My Last Writing Blog

Day Twenty-Nine Total: 50,025 words

2011-11-30T00:06:00.001+11:00

That's right, despite a major lack of blogging I have managed to succeed in actually passing the winner's line on the twenty-ninth day of November. Entirely Write or Die free, might I add. But with Yarny, and that's a pretty cool tool in my book.

I shall refer you to the following graph for all the word counts you missed out on:

It's my lowest count yet, but who really cares? It is a complete story. I didn't just crap out in the middle somewhere. It's not a particularly interesting or coherent or cohesive story and right up until like three hours ago I was absolutely certain that I would never want to read it ever again, but I added a slight twist ending and suddenly the whole thing seemed like it was an okay story. Definitely not my best or most interesting, but decent.

Day Seventeen Total: 23,658 words

2011-11-17T23:59:00.001+11:00

Still behind, and yet not too worried. I'm worried about actually trying to get a 5k Friday tomorrow. I can't believe I forgot last Friday. I would have been up a couple thousand more words if I'd remembered. Oh well.

Day Sixteen Total: 22,621 words

2011-11-16T23:59:00.001+11:00

New goal: don't let this year's blue line cross 2006's blue line. I mean, if I've been similarly behind before, clearly it's possible that I manage to finish up again.

Day Fifteen Total: 21,789

2011-11-16T21:25:00.001+11:00

Yet another day when I almost completely forgot to write anything.

Day Fourteen Total: 21,584 words

2011-11-15T00:58:00.001+11:00

Getting so behind. November is getting away from me.

Day Thirteen Total: 21,195 words

2011-11-14T16:15:00.001+11:00

I am officially behind. This isn't working out too well for me. Le sigh.

Day Twelve Total: 21,095

2011-11-13T10:56:00.001+11:00

Don't remember much about what happened yesterday, but I did write some words.

I have to write some more today or I will actually be BEHIND!

Day Eleven Total: 20,352 words

2011-11-11T23:56:00.001+11:00

I finally broke 20,000 words!

I wrote more than 1667 words today!

I'm still above the average words per day line!

And all in the hour of 11pm. How awesome am I? Pretty awesome considering I almost forgot to write anything at all today. Firstly it started because Yarny was down for maintenance, and then I just kept forgetting. Good thing I'm backed up on Google Docs.

Also pretty awesome considering how much cheating on my story I've been doing by writing the outlines of other stories today. (Seriously, if I can knock out my next 30k words in the next week I'm going to go for another 50k... because obviously my goals just aren't lofty enough for a plotless novel.)

Day Ten Total: 18,591 words

2011-11-11T00:03:00.001+11:00

Slightly better wordcount today. Still just skimming above the 1667 word line. Tomorrow (a.k.a. later today) is a new day and a new chapter in my book. Hopefully a good one.

Day Nine Total: 17,944 words

2011-11-10T00:02:00.001+11:00

I'm really going to have to start writing more before I actually get behind.

Whoever would have thought two thousand words would take me so many days to write. This isn't a high school short story!

Day Eight Total: 17,641 words

2011-11-09T00:06:00.001+11:00

This is a pretty poor showing. Usually I don't get this stuck until later in the month. It's pretty similar to my first couple of years doing NaNoWriMo, actually. I say similar in a completely non-mathematical way.

Day Seven Total: 17,547 words

2011-11-07T23:58:00.002+11:00

Another poor showing wordcount wise. Today I have no excuses. I guess I was just... distracted.

Day Six Total: 16,454 words

2011-11-07T00:02:00.000+11:00

So, um, not so great on the wordcount front today. In my defence it's hot, Sunday, and I think I might be sick. I certainly have a headache.

The sad thing is I was actually looking forward to writing these scenes and didn't think it would take me much work. I suppose I'll have to catch up tomorrow. If I'm not actually sick, that is.

Day Five Total: 16,060 words

2011-11-06T00:00:00.001+11:00

Managed to get my 2k today. This time last year I had more than double the amount of words I have today. I don't think that means that I'll fail, but I think it means I might take more than twice as long to get to 50k. Considering I did that in a week last year, I'm still in reasonably good shape.

...boy do I miss last year's novel.

Day Four Total: 13,859 words

2011-11-05T00:02:00.003+11:00

Today I decided that I am going to write five thousand words every Friday this November. I call them 5k Fridays.

With ten minutes to spare, I managed to achieve that goal. I think I'm going to go back down to 2k words a day tomorrow. Unlike most people, I get distracted on weekends and write less. At least, I think it is. I haven't exactly analysed my data in that way.

As it goes, I'm doing okay on NaNoWriMo this year. But it's definitely not going to be my longest work. I think for that to happen, I'd have to have a plot... and to like said plot. I don't have that this year. I'm not entirely certain why I'm even doing NaNoWriMo this year, except that I always do. I just wish I had a story that I actually wanted to write.

Day Three Total: 8,846 words

2011-11-04T00:00:00.000+11:00

It was a stop start day, but I got over 2k words so I think I'm still okay... even if I still don't exactly have anything resembling a plot. I'm actually extremely curious as to which will come first: a plot, or fifty thousand words.

Day Two Total: 6,511 words

2011-11-03T00:05:00.001+11:00

It's day two and I've already stuffed up my NaNoWriMo stats page. Oh well, that's why I keep my own statistics.

I had a decent writing day. I think I spent less than two hours writing and managed to get two thousand words.

Now if only I knew what the plot of this novel was. It's getting to the point where I can't pretend anymore.

Day One Total: 4,234 words

2011-11-02T11:57:00.000+11:00

I forgot to blog my first wordcount yesterday. Isn't that strange? No, not really, but I think it's yet another sign that this year's NaNo is going to be different from every year that came before it.

I didn't quite hit my unofficial goal of 5k, but I got close enough in my opinion... since it was an unofficial goal and all.

You know what else is strange? Having the Melbourne Cup on the first day of NaNo. It makes the novelty of a cup race word sprint slightly less novel. One doesn't need odd tricks on the first day of the month... do they?

I have yet to crack open Write or Die, but did participate in a word sprint or two on Twitter. And in other news, this year I'm writing my novel in Yarny (which I consistently misspell with an E), which I kind of like so far because you can see your word counts. I think I like it better than Google Docs for writing stories, which I never actually thought I would do.

Welcome to NaNoWriMo 2011!

2011-11-01T01:18:00.002+11:00

Seriously? I believe it's that time of year again.

If it's not that time of year again, I have no idea why I just spent the first hour of the month writing.

I'm 1122 words in after an hour-ish of writing. Since I don't actually have much of a plot, look forward to seeing me try to work in every single half-plot I've scribbled down in the past year... beginning with yesterday's grand NaNo idea to write a story about a chick chasing a dude after some postcards. What's with that? I can't write things like that! I've hardly been anywhere. I mean sure I've been to three countries, but I've only been to two states (and one territory) in the country in which I live.

Anyway, I get the feeling this post-midnight 1122 words is going to be gone by tonight... or at least, I really hope it is because then I'll have actually devised some sort of plot. I mean, the last time I wrote something like this was Script Frenzy in 2008(?)... it was really bad because yes, I wrote enough pages, but no, I did not get anywhere near actually finishing the plot... and still haven't. It was way too boring.

This years NaNoWriMo goal: get 50k words (more specifically, get more than however many I had in 2007) and write something that's complete and not completely boring. We'll see how that goes. I think I'm hitting sophomore year my sixth year of NaNo... if that makes any sense. I have mentioned that it's one a.m., right? I am clearly not operating at peak capacity.

Toodles!

Day Thirty Total: 76,755 words

2010-11-30T12:16:00.004+11:00

FINISHED!!!

Check out my totally awesome graph. See, it's my longest NaNoWriMo novel ever!

And I fulfilled my unofficial secondary goal to never cross the green line.

Day Twenty-Nine Total: 75,809 words

2010-11-29T23:48:00.003+11:00

My novel's basically finished. I have an epilogue still to write. I was kind of hoping to completely finish today, but this is most certainly alright. I'm too tired for more than this, but I'm feeling pretty good about myself and my more than slightly dodgy story.

Day Twenty-Eight Novel: 71,364 words

2010-11-28T23:35:00.002+11:00

Despite feeling so sick this morning that I thought I might faint, I've actually managed a decent number of words today... I think my idea of 'decent' changes daily.

Introduced another new character who is only going to be in one scene... I wonder what's up with these orphan characters... if they're worth including at all.

Day Twenty-Seven Total: 70,623 words

2010-11-27T23:35:00.002+11:00

I just don't write much on Saturdays. There are too many distractions.

Day Twenty-Six Total: 70,592 words

2010-11-27T00:11:00.000+11:00

Too lazy to blog. I think I wrote a scene today. Yay me.

Day Twenty-Five Total: 69,260 words

2010-11-25T22:40:00.004+11:00

I finally had another awesome writing day. I've worked out that I have four more scene-ish things to write before my story is finished. With any luck that will be before the end of November. It should work out okay because I can write one a day... and now that I have a concrete goal I think I should be able to write more than I have been the past couple of weeks. Everything seems to be working out.

Plus, this is now officially my longest NaNoWriMo novel. How awesome is that? =)

Day Twenty-Four Total: 65,174 words

2010-11-25T00:05:00.003+11:00

It's the same as yesterday, I told you it would be. And I, clearly, have formed a writing habit because I fought the urge to write all day (yes, I am aware that this is crazy).

Anyhow, the difference between yesterday and today is that I have THIS

to show for it. =)

Day Twenty-Three Total: 65,174 words

2010-11-23T23:44:00.003+11:00

I had a decent writing day! I had a decent writing day! I wrote mostly in the last three hours of tonight.

Hooray for the invention of a new character and a bunch of dialogue. Few things bulk up my word count more quickly.

Tomorrow's my birthday and I was telling myself that I'd have to write something tomorrow (even though I have never in a previous NaNo written on my birthday - to break the streak now would possibly break my finishing streak) if I didn't hit 65k. I did so suck on that Donato! Lol. His character is pissing me off. Why can't he just shut up? ...because I made him that way.

Day Twenty-Two Total: 63,519 words

2010-11-22T22:40:00.004+11:00

So, today didn't suck. I mean, I'm not entirely sure about the believability of what I just wrote, but at least I wrote. It's the first time I've broken 1k in like a week, I think.

I kind of cheated on my story again this morning. I have this weird idea to write an encyclopaedia of fairies... but y'know, not do any research and make most of it up. I've taken a few traditional names and things, but the idea is to make a new mythology. I figure I'll write the entire world, make it a complete thing, and then figure out how the story goes.

Day Twenty-One Total: 62,470 words

2010-11-21T23:31:00.002+11:00

Some interesting plot developments today. Few words written. Clearly I enjoy thinking about my story more than writing it.

Day Twenty Total: 61,756 words

2010-11-20T23:02:00.001+11:00

Another day, another low word count. I'm just waiting for the day when I can knock out a few thousand words. With any luck that will be before the end of November.

Day Nineteen Total: 61,396 words

2010-11-19T22:00:00.002+11:00

I'm so tired. It's 10pm and I have a headache and whatever, I'm going to sleep.

Day Eighteen Total: 61,117 words

2010-11-18T23:57:00.002+11:00

I'm so tired right now. That I can't think straight. (Those two lines come out approximately to the tune of Stan Walker's Choose You.)

I'm technically writing the most interesting parts of this story, but as always, I find them tedious and boring to write. I like beginnings and the moments between the action when anything can happen, instead of what's supposed to happen.

I also can't bring myself to write during daylight hours. So by the time night rolls around I am way too tired to make any sort of sense. I suspect that if I read this tomorrow there'll be a couple of typos.

Seriously, some strange things have happened today. I think Hargraves has developed something of a crush on Zambini. So now I'm looking at them sexually, when I didn't before. I'd neutered them, and now I have to pretend they're real people. I don't like doing that even though I'm sure it makes the writing more believable... mostly because I'm afraid they'll take the story somewhere it's not supposed to go.

I mean, I think the last time this happened was NaNo '07 when it was some blah romance about some people who were practically betrothed ending up together anyway. Instead the chick became something of a villain and the dude's soulmate turned out to be a transvestite. Not that I've got anything against that, really. It turned a blah story into something more interesting, but it wasn't the story I wanted to write. The first quarter of this story is written from the girl's perspective before it shifted to the dude's. Basically, I haven't managed to revise it into something that someone else could read. I don't want that to happen to this story. I want people to be able to read it, instead of just being one more guilty pleasure.

...and I so didn't mean to write this much about stuff that didn't really happen today. I've always thought I'm more thoughtful later at night. Or well, not thoughtful, another word that escapes me at the moment. That happens to me a lot. When I can't find the right word I just replace it with something that I know is wrong.

Day Seventeen Total: 60,422 words

2010-11-17T23:58:00.002+11:00

Not sure, but I think this is my lowest daily word count this month. It's like I'm not even trying.

Day Sixteen Total: 60,327 words

2010-11-16T22:25:00.002+11:00

So I still haven't written all that much, but I'm kind of tired and I wanted to get to 60k (I was afraid I wouldn't after a series of shittier previous days) and then I finished the scene and stopping there just made sense.

I don't think I mentioned that I cheated on my story yesterday, did I? Well, I did. I didn't start a new one, but I did spend some early morning hours creating a universe and a plot. Not so much the characters, besides the villain.

Day Fifteen Total: 58,987 words

2010-11-15T23:56:00.001+11:00

More non-writing.

I only write so that I can read the stories that are in my head. I wish I didn't have to write them and could just read them.

Day Fourteen Total: 58,374 words

2010-11-14T23:53:00.001+11:00

I wonder if I'm the only person who writes less on weekends than weekdays.... (not that last weekend is a good example of that) I almost forgot to write today, but didn't want a zero word day, so I've written... not very much.

Day Thirteen Total: 58,232 words

2010-11-13T22:11:00.002+11:00

Bored. Tired. Distracted. Lazy.

Is how I wrote as many words as I did today.

Day Twelve Total: 57,353 words

2010-11-12T23:26:00.002+11:00

So I didn't write some ridiculous amount of words even though I thought I might. I did surpass 1667, though.

I think I'm running out of story, which means I might not make it to 70k which is my unofficial goal, though I actually want it to be longer than that. Oh well. You can't make a story longer than it wants to be. That's just offensive to anyone who reads it.

Plus if I actually get the story part out I can devote the rest of the time to editing (and seeing if the story in fact shrinks).

Day Eleven Total: 55,636 words

2010-11-11T23:16:00.002+11:00

Wrote more than yesterday. This equals an accomplishment.

I think I might go back to writing excessive amounts of words tomorrow.

Day Ten Total: 54,356 words

2010-11-10T22:48:00.000+11:00

Well, I finished yesterday's scene... that was all.

Day Nine Total: 53,391 words

2010-11-09T23:16:00.001+11:00

Today was technically my first below wordcount day. I didn't get the expected 1667 that I was half-telling myself that I should at least be getting.

It's actually not that great because I didn't finish writing up one point on my summary sheet and I think I need to do at least two a day to finish this whole story before the end of the month.

But I'm still over 50k so I don't really care.

Day Eight Total: 52,556 words

2010-11-08T22:02:00.001+11:00

I think I wrote two scenes today. That says something about the length of the scenes that I write.

Day Seven Total: 50,068 words

2010-11-07T22:26:00.002+11:00

No, I did not finish writing in the middle of a sentence. I did, however, finish the sentence and basically drop it there.

But seriously, more than 10k words in one day is a lot. No wonder I am tired all over. It was an insane undertaking, and I undertook it.

So from now on I figure my posting's going to be erratic. The story's not finished yet and obviously I want to do that before the end of November (when I'll forget all about this story because I'm like that), so we'll see what happens. Frankly it's hurting to even type this. (Hence why I'm now watching YouTube videos instead of any form of typing... not even games.)

All the way to 50k!

2010-11-07T17:30:00.000+11:00

Just had to let you know. I'm going to church now. Bye!

Day Six Total: 39,269 words

2010-11-06T23:25:00.002+11:00

I fell just short of 40k, but I'm not really fussed.

I am, however, having this crazy idea that it would be totally awesome to finish in a week... so I'm thinking I might actually work on this thing for five hours tomorrow and just finish it. Even if it is Sunday and therefore the day of rest.

I don't think, however, that I've ever managed a 10k day so it makes a lot more sense that I would finish (or rather, get to 50k) on Monday. Maybe I'll go to bed tonight, and then tomorrow just not sleep until all is accomplished.

I don't know. If the levels of ridiculous get too high it doesn't seem likely that I'll bother with NaNoWriMo again next year... I can't at this moment imagine not doing it, but if I feel like it's too easy I'll subconsciously sabotage myself so that it will be the first time I don't actually complete a 50k novel.

In addition to always reaching 50k I've always managed to actually finish the first drafts of these novels in November. I'd hate to not do that.

Anyhow, I guess I'll just continue with my plan of finishing in two weeks and then editing for the last two weeks.

We'll see how everything goes by my birthday.

Day Five Total: 35,215 words

2010-11-06T00:00:00.002+11:00

Cracked 35k today. I'm pretty pleased about that.

I'm less pleased that yesterday's sluggishness in writing seemed to continue on into the morning. It's only really been in the last half hour of the day that I got into the groove... no wait, that's not true. I did a couple of word sprints with @wordsprints, in the afternoon where I got a decent amount written.

The thing is I was kind of looking forward to Selene and her introduction which came today. It was kind of upsetting that I didn't end up writing another ridiculous amount of words.

Anyway, I've sort of decided that the shift in the story between Selene and Bob getting married and having a kid to the part where Bob's dad dies and he has to take over is sort of the part I/part II sort of deal... the problem is, I don't think it's quite right to end part I with a marriage or something. I need to figure that out before I get to part II.

Day Four Total: 30,305 words

2010-11-04T23:50:00.002+11:00

An on and off day. It took me longer to write things today than I have been... still managed to get a ridiculous number of words, though.

I'm pretty sure that half of what I've written today is crap and that I'm going to have to delete it or else change it beyond recognition. Not sure I like that. I'm sort of wondering why I forced myself to write it. I mean, I guess that even if I'd waited until tomorrow the quality would still have been about the same... but still. Yeah, I don't know. I think my entire novel is making about as much sense as this blog. It's certainly about as much sense as I've been making today.

I'm so tired now that I'm having to backspace just about every word because there are that many typos in it. I've probably missed one or two because of this. Oh well.

G'night, all.

I watched part of the Listener and had to stop myself from adding in a telepathic paramedic. Though I am still toying with the idea of adding an actual paramedic... if only I didn't feel as though I already have too many superfluous characters who are, as a result, rather one-dimensional. Paper's two-dimensional so I need to at least get all my characters to that standard... crazy talk.

Maybe tomorrow I'll crack 40k. That would be another shade of ridiculous altogether.

Day Three Total: 22,424 words

2010-11-03T22:59:00.003+11:00

Today was a good writing day. Wrote for about four hours instead of the three I'd done yesterday and the day before.

Got to a point where I wanted to skip over a scene and then ended up basically writing it anyway on my way to the next one. Life's weird like that.

At this pace I'll probably get to my 50k in the fastest time I've ever accomplished it, but I figure I'll slow down at some point. I'm sort of getting into the meat of the story, though. So it'll be interesting to see what sort of pace I'm setting as I start thinking more about what I'm writing.

I am half-hoping I'll finish the story and then be able to spend the last half of the month editing it. I quite like the idea. I already know there are some bits that are a little out of order and some scenes in between that need smoothing out.

P.S. If daily blogs aren't interesting enough you can still find me on Twitter (http://twitter.com/mandraco)

Day Two Total: 13,736 words

2010-11-02T13:12:00.009+11:00

A good writing day. My best day two ever, as you can just see on this graph.Did two twenty minute sprints just before lunch and managed to knock out a couple thousand words (plus the ones in between to connect them). But I'm feeling strangely out of sorts. I don't know what I'm doing and am suffering from the guilt of knowing that I should be doing something else instead.

I did take the time to watch the race that stops a nation. I used Write or Die for a while in the afternoon.

And then even though I started to feel ridiculously sleepy at nine o'clock, watched my tv, then wrote for about an hour at 10:40pm. I'm really tired now, sort of headachey and I know I should go to bed but I'm really looking forward to writing my next scene. I can't wait.

Day One Total: 6,988 words

2010-11-01T23:17:00.002+11:00

So, in three, approximately one hour long sessions I've got almost seven thousand words. I'm pretty happy about that and how the story's going so far.

I've already gone the Write or Die route, and spent practically all day on Twitter watching as timezone after timezone of people got to start NaNoWriMo. I also spammed a fair few randoms, but that's the way I make all of my Twitter friends.

I did, however, end up skipping an entire scene in my story. I just had the last line in the first scene, leading to the first line of the third so well that I couldn't be bothered to take the detour. I wasn't entirely sure why I'd wanted that scene in the first place so I just left it out. It was pretty great.

I almost feel sad that I didn't actually reach 7000 words today, but I finished the 'fourth' (actually third since I missed one) block so neatly that I had to stop there. There was no way I was going to not do it.

I'm pretty tired now, as a result of too many nights up past midnight in the last week, so I'm going to count myself awesome and go to bed now.

The First Hour

2010-11-01T02:11:00.002+11:00

So after spending an hour which was really more like half an hour (since I was doing other things) on NaNoWriMo so far, I've got over 1667 words, so I figure I'll leave it there for now.

As in, I'm going to bed and I'll write more later. Not sure I like what I have so far, I may actually commit a NaNo cardinal sin and edit it. Lol. I don't expect that will slow me down or cause me to shaft my story altogether.

I'm pretty happy with the content of what I've written, if not the words themselves. It's taking about the right number of words to get through the scene the way I expected it to go. I like to think that it bodes well for the flow of this story... but unlike most of my stories, I think this one might actually be back-end heavy, rather than beginning-heavy. I like the idea because generally my beginnings are too long.

Five and a half hours (and decreasing) to go

2010-10-31T18:30:00.003+11:00

Let's not frighten the children coming past trick-or-treating, but oh, it would be fun to scream right about now.

I'm planned (as well as I ever am). And I've got a pretty good handle on who everyone is (though not everyone has a name yet. It's just occurred to me that I shouldn't name the MC's father. He's that sort of person.). I've even cut my fingernails!

But I'm tired and my wrists hurt and I want to write 2k words in the first hour after midnight, but I'm not sure that I can even though I've basically got the first scene lined up in my head. I'll get back to you in approximately six and a half hours.

Anyway, NANOWRIMO STARTS SOON! And I'm getting excited! It's like Christmas.

My archives

2010-10-07T21:10:00.004+11:00

So remember how I mentioned having finished a story that I started two years ago? Well, I don't know about you, but I do most of my writing manually, with pen in exercise books (because they're almost the cheapest form of paper you can get). I started typing out this particular story maybe a year ago, and stopped (in the middle of a sentence in the third chapter).

Today I tried to pick up where I left off and in doing so had to go through my entire 'archive' of books. As with many hard copy filing systems, there wasn't really a system in place. So I had to search manually. The thing is, it was in the second book I'd picked up, but I had to look through ten or so other books before realising this.

With each book I usually mention which book precedes it, and which book comes after it, but there have been times when I've written in two books in a similar time period, and other times when I've started writing another in that book instead of another (so as not to waste paper). The point is, if I were to map it as a directed graph (yup that's my discrete maths and computer theory background coming out) it would definitely not be a simple linked list type arrangement (and that's my discrete maths and computer theory background forgotten).

I probably should, for my own benefit actually map my books. That would be an interesting exercise. And then I'd have a system in place when I'm trying to find something... if I can figure out when I wrote it approximately.

Anyhow, as I was going through books dating back to the early 2000s (I was staring at one that was actually dated 2003 thinking it was from 2008), I realised that they're full of semi-realised ideas. I've actually sometimes begun writing things that I'd thought I'd only thought about. It's kind of amazing.

In conclusion, that's why I like writing things in books. There's always something more to be discovered. I mean, if I just had everything on my computer/backed up all I'd have to do was type in the appropriate words and I'd find them. Where's the fun in that?

Getting excited about NaNoWriMo

2010-10-06T10:35:00.002+11:00

I wish it was November. I think I've started getting excited about this too early. I'm going to peak in October and not want to write my story in November... or I'm going to give up and start writing this story and therefore have to come up with another story to write in November.

I love my new story. I'm 1000 words into the summary and I really know what's going to happen now. It's got characters who I like who don't have ridiculous motivations even if they don't have names, and a beginning and a middle and an end. I just want to write it but I cannot. That would be cheating.

Le sigh. Later I guess I'll get started on the scene by scene summary... the closest one can get to writing without writing.

NaNoWriMo 2010 Novel Cover

2010-10-06T00:13:00.006+11:00

So I've been in the artsy sort of mood lately, and since it's October that means NaNo prep time. And artsy + NaNo = Novel Cover.

I ran into a few problems with this, though. Mostly that I've only got about one paragraph of plot, meaning I don't know much about what's going to happen yet. So I had no idea about what the rest of the plot was. Thus, I had to figure out characters.

I already had my MC figured out. I just had to name him. While I drew him I decided his name was Bob. Then because of his background, it's actually short for Roberto, and sometimes he goes by Bobby. And he's a cop, hence the shirt.

To the right is Bob's younger brother Donato. I think I've decided he's the villain of this piece. Hence why he's a little darker coloured and disappearing into some sort of vortex. No, I don't think this is sci-fi, so he won't be disappearing into any real vortexes in the story.

To the left is Bob's wife Selene. I'm not entirely sure what she has to do with the story yet, but she's his wife so I figure she'll play an important role of some kind. Note the glow between the married pair. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have them stay together during this story.

So now while I try to figure out what actually happens in the story, I'll have this lovely picture to look at... which will also help when I'm trying to physically describe them.

Finished Something!

2010-10-01T10:23:00.002+10:00

Sort of. I've finished the first draft of a story that I've been writing for about three years now... the sad part is that it's not even a very long one.

But finished is finished and I seem to be doing a lot of finishing lately so I'm glad. It makes me feel super-productive. I think I've finally taught myself how to write if you know what I mean.

So I thought that deserved a blog even though I haven't posted here in yonks and I think this might cross-post to Twitter and I haven't posted there in yonks either.

Day Thirty Total: 67,907 words

2009-12-02T14:17:00.006+11:00

So I'm finally ready to talk about the end of NaNoWriMo. Clearly I was a winner. That was established some days ago, and even verified by the NaNoWriMo bots on the 26th of November.

I semi gave up toward the end. It's clear that It's not quite finished and I'm actually fleshing out the ending today, by adding in a part that I'd completely forgotten: that the story cannot end before the band actually decides upon its name. And then I'll be happier to call the whole thing finished, even if it could maybe use another scene or two in the last chapter.

It was odd how the last chapter that I'd been looking forward to writing the entire time, took me a couple of days to really get into. But overall I'm happy with the way everything turned out. I, somehow, managed to avoid a lot of days where I just couldn't write anything because I hated my story. There were days when it was difficult to write, but not because I hated the story. I wonder if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I'm guessing I'm going to hate it once I get around to reading the thing over again.

Here's my final NaNoWriMo graph. I forged my own path this year... well, so I sort of followed last year's for the first half of the month, but after that, I went my own way. I'm really quite proud of myself.

I think I'm done

2009-11-30T13:49:00.002+11:00

I'm not sure if I am yet. I'm not happy with my ending. I don't think it's abrupt, it was clearly the end of the novel, but it's kind of short. I've still got a few hours to decide, and in draft two it will probably be longer, but right now, I think I'm done.

Day Twenty-Nine Total: 65,727 words so far

2009-11-30T10:26:00.001+11:00

I wrote a few more words. But there's still a few more left to write. And then a few more after that.

Day Twenty-Eight Total: 64,194 words so far

2009-11-29T15:43:00.000+11:00

Yesterday's total was a lie. I forgot that I'd written a sentence on the bus. Lol.

Day Twenty-Eight Total: 64,181 words so far

2009-11-28T23:46:00.001+11:00

Um yeah, I didn't write much. But I haven't written much at all on previous Saturdays this month, so I don't really see that as a problem.

But I've decided to finish tomorrow. So I'm going to.

Day Twenty-Seven Total: 64,158 words so far

2009-11-28T00:42:00.003+11:00

Today was a good day, probably because I ended up writing in all sorts of places. I started out in front of the computer as usual, then wrote on a bus, a bus stop bench, and I wrote while walking home (i.e. along footpaths and across roads). There's something kind of fun about risking your life (in a non-risky way) while writing, something that's generally seen as quite a non-risky activity. Maybe next year I'll start extreme-writing or something.

I have 5k more words to go-ish. Since every time I make an estimate it seems to balloon, I actually think it's pretty likely that I'll end up with over 70k words of story. That's kind of amazing. It's so much longer than the stuff I'm usually able to write and keep my attention on.

The interesting thing about this year's novel is that not that much actually happens in it, but I'm still managing to hit my word count by making lots of little things happen, that don't have too much to do with the overarching plot.

Day Twenty-Six Total: 60,898 words so far

2009-11-26T23:51:00.001+11:00

Back to the writing. After all, I'm going to have to write at least 2k a day if I want to finish... well, it's a little less than 2k, but whatever. I have to write, so I am.

Day Twenty-Five Total: 57,934 words so far

2009-11-26T10:30:00.001+11:00

I would have written more... but I didn't realise there was so much good TV on. Lol.

Day Twenty-Four Total: 57,574

2009-11-26T10:27:00.002+11:00

So, I discovered that I haven't written a word on the 24th the previous three times I've done NaNoWriMo. I imagine in previous years I told myself I could take the day off because it was my birthday. This year I decided not to break from tradition, and abandoned my sub-goal of no zero word count days.

Day Twenty-Three Total: 57,574 words so far

2009-11-24T11:23:00.000+11:00

So... haven't cracked 58k yet. Maybe today.

Day Twenty-Two Total: 57,431 words so far

2009-11-23T10:06:00.003+11:00

Seems to me that 58k is proving hard to crack.

I imagine that once I get past it I'll be able to magically finish writing the rest of the story in one day.

Day Twenty-One Total: 57,315 words so far

2009-11-21T23:28:00.001+11:00

I wrote a little more today. But not that much. Tomorow's going to be so hot I doubt I'll write much tomorrow either.

Day Twenty Total: 56,392 words so far

2009-11-21T11:10:00.001+11:00

I can only say that it was too hot to write yesterday.

Day Nineteen Total: 56,071 words so far

2009-11-19T23:47:00.002+11:00

I'm finding it easier to force myself to write these days... as compared with every other time I've done NaNoWriMo. I wonder why...

Anyway, today's estimate for how long the story is going to be is sixty-seven thousand words. That's only one thousand more than yesterday, so I count that as a triumph. =)

This is officially the longest thing I've ever written now!

2009-11-19T16:51:00.004+11:00

I'm so not used to writing lengthy amounts of fiction, part of why I'll probably never be a professional writer. But that means that I know that since this story is now longer than the one I wrote last year during November that this is the longest thing I've ever written.

In other news, that means that my green line won't cross over my orange line again. Hooray for me.

My Green Line Crossed My Orange One!

2009-11-18T23:50:00.005+11:00

Check it out! I've been wanting to get this year's word count higher than the one from last year for a while now. For a while I thought I wouldn't be able to do it until next week, but look, my word count's already higher!

If I write well tomorrow, I may make this story the longest thing I've ever written! Hurrah!

This graph has been fascinating me for a while. 2007 stats are a little fudged since I didn't keep a daily log of my word counts, which kind of sucks, but I think it's fascinating how closely it resembles 2008's line, even though I remember having a lot more trouble in 2008 with my story.

This year I'm forging my own path. Hopefully my green line won't cross my orange line again this year.

Day Eighteen Total: 52,338 words so far

2009-11-18T23:44:00.002+11:00

So, I passed fifty thousand words today.

I'm estimating about fourteen thousand more words to go, which increases my estimate from 65k to 66k... if this continues, I'm going to end up with a decently lengthed novel... not that I have any intention of selling this book. It's just going to end up on the internet for randoms to read.

I HAVE A GREEN BAR!!!

2009-11-18T14:38:00.002+11:00

Why yes, yes I am excited. Very, very, very excited!!!

Through a combination of Write or Die sprints, I managed to conquer the last two and half thousand or whatever it was that I had to write today to get past 50k! I am so excited, but I can't help but feel sad that I still have about 16k left to write before the story is finished. 16k that I still hope to finish by the end of November, because I know that if I leave it until after that, I'll never finish writing it. And it would be very, very, very sad if this story didn't have an ending.

Now I get to take my pastry out of the fridge and roll it out nice because I am making peach pie.

Day Seventeen Total: 47,254 words so far

2009-11-17T23:57:00.003+11:00

So I owe a massive difference in word count from yesterday mostly to a couple of word sprints with @NaNoWriMo (Chris Baty). At least I think it was Chris Baty, he said it was Chris and I can't think of another one. Lol. I missed the first sprint, and while I was bemoaning that, little did I know he was planning another two.

Something about semi-competitively writing against someone else is very conducive to writing a lot of words... not that I wrote more than I ever had before or anything. Really, the reason why I write so much more in November than in any other month is because of the community. I do it for the joy of saying that I did it, but writing fifty thousand or so words in any month is always worthwhile, and I will always be able to find people who will say to me, "That's great", so I don't need to do it in November. November is for writing with other people. Without them, it just wouldn't be the same.

The rest of my word count can be attributed to sewing together the bits that I wrote while sprinting, and to a post-11pm stint where I decided that I just wanted to write more.

Day Sixteen Total: 41,956 words so far

2009-11-17T10:49:00.001+11:00

Yesterday was a weird day. Well, not really. My computer decided to start running slow at about ten last night, so it took forever to get any writing done, so I gave up and didn't update.

Day Fifteen Total: 38,065 words so far

2009-11-15T23:55:00.002+11:00

A decent writing day if ever I saw one. Today's two scenes have consisted of a tearful farewell, and the band trying to define their sound in words. I'm not sure they're going to succeed because I can't seem to get a label onto their fictional sound (which is essentially my favourite sort of rock because I don't know anything). It's not like it even matters what it sounds like because, except for some days when I essentially padded the story with crap song lyrics, the reader can make that up for herself.

Day Fourteen Total: 35,890 words so far

2009-11-14T23:57:00.001+11:00

I wrote like two paragraphs. *shrugs* I guess I'm not one of those people who writes more on weekends.

Day Thirteen Total: 35,768 words so far

2009-11-13T23:23:00.003+11:00

Hooray for 35k words! I've been writing all day, but not really writing. I'd write like a sentence then do something else.

Actually, you can write a lot in a day if you tell yourself to write just one sentence before you do any other little task. Y'know, like clicking a link or watching a YouTube video, or peeing, or posting one more tweet on Twitter... lol. I don't do that, though. I think I mostly write 50k words in November because I know I can.

Today's pep talk I found to be kind of peppy. The problem I find with holding a koala is that it scratches.

Day Twelve Total: 33,454 words so far

2009-11-12T23:56:00.002+11:00

My head hurts. And I cried while writing today. I don't know if that's because I'm so tired or because I was writing the part where my MC discovers that his brother's cancer has come back and will most likely die from it. I don't much care.

I actually wrote more than I thought I would today. I was only aiming for two hundred words because I'm so tired and I have a headache.

Argh. And now I'm itchy.

Anyhow, now I'm worried that I started into the important parts of this chapter too early. It's not going to be long enough. But who knows, maybe that's a good thing. After all, I'm nearly halfway through the story and only now am I coming to the actual problems.

Day Eleven Total: 32,249 words so far

2009-11-11T23:43:00.003+11:00

So, I wrote most of my words by hand today. Not because of that pep talk that I haven't read because it doesn't have enough paragraphs for my brain (and because let's face it, I am no longer in need of pep from people I've never heard of before), but because I had no computer access all afternoon. It was quite sad.

And yet, I figure I would never have written anything if I hadn't been forced to do it by hand. Actually, I would have written, it just wouldn't have been for NaNoWriMo.

I have therefore posted a respectable sum of words today. Hooray for me.

Revised Day Ten Total: 30,061 words so far

2009-11-11T11:05:00.000+11:00

As my twitter tweet says:

Hey, I'm over 30k! I'm mildly surprised. Happily so.

http://twitter.com/mandraco/statuses/5603766569

Day Ten Total: 30,000 words-ish

2009-11-11T00:04:00.002+11:00

Since the NaNoWriMo site still seems to be down... or at least very, very slow, I'm guessing at my wordcount. It is somewhere between 29,783 and 30,074 words. I write my novel in Google Docs so that I can access it anywhere most of the time, and for some reason when I select all it gives me a different number of words for the selection and the total words in the document. When I compare this with what the official NaNoWriMo counter says, the number is always in the middle somewhere. The difference wasn't so large when I had fewer words.

I hope I got over 30k, but I know I wrote less than 1667 words today. I think I got somewhere around 1300, which is less than 30k total. Oh well.

Day Nine Total: 28,380 words so far

2009-11-09T22:40:00.003+11:00

I have no intent to try to surpass the minimum 1,667 word goal from now on. (What's wrong with the grammar of that sentence?)

My latest unofficial NaNoWriMo goal (besides finishing a >50k word story over the course of the month) is to actually write every day. I don't think I've ever done that before. I win NaNoWriMo not by being a tortoise, but by being a hare.

Which reminds me of a joke about chickens... because I read it in a chicken joke book.

"Did you hear about the two chickens running a marathon?
"One ran in short bursts, the other ran in burst shorts."

...the things you find the height of hilarity when you're ten.

The fun thing is that I've increased my NaNoWriMo productivity, so even though I can't type as fast and keep making mistakes because I need to cut my fingernails , I spent less than an hour writing today and still managed 1800 words.

Day Eight Total: 26,537 words so far

2009-11-08T22:53:00.002+11:00

I just want to go to bed. So I got past 1667 words today and decided that was enough. It's approximately the end of a scene, too.

I managed to get a lot of these words by having the band argue about song names (a lot of them), and then start writing a song together (which included a fair few repeated phrases).

Day Seven Total: 24,744 words so far

2009-11-07T23:44:00.002+11:00

I was out all day. There's only so much writing you can do at a friend's house without seeming incredibly rude. Besides, it's not like I have to write so much, I'm already way ahead in wordcount.

I think I'll do better tomorrow. I'd better not lose my writing groove this early in the month.

Day Six Total: 24,377 words so far

2009-11-06T22:17:00.003+11:00

Pretty much everything I've written today (barring a few ends of scenes, and other linking bits) has been written in ten minute increments. I've realised that I can actually hold my attention that long and it makes me more productive overall... I think my average words per minute has improved, which is how I've decided to rate productivity.

I used Write or Die to help with my ten minute increments, but even when I just tell myself to write for ten minutes it works. I don't need that extra push. It's just easier to keep track of time that way.

I don't know why I pay attention to this stuff, but so much of NaNoWriMo for me is looking at graphs and statistics. It's how I get more written this month than in any other.

I've learnt so much about my average speed now, that I think I could be one of those crazy people who writes fifty thousand words in a day. It would only take me eighteen hours if I was completely focused... of course, I'm not the sort of person whose attention can be held for eighteen straight hours. Not to mention I really would have had to have planned out my story for that to work.

Day Five Total: 20,236 words so far

2009-11-06T00:04:00.002+11:00

I'm tired, but I had a nap earlier today. So I'm not really as tired as I have been. Because of NaNoWriMo I think I've been up until almost two in the morning every day this month. It's kind of crazy and throwing my sleep patterns out of whack.

I have a pretty amazing writing day today, buoyed by Write or Die, and the fact that I seem to have better writing days on odd days. I say better in that it doesn't feel like it's taking as long to get places. I don't suspect that my writing is actually better, and there isn't that much difference in my word counts, really. I mean, to get 20k on day five means that I'm averaging 4k a day. That's pretty decent (and twice what I intended to accomplish).

I'm really pushing myself this first week, though, I'm feeling very afraid of falling behind in word count. I don't really know why. Clearly I'm more than twice as far as the minimum at this point. For some reason I'm slightly terrified of getting to day 15 and not being 30k through. I feel like I have to be more than halfway through by the halfway mark.

I wrote and did not die

2009-11-05T14:49:00.003+11:00

I don't know if I bothered to mention last year, but I did end up using @DrWicked's "Write or Die" (http://writeordie.drwicked.com/).

It's just about the best thing in the entire world for making you focus your attention on just getting words out. I managed to get 1,441 words in 30 minutes (which is an average of 48 words per minute), which really makes me feel a lot better about myself. Actually, I might use Write or Die again tonight and try to get another 2000 words in an hour, and maybe even try for 20k tonight.

I was actually only trying to get 500 words in those 30 minutes. That seemed like a much more easily achievable goal.

On second thoughts, nah. I will set today's word goal to 18k. At the moment I have 17,047 words. Unofficially I think I'll try for 20k. Might as well.

At the moment I'm resting my fingers. They feel strange and tingly. I think it's the weather, and not so much that I haven't typed this much in a while. My recent writing before the month of November has been of the pen on paper variety. I haven't yet transferred it from paper to hard drive.

...and I just read through this post before posting and found myself adding extra words. That's NaNoWriMo for you!

Day Four Total: 14,933 words so far

2009-11-05T00:00:00.002+11:00

Today was an okay day for writing. But I'm taking two seconds out of my busy schedule to blog before I get back to the sentence I was in the middle of.

Day Three Total: 11,478 words so far

2009-11-04T00:10:00.002+11:00

So, today I did better than yesterday. That's rather comforting in the grand scheme of things. Of course I can't stop writing yet, but I'm three days ahead and that is good enough for me.

I'm still not finished with Mick (a.k.a. 2nd character pov) and if I don't finish up with him soon the story's going to end up terribly unbalanced... but I'm mostly okay with that. At least I've got stuff to write about, now, even if I keep finding myself rather more influenced by what I'm reading than I perhaps should be.

I keep having this desire to insert some magic into my characters' lives, but it's meant to be set in the real world. I'm even naming more real world locations that I usually would. I actually went and looked up the names of buildings in the University of Newcastle! That's more 'research' than I usually do, since I usually like to make things up. And then, of course, there's the nightclub that I'm calling the Ivy, at the moment, but I shouldn't because it is not The Ivy, the real place.

Anyway, because I wanted to insert some magic in, Mick has started to have 'feelings', about places he should be and things he should do. I'll have you know that I think 'feeling' is just another word for 'plot hole' because I want him to be there but I don't really think anyone else understands why... so he has a feeling.

Day Two Total: 7,349 words so far

2009-11-02T23:59:00.002+11:00

So, here's day two. It was not nearly so productive as day one. Why? I'm not sure.

I did end up changing POVs from one character to the next, so perhaps he's less interesting than the first one? I think it's more that I've covered a lot of the main background stuff in the first part (that I'll probably have to move around throughout the novel to make it less boring) and now it's still the beginning of the novel. It's not quite time for the first call to adventure.

Strangely, I think this novel is actually going to have a 'beginning' that is not particularly long. Usually I find myself past the halfway mark before things start to snowball away to a conclusion. I think I might be peaking earlier in this novel, which makes it interesting... that might just mean that my novel ends up shorter than the estimated fifty-something thousand.

I'm in the middle of a scene that's a little more interesting, and then I should be able to work the call into the next scene which means that tomorrow I should be better equipped to have a higher word count. We'll just have to see.

Band Names

2009-11-02T12:10:00.007+11:00

So, my story's about a band, and they don't have a name. Not because I can't think of one, but because they can't think of one.

The Band (names they've gone through and rejected in the novel)

Mystik Spiral (is blatantly stolen from Daria and is what the lead singer's ex calls the band)
Tyrano Society (Iwan's idea)
Four-Letter Names (Alan's idea)
MIKA (standing for Mike Iwan Kyle Alan, rejected for the obvious reason)

Other Bands (mentioned in the novel)

Orient In Terest (a previous house band with a recording contract)
Maneki Neko and the Cha'an Chu (suggested by @VOIDMunashii)
Pinching the Nibble (suggested by @VOIDMunashii)

Names (not yet mentioned in the novel)

Trailer Park Street (suggested by @VOIDMunashii)
The Retail Therapists (suggested by @bazz_andreaus)
Death Wind (not-quite-suggested by @theinfern0)

Day One Total: 5,459 words so far

2009-11-01T23:46:00.002+11:00

Today was a pretty good day, I must say.

Of course, after writing enough to satisfy my day's quota before one a.m., there wasn't really much I could do to make it a bad day. I decided that I wanted to write at least five thousand words, and I succeeded with that, so I am pretty pleased with myself... how many times can I say that in one blog?

Despite not knowing where my afternoon went, I did manage to type out a couple thousand words, and another thousand or so after dinner.

My novel continues to surprise me. I keep using words I never thought I would, and within the first ten minutes I'd renamed all my main characters, and over the course of writing, named and renamed some supporting characters. I've ended today's writing with the end of a scene, and I suppose it would probably be the end of a chapter in the book itself. I'm wondering if ending the scene will make me more or less able to pick up where I left off tomorrow...

I'm operating on just under six hours of sleep, so I guess that's the one thing that hasn't increased today. I've definitely managed to overdo twittering. I've put a bunch of random strangers onto my NaNoWriMo list (@mandraco/wrimos) and spent a lot of time replying to (not necessarily the same) strangers while searching for tweets referencing NaNoWriMo. Sometimes I think that instead of making me less productive, NaNoWriMo actual increases my overall productivity for the month.

I guses that's enough about today. =)

One Hour In

2009-11-01T01:05:00.002+11:00

I'm on fire tonight (a.k.a. this morning). In the hour past midnight, I have managed to write a grand total of 2,361 words according to the official NaNoWriMo wordcounter. I'm not usually capable of this. I average about 1000 words an hour usually. I think in the first hour last year I'd written about 1000... or maybe a little more. I do remember feeling pretty pleased with myself, though.

I have absolutely no idea what I've written, and have realised that it included such random words that I never thought I'd end up using like "wuss", "financial" and ... some other word that I don't remember. I'm writing about some povo band, remember. I think I'd be more likely to use the word 'povo'... I ended up talking about the club and realising the band's origins, which I hadn't figured out until today.

Is this blog even making sense? I think I'm meant to be asleep. I'll just laugh later once I've slept, I reckon.

PLOTTED! Finally!

2009-10-30T12:20:00.002+11:00

So yesterday I was pretty desperate for a plot, what with less than three days to go...

I've half had it in my head that I was going to write the fourth novel in my East Peaks series... the only problem being that I still (after nearly two years of writing) haven't finished the third novel. But I've decided that that doesn't matter since it's about completely different people and will technically start off in the middle of that novel... and I've already written that far.

I started out brainstorming some crap, realised I had no plot, then just decided to write out what I'd imagined in my head so far. Apparently it worked well enough that I now have something resembling a plot... which may or may not actually be long enough. That's what I'm going to figure out today.

It's not so much the fourth novel in the series, I think so much as a spin-off. Not just because it's about different people who haven't been there from the first book, but because I think it's going to have to be written in third person, and the first three books were first person romances, and this is both less of a romance and less about one person.

Anyway, with that in place I am finally looking forward to November 1st.

So I made myself a photo journal

2009-08-29T16:38:00.005+10:00

I saw this: http://photojojo.com/content/diy/make-your-own-photo-notebook-journal/ a while ago, and decided that I needed to make one.

And this is what it looks like:That's me and my sister with our first Cabbage Patch dolls. The back cover is me and my brother at one of those butterfly farm things. I, of course, just used pictures that I had lying around and those were basically the only two that weren't landscape.

I haven't used it yet, even though I made it over a week ago. I'm still writing in a journal that I got for my birthday last year that doesn't seem to be showing any signs of actually getting full, which says a lot about how much writing I've done over the past year.

Seriously, I've been working on the third book to my East Peaks series since... maybe this time last year, and it's still not finished (and it's not really meant to be any longer than a NaNovel). I'm maybe halfway there. But, well, it should be faster going now because I think I've gotten past that point where you hate your story so much, and start to love it again.

Day 6 Summary

2009-04-06T21:44:00.002+10:00

Total: 15 pages

I had a very productive weekend, didn't I? Lol. I think this is the first time in the history of Script Frenzy (and possibly even NaNoWriMo) that I've been so far behind this early in the month. I didn't even have internet access this morning so I had no excuse to not write and all I wrote was like two and a half pages. Way uncool.

I'm not really letting it get me down, though. I do, however, have to work out how to make myself more interested in my script or I'm going to have to start over with something else.

Day 3 Summary

2009-04-03T23:12:00.002+11:00

Page Count: 13

So, I got off to a late start (after dinner is a late start). I decided that I'd just get one more page so that at least my page count would have increased, and got to work on that.

It turns out I got a little into it, but it's still slow going. I did manage to whack out four pages, though, which is quite awesome in my opinion. I am on track to finish on day 25. What more can I really ask for?

Day 2 Summary

2009-04-03T21:20:00.002+11:00

I wrote patchily yesterday, but managed to get up to 9 pages (and a bit, but I always take the floor, it seems more honest than rounding up).

I don't know why I am bothering to write this when it is not particularly interesting, but I guess it's just for posterity. Who knows, one day I might actually be less lazy and examine my writing habits one day, then I'll be glad for the data.