12 posts tagged “nanowrimo”
As most anyone who reads this would know, I had to drop out of NaNo2008 b/c of my husband's health crisis.I had gotten to about 20k by the 8th so I was well on track to "win." Which is one thing I hate about NaNo -- the "win" aspect. God forbid life happens.
So now that he's home & getting better, I'm back working NaNo style. But one of the luxuries of that is that there's no word count or time deadline and I can take a minute to blog.
Nine is out of control.
Not that that's bad.
Like I said to Hawk, it's gone all Jason Bourne on me. There are conspiracies and groups of people and my MC has gone from a shiftless drunk to a man on the run... but for no reason. He doesn't know anything, he hasn't done anything but the bad guy (his brother) believes he has and apparently that's enough.
Even he doesn't know why he's running except that if his brother catches him, to quote Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters, it would be bad. And he's about to catch him. He keeps making stops though & I think I'm delaying getting him caught, even though it will be delicious to write. And I'm as lost as Danny is in all this mess. Maybe it'll straighten itself out. Maybe not. In any case, it is a great deal of fun.
I'm just over 13k. I didn't write on the 2nd or the 6th. I only did 1k on the 1st. When I'm working, I'm doing around 3k. 2k/day is my goal so I was less than 1k under when I went to bed last night. If I can churn out 3k today, I'll be back on track. I'd like to get to 50k early b/c of Thanksgiving plus I'll have a day or two of not writing that week anyway.
So how is it going? It's kind of rambling, lots of fluff, etc. It's all I can do not to go back & straighten it out but I do enjoy the freedom of writing crap and not having it be exactly what I want on first draft.
I didn't kill anyone yesterday.
That said...
I have a tense scene coming up and, as I said the other day, it can only end badly and then get worse for Danny personally after that. Beyond that, I have no idea what's happening.
I'm at 9669 on my NaNo project so far. It's the second part of Nine and it seems to be spiraling almost out of my control. I had one very simple idea for the end. One person who was going to turn out to be someone other than who Dan thought. And now it turns out there are two (yes two) groups of people dressed in black. One of them has Dan and he just found out that they're not Eamon's group b/c this group is looking for Eamon.
Wha? I feel about like Dan feels right now. I'm like, "Wait, what's going on here? How did I get mixed up in this? When did this happen? And what about Naomi? Oh right. She's dead.
Now I'm thinking that what is going to happen is that this group is going to try & set up a sting/trap for Eamon using Dan is bait. Of course it will go horribly, horribly wrong. I'm also thinking that this group are the original vigilante group and that Eamon's is better funded, has more intelligence (a la spy, not IQ) more resources and has eclipsed the other while masquerading as it. I'm thinking that Eamon's group is part 2 of the Conspiracy Plan. Part 1 being that extermination. Part 2 is to cover up and exterminate the lowest level people (the ones who did the dirty work). I'm thinking that in this organization, you'd want to scurry to the top ASAP b/c those on the bottom are 100% expendable.
But why did Eamon kill Anna? And why am I still unhappy with that character's name even though she's dead? I honestly think he killed her just b/c he could. As a warning or a scare for Dan? Maybe. So Dan would blame Chris and do something in retaliation? Maybe. Will it matter for the story? Most likely. Does it matter right now? No.
Of course no one reading this (except me) would have of any idea what this is about but it's a blog about my writing and my thought processes during that and stuff like this is why I keep it separate from my regular digs.
I did about 1k on my NaNo on Saturday and about 3k today. So far today one person (my narrator) has been attacked and another person has been killed. It's a continuation of last year's NaNo so I'm kind of picking up in the middle of the action but still.
On Saturday I wrote a memory scene where he was watching a snake and a cat in the aftermath of a fight. Then today he's been having memories of the aftermath of the man-made Armageddon (gruesome). So between that and the "live" violence, I figured I needed a break and decided to play Flood-it. Last year's distraction was Mah-Johng.
| 8:45 PM |
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Holy shit is right. I just passed 48k. I'm really having fun writing this part. Does it show? ;)
I want to keep working but I'm taking a break. I need to come with some torture methods but I want them to be specific.
It's so funny the stuff you "need" when you're writing. Earlier today I needed Catholic prayers and now I need torture methods.
I know there's a joke there somewhere.
The NaNo is going really well. In terms of production, I know I can churn out the word count. The challenge to to create a coherent narrative. It's interesting to write this way. I don't know yet how effective it is but I'm seeing a real novel come together.
I'm so glad I didn't waste time on outlining or character bios. I think if you're going to NaNo, just sit down and do it. If you need to flesh out a character's background, let him tell the stories within the story. Why not use those words toward your word count? Danny is telling me all kinds of things about himself. With Jake and Seth, I knew certain things and let them seep out as we went. Danny is like a guy you start dating and then on every date some disastrous new fact comes to light. The good thing about that is that he's giving me things to build on, which is giving me a motivation for something he's going to do that's not so nice.
I feel I have too many characters and I'm not sure what to do with this woman who's acting like a certified lunatic. I think Danny knows what to do with her but we'll have to see. Right now he has it in mind to do to someone else.
I wrote a good scene tonight. It'll need to be fleshed out more later, of course, but my motto for NaNo is "forward." Only look back over the last page or look something up quickly if necessary. And just go forward. No changes, no deletions. If something's bothering me that I wrote earlier, I can delete it in December.
This weekend, I'm hoping to get 5k done, which would be about in keeping with what I've gotten done. Hawk is working so I'll be here w/ the kids and I can write if they're in the playroom. Anyway, I'll be taking off Wed & Thurs so I need to have a little extra built up. I could be at 41k by Tuesday night if I write 1500 words a day. I'm averaging 2500 words a day and if I do that, I could be at 45k by then and would only need to do that amount Friday and Saturday to achieve the word count to "win" NaNo. Whether the story will be finished, I'm not sure.
Passed 25k on the NaNo this afternoon.
One good thing about PiggyHawk.net being offline for going on five days is that I have more time to work on my NaNo. It's going... well, it's going. It's disjointed and focus-free but damn it is fun just to write and have NO earthly idea what you're writing.
I generally edit as I go. Fixing things and making what's old jive with what's new. Say I have an idea that a character should have a certain motive. I'll go back in previous scenes and tweak things so that matches. In the case of the NaNo, I'm not going back and I'm kind of discovering the characters as I go. I don't know who any of them are, what they want, how they figure into teh action or even what the action is. I have some idea of what will happen probably in a couple of days but I don't know why it will happen or what will come of it.
Plus I have an AB article due.
Good thing I don't have any more TV or radio interviews scheduled.
