Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Well I did it.

This was one of the most difficult NaNoWriMo's ever. Even last year I had more direction and far less inner critic to block my path. And to make it worse, I was busy as all get out and easily distracted. Somehow in the final week, I managed to buckle down and write my butt off to make it to 50k.

My story is far from finished, but I'm honestly too tired to care. In a few weeks or maybe a month I'll look back at it all and figure out what I can salvage. But not now and certainly not tomorrow.

A few things I've learned from this year:
1. Write and don't worry about how good or bad it is.
2. Plan in advance, it's really really helpful.
3. It's never too late to finish (well...until Midnight November 30th).
4. This is just the first draft, the goal is simply to get it out of you head and onto the paper.

Alright...I'm done thinking about NaNo right now.

G'night.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Am I insane? Yes. Will I make it to 50K? Hell yes.

This has probably been the craziest NaNo of all time for me. I started 7 days late with one story and then 20 days into it, decided to start another one. [Hey, those words count dammit, no matter what the end result is].

Yes, that's right, I'm no longer writing a story about the roaring 1890s. Now it's something more of a insane tale about a girl cursed to calamity if she leaves her home and a boy doomed to eventually blow up working together to find her brother who has been kidnapped by a robotic Pied Piper along with a slew of other children.

It's pretty crazy, but I'm loving it so far. I think I'll even try to finish it in NaNoFiMo and then polish it up during March.

Tonight I wrote 8k. And that's after a full day of work at the job (which is partly why I've gotten so damned far behind).

I earned some cheesecake and sleep.

Goodnight.

Saturday, November 26, 2011

I was much further along this time last year...

So while I may have gained a brief lead, I've been swiftly falling behind. At the moment I am 15k+ behind the requirement. Thanksgiving proved to be much busier than planned and many other things keep getting in the way.

But I've started writing again today and I intend to catch up before this long weekend is over. Come hell or high-water, I'm hitting 50k on or before the end of the 30th.

Back to writing.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Nothing...nada.

So I wrote nothing today. It's not even worth doing the little write up because I've made no progress. Oh well.

Currently 8k behind. I have a lot of writing to do this weekend.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Monday...

I was distracted again today, but managed a very nice 4k for the day. I could be writing so much more, but I've been dealing with some writer's block lately.

Word count:
20,226. Only a bit over 4k from catching up to Tuesday's 25k.

Inner Critic:
Appeased, but I haven't written enough for her to critique.

Actual Novel:
11,192, which is pretty good considering the whole situation. Woo.

Characters Dead: 1
None.

Where are they?
She's about to go to the circus. [I really need to rewrite this all in editing...it's so damn sluggish.]


Bed time.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Weekend of Falling Behind...

Ugh...I was bad this weekend. Basically I didn't catch up. Instead I spent time watching movies, hanging out with friends and snuggling with the boy. I'll have to make it up tonight and Monday and really haul it next weekend. I need to do more plotting though, it's been setting me back.

Word count:
16,258. Far far far behind the required 23,333 for Sunday. Basically, I need to catch up now and the easiest way to do that is to do a little more plotting before I write.

Inner Critic:
Pretty quiet this weekend, but she was sated with movie watching, pie eating and various other weekend activities.

Actual Novel:
As I'm still very much behind, the novel itself is probably still under 10k.

Characters Dead: 1
None to add.

Where are they?
Barely moved. In the scene before she goes to meet her magician. Not good.

Alright...back to writing!

Friday, November 11, 2011

Almost caught up...

Here's another update. To make things easier this Nano I'm going to use the following format from now on.

Word count:
As 2am this morning I'm at 14,869 words - a little over 3k away from the required 18333. Woo! Completely doable. The story itself is only 3 scenes in and clunky but slowly growing on me. Clearly another reason why it's good to plan/plot/character develop before NaNo, but I'll get the hang of it as I go along.

Inner Critic:
Still loud and very annoying. I've decided to appease her by letting those nasty comments become a part of the story - either through the snarky narrator or as notes that will inevitably be removed.

Actual Novel:
My goal this weekend is to try and get the novel itself caught up to the required 18k, but that means that I'm really at 7,811 a much more depressing 10,522. Blegh.

Characters Dead:
1 - The Great Vincenzo - Fell ill and died (in exposition)

Where are they?
The lovers are introduced, sort of and my MFC is about to sneak off to see a magic show.

Alright...back to writing!

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Nowhere near 15k...

Egads, how did I get so far behind?

I'm currently at 8,476 words - and if you remove all the rambling I did before I started the novel I have 1,418. Blegh.

Alright, it's time to pull up my bootstraps and get my butt typing tomorrow.
Let's try to at least hit 13k, that's only 5k - I think I can do that.

G'night.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Late to the game, but certainly not out.

It's looking like this year's NaNo has taken me by surprise. In fact, I don't think I really thought about it until I saw someone post about NaNoWriMo sometime before Halloween. So when November 1st reared it's ugly head I really had no clue what I was going to write - plus I was passed out on the couch fighting a cold. Yuck!

It's now November 7th - one week into the whole affair and I think I'm finally ready to start writing (i.e. I have a plot and some idea what I'm going to write). I know I could have started writing on the fly, but if my first attempt in 2006 taught me anything, it's that I can't really write without a plan.*

So what's the story?
The working title is "The Importance of Being on This Side of Paradise" - a combination of one of the most popular novels of the 1890s and one of the most popular novels from the 1920s.

Why? Well I've decided to write my Steampunk/Comedy set in an version of the 1890s that is infused with elements of the soon to come 1920/30s - prohibition, jazz, the age of innocence, gender-confusion, etc. My favorite music to write Steampunk novels to is jazz/swing music, so it seemed perfect to actually let my characters have a bit more pizzazz than their Gilbert & Sullivan loving counterparts. I call it the "Roaring 1890s". Not the most drastic combination, but it will be a fun one.

Alright, alright...the plot:
In the alternate time of the Roaring 1890s, a young illusionist on the rise to fame falls in love with a fake princess whose hand already belongs to an American "Duke". With the assistance of a formidable traveling theatre troupe and their motto of "Love Above All Else", these star-crossed bohemian lovers will find a way to start a new life in paradise (wherever that might happen to be).

I'm not going to go into more details about the characters today, but I'll post a few profiles, excerpts and sketches over the duration of NaNo.

Wooo! Let's get this party started!


-------------------------
*Now to be perfectly honest, I did start writing on November 1st, but it was mere gibberish and plotting to keep me roughly in line with the numbers for NaNo. And I hated the idea of a blank Word document until I was ready. I was writing ideas on every surface/text editor I could find, so it should count for something.

Monday, August 1, 2011

August redemption?

So there's this wonderful thing the elves at The Office of Letters and Light have created for the long summer months called "Camp NaNoWrimo".



It's compact version of the ever challenging-yet-wonderful NaNoWrimo with a camp style format. You have cabins and cabin mates (as of August) - there's even a camp store! I missed out last month when it first launched in July, but I'm excited for August and what it will bring.

So what am I planning to write? I'm not quite sure. I have a few ideas in mind - one being my previous failed NaNo novel as well as so newer ideas. I think I'll decide when I sit down in front of my computer and begin to type those first thousand. It's a crazy way to decide, but it's the summer and I can think of this as a trial run for the big show in November.

I'll post an update on my progress tonight.

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