I gotta start writing in the morning...

...but I gots homework to do.

For the past two nights, I've been up til 5am writing my quota. It's finally caught up to me and I'm exhausted. Luckily I reached quota tonight at 2am.

Woot!

Things are now getting pretty darn exciting, which is the way I like it. The more excited I am about the more I'm able to write. Now I just need to keep this up.

As a little treat I plan to spend either Friday or Sunday morning at a bookstore writing. I figure getting out of the house and writing during the morning will mean more words written--since I won't be fighting sleep.

Well that's all for now.

G'night.

Woot! I made it!

10,131 words baby!

Last Nano I failed at 6k, mostly due to an overly controlling inner critic, lack of organization and a very vague but overly complicated plot.

I can't believe I made it. Yes it's 5am, but I did what I sought to do--catch back up and get the plot working for me again.

There was a tiny roadblock in there for a while. My muse suggested some crazy plot where my MC and her best friend were doing a magic show to earn money so she could runaway. And another idea where she is forced to use her magic to impersonate people or torture them by making bugs crawl on them or some other creepy illusion.

None of this had to do with my main goal for the first part of the book:
GET MC TO FIND MAN BEING HELD HOSTAGE BY HER TRUSTED TEACHER.

Of course the BF [my official novel reality checker] helped to set me straight. I dumped the plots and made the "secret thing they were doing last night" something that related directly to the overall plot. It took some minor rewording in earlier parts of the text, but I'm much happier with the way the story is going now.

Huzzah!

Now bed.

Into the wee hours

I figured out a lot of things last night. Just need to write them down.

I just finished writing 7,952 words around 400 short of my daily goal. Boo! But it's 5am in the morning and I want to get some sleep. So I will make those few words up tomorrow morning.

The story is coming along...some of it's drivel or boring. My main goal is simply developing the characters and moving the plot along. If I really like the story I will go back and edit it during December.

But to sum up the plot:

A young girl who is gifted with the ability to create sensory illusions [they affect people so that what they see, hear, smell, taste and feel seems real] is forced to live in a corrupt city that her magic teacher was exiled to. She longs for escape when her already strange life is uprooted when she finds a strange man being held captive by her teacher. Believing him innocent she frees him, only to find out he's more dangerous than he seemed. Afraid of the punishment she will receive from her teacher, she flees the city the only way she can, into a dark and treacherous rainforest. Lost and confused she finds herself at the mercy of the very man she released and must help him find something hidden within if she has any desire to leave the forest alive.

Yeah...there is a LOT going on.

Right now I'm still on the everyday life part.
Soon the captive stranger will show his face.
And then...the forest.


Yes. :: tents fingers evilly ::

Damn tricky homework!!!

So this Sunday [yesterday] I fell behind again. As in I wrote absolutely NOTHING!!!

I thought I was going to have the free time to do it, but I had a feeling that wasn't going to happen. I had a meeting with a partner about a project plus I wanted to finish some tricky homework before I did any writing.

I finished at 2am.

Then add the fact that I made dinner and it left be little to no free time.

But I looked over what I had written and realized some additions that need to be made.

So hopefully I'll be able to make up 3,069 words today.

Woo!

Back on Track

So on November 2nd I wrote up a contract for myself, which outlined daily quotas along with prizes and punishments, which included:

1 piece of candy for every 1,000 words written.
1 chapter of any book for every daily goal met.
2 hours of WOW for exceeding my daily goal by 1,500 words.
Missing daily goals means no TV, gaming or book reading and time must be spend book planning or doing homework.

As I figured I was able to use today to make up for lost time.
Current word count [drum roll]: 5,261.

I have given my inner critic the boot except for his occasional advice on name and word choices. I only go back to embellish or add, but not to erase. I think I finally understand my characters and what they want. Hooray.

One minor change though. I created this character Cael who was to become Devii's new friend in Port Ryetto where she lives now. He was originally a kitchen boy--as in young. But somehow he blossomed into a 21 year old hottie who's the apprentice to what we would call a magician.

And on top of all this, he's becoming a possible love interest. That was not my intention for him, but he's made up his mind. He's even threatening to come on her adventure--we'll see. He could be handy.

Here's a little excerpt about him:

She glanced over at Cael who had not budged from his position. In fact he had been watching her. When their eyes met, he quickly looked away and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his dark brown pants.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said, but still didn’t meet her eyes. Instead he picked up a watermelon and studied its markings. She walked over and stood in front of him. He looked down at her. Cael was at least five inches taller than her. A smile budded across his boyish face and he removed the hat from his head. Nervously he clutched the brown patterned cap against his matching vest.
“I wanted to talk to you.” He finally said, his voice wavering uneasily. Devii looked at him nervously. She knew what he wanted to talk about.

I'm making progress...slowly

So today I sort of "restarted" and what little 281 words I had written has been replaced with a decent 1731. I would write more but I was thwarted again today by life.

a)Homework
b)Meeting with partners about homework
c)Being so damn tired from all the meetings/homework
d)Phone call from friend that lasted too long

So my plan to start writing at 6pm turned into a writing at 10pm. And I still have homework to do. I wrote a contract and based on it I should be punishing myself, but I did well on daily standards. I just need time to make up the 1,666 I didn't write on Thursday.

Saturday I just have one class until 1pm. So after that it's a major writing session.

Sigh.

So my story opening lines:

“What’s that?” a voice asked.
Devii Fahrit looked down, in the direction of the voice, to where a dark haired girl stood on the ground. From her perch in the sturdy branches of an owari tree she could see that she had her slender arm pointed towards something on the horizon. Devii shifted uncomfortably against the tree’s rough green branches to get a better look. Something black and shiny glided quickly and effortlessly across the sand, leaving clouds of dust in its wake.

It's coming along.

It began...and I fell behind.

My original plan was to have all my characters, places, world building stuff done before October 28th. That did not happen.

My other plan was to start writing at the stroke of midnight on October 31st/November 1st. That also didn't happen--I was tired, a little tipsy and developing characters.

So it's day two. I've only written 281 words I'm going to delete and replace with a better opening. But it's all good. The plan for today [as I have no class or extensive homework] is 3,400.

But before this I plan to do some more character work [on any character mentioned in those first 3,000 or so words]. I'll have all Friday night to write. I'm buying me a pizza and holing up in here until I get some writing done.

But now I need to write up a Nanowrimo contract offering myself certain things if I achieve my required goals.

Whatever I gotta do to finish.