Monday, November 30, 2009

Out with WriMo, in with FiMo

So today's the last day of NaNo.
Although I intended to write a lot more today, I was once again busy with other tasks. And now that I'm finally free I'm tired.

Either way I have two hours left to make a dent. Still I'm not too distressed because this is not the end. I plan to write until finished, hopefully before December 25th.

If you're like me at all and have an unfinished manuscript from NaNoWriMo, feel free to join me on NaNoFiMo here. The site isn't as fancy, but the support is there.

And now...a countdown and record of my word count:

10:08 pm - 51,964

11:46 pm - 52,054 (way too tired...little got written during a nap)

11:57pm - 52,283

Alright...that's it. It's midnight. Well it was a little disappointing to end just over 50k this year. But I'm not surprised...this NaNo has been pretty pathetic.

So with the start of December, I want to make up for it. Let's finish this novel before the year ends and work with impressive speed. End goal: 80k-100k or whatever it takes to finish Icarus. Bonus points if I finish Man Upstairs as well.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

50k! Whoopie...(not so enthused)

I finally reached 50,012 this afternoon and should be excited, but this year it feels like a very hollow win.

As I've said before, this was not my best NaNoWriMo. I was unprepared and far too busy (life, work and being sick just got in the way). Still I pulled it through eventually, but due to my sluggish progress all month I have left myself with a lot of work.

Rewriting Icarus has definitely been a test in what works and what doesn't. I made a lot of little changes from the first version to see how they would affect the story. Some have been surprising and successful, while others not so much. The negative of all this is that when it doesn't click, I get reminiscent and bitter. And I slow down.

Thankfully December is NaNoFiMo (but I'd be writing anyway even if it wasn't) and like last year, I'll write until the novel is finished. This time I hope it will be done before Christmas. Some of my tasks should lighten up in the coming month and even work should be manageable so that I can really dedicate myself to my writing.

So I will not look at the end of NaNo as the end (even though it sometimes feels that way)...it's just the beginning.

Friday, November 27, 2009

Thanksgiving...and 4 days to scramble

So things are going a bit better. I've been on quota for the last couple of days and hopefully will get much further beyond the winning goal of 50k (perhaps 80k?).

My partner in crime has not fared so well as she's been ill and far too busy with theatrical commitments. I truly want her to finish, but know that neither of us will be alone in December when we finish our novels. Huzzah!

Writing overall is going decently. Some of it is terrible but I've force myself to move on rather than dwell and let my inner editor win. After all, I'll have all year to edit now that my story is actually where I want it to be plotwise.

Looking back, this NaNo definitely did not go as planned and feels different somehow to the others. Perhaps I was overly ambitious and neglected the projects and work that would inevitably get in my way. And with re-writing this new version of Icarus, allowed my fears of inadequacy to make me stall far too long.

Still I plan to finish and as I'm only 3k+ away I think that is a given. As for the rest of the writing (because the novel itself will hardly be done) I will try to bang out what I can in the next three days...we'll see how legible it is once Nov 30th has finished rearing its ugly head.

G'night.

Word count: 48,638

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Sick sick sick...

So my quota slowed down this weekend due to being smacked by the Flu bug on Friday. I personally blame it on my new seasonal workplace, where sharing equipment means way too many germs in the room.

I'm still writing though. Tonight I caught up slightly but fell short of the full 38k required for today. I'm tired and congested, so I'm going to call it a night with the hope of starting strong tomorrow morning.

This NaNo really has flown by for me. And it's really weird because I've been working on two stories it feels like I'm doing NaNo twice. I've got a lot of work to do in order to finish by the end and make the 100k goal. I really want to push hard and hit 50k tomorrow, but I'm not going to expect it in my slightly sicker state.

So let's push it tomorrow morning and really write like the wind. Wish me luck!

Wordcount: 36,232

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

On quota so far

I'm exhausted so I'll keep it short.

A late night sprint with other NaNo folks on Twitter kept me right on track. I'm currently at 30,022. Yes I'm a little behind for my 100k goal, but there is plenty of time to make up for it.

Icarus is going, but if I only had more time I could write more. Perhaps I'll make up for it this weekend.

G'night.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Lack of Sleep = Writer's Block?

I haven't a clue, but after being excited and thrilled and full of ideas. I came home to a headache, chores and finally writing. But by the time I sat down to write, I only managed to get out 342 words before the Sandman started to tug at my eyelids.

So I won't meet the quota tonight, but I will make up for it tomorrow full force. I must, there is a painting of a corndog on a plane at stake seen here.

Yes. Penny and I are racing for this beauty or at least a replica. I'm not sure what our goal is (finished stories, both stories finished, 100k or 50km who knows?), but it's got us motivated.

G'night!


Word count: 27,595

So far so good.

I'm still on track at 27,253. I wish I had written more, but I'm tired and need to sleep. Icarus' opening went far better than The Man Upstairs did, which I attribute to my familiarity to the characters and all that practice narration in my head.

In fact, the opening scene was decent enough that I'll post it here (do mind my grammar and such, I don't feel like editing at all right now):

That morning in the sleepy town of Northport, a young woman crouched in a alley and wondered how she had gotten where she was. She was not wondering how she had gotten to that particular spot, of course, as she was quite aware that she that the reason she was in that spot was to wait for a friend, who by the clock in the town square, was running incredibly late. No, that girl, who when asked would tell you her name was Olivia and nothing more, was pondering how she had come to the incredibly dull port town which was currently her home. Her mind often went back to this question when she had spare time on her hands, as she did now, although her actual hands were quite full with a bunch of wrapped parcels containing laundry.

“Where is she?” The girl muttered bitterly as she shifted the packages and leaned out of the alley to search for her friend. Her incredibly late friend, who was generally never this late as far back as she could remember. Which was not very far at all.

You see, Olivia could only remember the last year of her life. And that life began waking up battered and bruised in the Northport hospital Sacred Heart to a bunch of strangers. The strangers had frightened her a great deal until she had realized they were doctors--that early period of her life had been quite confusing. Until she recovered. And then she was full of questions, which much to her chagrin they had no answer to give. It seemed that they knew as little about her past life and identity as she did, except that her name was Olivia because it was inscribed on the locket she wore around her neck. The only remnant of her past besides a horrible scar on her back. With no one to claim her and little more than vague dreams to guide her search, the poor girl was shipped off to a nearby orphanage, where she spent exactly three days before being sent back off into the town to earn her keep. And that, is what thrust her into the wonderful life of a delivery girl for the only wash house in town.
This had become her life, a life of obedience, repetition and errands.

At the moment she was not doing the errand she was expected to do. Instead, the girl who deemed her life boring (although if she was capable of remembering her past she would think it was quite the interesting life for one so young) was trying to make the dreary days more worthwhile by breaking the rules. But she would be unable to break them until her friend arrived and covered for her disobedience. Olivia was about to give up waiting and merely hide the package she was supposed to be delivering under a nearby barrel when a hand suddenly grabbed her shoulder,

“Boo!”

Olivia jumped and turned around, brandishing the package like some sort of floppy weapon. The person on the other end of what could only be called a “sword” in jest was the very girl she had been waiting for. The girl was more red in the face than usual and breathing heavily.

“You’re late.” Olivia said dryly as she thrust her packaged at the other girl so she had no other choice but to take it. Then she began to walk in the other direction, determined to make use of what little time she had left.

“Of course I’m late!” The girl exclaimed, quickly shoving the bundle under her arm and charging after Olivia. Her face still flustered and pink. “I ran the whole way here!”
Olivia laughed but immediately regretted it when she was smacked over the head with what she had the suspicion was the laundry she had just handed off.

“Ouch!”

“I owe you that and much more.” The panting girl said between breaths.

“Calm down, Virginia.” The girl said as she rubbed her head, but did not stop walking.

“I’ll make it up to you I promise. Just deliver that package and meet me at the shop when you’re done.”

Then before her friend could say anything else, Olivia took off in a run towards the town square.


That's all for now. G'night folks.

Monday, November 16, 2009

It's time to fly, Icarus.

So tonight I finally begin writing Icarus, my other and main story for NaNo. I'm a little upset with myself for starting so late in the game on the one I care most about, but life reared it's ugly head and kept me from finishing my planning. So I focused on the one that had no planning at all instead of this one.

But now the time has come and I'm terrified.

I'm terrified because it will be the second time I'll be writing this story...sort of...because the story is different this time around, but some of the characters and plot elements are the same. And this time around my inner critic expects more from me than the jumbled writings of most hurried NaNo novels.

In fact, I've begun the story in my head a least three different times in the past week. Everything sounds better in my head of course, so I can only hope it will translate to the page.

Given the limited amount of time I have to write this, I have no other choice but to write and write fast. So I'm going to tell my inner critic to shut up. I'm going to avoid rewriting scenes and simply press forward. I will go beyond the quota and if I get stuck it will be okay to skip scenes. Likewise, it will also be okay to jump back over to the other story.

However, I will appease my inner critic in one way. I will outline my scenes in advance. I did enough planning that I can do that and have some path to follow.

Well enough stalling. Let's begin...

(Word count: 25,032)

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

It's just terrible (pronounced: turrabull--it's that bad)!

It's been 10 days since NaNo started and we're on the second week.

I've made it to 19k and almost to 20k--I better get there by tonight. And it has all been for The Man Upstairs as I still haven't started Icarus yet. Even though TMU is the "fly by the seat of your pants story" it's definitely been interesting and the more I write the weirder that story gets.

I wish I could post some of it for people to read, but it is terrible. I know people generally complain about the state of their stories during this month (partly due to the rush), but I'm convinced mine is worse. I've even seen some of this supposed "awful" writing from people who have posted chunks of their novel out of bravery. And when I do check it out, I secretly hope that it will resemble the mad ramblings I've churned out so far, but no! They have paragraphs, indentations and proper sentence structure.

Egads!

If that is bad, my current work would make eyes bleed--literally. I know I'm not the most skilled writer (was never an English major), but the ideas are good. And with some editing (someone Strunk and White me) the writing can be coaxed and polished into something that will not melt my reader's face off.

But in my defense I have been writing fast and hard. Not so much at the moment (hit a lull), but in general. And when one is typing so quickly that your wrists begin to hurt, you stop worrying about making grammatically corrected or even properly spaced passages.

Perhaps it will be better with Icarus. At least with that story I have a detailed outline and know where I'm going (for the most part). But only time will tell.

And now...I need to go write my quota for the day!

Thursday, November 5, 2009

....pfffft

^That is the sound of me giving the NaNo counter a raspberry.

Why?
Because when my lazy butt finally got around to submitting my word count and clicked enter, it was practically at midnight so it put it on the NEXT DAY!

Oh well...I know I wrote 9981 tonight, so there.

Today was a day of procrastination and plotting. "Icarus" needs to start catching up to her little brother "The Man Upstairs" as in actually have something written.

Soon though...soon.

That is all.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

It begins with a bang

So I started NaNo with a bang. In fact I managed to knock out 4300 words the first day and hit 8037 the second day. And all of this writing has been on the backup novel, which has frankly both charmed me and become incredibly weird. And with any words quickly written, they sound as if a small child wrote them.

But they are written and that is better than nothing at all.

Now as for today...I wrote nothing. Yep. Nothing.

Illness and lack of sleep have caught up with me. I want to write but as midnight looms in under an hour, three thousand words looks daunting. That and I have a headache.

So I shall let Jean have her lead for another day and resume my writing fury tomorrow. The rest will truly make the difference for my sanity and my health.

G'night.

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