Wednesday, December 1, 2010

And NaNo ends...

Although I was strangely absent, I assure you I was writing - sort of. And when the clock hit midnight, I conceded to defeat with only 4, 555 words to go. That's right, I not only lost, but fell incredibly short of my 10k goal.

So what happened?
Life. And writer's block. And more life.

I know I can't entirely blame my shortcomings on life - although spending nearly two weeks on costumes for Steamcon put a really hard to repair dent on the affair - because nearly the whole 15 days I wasn't writing, I had a terrible case of writer's block.

I should have seen it coming. After all, I had already switched my novel plans once. And all these plot bunnies started cropping up - from old novels half written to new ideas I'd avoided. Steamcon's wonderful panels on Hoodou and Western Prostitution definitely added to it (don't ask, I'm not going to go into it). So I jumped from idea to idea, carefully avoiding the looming issue - I didn't believe or trust my plot.

When I returned, I had to face it. And spent nearly three days trying to figure out a solution without any luck. So I thought about new options - after all I had at least 10 days (3 of which were during my holiday) why not start fresh one last time? Too bad it took another 3 days for me to decide, plot and figure out the characters. So that when I finally began writing I was left with a meager 5 days to catch up from 14k to 50k.

And that's how I ended up writing for my life with 30 minutes to midnight - tired, desperate and with an incredibly sore set of hands. I'd pulled out every trick I could think of (some I'm not even proud of) and despite all that I lost. Actually, I stopped at 45,555 with 5 minutes to spare because it was a nice number and I simply couldn't write any more.

Anywho...I'm not done with my story (far from done in fact), but I hope to continue with NaNoFiMo. And although I didn't win, I can say with pride that I wrote 15k in one day.

Monday, November 8, 2010

A compromise...

Word count: 10,578

I have about 2, 758 words left to go. Unfortunately, I don't think my sprained wrist is going to make it. I really want to avoid adding carpal tunnel to the list, so I may have to change my goal to a much simpler 800 words before midnight - putting me at 11,378.

No, it's not 13k, but it's less than 2k short. I think that's a reasonable goal.

Back to writing.

Update:
It's 12:03 am and I made it to 11,606 before my wrist really started acting up. So I'm calling it a night. Since I'm only 1,736 words short of my main goal and since I'm going to bed before 1:30, I think it's fair to say I would have made it.

I'll make the rest up tomorrow, but now I'm going to rest my hand.

Goodnight.

4K to go...

Word count: 9,336

After some thinking, Reggie/Regina finally seems to stick. It's been sluggish writing - bad even, but at least something is getting written. Twice I've tried to rewrite scenes due to my inner editor taking hold, but if I keep that up my story will get nowhere.

And to make things worse I sprained my wrist. It hasn't quite hampered my writing, but it will dfinitely make the rest of my life difficult. And there is the cold that will not die.

Still I only have 4,000 words to go and 2.5 hours left.


I can do this!

Name Game

Current word count: 8,295

I've hit a little snag - my character is having some sort of identity crisis and doesn't know what her name should be. I started with Maxine, which became Reggie on a random whim and now I'm torn between Zoe and Lena.

Considering I still have 5,000+ words to write I'm going to just run with whatever name is working for me right now...and that's Reggie.

But while I attempted to pull up new names, I found a few great sources:

Random Name Generator - Uses names from the US Census and let's you decide the degree of obscurity.

Most Common Surnames in the US - Pretty self explantory and incredibly helpful

Baby Names World - My favorite baby name site. Names are search-able by meaning, origin, popularity and even year (all the way back to the 1800s).


Alright, time to get back to writing.

A bit behind...

So this weekend got away from me - it's Day 8 and I'm currently 5,956 words behind.
Terrible, I know...

In fact, the new NaNo Stats meter has been taunting me with threats that at my current rate I'll finish on December 25th. Bah! Catching up 6k is easy as pie and I will finish by the 30th (with an extra 20k at least).

In fact, let's sweeten the deal. If I don't catch up before 1:32am tonight (a full 12 hours), I won't be allowed to drink soda or eat candy (which I have plenty of) until December.


And....

my time...

starts....

NOW!

Friday, November 5, 2010

Day 4: Back on track - finally!

Phew. It's the end of Day 4.

After a lot of false starts, self-sabotaging, etc, I am finally writing. However, it is not Memento Mori or Resurrection Man as I originally planned. They simply had too many plot holes that I had to put them on the back burner for another time.

Instead, I'm working on what I've called "The Girl in Red". It's a story very very loosely based on the fairytale of Little Red Riding Hood and set in a Steampunk setting. Our leading lady is a military courier who works for the R.E.D. (Regional Emissary Division)known for their red uniform jackets. It's one of the entry level ranks in the armed forces for women and she hopes to earn her way up the ranks to airship pilot.

As for the wolf he's more on the "good" or "neutral" side. He's an old friend of the MC from her days on a "transport" (although they were occasionally involved in smuggling) ship when she was rejected by the military for being a woman. He's got a bit of a wild side and is a thief, but comes from one of the wealthier families in town - although he'd never tell her that.

I won't go into more detail about what happens yet, except to say this: it all begins with a delivery going terribly wrong.


Word count as of midnight - 6,022 words

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Correction: Off to a REALLY rough start.

Last night - first night of NaNo I hit a wall.
Although I'm not sure you could say you hit a wall if you didn't have any momentum to begin with. What few words I did manage to write was a rambling of ideas and plans rather than an actual story and probably doesn't even count.

This is probably the first year I've self-sabotaged to the point of stand-still before I wrote anything. I blame the sickness for addling my brain and allowing myself to focus on a plot that I knew had massive holes in it, but 20/20 in hindsight and all that.

And to make things worse I'm still ill along with a few other issues I choose not to disclose.

Simply put I'm not in a good mood. On the bright side, I was in this very position in 2008. I began with a plot that was failing with little to nothing written on Day 3 and guess what - I wrote 75k.

So I'm not going to give up. I'm definitely going to ignore my inner critic and come up with something I'm willing to write over the course of 30 (now 28 days).

I can do this.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Off to a rough start...

It's that time of the year again folks - NaNoWriMo - and while my fellow NaNoers have started typing away I've been held back with the dreaded cold. Still that has never stopped me before and I'm going for my usual goal of 100k.

As for my story, I've decided to give Icarus a well deserved rest - and play around with something entirely different. Two stories (one short related story and a longer one) tentatively called Memento Mori and Resurrection Man, respectively. I'm still working out the kinks of the main plot (another delay), but I'll share some of my inspiration.

First is a short story by H.G. Wells - "The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham", which is about Body Snatching.

The second is this photo, which I found on this site:
mementomori
It's a Victorian Death Portrait of twins (one living, the other dead). I was so struck by this image that it got me thinking of a short story about a twin seeking to be reunited with his twin - at any cost. We'll see where it goes.

So that's my theme this year: death, body snatching and the supernatural - with a hint of Steampunk of course!

Best of luck to everyone and let the games begin!

Monday, October 4, 2010

2010 - NaNo #5

Alright, I've signed up for NaNoWrimo 2010 and I officially don't know where the bulk of this year has gone. But wherever it went, it simply flew by.

As for what I'm writing this year, I don't know yet. I may do a rewrite or something completely new. Not that I haven't forgotten "Icarus", which has been haunting me like a ghost - waiting for me to return to writing its story, but I'm not sure I'm ready to do a rewrite yet. Especially not during NaNo.

I'll have to think about this one.

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails