7 posts tagged “nanowrimo”
| 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.
... luckily you can still blog at your writing blog. Vox is teh awesome.
So anyway...
I'm up to about 4700 on my NaNo. It's going... okay. I keep fighting my narrator, Dan. He wants to talk like Seth. I keep forcing him to say "stuff" instead of "shit," for example. And he doesn't say anything about what happened with the hooker. Not really relevant to the story anyway.
In doing the NaNo, I'm doing something I've not done before: creating a new world. It's a post-Apocalyptic story and so I kind of have to establish a little bit of the world. I have all these idea and I'm not writing anything about them b/c they're not relevant to the story at this point.
And my husband has just finished in the kitchen so I'm going to shower & then go write for a bit. Luckily Jack Sparrow is on USA so the kids are happy to have that in the background while they color w/ chalk on the easel. His child duty should be easy enough.
FYI: Supernova seems to have temporarily gone supernova. This means piggyhawk.net is down (including my regular blog) and Toasted Cheese is down as well. When we get any kind of info, we'll share via our newsletter. Aren't you glad you subscribe?
ETA: 7620 so far. I'm tired and it's kind of disjointed crap but whoo @ me!
A writing friend of mine is an editor at an online journal. She announced their annual Halloween contest and, of course, I'm a sucker for Halloween. I asked on the TC boards if it had to be Halloween-specific and it doesn't. It does have a theme: "post-Apocalypse."
Years ago I had a post-Apocalyptic dream that was so real and so long, I thought I was living it. When I woke up, I wrote a lot of it down. So I used that scenario for my version of the Apocalypse and went from there. It's also horror and the word limit is 2500. Hard to achieve horror in 2500 words but I think I made it a bit scary.
I won't say the name of the story in case my friend, who's a judge, reads here. Thats also why I'm not saying anything specific about it.
Hawk read it and his reaction to "did you like it?" was "Um yeah." Whatever. He also said there were some typos. Fine. He's been a real help as a reader lately.
Anyway, I have a little time to clean it up. A couple people might look at it and then I'll submit it. I haven't sent anything to a contest in ages so this is a step back toward writing for publication again. Yay me!
I haven't decided if I'm trying NaNo or not. I know I could do it, as I proved by finishing RFM as I did. I have zero ideas for any stories (I was lucky that the Apex contest had a specific theme & genre to focus me). Maybe I'll try an erotic novel, like last year. I didn't do too badly in NaNo 2006. I just got bored & overwhelmed by life & stuff.
I had a form rejection while we were on vacation but the agent I sent sample chapters to hasn't contacted me and the Dream Agency still has my complete ms. The form rejection -- meh. I haven't sent any new queries b/c I want yes/no answers on the few I already did first.
