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.

No rest for the wicked...

...and no writing either.

This month so far has been devoid of any real writing progress due to life still rearing it's ugly head. The end of the year has brought home more realistic matters like finding a career job (my temp one will end soon) and other various life crises.

Now, let me assure you that I have not abandoned my endeavor. I intend to finish Nanfimo, it will just take a lot of finesse and pushing back my goal date of Dec. 20th.

Friday I challenge myself to get back on the writing wagon...we'll see how that goes.

G'night.

Slow and steady

So I have about twelve more scenes to write, which means I'm getting closer to my ending.

Woo!

Current word count: 128,632


Things are coming along. Tomorrow is the big showdown scene, which will be difficult as it will involve quite a few people. It will probably suck writing wise, but hey that's what editing is for!

Wish me luck.

Write with a vengeance!

I've figured out the ending to my story--thanks to my darling boyfriend and his lovely dose of reality. So all that is left to do is finish my novel. All the characters have been waiting--suspended in time until I write another word or another scene. And I owe it to them to finish their story.

Unfortunately I have been procrastinating--partly due to fear [fie on you inner editor] and distractions. And have made little progress over the past two days. This is unacceptable. But now that I am currently snowed in--I think I should take advantage of the situation and buckle down.

This also means that I'm revising my NaNoFiMo goal as follows:

Finish my novel on or before December 25th [which may or may not be more than 150k.

So the belt is being tightened and I plan to impose these rules:
1. Write first thing in the morning. [And the night as well...but I do better in the morning.]
2. No editing. No revising. No thinking about editing or revising.
3. Focus on getting the story out. If don't know things, just leave a blank or a note and then fix it in editing.
4. Use Write Or Die like I've never used it before.

As a minor consolation to my inner critic, I will allow myself to get the first sentence of each chapter to my liking before I start. Hopefully that shall appease Miss Edit-it-all's constant nagging.


Tomorrow I start fresh. That's all for tonight.

Nearly to 16K

So for the second week of NaNoFiMo I'm trying to complete the challenge of writing 16K in one week. So far it's going pretty well I'm at 10K. I'm sort of trying to go beyond and write 20-30K for the week.

We'll see. I love to force myself, but I gotta be realistic.

So where are we in the story?
Devii and the twins were captured. Silas and Cael came to rescue them. Cael gave the blood stone in exchange, but it turned out to be a fake.
So now the group is on the run, Cael's been shot and Devii's hiding in the bushes with the kids. My they do get themselves into trouble!

What's next, you ask?
Well Cael is taken back to Sont Kantrell to be healed, but he's not out of the woods yet. Devii and the kids show up and she asks Silas to remove the "mark" Othena put on her by cutting it out.
Then the priests help Silas, Devii and the kids [they leave poor hurt Cael behind] go to Dunoth like they planned to hand over the stone.

So much to write...so little time. But I'm doing it.

Nano is offically over.

So today was the last day of Nanowrimo.

As of midnight I have 60,960 words. Hooray!

I still have a lot to write, but that's what NaNoFiMo is for. Although its for a month, I plan to try and finish before the 17th of December...so I can spend the break editing.

We'll see.

As for my wrimobuddies, 6 out of twelve finished. Huzzah! I called Jean the moment I saw that she reached 50,000. I knew she could do it. We both have a lot of editing to do. Hopefully we can both beta test our stories on each other--I can't wait to read her novel!

So right now I'm going to take some well earned rest for the evening. Plus I have some homework to sketch.

Good job everyone!

Guh this week has me beat...

Writing sucked today.

I had a busy schedule...morning meetings, class projects, a long class, etc

So I have one day left to Nano before I move onto NaNoFiMo in December.

The story is still going well--it's just that we're getting down to finals so I have less time. Also I've been waking myself up early in hopes of writing then, but it makes me too tired to write at night.

Sigh...

So I only wrote a mere 691 today. But Friday is my day--no other obligations.
I plan to write my heart out.

G'night