NaNoWriMo Blahs

It's November once again, and for the past three years, that has meant NaNoWriMo, that mad cap race to produce 50,000 words of fiction in 30 days.

Leading up to NaNoWriMo, I was a little on the fence about whether or not to go for it this year. I have successfully completed NaNoWriMo for the last three years, and I have a number of friends and acquaintences online and in meat space that are participating this year.

With that in mind, I started over with a story that I began writing after NaNo was done last year and only got about 6,000 words into. I'm at about the same point now as when I stopped writing last time. There are differences in each version, mostly minor, but with a couple scenes from the original version that have not appeared in any way in the new version. I have a couple scenes in the new version that are expanded from the old version or did not appear in the old version.

This year, more so than any other year, trying to do NaNoWriMo is like pulling teeth. There are a number of factors that I believe are making it so: we have two children at home a 4 year old and a 1 year old (at least last year the 1 year old was only a few weeks old and was still at that mostly lay around or sleep/eat/poop stage); I've got a full-time job and plenty to keep my busy around the house (no real change there from last year); I have another story that I'm almost 20,000 words into that I'm really liking at this point and I want to work on that more than the NaNo; as I'm writing this year's NaNovel, it just seems so dumb which isn't very motivating; and I'm just damn tired.

Why don't I work on the 20,000-word project for NaNoWriMo you ask? Well, for one I'm taking this one a little slower, and I'm writing the first draft all by hand. I enjoy doing that every once in a while and I'm really enjoying the process right now.

Usually during the first few days of NaNo I'm excited and really want to jump into the project. I'm just not feeling that this year. We'll see how the weekend goes and how the story comes along, but if I'm not feeling much better about the whole thing by Monday, I might bow out this year. That would free up more time for the 20,000-word project, which is really what I'd rather be working on right now.

NaNoWriMo 2009 Results, and Why I’m a Glutton for Punishment

I finished NaNoWriMo 2009 with 50,218 words by the skin of my teeth. On November 30, when I got home from work at about 9:45, I had 1,400 words to go. No big deal. However, my computer decided that the power cord wasn’t going to connect right, and for about an hour, the laptop would shut down due to a lack of power. It’s a second-hand laptop (the battery never worked while I have owned it) and has served its purpose so far, but right now it’s all jacked up with this power issue and some viruses and/or adware.

So every five minutes or so, just about the time I would get the computer back up and get the file open, it would shut off on me. Or I would be able to type about two sentences, hit save, and it would turn off. This went on for about an hour and I really thought that I wasn’t going to get my novel uploaded into the NaNo robot thingie before 12:00. Brandi suggested I just copy and paste some text, knowing that I was going to finish and it was the computer that was holding me back. That felt too much like cheating to me and so I declined.

Finally, I was able to get the computer balanced just right on the edge of the footstool and got my word count in. The story doesn’t have a proper ending on it, just some notes on where I want the ending to go. Overall, the story needs a lot of work, but I am satisfied with the rough draft that I was able to pump out in 30 days. There were too many of those days in there that I did not write at all and I had to play a lot of catch up toward the end of the month.

The novel is the story of a retired professor/widower who decides to finally go on the trips that he and his late wife had planned on going on and never got around to. The story takes place in the late 1950s or early/middle 1960s, for which I will have to do some research on a revision. As he starts to travel, Luther encounters many strange things that he would have never thought existed, including people who have lived for decades in the same Illinois corn field (without the farmer’s knowledge), man-eating Venus fly traps, and killer squirrels with a thirst for blood, among other things. I was also excited that when I go into revision I will be able to use some of the Survival Tips that I started writing a couple years ago. I’ll give it at least a month before I go back and start to do any kind of revision on it.

Why am I a glutton for punishment? Is it because I plan to revisit this somewhat random work of fiction? No, it’s because last night I started another large writing project that has been bubbling around in my brain since some point, mid-NaNo. This is a super villain story in which the villain finds out that getting everything he wants isn’t necessarily what he wants. I’m hand writing this one, partially because the computer is on the blink and partially because I enjoy the process of writing something out by hand, making notes in the margins, etc. and it has been a long time since I’ve done that.

Since I work at a library, my writing goal is to one day have a book published, check it out to a patron and say “You know, the N.Y. Times review of that is pretty harsh, it’s really not as bad as they say it is.”

Today's Word Count

48,001/50,000

I have been banging out 2,500 words or more for the last week or so to catch up. Most nights I haven't been getting to sleep until 2 or 2:30 to do so, and I'm looking forward to hitting 50K and trying to get my sleep schedule back. Gotta work tonight so I'll have to find time to get out these last 2,000 words. Good luck to everyone participating in NaNoWriMo on the last day!

NaNoWriMo Word Count

29,003/50,000

As you can see, I am quite a ways behind where I should be at by the end of the day today (about 38,000 words). Two weekends full of non-writing activity and an overpowering tiredness have left me with very little word count each day for the past several days, including one day with no words. I am determined to make it, so going forward I will have to do about 3,000 words per day for the next week, which will be no small task. If I don't make it, oh well, at least I gave it a shot. If I do make it, then I think I'll be having a beer or two on the 30th. Anyway, back to writing, I mean, work.

My Writing Buddy

As I said before, most nights over the last 10 days or so, I've been working on my NaNoWriMo story with Ava in my lap or held in the crook of an arm or sleeping on my chest. Here we are last night as I worked on pounding out some words.

As you can tell by the tilt of her head, and the fact that her eyes were open at this point, she is totally engrossed in the story.

Progress!

Last night was pretty calm, so I was able to pound out a cohesive 4,000 or so words yesterday. This brings my current total to 14,124, putting me just under 1,000 words behind where I should have been for yesterday. I should be able to close the gap today and catch up to where I should be for today (16,670).

The trick will be maintaining my word count for the rest of the month. With Windycon this weekend, that's going to be a trial, but I might be able to make a little headway before Friday to make up for a lack of time Friday night through Sunday.

NaNoWriMo Word Count Update

My current word count is 10,584. I'm still a few thousand words behind. Yesterday I wanted to get to at least 11,000 words before I called it a night, but Logan started calling out for me from his room around 10:30. I got upstairs and checked on him.

He was a little awake and calling out for me to lay down. I checked his forehead as I usually do when he makes noise in the night and it felt pretty warm. Not only that, but his arms, for some reason, felt like they were on fire. Obvisouly that couldn't be good. So despite his protests I went downstairs to get the thermometer. Luckily, his fever was only 99.4. I went back downstairs and got him some medicine, being sure to wash my hands each time I left his room. Then, I laid down with him for a while so he would go back to sleep.

When I was finally able to sneak out of his room it was close to 11. I worked on my story for about ten or fifteen more minutes before he started calling out again. This time when I laid down with him I ended up falling asleep next to him until about 1. At this point Brandi was headed upstairs with Ava, the night owl, and I was so tired there was no way I was going to be able to get up and type another thousand words or so.

Logan's fever was gone in the morning, so that's good, but I still felt like a bit of a bad parent when my second thought when I went upstairs and found out that he was warm was "Oh great, this is going to cut into my writing time."

NaNo, NaNo Where Does the Time Go?

It's NaNoWriMo time again, and so whatever free time I can scrape up with a computer around is going there. For those of you who don't know, it's the month-long writing marathon to crank out a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. This will be my third year attempting NaNoWriMo, and I hope that I can get my word count in on time.

I have a bunch of friends who are working on NaNoWriMo as well, and it's nice to have the support system, as well as a little bit of a sense of competition. Among my friends that are doing it this year are (in no particular order): MWT, Eric, Jeri, Kimby, and Shawn. I'm sure I'm leaving people out, so my appologies to those I didn't mention above. Good luck to everyone participating this year!

It's interesting the way each year is different when doing NaNo. And I'm not just talking about the story itself.

The first year I did it, 2007, we had just moved and there was a lot going on at home. I wrote when there was time, including scrawling on a legal pad during my hour-long commute. Don't worry, I kept my eyes on the road and just wrote really big. In addition to unpacking and trying to get the house in order, Logan was just over a year old and I was working two jobs. When I was at my part-time job, I would write on a piece of paper when I could and then type it up when I got home. The fact that there was so much going on forced me to make time to write, and it worked really well in my favor. I knew what I wanted to write about before hand, and had at least part of the story figured out. I wasn't too keen on this story while I was writing it, and about half way through I got another idea that I wanted to work on, but it was too late in the month to start over.

The second year, I wrote in a much more linear fashion, and there was less going on around the house, which didn't always work out to my favor. This year, I worked on the idea that I had from 2007 and I liked the story a lot more. I had another idea about half way through the month again, and while I liked it, I didn't want to go off and abandon my first idea to work on the second. Also, the second idea would have been a different story that takes place in the same world of the first 2008 story.

This year is again entirely different. Once again, there is a lot going on at home. There's a new born, who demands a lot of our time, there's a three-year-old who demands a lot of our time (partially because of the new born), and there are a lot of family/social obligations. We have Ava's baptism in a couple weeks, Thanksgiving being celebrated on two different days to ensure we have more time to spend with my side and Brandi's sides of the family, there's Windycon next weekend (I know, I brought that one on myself), and whatever other things pop up between now and November 30. At my current job, there aren't great periods of down time like there were at my last job that would allow me to boost my word count during the day. At night, it would be impossible to work on my story while Logan's awake, and then after he's in bed I try to give Brandi more of a break by taking Ava and rocking her and all that. It's become our regular bonding time. This means there have been a lot of nights where I'm typing one-handed and rocking from side-to-side to keep the baby calm. And let me tell you, to type with a baby in one arm and a laptop on your lap makes you feel so warm you think you're going to melt into the couch. A lot of nights I'll be typing until Ava is fully asleep and I can bring her upstairs to bed, which has been between 1 and 2 lately. Or, if I'm lucky and she falls asleep before that, I'll take her upstairs and try to stay up and type a little more, but that only works for an hour or so before I need to get to bed so I can function and make decisions at work the next day.

Also, this time around, I really had no idea what I was going to write about before I started writing, so I had a start and stop approach. I thought about writing about werewolves, inter-office warfare, paranormal investigators, and cryptozoology. By day three I had started three different stories and, as MWT so accuretly said, "each restart has about 500 more words than the previous one." The third story finally took, and that's the one I've been working on. I'm still in the mundane, building it up part of the story, but it seems to be coming along well.

So my current word count is 7,020, which is a few thousand words behind where I should be for day 7. I'm hoping that I'll be able to generate 2,000 words a day for a while to catch up. But any progress is good progress and if I have to do some real late nighters toward the end of the month, so be it.

This year's novel, which as of yet does not have a title, incorporates the Survial Tips that I've been working on for a while. When all is said and done, I think I'll use the Survial Tips as a lead in to the chapters, plugging them in only after I've reached my 50,000-word goal.

In this story, a newly retired university professor and widower, Luther, decides to fulfill the dreams that he and his deceased wife, Martha, had by going out and actually seeing part of the world. Up to this point, it isn't that Luther has been a shut in, but as he reasons, there's always been something else going on to prevent him from ever taking a trip. After making sure the house will be looked after while he's away, he sets out for destinations near and far. During his travels, he takes with him a journal that Martha had given him but he'd never written in to record his experiences. This is where the survival tips come in. As he encouters things that he would have never thought possible, he creates these reports so that others might know the pitfalls that are (in the story) very real but largely unknown. From the vast corn fields of Illinois to giant, man-eating Venus flytraps, Luther experiences a world he would have never guessed is even possible.

Writing About Writing

I’m sitting here, at the computer, with really no idea how I’d like to start writing about writing. There are things I’d like to say, and I could just say them, perhaps in a list, but that doesn’t feel right. I think I’ll just ramble on and see what happens.

Post NaNoWriMo work is underway. I have reread the first 106 pages of 158 that composed my NaNoWriMo, tentatively titled Fae Meds. For reference, this is Garamond, 12 point, double-spaced. I have several pages of notes that I took as I read, which are mostly composed of questions about the plot and instances where the writing is total crap. It seems like there’s a lot of the latter, but then what do you expect from 50,000+ words in 30 days?

I’ve been trying to spend at least a half hour each day reading and taking notes, which has become my UCF February Writing Challenge project (good luck to everyone else that's participating), and some days I do better at it than others. My immediate goal is to have finished rereading the entire text by the end of the week. I’m going on a trip tomorrow, and I could take it with me, but as I’m only doing carry on, I don’t want to bring an extra binder on the plane. Maybe I’ll take out the last 50 pages or so and just bring those with me, but then I’ve got books to read too. But I digress.

The rereading process has helped me to come up with some new ideas for the plot that I think will make the story stronger. This has also made a good chunk of what I originally wrote irrelevant, but maybe that’ll change once I get into the rewriting. There are also characters now that I have to really question their place in the story, but I’ll figure that out later too.

Once I’m done reading the story, then I’ll start on the rewrite. I know the first scene that I plan on working on, and that will hopefully get the ball rolling for everyone else. The rewriting process will also require some research, and there are some materials that I’ll need to pick up somewhere, namely maps of Milwaukee, a bus schedule, etc. There’s a book that I’ll probably go to from time to time called the Encyclopedia of Things That Never Were, that’s a fun reference for things fantastical.

I have a story that is done that I really need to find a market for. Does anyone know of a good place to send humorous stories of a slice of life type nature? It’s a little under 4,000 words, and based on a something that happened to one of my in-laws.

Then I have another story of about 7,500 words that’s getting to be five years old now that’s been through many revisions and just needs one more. I like the story as is, but the last couple times I submitted it, the readers said there was a certain scene that I should consider cutting. The scene’s not essential to the plot, and it is a little tacked on, so it could go.

I think that’s about it. For the long term, I hope to have Fae Meds done by the end of the year, but I won’t stress about it too much. I’ve got enough stress as it is.

The Editing Process Begins

I've finally started to edit my NaNoWriMo novel. I wanted to let it cool off at least for the month of December so I could distance myself from it a little. I've only been over the first page so far. At this point I'm just reading and taking notes without doing any rewriting, but I wanted to share my mad editing skillz with you all.

From my notes: "¶2 = poop"

I am available for freelance editing if anyone is interested. :)

Yahoo! It's Over

It's December 1 and I finished NaNoWriMo with about two hours to spare! I came in with 50,436 words. It feels great to have done it, and I am actually liking the story this year, whereas last year, by about half way through I wanted to work on something else. I feel like I could have added another 2,000 words to the end, but there wasn't enough time to do so last night and I wanted to just send it in and have my word count validated so I could be done with it.

My plan is to print it out, let it sit for a month or so, and then go back and work on revising it. I had many ideas throughout the month on how it should be changed, and there are still several things I'm not sure on when it comes to the plot.

Of course Brandi is excited that I'm done, which means I wont be writing for a couple hours every night after Logan goes to bed.

Congratulations to everyone else that won!

p.s. Thanksgiving was good and extra relaxing this year as we only went to one house. I hope everyone else's was good too. I was online only minimally this weekend, so I guess I have some catching up to do.

40,000 Down 10,000 To Go

Last night I broke the 40,000-word barrier and I'm now at 40,288, which leaves a meager 9,712 to go. I've been going just a little over the 1,667 every day and I hope to continue that pace and maybe I will finish up on Saturday, or be able to not do so much on Thanksgiving. I'm sure Brandi will appreciate when it's all done. I certainly will enjoy the break and the chance to read for decent chunks of time again.

Among the UCF I know that Jeri and MWT have passed the 50k mark and it appears that Anne is a little ahead of me and Eric is taking the time off to catch up. Congrats to everyone who's passed 50k and a big hurrah for those of you, like me, with a little bit to go yet.

A NaNoWriMo Update Post

I am on track for word count, as far as all of that goes. Originally, I had wanted to do 2,000 words per day and be at 60,000 by the end of the month, but with as hard as it was to get the story going initially and the fact that I was three days behind last week I'm happy to be where I'm at. I could cheat and copy in some text from the last time I tried to tell this story, but I don't want to do that. It would make the final word count feel like a lesser accomplishment. I plan to ad that stuff later, but not until NaNoWriMo is over and done with.

I know there is a lot of it that is seriously no good. Even as I type it I know it's no good, but I tell my internal editor that we'll fix it later and for right now we just need to get the story out. There are whole scenes, even, that I know are too revealing to the nature of certain characters and most likely would not make it into a subsequent rewrite.

Overall, I am pleased with what I have so far, and the story is coming together in interesting ways that I would not have seen coming. Characters are developing in ways that I would not have thought of when they first appeared in the story. It's not as funny as I would like, but that too will come later. I think part of the lack of humor is that I don't have time to be over the top right now and I'm pulling punches.

Meanwhile, I am managing to keep most everything else in balance between home and work. Mainly it's the time Brandi and I spend together that gets sacrificed as I can't really work on NaNo at home until after Logan is in bed. However, Brandi did get to schedule a play date for herself tonight with one of her best friends, which will be good for both of us. She gets to get out of the house, have a drink or two and unwind. I get to work on my NaNo without feeling guilty about not paying more attention to her, and then once I've reached my daily word count, I can feel free to watch a movie that Brandi doesn't want to watch or play Lego Batman some more, or maybe both if I type fast enough. I've found that if I'm not distracted, I could do up to 1,000 words in an hour. If I'm distracted though, I'm lucky to get 500 words in an hour.

I feel like taking a day off of NaNo and not thinking about it, but so far I haven't allowed myself to do so. The later it gets in the month the harder that will be to do because I'll have less time to play catch up, so it probably wont happen. I do miss reading, though, and as soon as NaNo is over I'm going to finally finish reading Uglies, which I started in October.

I hope everyone else who's participating in NaNoWriMo this year has hit their stride and is doing well. I feel a little bad that everyone I know in meat space that is doing it has either given up or hasn't gotten off the ground. But I can't make them do it, I can only offer encouragement.

NaNo Challenge

I've been having a hard time getting into NaNoWriMo this year. I think I have been thinking about it too much and had built it up so much last month that I'm stumbling a little bit.

There are a couple people in the office that I convinced to take a crack at NaNo and they haven't started yet. So, I came up with a NaNo challenge for the night. Whoever doesn't get in at least their daily 1667 tonight has to do someone else's annoying, mundane task in the office. They were weary of accepting, thinking I would win, but I convinced them to do it.

Then I thought of another challenge. Jones Soda Co. usually puts out a Thanksgiving pack every year. I've never had it, but I've heard it's pretty gross. Who would want a turkey flavored pop? Anyway, I think some time later in the month, I'll propose a word war to take place over a couple days and the loser has to drink the pop. Makes me want to gag just thinking of it.