Sunday, November 29, 2009

Did it.


Well, I did it - 50,000 words in 30 days. Who knew that such things were possible?

Saturday, November 28, 2009

46,684

Home stretch now. I should hit the 50,000 mark tomorrow. Very exciting. The novel won't be done, but I'll have completed the overall task. I will have shown myself that I can write a damned novel, and I can do it in a month, even while having a job and a life. This whole process has been pretty incredible, a real learning experience, a resounding "PROBABLY" to the question of whether I have what it takes to try to be a serious writer, to make it a career, to put myself out there and write material that I can send out to be published.

One thing I have learned is this. If, during this month, I had been able to devote my time solely to NANO, it is entirely possible that I would have finished this novel in two weeks. Not just the 50,000 words - finished the novel. With the pace I was writing, with the solid story that I had to work with, with the creative juices pouring out of my brain, this story would have written itself very, very, quickly, given no other distractions.

That says something.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

38596

Did a bunch of catch up tonight after totally blowing off my NANO this weekend. Now I'm back on track. Digging where the story is right now - clearly this thing is going to surpass the 50,000 word goal and become a real full length novel. There's just a lot that still has to happen, and it won't happen in 10,000 words.

Getting toward the end of this is a pretty incredible feeling. I've now written a story that is almost four times longer than anything I've ever written. And what's more, it doesn't suck! I mean it'll need a hell of a lot of revision, tightening, editing, proofreading, tweaking, whatever you want to call it, but I think I've really got something here. Many thanks to my Portland crew for opening my eyes to Nano. I've got something I never thought I'd have - a damned good start on a possibly publishable novel.

Anyway - onward and upward.

Friday, November 20, 2009

31,739

I committed the cardinal NANO sin of revising last night, because I realized that my timeline made no sense. And since the second part of my book is a retelling of the first part, from a different perspective, it's sort of important that I get the timeline hammered down. This weekend, I might go through and write an actual timeline with notes as to when important events occur. Then again, I'm reminded that the goal of NANO isn't necessarily to write something perfect, it's to write something quickly and consistently, so I may not do so much of that kind of detail work.

NANO isn't easy. It's not the hardest thing I've ever done, but it's certainly not easy.

In other news, I do believe that it has rained every single day for the past couple of weeks at least. While at the start of this process, my mind was mossy, now I'm just growing moss.

In honor of moss, here's this:

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Quote and video for today

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.

--Carl Sagan



In honor of the space shuttle lifting off.

Passed 27,000 words last night. Still on track.

Monday, November 16, 2009

I've often felt like this on a Sunday.

"In the end, it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn't cope with, and that terrible listlessness that starts to set in about 2:55, when you know you’ve taken all the baths that you can usefully take that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the newspaper you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o’clock, and you will enter the long dark teatime of the soul."


NANO is at just over 26,000 words. I'm still on track, but I killed the cushion I had last week. Gotta hit it hard this week.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

20,050

words and still going strong. The only trouble I'm having is that I think I might be telling my story too quickly. I'm going to have to go back and add some bulk into the plot before I get to this point in the story, but that's fine. I don't know though - part of me is questioning whether the arbitrary 50,000 word goal of Nano is something I need to be concerned about if it causes me to add unnecessary filler to my story. Then again, the point is to write a novel, not a short story - so I need the story to fill the pages. That's the challenge.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Nano update

I've got 7282 words now - this story is racing out of my head faster than a metaphor I can't think of right now because all of my words are being sucked out of my head by this novel.

I won't be posting it here - this is something I want to get published, like actually published, some day, so no peeksies. And for those of you dying to know what happens with The Nondescript Man, well, I'll post the rest of that story soon, probably. But that's just a bit of silliness.

Oh, and forget about Ark Ship for a while - that rewrite is on hold until after Nano, and then I might just turn it into a novel. I'm on a roll, baby.

Like Kramer said, in that one episode of Seinfeld, "Oh, I'm percolating, Jerry. I'm telling you, I have never felt so fertile. I'm mossy, Jerry. My brain is mossy."

Sunday, November 1, 2009

And it begins.

National Novel Writing Month.

Current word count: 1942.

Taking a break. Hoping for at least 3000 words today.