Welcome to NaNoWriMo 2011!

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 Twenty-Two Total: 63,519 words

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.

All the way to 50k!

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

The First Hour

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

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

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

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

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!

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.

I think I'm done

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.

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

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!

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.

I HAVE A GREEN BAR!!!

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.

I wrote and did not die

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!

One Hour In

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!

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

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.

Update: Day One Lunchtime

You know how I said I was going to do my planning entirely without writing down a word? Well I lied, because clearly I've blogged.

But this is my mock up of what I've written of the script so far.

Got distracted from work

And constructed the most awesome-est twitter search for Script Frenzy (because we can't just type nanowrimo in like with NaNoWriMo).

Behold: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%22scriptfrenzy%22+OR+%22script+frenzy%22+OR+%22screnzy%22

Does anyone have any other suggestions for phrases to add? Let's push Twitter search to the limit.

Preparing to prepare

March starts pretty soon, which means April's Script Frenzy prep starts soon. During March I like to read scripts and watch movies and write scripts too. I have no idea what I'm going to write in April but I can't start thinking about that.

I haven't really written anything in a while, which kind of sucks. I just can't bring myself to pick up a pen or tap something out on the keyboard. It's not that I don't have ideas or inspiration. I'm just lacking the fortitude required to sit down and write.

In other news: this blog has a new look, with the background from my twitter page and a photo I took while I was planning for the first Script Frenzy back in 2007. I did take a new pic specially for the header but my camera died so I had to look for an old one, which turned out to be not that great quality.

The worst thing is that I cannot, with good conscience, start thinking about thinking about planning for April while I still have work to do. Le sigh.