sure, I've been through ups and downs with my story, but I've kept at it. Maybe I've even developed a habit that will last longer than just through the end of November.

Black Friday NaNo Video

Discovered

Words Today: 1,968
Word Count Total: 62,124

MC #1 being rumbled, and having to do desperate things to deal with it.

This was a continuation of the chapter I was working on yesterday, so I now have a single 4,000 word chapter, which is rather surprising. It's not the only 4,000 word chapter to be sure, but I confess that it is not one I would have expected to grow to that size. But there was more to write - I truncated a sword fight rather crudely, for a start.

Three chapters left, still looking at about 70k total I should say, although I am not sure that I will get all the time I need to write another 8k over this next weekend. I was supposed to be travelling on Sunday night which would have given me a good solid few hours in the airport and on the plane to work on this, but that has been put back a week (and which also stomps on any hopes of going to the TGIO party, much to my distress).

Still, I should have some time on Saturday which will get me most of the way there. If I have to keep writing a couple of days into December to finish satisfactorily, then so be it.

Committee

Words Today: 1,920
Word Count Total: 60,156

MC #1 learning more about the underpinnings of the society.

Something I have lamented in the past is my characters' propensity to have meetings. I suppose this is just another element of that, and I am fairly sure that this particular scene will not survive the edit, but it helped me articulate some ideas about my world which have been percolating for a long time. Good to have them expressed clearly, even if the mode of expression is unbearably dull.

And this is 60k, which is good. This is about two thousand words more than I have ever written during NaNoWriMo before.

Illness and Revision

SICK! Like everyone else it seems, I've fallen ill. I had an almost-week-long cold that's just been kicking me in the butt. Headaches, sore throat, congested, everything you don't want during this daring November. I was supposed to hit 100k! This was going to be my year. I was going to be a bull in the china closet of NaNoWriMo, breaking everything in my path and rushing as fast as possible toward the one thing I wanted: 100,000 words. Not 50k. Not 75k. 100k!

Dreams disappear so quickly. Now, I'm going to be lucky to hit 70k or, if I work very hard, 75k. I have to move this week. Need to be out the end of the month and all of my stuff moved this week. Tonight is the big night to get as much moved and out as I can. Tiring. Even more exhausting given that I'm still not completely over this cold.

Push on! I finally hit that 60k mark the other night and I was ever so proud of that. Just keep pushing on. I. Will. Make. It. At least 70k. 75 if I'm a little lucky and very inspired...

Dissent

Words Today: 2,147
Word Count Total: 58,236

Parliamentary debate: it's not exciting, but it's the best way I know to think about mighty plots. I will rewrite it later to make the plots more personal, but for now I am pleased that I have some more dissenters to throw around.

Had a miserable writing session at lunch, partly because I was just too tired after a horrible night's sleep (not one but two break dancing children in the bed! Aargh!) but also because I always have lunchtime meetings on Mondays which make it hard for me to recover my momentum. Still, good post-bedtime sesh there, so pretty happy with my day's word count.

Four chapters left to write. I think 70k is looking like the probable terminal word count.

illness and body parts and murder, oh my

so, i've been sick this week. not sick enough to miss work (or can't afford to stay home from work is most accurate). but my head has been stuffy and nose stuffy and weak and tired and yada yada. i've been writing bits here and there but it has felt stilted, stale, slow - sluggish. like me.

i whined a little. slept. whined, worked, napped, slept. oh, and ate a little. and drank coffee. whined. wrote.

was feeling a little blah about the story or that we have not gotten to the exciting part yet. everything feeling drawn out.

i let the one character be murdered instead of hurt and in a coma. oh well.

then a body part appeared in the hamper. weird. and that thread is going no where so far.

and. stale. ugh. sloshing through the muck.

then today, i was feeling better, had another eight hours of sleep (careful, this could become a habit). even got up and went for a two mile walk (i could not do the 3eight i was scheduled and was advised to not push my body that much). home. showered. went for breakfast (in true nano fashion, this "breakfast" was at 1:30 pm) at one of my writing spots, along with my laptop.

oooh. so i said the story was getting stale.

well, over breakfast and writing, they (the characters, of course) decided that someone would die. well, another one would die. and this was the dog. omg, i told them. no, not the dog. geesh, what do you want people to think?

then i went to work.

oh well. it is their story. and the dog is dead as i approach 40,000.

back to work.

Travel

Words Today: 3,418 4,216
Word Count Total: 55,291 56,089

Worked on a couple of chapters today: MC #1 learning more about his new toy, and MCs #2 and #3 on a long journey.

Slow start this morning since we had a late night last night. Still have five chapters to write; it's looking quite unlikely that I'll be done before Thanksgiving now unless I start doing much shorter chapters, but that wouldn't seem like actually telling the story.

Update - had a little time in the evening while one child was asleep and the other was out on an errand, so made a start on another chapter. It is a strange chapter, which is kind of needed but which is difficult to write.

Indeed, there are a few chapter like this one - chapters which are about delineating the circumstances of the story but which might be more effective from a story-telling point of view if accomplished in a different way. But first I need to to determine the circumstances so I can recast them later.

Another Update - fixing the MC numbering, since it was wrong.

Capabilities

Words Today: 1,724
Word Count Total: 51,873

MC #1 finding out what a new toy can do.

Not a big day, but more than half a chapter written.

Trapped

Words Today: 2,676
Word Count Total: 50,145

Hard times in the city.

And fifty thousand words! Yay!

Still seven chapters to write, though. Done in a week, maybe?

Halfway there!

Well, things didn't go as well as I hoped. The flash drive containing fell out of my purse and slipped under the seat. I had to dig it out. One of the two plot ninjas is currently missing, as it probably also fell out of my purse and is stuck in the seat. But I've still got one, and he seems to be helping.

Tonight I made it to the halfway point. I spent a little time celebrating and watched the Blazers game on tv. I made it to 26K a little after 11. When all is said and done, I feel about 40 words short of the catch up point, but hey, that still means I wrote over 1,900 words today, and over 2,000 yesterday. I'm still hopeful about catching up...the weekend isn't far away, and I hope to make some progress....

Secrets

Words Today: 1,824
Word Count Total: 47,469

MC #1 digging deeper into why exactly the rebellious elements are winning.

Ended up with a chapter almost four thousand words long. There is actually more to write on this, but I need to keep moving on the plot.

May actually hit 50k tomorrow! Still seven chapters to write, though.

Week Three

Here we are, halfway through Week Three now. I'm done counting by days, I'm thinking in terms of weeks now.

Was it just me, or did the first two weeks whizz by like they had better things to do? I didn't make it this far in NaNo last year, so this is my first time taking the week three corner on two wheels, full speed ahead. Those first two weeks were not nearly the challenge they were last year, but this is new territory for me now. Can I sustain this pace for another two weeks? (ok, week and a half) This, as they say, is where the rubber meets the road. My word count is maintaining, despite a small setback over the weekend but I'm still ahead of the daily minimum. I know some people have already hit the 50K mark (rather anti-climactic, no?), I don't know what they do after that. Keep going, I guess?

I'll say this: writing at this pace sure produces piles of garbage. If I didn't have a day job, and had nothing to do all day but write, 1667 words a day should be a piece of cake. But trying to squeeze it in to a couple of hours in the evening when I'm almost too tired to think is not producing the level of writing I would like. Frankly, it's pretty craptastic. Ah well, there'll be plenty of time to clean it up later. How's everyone else holding up?

Let's have a little levity for the day, courtesy of the late, great, Douglas Adams:

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

Enclosing

Words Today: 1,954
Word Count Total: 45,645

MC #1 and the cityfolk finding out that the war is coming to them.

Fragmented day, with no large writing chunks, but just started a scene which will be fun to write tomorrow.

Well, I'm behind again

The vacation last week and a busy week at work means I'm way behind. I've been in this position before and made my 50K. So I'm trying to catch up and get ahead if possible. I have six more off days before the end of the month and I can get some writing done on work days. So I'm off to get going again. See you Wednesday at Southeast Grind!

Barbara

Finding

Words Yesterday: 2,897
Word Count Total: 43,690

MC #1 discovering something important.

I didn't really mean for this to be an almost 3k day, but this chapter flowed so well when I was writing it that I just kept going. However, I was too tired afterwards to post here, so this is a day late...

45k today, I should think. Yay!

Dropping Out is Hard To Do

During the six years I've participated in NaNoWriMo I've seen Wrimos do a lot of wacky stuff: writing their novel in 24 hours, writing half a million words in 30 days, starting their novels over half-way through, coming from 25k words behind in the last two days to win. I always applauded their efforts, encouraged by their enthusiasm. But every year the majority of participants did something I thought I'd never understand: they quit.

Well, now I understand.

After spending almost the entire year rewriting another novel, I just don't have enough writerly mojo left over to make NaNoWriMo work. I gave it my best shot. But I'm a spoiled writer: one month of prep just isn't enough for me anymore (especially for a novel based on the astrophysics of neutron stars).

Unfortunately, this is also likely my last NaNoWriMo. As much as it might seem like a contradiction, my commitment to writing has deepened enough that NaNo now seems more like a distraction than an opportunity.

But I'll always be grateful for this crazy event and the people who put it together and support it every year. When I participated for the first time in 2004 I'd never written a novel before, and all but two of my short-fiction pieces had never even been finished. But I overcame my drive for perfection and lack of confidence, and reached my 50,000th word and, soon after, The End. It was a revelatory moment. And I would go on to do it four more times, as well as writing another novel in the "off season" and rewriting two of them from scratch. It's difficult to articulate everything I've learned from my participation in this brilliantly transgressive creative event. I suspect it has changed my life in ways I have yet to fully realize.

But the time has come to move on. I wish now I'd remained faithful to my original decision to not participate this year, to retire gracefully from NaNoWriMo. But life, like art, is sometimes a messy process. So this is my messy goodbye.

Good luck to everyone still reaching for novely greatness. It's a wild ride if you can see it through. And my humble thanks to Lauren for allowing me to blog here. Even if very few people read it, I've found an important sense of closure in being able to publicly express my thoughts.

November 16th NaNoWriMo Video!

Well, nobody had written yet today, so I assume that means that everyone is home working on their novels! To fill the space, here's my newest NaNoWriMo video!

Green Bar!

I did it! I did it! The green bar is mine!

Since I'm aiming for 100k, this really means that I'm only half done, but that's totally not the point!

And, of course, the final sentence in the first 50k of my novel:

    Triumphantly, the doctor strolled from the shed, leading two Rover Safety Bicycles.

The 50,000th word was bicycles.

Deaths

Words Today 5,499 7,670
Word Count Total: 38,622 40.793

MC #1 trying to charm a former friend into doing him a favour, finishing off an invasion scene, and killing off a bad egg.

Good morning.

I still might make it to 40k, but even without that I am pleased with the writing I've done today.

Update - got some extra time this evening around boys' bedtime, and was writing a new chapter which was easy to write. The result was a fast 2k+, and a 40k milestone well and truly surpassed. Hurrah!

Halfway through the month, and 80% of the nominal word count goal. Huzzah!

Downhill from here?

I made it to the halfway point. It is 1:16am and I'm at a coffeehouse surrounded by other wrimos. My butt hasn't left this odd blue leather chair in over two hours.

Somehow reaching the middle of the middle has now terrified me. I have no idea what to write next. Maybe I should blame that on the hour, but I now feel a terrible amount of pressure to finish well what I have started. I feel the need to make it all worthwhile. I drug myself this far, sometimes kicking and screaming. Don't let this misery have been in vain, self. Don't you dare give up now.

3:01am Edit: I'm 1,000 words past the middle now. I totally rock.

nanonotes on day 14

originally posted at
The Writing Vein
by dot.


It has been an amazing day. Full of fitness and friends and team and fun; ending with some work. And I still managed to get in some writing!

I started with a 12 mile training walk with two of my Seattle half marathon friends. We were lucky to have a clear and sunny - although cold - morning; and no rain. Yay for no rain; after I felt like I was going to freeze last weekend with the rain, I have definitely decided that I am putting in my order for no rain on November 29th in Seattle. I'll take the cold (a friend and I did a 10k in early January and there was ice on the ground; I can layer and bundle for that). Please no rain. One friend took off at her faster pace at about 3 1/2 miles, which is fine; my fast is her stroll - and her fast is about 4 minutes per mile faster than mine. But the other friend and I kept up our pace and we made okay time. About mile 9 I started to hurt a little; about mile 10 I was knowing I could do the half marathon but "knew" I couldn't do a full marathon and why would I even try; at mile 11 I saw the end ahead and was driven toward that. We reached our cars, I stretched a little and rushed home to shower and change and drive to the shoe store, where...

The 2010 relay walking team I'm captain of was meeting for shoe fitting and trying on shoes. Seven of us made it there - it was fun and the staff was great. The last of us (which included me) left 3 hours after our arrival. With shoes. And inserts. And socks.

Then I stopped for sushi.

Then I went to a coffee shop with wifi where I proceeded to make more progress on my nanonovel. I saw myself nearing 30k, just as I'd seen us approaching 12 miles, and I thought, I *can* do this before I have to leave for work (which was just 10 minutes away). So I typed and I typed and what do you know!?!?! I did it!

My ending word count for today is 30,104. And the story is still progressing - yay. I hated to stop because I was getting on a roll (though not as good as last night's roll when I had to stop for sleep due to the walk this morning). Oh well, I get to meet with my nanowritingbuddies tomorrow! Yay.

p.s. - I probably am going to sign up for the marathon training, after all. The first meeting is in December, with biweekly training walks/runs to follow. After I push through those final 3 or 4 miles, I feel good. Kind of like NaNoWriMo!

nanonotes from day 13

Yay - I made it through the dreaded second week.... almost. Another day to go, but I'm feeling great about my word count. And the story gained a little momentum.

It's interesting. Tonight my partner was working, so I had the whole house to myself. Which is not a common event, given our disparate work schedules. But I did. And I decided, since I have a twelve mile walk tomorrow morning (the marathon is just fifteen days away! - yikes - ) that I needed some carbo loading tonight. It's okay - I can do this once in a while. I will not be pushing myself as hard as I will be for the half marathon in Seattle - but it is still walking twelve miles.

So I found a new to me place to go and I did. With my college ruled spiral bound notebook in hand and a pen. While I waited in line, I continued with the chapter I started last night. My whole day had been full of work, so I had not written anything today. But, standing at the little bar, I started writing. The maitre'd' guy (I think that wearing a plaid shirt and blue jeans allows me to call him this and not even bother to look up how to spell it correctly) told me politely that there was a table for me by the front window.

"Perfect," I said and put down a couple more words to complete the thought as I walked over there, with one eye on the aisle so I didn't run into anyone.

I sat down and quickly decided what I wanted to eat. For any of my friends who read this, they will scoff because I tend to not be a fast decision maker when it comes to ordering food. But, believe it or not, I decided what I wanted in about three minutes. And got right back to writing down my story. The waitress came, I ordered, my Merlot arrived and my beets, walnut, and goronzola on mixed greens salad.

I tried to eat left handed since I knew that writing left handed would be abysmal and I would only get five or six words down. Gave up. Ate right handed, put the last bite of greens and chunk of beets into my mouth and was back at writing. I can drink left handed and write at the same time. Which I did.

Then came the penne with lemon butter sauce, green onions, salmon, and halibut - oh, and artichoke hearts. Dang, I had to put down the pen to eat. But it was worth it and I have an entire second meal waiting for me in my refrigerator downstairs right now.

So back to the writing. Then came the check. And I kept writing. There was only a short line in the restaurant now and I couldn't stop. The story was flowing - although in a different direction that I thought it would but my hand was literally moving faster than I could think and I could not stop it.

Well, I had to stop it after a few minutes. To get home. Then get sidetracked by an email and then a phone call. And it was all good. Because when I did finally get back to my story, I discovered - again - that my by hand word count and the story it contained were not bad at all. And I liked it.

So, second week, hah! Who cares! I did it. And I faced interruptions (oh, life). And still I ended today with a new word count of, ta da ....

28,035

...that is 2,092 words by hand in the space of about 80 minutes, which included ordering and eating!

originally posted at
The Writing Vein
by Dot.

Nano Souvenirs

If I haven't mentioned it before, this is my 6th year doing Nanowrimo.

Over the years, I've collected various objects that either inspired or aided me in my quest for 50,000 words.

The most memorable items include:

Bicentennial quarter - the inspiration for last year's novel "Tricentennial"

Coffee cup - arrived in my nanowrimo care package last year

pair of postcards (see above)

squishy six sided die - purchased for the 2007 Nano "A roll of the dice"

light blue frosted polyhedral dice - picked up at a convention years ago, used for 2007's nano as a decision making tool.

pair of 1 1/4" ninja figures - picked up in Vegas last week during the recent convention. These are my 'plot ninjas', helping me boost my word count.

pair of rubber 'bouncy balls' - Given to me by an ML (that has since moved away) during a 2006 write in. I chose them because my MC 'had balls' (figuratively and literally)

2005 and 2006, I don't really have much that I collected for the purpose of Nano. What have you collected?

Halfway to completion

I did it! I passed 25K! Already, this is the longest story I've ever written and I've only just written the last scene before I dig in to the meat of the plot-line. Waylaid by MCs, hurdled down paths I did not intend to take...it's quite a journey, to say the least.

Woo hoo and yay for me. Right now I'm doing the halfway dance with Nugget, my plot bunny. Tonight, we celebrate, Nugget. Tomorrow, we hunker down for beginning of the last half.

NaNo Influences

I have a NaNo influence for this scene. Can anyone guess what it is? I'll give you a hint. It has to do with what the group of people is called.

Excerpt:

    A small string quartet was nestled into a corner of Ms. Cook's very comfortable living quarters. The mellow music drifted among the many rooms, creating senses of both space and intimacy among the small gathering. A few uniformed waiters circulated amongst Ms. Cook's guests offering brie and canape. 

Grandmother

Words Today: 1,889
Word Count Total: 33,123

MC #1 spending time with his grandmother, being Told Things in no uncertain terms. Lots of fun to write for this character - always get a kick out of her.

No 35k today, since I'm roleplaying tonight. No planned writing for Saturday either, but Sunday should be highly productive: goal is 40k by close of play.

A Big Push: The Results

Okay, I managed to write ___ words tonight.

Thoughts:

1. I actually kind of like what I write when I do sprints. New things grow out of the need for wordcount and surprise me. I love it! Characters show up early or turn out to be random people I'd written but not named yet.
2. Taking a day off, while I don't suggest it too often because it often can lead to quitting NaNo, does have its place if you can afford the time and know that you'll come back to that novel.
3. Showers are great when you're starting to feel burnt out from a long night of writing.
4. Writing in the dark is tough. Finishing the last two minutes of a word war in the dark is even harder! Be careful of those circuit breakers, dear WriMo's!
5. If you're the competitive type, Word Wars are absolutely the way to go! Such a kick in the pants!

Makin' a push!

Okay. I've got the basement to myself. I have tea, a bottle of red wine, two pieces of toast, and soup in the crock pot. Goal? A whole heck of a lot of words. We'll see. I'll come back at the end of the night and we'll see how much I wrote!

Exile

Words Today: 1,206 2,429
Word Count Total: 30,083 31,303

MC #1 is doing a bit of investigation of what appears to be a house fire, and finding strange evidence.

Didn't write as much yesterday as I would have liked since I was out for the evening, but at least I have managed to knock out enough words today to break 30k. Woo hoo!

Update - finished this chapter to bump the word count for the day and break through 31k. 35k tomorrow is at least conceivable, although I am also out in the evening so it is actually pretty unlikely.

Week Two and still behind the 8-ball by about 3k words. Got a bit done tonight, but still need to generate about 1k before sleeping. It was good to see a number of people at tonight's write-in & hopefully see more of you all at the Night of Typing Furiously on Saturday. As far as my story is going, the cast decided to stick around the Fire Dimension of Ash [Volcanoes & Lava Lakes & the term Pyrogeography] exploring an anomaly. And there's some tension has a thing for the Captain who is engaged with the Navigator. And there's something going on between the engineers. And no one is in an hurry to leave. There's a war to start.

Overhang

Words Today: 1,830
Word Count Total: 28,877

No MCs in this chapter, just an attack on a classically unusual Kissili settlement.

Not an easy day to find time to write, today, with a couple of meetings around lunch time and little B waking just as I was about to put finger to keyboard first thing. Also going out tonight, so no time there. Still, managed to grab some time in the afternoon, so I had a reasonable day.

Should break 30k tomorrow - the start of the glide.

Rogue MC

One of my three MCs, who was supposed to be single and working out her own issues, just up and kissed her roommates brother and I suspect she's fallen for him already. Good grief! And it was sort of mushy. I have never, ever written a kissy-kissy scene.

Plus I'm nearing the half way mark and we're not even close to the main part of the plot-line. She better stop dithering and get to business!

No! Not life! Not now!

I really like looking at the nano stats page in the my nanowrimo section of the website. I got off to a really good start, thanks to the midnight kick-off party and I was able to stay just above the daily goal mark my entire first week. Then week twoness started happening. I had read about it in the faqs and forums. You start writing as though you are trudging through sludge. You get bored. You get self-critical. You don't want to write any more [stamps foot dramatically]! But I had my sweetie for some in-house friendly competition, and when he surpassed my word count for the first time this month I felt a little depressed and then a little glimmer of competitiveness. I dug in, I slogged through and I was not able to catch up.
Then yesterday my grandmother went into the hospital, way back in Tennessee, and my scant hour of designated writing time got filled with phone calls and text messages and online flower purchases. Now I'm more than a whole day behind.
Thankfully I have today off work. I've written about 1,000 words already this morning. After I shower and do my 50 sit-ups and have lunch I'll write 1,000 more. Then I'll go to the write-in at SE Grind this evening. And you know what the best part is (besides the fact that gramma's ok and will be going home in a couple days)? I actually like what I'm writing again. Yay!

Creepy-Crawly

Down to a crawl. I got a little over 1100 words written yesterday, so about 500 short of the daily goal. I've been trying to get 2000 words a day. I'm still marginally ahead of where I'd be at a steady pace of 1667 words per day, so not too bad but I'm starting to fear falling into a repeat of last year's outcome.

I knew eventually I was going to write this book as it's intended to be the prequel to the novel I was working on before I started the vampire novel, but I had done almost no planning for it, had the barest idea of a couple of characters, the setting. Now I'm struggling to get acquainted with the characters and I have so much research I'm going to have to go back and do later when there's time. Right now I'm just focusing on word count, and wow is this bad! I'm taking Chris Baty's suggestion of putting anything I'm going to take out later in bold italics but not actually deleting it. I figure if he says it's fair game, I'm good with it. I already know some scenes will be deleted in toto, the storyline may change, some conversations that are in there now will never see the light of day.

But that's ok. I'll just keep creeping along while I'm getting to know my characters, and it's all part of the process. Although, I really need to have a chat with female MC 'cause sometimes I just want to smack her.

ack! no technology!

Today I had some down time on a job. No laptop. No wireless access even if I did (which means no access to my novel, since I'm using Google Docs for writing it). But I had pen and paper.

So while the clients were involved in individual activities for an extended time, I went back to pen and paper and wrote. And wrote - always keeping one ear and one eye on the room, listening and surveying in case I was needed.

For 35 minutes, I wrote longhand. I filled 10 pages of lined notebook paper. I did an estimated count of 1,650 words!

This brings my approximate total to 23,035.

I also noticed that my longhand word count was just as quick as my typing word count for a similar time. Interesting. Except that now I'm trying to type in all those words I wrote and I'm noticing that it is actually taking me longer to type in what I wrote than if I was creating and typing at the same time.

What does it mean?

Nothing, I guess. Except: hmmm, interesting!

originally posted at

The Writing Vein

by Dot.

A 2,000 Word Day

Still feeling poorly from a lingering cold/sinus infection, I decided to stay home from work. I got up around 9:30 am and set to work on the Nano. I also got the clean dishes put away and did three loads of laundry.

But more importantly, I managed to write over 2,000 words today. Finally, I was able to catch up on some of the word count I lost while I was in Las Vegas this last weekend.

Unfortunately, I think I'm feeling well enough that I'm going to go in to work tomorrow....

Exodus 2

Words Today: 1,406 3,152
Word Count Total: 25,300 27,047

MC #1 is learning more about why people are leaving.

Halfway, baby! Yeah!

Only 40% of plot, though. I either end up with lots of short chapters, or a longer book. Assuming I can keep up the pace (which I think is fair, because in fact the early parts of the plot were harder to synthesise) I should have anywhere from 60k to 75k at the end of this.

Update - wrote part of chapter eleven, setting up for an invasion of an unusual settlement. Another 3k day. Yeah!

Exodus

Words Today: 1,926
Word Count Total: 23,894

MC #1 is meeting people on the road who are leaving the city.

I was expecting to write today, but I also woke up excessively tired form two year old's restlessness. I was all set to go in to the office and write at lunch time, but then I blew an appointment near our house that I had to hurry back to make. That basically wrecked the day, including zapping all the time I had laid out to write.

Then I managed to grab some fragments of time - twenty minutes here, half an hour there, and by the end of it I had a reasonable number of words for the day. Hurrah!

I will definitely break 25k tomorrow now - may even get past 26k, in fact: past half way, at least for the nominal word count goal.

Groovy.

The Crawl

So, after about a week of serious productivity on my novel, the slow-down has come. Over the weekend I wrote less than 3,000 words. Each one is struggling to come out, not wanting to be placed on the page. Since I am writing without benefit of any sort of outline, the plot is also fighting with me, not blending as well as I wanted it to. Some things I didn't see have occurred, but as for where to go....

But I know the solution; keep writing! No matter how difficult it is, I've found over my past 5 years of NaNoing that taking a day off always interrupts the flow more than writing a few laborious passages. Hopefully the story will get easier in the next few days.

Writing Itself

Every year of NaNo is a little bit different. Some years, the novel writes itself. I sit down at the computer and the words flow forthlike a fountain of literature tapped at the tip of each finger. Some years, I fight tooth and nail for every single word! They refuse to be written! The wish nothing more than to remain in the darkened confines of my mind-corners, precisely where I have instructed them that they are not allowed!

I have a feeling that, if I was aiming for the normal 1,667, this novel would be writing itself. Well, maybe. See, Mags was only supposed to stay in the Cheyenne camp for 3,000 words and instead hung around for almost 10,000 words (oh my goodness was I bored by the end of that, but she was having a great time!). Thank goodness that 10,000 words is really only about three days or writing at this insane double-pace.

I'm sitting a little over 25,000 words right now. That's about 25% of my goal for the month. I've barely started what I thought was going to be the "plot" of my novel. Mags, my MC, is nowhere near even finding out that there is a particular bad guy to hunt down. She's still in the States, for goodness sake, instead of London where she ought to be by now! The original outline said that Chapter 8 should have had her on her way to London! I'm at Chapter 8, but she only just got to Boston and there's a lot that's been going on that I hadn't planned for the little scamp! Where's my quirky professor and love interest and villain intrigue? They're all in London! Probably somewhere around 35k, still three days away at this pace.

Let me tell you, when I finally get her to London, Ms. Magdalena Crane is going to get a serious talking to! She's not allowed to do things like this without my express permission and she absolutely didn't get that before running off to a Cheyenne camp for 10k or sleeping with one of her co-workers back at the saloon.

Okay, I have a lot of writing to do before the day is out. Thank goodness my visiting fiancee is understanding and lets me write as much as I need before paying any attention to her!

25,000 words!

It is common in NaNoWriMo to be curious about which words were the fateful ones to fall on certain landmarks. For instance, one might ask, "What was my 25,000th word?" Well, for my novel, I can tell you that the word was 'thankful.'

Excerpt: He fell with a heavy thud to the ground below and Mags was thankful that she was already in a safe position as the rear wheel ran over his head, squishing the thing like a pumpkin into a deeply-stained mess on the forest floor.

Flash Mob Fail

I was totally going to do a flash mob post today in the regional forum. Seriously. I wasn't sure where I would end up though, so I decided to wait until I got settled in a coffee shop on Belmont before announcing to the NaNo-world that I was out writing and wanted company. Good thing I waited. The whole neighborhood had the same idea apparently, and Sound Grounds, Stumptown and Opposable Thumb were all packed to the gills. I looked around for bunnies and NaNoWriMo stickers and t-shirts. Nada. Who are all these people with laptops if they aren't wrimos? And more importantly, why are they taking up all the comfy seats and outlets when I have some serious writing to do!? Boo on them. Instead I replenished my supply of 500 Mile Chai and half and half and threw in some Cougar Mountain chocolate chunk cookie dough for good measure and went home to write. So there. :P

Measuring

I first did NaNoWriMo the same year that I did my first (and so far only) marathon: I needed another ridiculous challenge to occupy my energies.

When I run or cycle long distances, I am constantly doing fractions and percentages in my head, quantifying how far I have gone, how far I have to go, and when (most importantly) I will be finished if I keep up my current pace.

NaNoWriMo is another percentage and fractions game: we will be a third of the way through November on Tuesday; every three days is another ten percent of the month; there will be 70% left of the month after Monday; if I keep writing at my current pace I will be done in ten days; or if I keep overwriting as I have been until the end of the month I would have about 82,000 words; and so on.

Since I try to avoid thinking when I am running, cycling, or writing first drafts, that is usually what occupies my mind.

I should also mention that there are more posts on my NaNoWriMo experiences on my blog: Why Should I Listen To You?

Conniving

Words Today: 1,111
Word Count Total: 21,968

MC #4 is plotting with the remnants of an anti-royalist conspiracy.

I wasn't especially planning on writing today, since today was a family day and I didn't expect to have any chunks of time to work on the novel, but after the boys were put to bed I had a little time to make words. The strange words I wrote yesterday to make 5k will probably survive now.

A Big THANK YOU to our ML, Nibo

I just wanted to take this opportunity on National ML Appreciation Day (we're still lobbying Congress for an official holiday) to thank Nibo for making this blog possible, and all her tireless efforts as an ML. I'm sure not organized enough to do the job of a Municipal Liaison, but I sure am glad other people are! :)

Many thanks, Nibo. And happy noveling! You go, girl.

The Magic of the 30-minute Sprint

The Word Wars, Prompts, & Sprints Forum is in the process of saving me from the embarrassment of a first NaNo loss. At the expense of any hope of a salvageable story, I'm using 30-minute sprints to make up for the fact that I've only been able to write for four days out of the last eight. Today's speed, a miraculous 1,623 words an hour. (Well, miraculous for me, anyway.)

Quantity, not quality -- right?

in the land of nano you never know....

I was typing away, blissful in the productivity I was able to attain once I actually got to the writing meet-up with my buddy this morning. (It took a while, we were both late, but we did eventually make it.)

Then, all of a sudden, from out of the blue, it happened.

The story wants one of my characters dead.

I'm not ready to kill someone off yet. And not this character. She was going to be one of the primaries once I get to the exciting part of this plot. But, no - they want her dead. I'm currently deciding whether to overrule with my author's privilege and just have her be injured and taken to the hospital - I'll even give them a coma if they want. But I don't want her dead. No.

Who wins? The characters or me? What will I lose later if I try to play god in my story now? Or am I already god and this is their way of rebelling?

Oh, a NaNo dilemma.

I don't mind kidding off a character. Really. And it - to be totally, brutally, honest with myself - is about time something exciting happened. This plot needs to move along. Although I suppose that slow and plodding has its benefits during NaNo. But still.

Oh, what to do?

NaNo Notes: day 7

Today has been stormy. I overslept. Which is to say that I slept. A full 8 hours - no, not 8 hours all together - 6 hours, woke up, back to sleep within 20 or 30 minutes for another 2 hours. I still had just enough time to go for my 10 miles walk and get back in time for the next thing. But I did not make it 10 miles - only 6 and with 4 legs of hills. I have run a little low on sleep until last night (only 12 hours total for the previous 3 days) - and my body said no way was it going 10 miles. Plus it started to rain a lot heavier than I was dressed for. I was dressed for rain - layers, a waterproof rain jacket - but not the downpour that started, so I headed home, 2 miles out. By the time I got home it was torrential; truly. About 5 minutes later there was a lot of thunder and the rain kept pouring. Later there was a rainbow and I was wet and still cold to the bone; a phrase I don't often use because I have not experienced that feeling until now.

But you know what? Guess what started to come out in the next chapter of my novel. One of my characters decided to go for a training walk and it started to rain! Woo hoo. She is talking herself through it now -- or was when I had to stop to get to work.

I had a massage after a hot shower (I didn't plan to get soaked before the massage, but she has a table warmer so it was actually perfect!), went out for a quick dinner with my partner, then to a friend's art opening and sale.

Then, finally, to SE Grind for a couple hours of writing. And after a few minutes, the story started to unfold about one of my main characters heading out for a training walk, in the rain, and all she wanted to do was go home...

The Art of NaNoWriMo - imitating life.

Battles

Words Today: 5,052
Word Count Total: 20,857

Action for all the MCs today - lots of words.

Unfortunately, I had an altercation with Scrivener, the application I am writing with (and indeed have done for the last five years). It supports script-writing mode, which is I am sure a fine and lovely thing, but not something you want to turn on accidentally 20,000 words into your novel.

Figured out how to turn it off again just now, but it took time fighting with it and rather broke my rhythm. So I probably managed about half of what I should have done in the last hour.

But... very happy to have broken through 20k!

Update - wittered a bit more to at least have written 5,000 words today. Very confused words, though. Not likely to survive any kind of meaningful edit.

On veering left and starting over

Here I am in my first NANOWRIMO with a good story premise and words coming along smoothly on day one. By day three with 3,000 words into my story I was running out of steam and finding that the premise I had wasn’t going anywhere. I just wasn’t grooving on the story.

So day four I switch to another story idea. I’d moved from a paranormal fiction piece heavy on character development to a humor one full of zany characters and my own quirky observations.

Having written a humor blog for over 3 years, I was very comfortable with the style of writing I’d need to do but concerned if I could push the story out to hit the novel size 50K. Humor tends to be short and I was used to writing short pieces.

By the end of day four I’d clawed my way back up to 2800 words and then days five and six I was so flowing with words I hit 20K. That’s the most writing I’ve ever done and it felt both epic and exhilarating to accomplish. I did have a rough outline of ideas to use. That was the first time I’d used an outline before and it helped push the word count quickly. I remember my first novel this summer I’d been inspired and put in a couple of 7K days but never this much writing. I don’t think I could have done it without the outline.

The event has inspired to keep me writing. I don’t really get writers block or much distraction per say but that was the first time I’d left a story from lack of inspiration to make it happen. While I’m still worried if I can stretch a humor story out to the 50K mark and in time (I’ve got a week over Thanksgiving I’ll be hiking in the desert and unable to write so I’m going to have to stay ahead), I’m going to give it my all and enjoy the event as much as I can.

As an at-home writer just learning the craft and process I appreciate being in the company of other writers when I’m at the write-ins. It’s a great month long event.

Ed Welter

Out the starting gate

It was a dark and stormy Sunday night. Well, not so stormy but it was night. I was excited. My laptop charged. My office doors closed and locked from any intrusion. With iTunes on I began to write. Slowly at first, then quicker as I remembered my Inner Editor was safely on vacation in the "kennels" and could not return until December 1st.

My characters took over. They brought friends I didn't know. Showed me places I had not planned for them to go. My MC changed the color of his hair. I met his parents, took a walk through his university. My wrists hurt, but I continued on, had to reach 1667 words that night.

The following evening was more of the same. I sat back and transcribed the story they told me, interjected a few of my own opinions and plans, and carried on. In a blink I was over 5K. Woot! I was out of the starting gate going strong.

And that is where I fell flat on my face.

I left my office abandoned for one night, and then two. I knew better, honestly. I have no excuse, I don't know what happened. Now they stare at me on the other side of the door, faces pinched and scowling. "Where have you been?" they seem to say. You flaked! You left us and we grew bored. We are wandering with no where to go, and now you must find us again.

Sigh, I will not hang my head in shame this year! I will get back in there, find my dear characters and set them back on their paths.

I am going now...to my office. To my story, their story. Thank you for the opportunity to be accountable. I vow to post my progress each day!

NaNoWriMo: day 6 from Dot

originally posted at
The Writing Vein
by Dot.

An extremely sleep deprived day. I did not get to sleep immediately upon arriving home from work in the week hours of the morning today. Right now I cannot even remember what it was that was so important to do when I got home - but it was, I swear! I did it quickly, but it still delayed getting to bed for an hour. Then I had a very early job so that my number of hours I had to sleep was absolutely horrible. I did squeeze in two 10 minute naps today - which helps.

I came up with a new metaphor. These last two days have felt like the "old days" when you scrounged through the sofa and the car seats, collecting whatever coins you could so you could drive to the gas station and buy 5o cents or 75 cents of gas to get you around for a couple of days.

I've been scrambling around in search of long enough blocks of time to take a nap: 10 here, 15 there, another 10, and even a 30 last night. Just long enough for me to catch a little down time, eyes shut, lessening the chatter in my brain, to make it do-able to get through the next stretch of work.

But tonight - I will go to bed and I will sleep. I can't sleep as long as I want, since I have to do a 10 mile pace walk tomorrow. But, if I can wrap this post up and get to bed right now, I should be able to get a full 8 hours before I walk.

My reward will be a massage in the early afternoon.

Woo.

Oh, and my current word count? Give it up for me, who has passed another major milestone: 15,608 ! Yay.

PNW Rivalry

We've got some catching up to do, people! Get out those ninja plot bunnies and get to it! Is it too late to recruit more wrimos?

No, I'm not procrastinating with widgets. Truly!

The Nibo NaNo Breakthrough

I'm not one of those normal WriMos who worry and stress and have issues with wordcount and over-caffienation and lack of sleep. I never have been. As an English major in college, I learned how to type pretty fast. I could do a 3,000 word research paper in a matter of hours (if pre-researched) and have it twice-edited in that time. Hitting 1,667 words each day was not a sleep-threatening challenge. It was a goal and it was something that pushed me on to greater heights of writing. Heck, NaNoWriMo was what made me a writer. I hadn't really written creatively, ever, until that night (3 November, 2003) a friend asked me if I'd be doing NaNo with her. The rest, as they say, is history.

I like to read the forums and take part in the community of NaNo when I have time. I'm big into writing in pubs and coffee shops, both of which the city has in abundance. But I've never felt that lingering stress or anxiety to get in my wordcount. Usually, I wrote 2,000 each day and finished at least several days early. Last year, I finished on the 16th!

This year, I decided to raise the bar. If other people are having that kind of reactions to NaNo, obviously I was doing something wrong. It wasn't hard enough! I chose to write 100,000 words this month instead of the requisite 50,000. This is, of course, on top of ML duties and a 40-hour work week.

So you might be just as surprised as I was when I say that last night, walking through the back halls of my workplace, I suddenly had this attack of anxiety. I'm low on sleep, high on coffee, and over-sugared way more than I'm used to. I'm stressing over my wordcount and NaNo has become almost like a second job, taking hours upon hours out of my life in the evenings. I was even asking myself, "Why am I doing this to myself? What am I even doing?!"

IT WAS AWESOME!! I feel like a real WriMo! I've finally made it. Noveling Valhalla. Died and gone to Author Hell. It's bliss. I'm home.

10K

Last night I made it to 10,000 words. Well, 10,014, but what's a mere 14 words amongst friends? Woo Hoo! I'm getting to work an hour earlier so I can leave an hour earlier to write and so far, I think it's working. It's my first NaNo, so I didn't know what to expect. I find I get into a groove and write like crazy. Then I have to stop and do something else for a little bit while I digest what's happened before I can determine where to go next. And no matter what I decide, I'm always surprised as what happens as my fingers fly across my keyboard. I get the sensation of being outside myself reading the story as it is being written. Crazy!
Tonight, I'm heading over to Stumptown cofee downtown when I get off work at 4 to write for a couple of hours and then taking the rest of the night off. I am due for a mini-break and I-made-it-to-the-fifth-way-mark mini-celebration :)
Cheers!

We interrupt this Nano....

So Day 4, and I'm at slightly over 4,500 words. I actually think I got past the point I was stuck at. Now I think things are picking up a little bit of speed.

Tomorrow morning, we're flying out to Vegas for the weekend. I'm hoping to get a lot written in the airport and on the plane, because I don't think I'll get a whole lot done this weekend, as I'm going to be attending a convention.

We fly back Sunday, so I'm hopeful that I can get more written on the way home. We shall see...won't we?

But you know, here in Portland, we have a secret November weapon: rain! I hear there's more headed our way...so stay indoors and keep writing!

SE Write-in was wonderful!

I got a bunny and about 1500 words written in little more than an hour and a half. I got to meet some nice people, some of whom are knitters too! I couldn't stay too late because my partner wanted me to bring food home and she can get cranky if she doesn't get fed! Next week I'll be gone, but I'll be there the following Wednesday for sure.

My story is rolling along. I'm just a bit over the 6668 goal for today. I hope to get about 2000 or so done tomorrow. After that it's four days of work and it's harder to keep up with the word count on those days.

Write-ins are awesome

This being my first NaNo and only 4 days in at that, it may be premature to claim a "favorite thing about NaNo." But I'm going to anyway. My favorite thing about NaNo is how it completely annihilates the lonely isolated writer myth. Between the forums and the pep talks and the write-ins, you've got a whole world of people all doing the same thing. We share our joys and sorrows, our fails and wins and our 5,000th and 10,000th words. Yes, the writing happens in my head. But the experience of writing isn't so solitary anymore. It is now something I can do and something I can share. Thank you NaNoWriMo! *smooch*

Ah, week one!

And for once, my story is flowing, words putting themselves on the page with little effort by me. I love it when this happens. The previous two times I've won, it was a much more labored process for most of the story, with only intermittent bouts of this sort of speed. But here I am, day four, and over 10,000 words written. Things are slowing down a bit now, but sometimes all that is needed is to finish the current scene and go on to the next one.

NaNoVideo #4 from your Handy-Dandy ML nibo!

Although the video says "Tomorrow," the Write In for Portland Central is scheduled for tonight! Wednesday at SE Grind from 5:30-8:30! I have stickers, some bunnies, and a Google Wave invite or two I'm willing to give away to people who show up. After all, it's true that I have no problems bribing you all to come write!!

Where is the fun in that?

Peanut M&M "Funsize" packets only contain five M&Ms per packet.

Does that seem right to you?

Relying on left-over halloween candy to support my one peanut M&M reward after each paragraph motivational technique will obviously not sustain me through November. I will need a more comprehensive chocolate solution.

The total so far: 5,005. Only 44,995 to go, with or without peanut M&Ms.

Hope's Story

 Poor Hope. She wasn't a character I'd originally created or outlined for this year's novel. She came out of my need to beef up the wordcount for a chapter and I kind of liked her and made her this tragic little backstory.

*****

Excerpt from Magdalena Crane, Rogue Zombie Hunter

    Hope's eyes picked up a far away look as she started to talk about the history that had brought her, not only to St. George, but into a place like Lucky Pete's. "About six months ago on the way West, our wagons were attacked. At first, the leader, Mr. Wright, thought it was those savages. It's well known that Indians attack along that path and we were hoping to escape their notice by coming through with such a small group.

    "It was little better than a massacre. Blood, brains, screaming.... The Scourge were everywhere, at least six of them, and they were absolutely ruthless. By the time they'd had their fill of our traveling companions, many of us were wishing it had been Indian braves instead of those accursed zombies. Braves, at least, have some sense of honor when they kill.

    "They killed all but three of us. Mr. Wright, his wife Pearl, and myself. Somehow, we'd managed to hide in the back of one of the wagons and escape their notice. The campsite, however, was decimated. Our friends and loved-ones were in pieces, scattered across the ground like nothing more than feed for the coyotes."

    Her voice caught heavily in her throat and Hope choked back even more tears. "That was six months ago. Five days ago, I had finally exhausted the money I had left and found myself with no other option. I pushed on to the nearest town, sold my horse, and attempted to find some form of gainful employment. Pete was the only one who would take me."

Day 2 Going well

Actually today has gone better than I expected. I was able to get a lot of work in at my job yesterday and ended up ahead of pace, like about 2900 words. Today I only got about 500 words in at work, and more here at home. Up to 3800 today and I may write a bit more later, but right now, I'm beat.

I have the next three days off, a write-in to go to on Wednesday, and a lot of time to write. I want to get ahead, in case I don't get much writing done next week when I'm at the coast. But who knows, maybe the ocean will inspire me!

The novel is starting out slow, but steady. I had planned for a new character for a subplot and how and who it is has just sort of appeared. So I'm all set for that. I have some other character names and vague descriptions for them, but at the rate I'm going, I won't get to them and their part in this adventure for at least a few days yet.

I hope everyone's writing is coming along. Just keep typing, and tell your inner editor to take a vacation or something.

NaNo Day Two from Dot

I arrived at the designated cafe about 20 minutes ago to meet up with Jenny and write. I was a little later than I'd hoped, since today was my pace training day and not a short one at that. I was scheduled to do five miles, fast - or fast pace - something, whatever, language escapes me at this moment, which is not a good thing.

So I was supposed to do five miles - and I did five miles. After talking myself into getting out there to do it. "Skip it," I taunted myself. "No," I replied. "Yes, one day won't hurt. Go write. You know you want to." I almost caved. Then I thought that I really can't skip at this point because - well, the half marathon is only 27 days away (now if this was in my nanonovel I would have written twenty seven days because that gives me a word count of three instead of two - but I'm not so you get the contractions and the digits normally).

I did the five miles at a decent pace. And ran into construction on the way here - typical of Portland in the fall.

And now I have food and coffee and water and my laptop open, with Jenny in front of me.

Distracting myself.

Here I go, back to nanoland. My beginning word count for today is 3,956. I'll let you know where I land when I have to rush off the get to the trainers. Before the Write Around Portland group. And then end with a stint of work.

Procrastination is ending now.

NaNo - ho!

originally posted at The Writing Vein
by Dot.

Out of the Starting Gate

I'm off to a rollicking start on word count. Thanks in large part to attending a write-in, I clocked in at 3,337 words yesterday! Wow, I've never gotten that much in one day before. Even with the chatting and socializing and inhaling a sandwich, the distraction of surfing the net via free WiFi (thanks for walking me through that, Wairoam!) it was fun and exciting listening to all those keys clicking around me. We had a great turnout, although I'm not sure exactly how many people showed up (somewhere around 12+, I think). If you haven't attended a write-in, I highly recommend it. Now the question is, can I sustain that, or even half that? Must try... must... back to it...

Nugget, the traveling Bunny

Nugget (my little knitted bunny) and I began our day in the writing room, previously the music room. One of my main characters instantly changed his name. He also changed his career. Good grief! What's the point of pre-planning if characters are going to go off and get a life of their own right from the start?

We got about 1,000 words in and headed over to the Cellar Door coffee shop in SE Portland. We stayed there awhile, until about 3,100 words, and decided we needed a break. Nugget kept pushing the coffee on me, so I'm all hopped up on caffeine and getting ready to push through another 1K for the day, I hope.

Is it sad that I'm already feeling the pressure of November 30?

Letting go of the elder game

What do you do when you've beaten all the built-in challenges, but still don't want to leave?

Designers of virtual worlds take that question very seriously. In fact, the smart ones create their worlds in such a way as to accommodate those players, to keep them playing (and paying). Richard Bartle calls this the elder game: the content that occupies players in advanced states of immersion. I've experienced it myself in various virtual worlds -- and NaNoWriMo.

My own personal elder game took the form of volunteering, first as an online mentor, then as a Municipal Liaison, and finally as a forum moderator. The pinnacle came in 2007 when I mentored half a dozen rookies, hosted events in two different towns, moderated the chaotic Newbies Forum, and set a personal goal of 100k words for my novel.

Things changed after that crazy success. I moved 2,700 miles from my rural village in Western New York to the urban sophistication of Portland, ending my brief stint as a Municipal Liaison. I moderated the Newbies Forum for another year, but felt so burnt-out by the experience that I stepped down on December 1st.

Now here I am on Day One of NaNoWriMo 2009. It's my sixth event -- but the first since 2005 that comes without the added motivation of the elder game. I like my novel idea, its themes and premises, its characters and conflicts. But even as my desire to write it remains unflagging, my enthusiasm for NaNoWriMo itself begins to wane. The question I asked year after year -- can I succeed? -- has now become do I want to succeed?

So far I don't have an answer.

Way too early start

I wanted to make my first post here at a more normal hour, but I woke at 4AM, with a slight headache and stuffy nose. So I decided to get up and start my Nanowrimo novel now. I've been writing about 20 minutes and things are moving along. Let's see.. current word count is 328. I have to work 10 hours today, so I need to get back to sleep soon. I will be able to work on my novel 'The Only Promise That Remains" at work, at least a little bit.

This year I'm writing using several different tools. At home on my Linux computer, I write in OpenOffice Writer. Before going to work, I'll copy what I have into a Google doc, which will allow me to work on it at work. If I'm out, or just want to write somewhere else other than my desk, I have my Alphasmart Neo. Whatever I write there I can just transfer into the OpenOffice document. I will also be using the Neo in about a week, when my partner and I go to the lovely Oregon coast for a few days. No Internet, but I can still work on my novel.

If you want a bit more information about me, I'm sigma957 on the Nano website. Good luck to everyone this month!

The Last Post of October 2009

I am writing this post in the very last hour of October for two reasons. One, because I really need to talk some things out and what better place to do it? And two, because I can't seem to do anything else whilst waiting to write that first line of prose tonight at midnight. I'm sure most of you are off having fun talking plots and characters and settings at the midnight write in and I wish I was there, but perhaps next year.

Today, I kind of had a mini-freak out. This is because I realized that I have absolutely no idea what my book is going to be able. I mean, I know the very, very, very basics of it, but I don't actually know what the conflict is, let alone how it's going to resolve itself. After two or three stress filled hours of frantically trying to string a plot together, I realized that that's exactly what NaNoWriMo is about: writing something, even if you have no idea where it's going. Let your characters take you where there going to go.

Literary abandon. That's the journey we're about to embark on and I'm sure I feel exactly like the pilgrims coming over on their boat, this time so many, many years ago. That epic excitement of what is to come and yet the apprehension of not really knowing where you're headed, just knowing you're headed to somewhere great.

Have an awesome and fantastic November writers and don't let any thing getting in the way of making it to the top! See you at the finish line (and several places in between).

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

Less than an hour to go. I'm tired after playing 36 holes of disc golf (and getting up too early to play) today, but I'm determined to make it to midnight. I'd like to make it to two and see the changing of the time, but that's a different battle.

Another cup of tea for me? Probably.

The notes are open, the spreadsheet is waiting. Open a new Word document. File some papers. And wait with bated breath.

And so it begins...

And I'm off! Being in South Carolina for NaNoWriMo start means that I get to begin  3 hours earlier than all of Portland! Problem is that this year I'm starting off alone and I'm just not feeling the beginning of this book. *sigh* Oh well. Just push through it and make it work. 3k minimum word count every day. I can do this.

Good luck, Portland!! I'll be back soon!

Nugget

My music room has been transformed to a writing room; I just created Nugget, my trusty plot bunny and November companion; I've set my clocks back and cleared the to-do list...now I wait.

In just under seven hours...

originally posted by Dot at The Writing Vein on 10/31/09 at 5:05 pm

I will have been working on my new, 2009 NaNoWriMo novel for 6 minutes. I will have six minutes of ...

of...

...something. I will be there at the midnight write-in, with my friend, Jenny, and the 20 or 40 or 60 or more people gathered in east Portland to kick off this thing called NaNoWriMo.

My next post will be after midnight, after the fun begins, after I know where my novel starts. I have a summary - that you can read on my NaNoWriMo author's page (username is dot.). The working title of my new novel is "Cascade Lakes Footnotes." Other than the summary (which I already posted here on my website), I don't know what's going to happen or who will be there or who the guilty parties are. I've been promised a "struggle for survival" - so there does seem to be a bit of a mystery and at least the threat of death, if not one or more actual deaths. We'll see!

I've had to forego the nap I thought would be a good idea since I am excited and there's no way I'd sleep. I thought the 11 miles walk with half-marathon partners this morning would help with the napping - but, no. Now my partner and I are headed off to a dance for a couple hours. Then back home to change into the 2009 NaNoShirt I've had hanging on the wall since it arrived a couple weeks ago. NaNoNerd that I am, I promised myself I'd not wear it until....tonight! Now the only question is: which one? The official 2009 NaNoShirt or the official Camp NaNoWriMo shirt?

*grin*

It's nearly NaNoTime!

NaNo Eve

Ahh, the day when all novellers are nestled up tight at their computers, eagerly counting down the seconds to the beginning of the frenzy. The first days are the easiest in some respects. The ideas are still fresh, the words flow like Niagara Falls, and it seems you could finish your novel that same week.

Then the wall comes. The ideas come with more difficulty, the words dry up, and excuses abound. Like, say, checking the forums 8 times a day. You just need to keep at it, get some words written, and I assure you it will get better. Trust me. This has happened to me many times. Sometimes it led to me not getting my full word count. Last year, my second win, it almost seemed a few times like I wouldn't make it. But I kept at it, wrote at least a little each day, and then sometimes inspiration struck and I was able to catch up on my wordcount. You can to!

So, NaNoers, get ready. We start tomorrow. Or tonight, at midnight. After the Halloween parties are over, after all the kiddies have come and gone, grab a drink and sit in that chair. Warm up your typing fingers and get set. Then at midnight, go!

I Don't Wanna Stop

(If I can borrow a phrase from Ozzy)

As if cranking out 50,000 words in thirty days isn’t enough of a challenge, I’ve taken the bait and volunteered to do some blogging here about my NaNoWriMo experiences. Which are limited, so it shouldn’t take long. This is only my second attempt at it. I took the plunge for the first time last year at the urging of an online buddy, and signed up at T-minus 4 days (October 28, 2008) with nary a thought in my little pea brain as to what I was going to write. But that didn’t stop me. Oh no. Common sense was nowhere in sight. My friend’s enthusiasm for the miasma that would become life during NaNo was infectious (in a good way) and so I took up the challenge.

Oh those first glorious days (once I had a story idea) flowed. Word count, shmerd count, thought I, as I typed merrily away. Who’syerdaddy! I taunted my muse. Big mistake.

Then reality set in. After two weeks, I missed an entire week of writing and my confidence evaporated like… like… like something that evaporates really fast. Like those little drips of coffee that fall when you take the pot off the hot plate in the coffee maker, and they sizzle and bubble and are gone before you can grab a towel and mop them up. Kinda like that.

I managed to clock in at something under 27,000 words (not much under) so not an inconsiderable effort.

This year, however, I am resolved to tough it out to the bitter end, even if I don’t make the full 50k. I’ve even conned …err… convinced two friends to join in the fray, and am putting the thumbscrews to a third. I have no pearls of wisdom if you are new to this, except to Plant Butt In Chair and write. Turn off the internal editor, first drafts are supposed to be crap. Get some good music to tune out the sound of the dishwasher running, and the dog barking, and your neighbor continually gunning the engine of some antique muscle car he’s been trying to restore for the last ten years…

Ladies and Gentlemen, start your engines.

stats update

Twitter post just after noon (PST) today:

2009 Tally: 100,335 authors signed up. WOW! $116,887 on the fundometer.

Going Into It

Let me preface this by stating that this is the first year I will actually be able to attempt this without being interrupted by work. As such, take any advice I might dispense with whatever amount of skepticism you see fit, considering it is all coming from a newbie. That said, I shall endeavor to limit my advice to previous experience in writing rather than this particular event. Most of my posts, such as this one, will not be to offer advice, but rather to state some of the challenges I face along the way in this process.

I think that the greatest challenge I am facing at this point in the game is the desire to actually write in the novel I plan on writing next month before the month starts. I think this stems from my having thought out what I want to write so far before I can actually allow myself to commit any of it to type. This is both frustrating and interesting at the same time. Frustrating for all of the obvious reasons, and interesting as this is the first time in my life where I have not been able to immediately transcribe my thoughts upon their occurrence. Whether this will be better for the novel's coherence or not I will not know until I get to the review process on the other end. I do suspect, however, that this forced pause between imagination and composition might actually instigate some measure of ponderance on the subject matter I intend to address. It has certainly given me generous opportunity for research which I rarely do beforehand.

I am unsure if I will be able to complete the goals of the competition as stated, as I really cannot imagine writing without some manner of review along the way, given the nature, tone, and complexity of the subject matter of the novel. If it were of a lighter nature, perhaps in a farcical style, I could imagine not taking it seriously enough to simply flow through fifty thousand words without regard to measure, continuity, and pace. As it is, I am struggling with myself over the concept of creative literary abandon. I realize that that is indeed one of the stated intents, to force authors to simply push themselves to produce quantity at risk of quality, but the snobbish artistic side of me demands that I do both or forsake the quantity if it at all compromises the quality. Obviously, this is a conflict I will be confronting as next month progresses.

Toward the purpose of preserving quality, I have set about pre-plotting the entire story in my head. I know that many, such as Nibo, would suggest an outline, but I have never excelled at writing about what I want to write, or writing about what I have written. While I know that outlines, even extensive ones of thousands of words, might help, I find myself unable to conjure up more than a seventy-one word summary. My issue is, I would much prefer to write a book than write about a book. An issue I have had since high-school book reports. However, I have no problem weaving the scenario of the book in my head, as long as I do not have to commit it to paper in any other form than the final product. I have run into this problem a few times before when trying to compile my extant writings into book form. I could not work up a short summary for the book cover or the inner jacket to save my life, despite having written the stories contained within it.

Another problem I am facing is, while I have written a lot since childhood, the longest completed work I have ever authored was just shy of twenty thousand words. The daunting goal for next month is more than twice that. I have written stories that long, but they have never been completed. I am certain I do not want to start a work with that as an acceptable outcome. As such, I am determined to finish the novel I start next month, somehow.

4 Days - Finding inspiration in strange places.

4 days to Nanowrimo!

So this post is about finding inspiration in odd places. Two years ago, my husband and I walked into an IHOP 9:00 on a Tuesday night. The doors were open, the lights were on, but there was no one in the restaurant to greet us. We heard some noises in the kitchen and called out. Eventually, a waitress came to seat us. But that was what inspired me to create my 2007 nan novel, A Roll of the Dice.

Today, I was driving home and found myself behind someone in a small late 80's early 90's car. The car was at least two car lengths behind the car ahead of it, and going so slow that I was only able to do 30 in a 45 zone. He was in the right lane, so I simply went around him. But still, he was going really really slow. I thought he might be taking the cutoff, but he didn't. My guess is that he was looking for an address. I've encountered it a time or two driving home, though generally they don't drive that slow.

I turned off the main road, and the white car followed me up the hill, but it soon disappeared from view. I started thinking about my 2009 nano novel, and decided to add a part where the MC passes a slow moving car, and soon realizes that this car was intercepting them to follow them. A car chase ensues, perhaps ending with the MC being boxed in and getting a warning to back off.

So stories and plot devices are out there. Just keep your eyes and ears open at all times. :)

countdown: 5 days, 3 hours, 41 minutes

originally posted at The Writing Vein, by Dot.

...but who's counting? oh, me... right... and thousands of other hopeful writers

And so I've entered the final week before NaNoWriMo. Am I prepared? Maybe. Am I ready to jump into this novel? Yes, definitely.

Maybe I should be making lists. What I need and when and where. Or maybe not. Life has been hitting me from right and left these last two weeks and I feel like I've been in a battleground. I won't bore you with the details nor expose personal garbage by spilling it here *grin. So the one thing I have done is put out a request to the universe to stop with the messes and get those stars aligned because I am going to write another novel beginning at midnight:01 on November 1st. And I need a little help getting things straightened out before that time.

Despite all the drama and the too many things to do in too little time, I am excited. I am excited to see where this idea leads me. All you see on my author's page synopsis is what I know. I don't have specific characters in mind nor specific incidents. I don't know if what I wrote as a synopsis will be a scene, the start, or the setting in general.

But it will happen. It will go somewhere. It will be completed. As I work, and teach (which is work, yes) , and finish out the last three weeks of the writing group I'm facilitating, and wrap up the final two weeks of the writing workshop I'm taking, and train for and walk my first half marathon. I can.

Pre-Kickoff and Events in Portland

October Pep: Living without the Outline!

I've heard the words ringing out since my last pep talk. They follow me around wherever I may go, haunting my every move. "But.. what if I don't wanna outline? Feh!" Well, in that case, I have a little secret I would like to share with you.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO! (Please initiate party now.)

Outlining is (or can be), as was stated on a recent forum thread, "for the process oriented person." There is definitely a certain freedom that comes from not having one. You will never feel the constraint of writing certain scenes in a certain way with certain characters in attendance. Also, you get to have the pleasure that all spectators enjoy of finding out what happens as it happens on the page.

My first year participating in NaNoWriMo happened because a friend IM'd me on November 3rd and asked me if I'd be noveling with her this year. My reaction was, of course, "huh?" So, this lovely young woman sent me a link explaining the insanity that could be the month of November if only I was brave enough to partake in its joy. I offered up body and sound sleep to the NaNo'ing gods that day and have never once felt that the offering was given in vain.

That year, my novel grew from nothing through sleepless nights spent at my dorm room computer. Characters I had never imagined were born in the heat of the moment. The plot curled around and twisted back on itself in ways I could never have planned. It was truly a novel of self-exploration. The experience of a lifetime.

So, isn't the point of the outline-less novel that it's a beautiful, organic experience? What could I possibly tell you about doing an "unplanned" novel that could be useful in any way? Isn't the whole point that there is no planning involved? Well, in short, yes!

One of the hardest things about writing without an outline is that you have little-to-no direction for where to go next if and when you hit a literary roadblock. This is  one of the things that you can attempt to avoid with a little preparation in October! Here are a few options for things you can prep in October but don't actually count as a dreaded outline:

The Writing Box: This is a box/notebook/Google doc of handy prompts and information. A friend of mine had one in a flashcard box with dividers that said things like: "Subplots" "Characters" "Places" "Objects" and so on. It's no more nor less than a location for you to store away the plot bunnies that are tugging at your heartstrings now so that they might be called upon again when they're actually needed (as opposed to right now when they're just cluttering things up). "Characters" might include a name, occupation, little quirks, or a 10-page back story of the town's jester who's really an undercover agent for the forces of the evil empress Luxuria!

Links of Usefulness: When you hit a roadblock, it is quite handy to have your own version of the WritersBlock5000Bulldozer on hand to clear away such a mess. I have my own in the form of a folder of useful URL bookmarks that will spur on my brain to greater heights. Find name generators that will fit your theme; bookmark a couple of Google Image searches of Steampunk Computers or French Country Homes or whatever will fit your genre for visual reference; and of course, a straight link to the NaNoWriMo dares thread! The people over on the dares thread are better at getting your novel going again than a jackrabbit with jumper cables! (See Below)

Mid-Month Breakdowns: Nothing kills your novel like a little mid-month mental breakdown. We all suffer from them. Yes, every last one of us, whether we're willing to admit it or not. Last year, mine happened on November 14th from exactly 10:19-10:24 P.M. somewhere through my first beer of the evening as I realized that I was COMPLETELY out of story. Thankfully, I'd done some pre-planning of my own for such an event and whipped out my safety stash of JustInCase left-over Halloween chocolate and opened up Wikipedia. (In case you are ever wondering, Wikipedia is one of the most amazing places to go for plot ideas. This is how my MC managed to contract influenza and die from exposure at the end of my novel, scoring me just enough wordcount to finish!) So, take a deep breath, remember we've all been there, and dive into those links, that writing box, or onto the forums for some suggestions and a little jumpstart.

Those are my pro tips! My very best pro tips, even! I spared none. Kept none for myself. Hopefully, they will prove useful and enlightening for those of you who have taken the adventurer's challenge and will plunge into the coming month with little more than a dream and a guiding star. Personally, I'll stick to road maps and my compass, but perhaps once again the wild nights will call to me and beckon me into the fray with a nothing more than sabre 'tween my teeth and a burning outline on the path behind!

Until next time,

Yours in prose (almost!) and insanity,
-Lauren (aka nibo, the Ninja ML)

NaNoWriMo Dares Threads (1 and 2):
http://www.nanowrimo.org/node/3264019
http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3300262

Odd Looks and Look Backs

I'm not sure if someone else has mentioned this (I've been busy the past week or so and I haven't had chance to catch up on the recent blog pots), but I'd like to talk about talking about NaNoWriMo.

Last year being my first year, I not only had to figure what exactly I was doing in this crazy month of insane writing, but also the explaining of what exactly it was I was doing to those closet to me. Two of my best friends I recruited to writing, so that wasn't hard. The hardest thing was my parents and brother: the people that are around me most of the time. The ones who didn't know where I was for 30 days. My routine became wake up, write some before heading off to school in the morning, writing in between classes and any free period I had, coming home doing a fair-to-midland job in my homework and just writing for the rest of the evening before dragging myself to bed at all hours of the night. TV shows went unwatched, dinner was shoveled in at record speeds, and a fair amount of snapping on my part went on.

Because I decided to participate in NaNoWriMo about three days before it actually started (I actually didn't even know it existed, much less something I'd want to do, until the middle of October 2008), not only was I unprepared, but so was my family and everyone around me. This year, I've had a year to prepare and everyone knows what I'll be doing in November (my parents decided it would be a good idea to include this in the Christmas letter they sent out. That was a nice holiday of answering novel related questions) and I'm more mentally prepared instead of the freak out I was having on Halloween whilst handing out candy. I know what my story is about, I have a pretty strong bond with my characters already even though they've spoken not a word, and it's not as spur of the moment.

The only thing I feel I'm ill-prepared for is the onslaught of odd looks I'll be receiving throughout the month from classmates. I know that I'm one of the youngest members of this blog, but you've all been there right?Most of the time, I'm so "into" what I'm doing that I don't may attention to anything around me, but it's those few moments when my teacher calls me to attention that I hear the snickering and see the gaping. It's like when I bring Harry Potter to school, but that's a different story. Hopefully I'll be able to ignore them and brush it off like I do with the Potter stuff, but you never know.

*sigh* I'm sorry for that rant. I just felt like I needed to post something and that's what my thinking about, NaNoWriMo wise, at the moment.

Till next time: Have a lovely day.

October Pep: Outlining

This is similar to a post I made earlier, but I thought other MLs and regions might be interested to see the Portland Super Secret(tm) pep talk emails. Here, therefore, is the one from October 15th.

October Pep: Outlining
[Brought to you by nibo, the Ninja ML]

Today's pep talk (sent out from here on out on Thursdays, NaNo-Gods Willing) is brought to you by the following entry in the official NaNoWriMo FAQs:

Do I have to start my novel from scratch on November 1? Can I use an outline?

Yes.

This sounds like a dumb, arbitrary rule, we know. But bringing a half-finished manuscript into NaNoWriMo all but guarantees a miserable month. You'll care about the characters and story too much to write with the gleeful, anything-goes approach that makes NaNoWriMo such a creative rush. Give yourself the gift of a clean slate, and you'll tap into realms of imagination and intuition that are out-of-reach when working on pre-existing manuscripts.

Outlines and plot notes are very much encouraged, and can be started months ahead of the actual novel-writing adventure. Previously written prose, though, is punishable by death.


Writing With an Outline
Outlining is one of those touchy subjects in the vast history of NaNoLand. The FAQ say that it's perfectly okay, even possibly encouraged, for you to pre-plan your novel. Outlines, character sketches, even backgrounds for those tricky antagonists are all perfectly okay as long as you don't cross that line in the sand that leads to actually writing your novel's prose before November 1.

There will, however, always exist that vast divide between those who write their NaNoNovels by outline and those who take upon themselves the courage to simply "wing it." Although for years, I (nibo) counted myself as one among their number, advancing age and personal wordcount stipulations have forced me to rethink this strategy. I come to you today as a fallen 'Wing'er.'

I have come to discover that a certain beauty exists within a well drafted outline. First of all, in my experience, it allows you to achieve a considerable higher rate of sleep in November when you cross into the dreaded, mythic Week Three. Also, it's something to bring to write-ins and Meet and Greets and wave around beneath everyone else's noses, proclaiming how very committed you are to NaNoWriMo and how well you're going to do because of all of this outlining you've done. After all, doesn't a good outline mean that you're destined to win and go on to Noveling Greatness(tm)?

Well, not exactly, but it can help. While many will forever and always NaNo by the seat of their pants, those who swear by the pre-November outlining and planning will also likely continue to do so. Here, for those of you who are outlining this October, I offer the following description of my own outlining methodology, as a moment in the mind of a fellow outliner:

It's similar to the Snowflake Method*, but a little less structured.
First: Get the idea of your novel. Anything will do. Monkeys take over a call center in Victoria, B.C. as a bid for world domination? Sure. Sounds good to me! The next big thing!

Next, figure out a very loose plot. Basic point A to point B. At this point, I usually look at the wordcount requirement I've set for myself and try to figure out about how long I want my chapters to be so I know approximately how many I'm going to need. (I usually err around the 2500-4000 words mark for chapters.)

I write out the chapter numbers in a blank document and create goals for each one (the plot of the chapter in a sentence or two). This is the main chunk of my outline until the beginning of November. Just something to stew over until things really get going and I can meet my characters.

As the novel progresses through the month, I'll take a little time to outline the scenes I want for each chapter before I get to it. This gives me a pretty easy "Connect the Dots" way to get through my daily writing. I don't often hit any serious road blocks, unless they're plot-based, and it gives me something solid to refer back to later if I want to edit the piece as a bid for that afore-mentioned Noveling Greatness(tm).


It might work for you or it might not, but this is how I outline and pre-plan my novel. Sometimes, I'll also hunt down pictures to use for each character and, if I'm feeling really nerdy, I'll create roleplaying character sheets for them. It gives me something to reference during the month if I can't decide what to make the character do next.

Yours in prose (well, not yet) and insanity,
-Lauren (aka nibo, the Ninja ML)
Hostess of "The NaNo Project" (http://thenanoproject.blogspot.com/)


*The Snowflake Method
Heavily relied upon every year by a large number of outliners, The Snowflake Method suggests that creating an outline for a novel is comparable to creating a snowflake using fractals.
http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/snowflake.php