Slow Start

This Day 1 and Day 2 really has a different feel to it than Nov 1. I was 500 words under at the end of Day 1 and barely met my Day 2 goal today. Although, if I wasn't under for today, I would have written enough to meet my stretch goal.

And it's not that I'm not creating new material. I am. I think it's because I'm covering ground that I initially skipped last time in the bid for words. It's the last open spaces in that 1000 piece puzzle and you have to create the pieces to fill in those gaps. The revision process is turning out to be harder than the original draft. I'm trying to not be discouraged. I keep telling myself that the important thing is that I'm putting the time in and I'm getting words to paper. The story is emerging and it's taking shape. The days when I write 3000+ words will make up for the days I'm writing less than 500. I've done it once, I can do it again.

And it's OK to take a break from one creative project to work on another. Sometimes, that side project can prove to be inspirational and meaningful to your current project.

My Progress in visual form:

Word Count - 25K (but hoping for 30K) in 15 Days

This is a live graph. When I update the word count on my data sheet, it updates.



 

Stepping back and moving forward

Now that Book 1 is officially done, it's time to revise it.
But I also have all of these ideas for book 2!

I've always been of the belief that there needs to be time for an author to forget what he/she wrote in draft 1 to have an objectiveness that is needed for the revision and editing process. So that's what I'm going to do... step back to gain perspective and clarity.

I also have these ideas for book 2 that  I MUST WRITE DOWN before I forget them. Once I get the notes down and into an arc, I'll have given book 1 enough time to rest. The added bonus of knowing what's in store for book 2 will guide my development of the plot holes I know that I will find in book 1.

I'm all of my years of training in writing, in creative writing, I've heard the mantra "show, don't tell" so many times that I sometimes would mumble it in my sleep as stacks of handwritten journals  and sheaves of printed text come tumbling down around me. (I exaggerate, but not by much). It was never discussed in any of my classes that is was OK to tell the story first, then show it by the time you had a draft that you were ready for people to read and critique. It feels refreshing and free to quickly tell the story, then go back and "show" it instead.

So I'm going to see if I can write Book 2 (at least 50K words of it) between Dec 22 and Jan 6. That gives me about 2 weeks to do full time in what took me 4 weeks while working. Between now and then, I will brainstorm, outline, and research. And when I'm tired of doing that, I'll revise portions of book 1.

Now, for some coffee.

1 Month, 50K Words, 0 Excuses

Soo... Once I included my post Nov 1 notes to the novel, I hit the 50K word mark.  I found that I was just adding more fluff for the sake of words to meet the deadline. I found that I was writing the same scenes twice and I'd skipped parts to move on with the story and have hit upon a really nice ending. I just couldn't bring myself to write 3000 words over the next two days that I fully intended to delete. It seemed like a deliberate waste of hours and effort.

Some of the stuff I was writing in a "telling" mode was the same quality/style as my notes, so I said, fuck it. I wrote those words in Nov for the novel, I'm including those words for validation purposes. I also discovered that their validation/ word count engine over-counts the words if it was a copy-paste from Word. Yay for me!

So now comes the easier part (harder for some) since there's no time-crunch. I'm going to go over the 160 pages to fill out some of the scenes that needs to be shown instead of told (if you need an explanation of Showing vs Telling, let me know and I'll explain). I need to clean up and tighten up the dialog and I need to add more interactions between some characters to not only develop the character, but their relationships with each other. I totally can see this blooming to be 300+ pages of quality fiction. Once I get the complete first (or second) draft done, I'll let people read/critique it. If you want to see it (and have not already mentioned it) let me know. I only plan on letting people who can give me detailed constructive criticism read it (the type of criticism that I'd expect to get in an advanced fiction writing workshop).

But that's for another day. Tonight, I sleep.

The sprint and home stretch

This past week was an uphill struggle. On sand and loose gravel. With a slope so steep, switchbacks were necessary. But last night, albeit a few hours behind schedule, I hit the word count goal for Day 19 and pushed on to write another 1000 words.

I'm 2/3 of the way through the challenge. After tomorrow, that will increase to 3/4 done, in regards to both the time and to the word count.

I'm 1/3 of the way through the novel's story. I just introduced a crucial character to the story. As I hit 35,000 words, I may just have to put in placeholders for middle developing scenes (which are the hardest to finesse) and write out the ending to the story as my latest Nano "pep talk" e-mail advises.

I fully expect this to be the most horrible piece of writing I produced and will be revising it throughout the year - adding scenes, moving scenes, deleting scenes and deepening the development. I'm OK with that. I've (mostly) accepted that December will be my time for revision.

Will I try to keep working on 1667 words a night? Most likely not. It's a grueling pace to do while working full time. However, 800 - 1000 words a night for new material seem to be both attainable and sustainable (especially . I also have a 2-week break from work coming up that I can totally utilize to really finish by plugging up the most obvious of the plot holes and flesh out the transitions between scenes where currently placeholders are.

I'm so close I can almost taste it.

Running out of steam

Today, after work, I will have 8 hours of time jump ahead of my goal. Anything I write during those 8 hours would put me ahead, leaving tomorrow's goal easier to hit.

However, I do feel like I'm running out of steam. But I'm so close to the mid-way benchmark that I can taste it. And I'm so far from the finish line that I'd be really dissappointed if I I hit a wall now.

I really hope to make a lot of progress this Friday night and Saturday afternoon. I'm bummed that I lose the all-night writing opportunity on Saturday due to work on Sunday morning. This is where I think I'll use up any surplus in my word count bank, perhaps even to fall behind by a few hours again.

Thanksgiving weekend will also be hard. As is, I plan on writing well into the night Wed night when we stop at our mid-way point during our travels. I plan on writing all night Thursday night. I hope to sleep the entire car ride back on Saturday so that I can write as much as humanly possible on Sunday. Since it's the last writing weekend, It's the last opportunity to bank excess words. I'd hate it if I were to trip up right before I reach the deadline.

More than words

I met my personal goal of being ahead of the average to get the writing done. From now (3pm) until Midnight, I will be working towards Tuesday's, and perhaps Wednesday's goal of 21,667 and 23,333 words, respectively. At this moment, I'm trying to focus during the day with the same clarity and dedication as in the middle of the night. 

If I'm honest with myself, the material rewards I've said that I'm giving myself have not been a motivating factor at all. Making plans with friends and forcing myself to cancel them if I fail to meet my goal (as what happened in week 1) has been more motivating. If I'm not on track, I can't be social and see friends.  I've also been motivated by the pep talks - motivational e-mails - that I get from the NaNo team, including past NaNo writers who not only achieved their word count goals, but went on to publish. The e-mails that talk about some aspect of the writing process -the procrastination, frustration, road (and writing) blocks, or even negativity from the haters. 

November 15 will mark the halfway point - 25,000 words and I don't have a doubt that I can do it. My progress in the first 2 weeks was consistent and I've dealt with the hurdles. Just last night, I was blocked, so I stepped away, and did 10 minutes of brainstorming for this specific series of scenes. Then, I was back to writing. 

This challenge has become more than the words. It is a test of my will, determination, ability to persevere, and deal with hiccups. It's about changing habits; I now resist the urge to revise before draft 1 is done. I'm OK with skipping a scene where I'm stuck to move on, and I'm OK with a quality that I'm not happy with on the first go-around.  I'm outlining and seeing the big picture before working on the details.

Now, if only I can be so dedicated to my other goals. 

Distractions and hurdles

Distracted by the election, I'm 300 words short of my 10K word goal of the day. I hope to make up for it tomorrow, so my stretch goal for Nov 7 is 1967 words. It's a word count I know I can do Friday night or Saturday night, but I'd feel much better if I can do it tomorrow.

I need to call it at 2:50 am on a work night and get some sleep. I'm confident that I can catch up. It is, after all, only Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. Nov 7 marks the official 1-week mark of NaNoWriMo. That's 1/4 of the way there if we're counting weeks. 23% if you want to be accurate about the progress.

I've been fairly on track so far and have been able to maintain, for the most part, the momentum in the writing. I'm making myself write daily and the novel has started to come to life. I've rarely had to look at my notes and when I do, I see that I'm already shifting the scenes around. I'm allowing myself to add more text to elaborate on a scene that happens earlier in the story, but I'm not allowing myself to delete and re-write scenes. I'm also adding scenes that I missed from my notes.

Working with notes in a creative writing project is actually new for me. However, it has done its job really well in keeping me on track and providing me with material to write when I encounter a hurdle and feel stuck. Anyone who is reading this right now and doing NaNo, I would recommend an "outline my story" night if you can't think of what happens next. At the very least, plot out the story arc and know how it ends. (When I was outlining, I knew the beginning and the end before I figured out the middle).

Current Stats: 9700 words.
Nov 7 total word goal: 11666 ( I would need to write 1966 words before Midnight to make this goal).

On Par, Entering Day 5

It looks like I'm staying on track. I fell behind on Friday when I took the night off to go out. I've spent all weekend making up for the 800 words I didn't write on Friday in addition to the 1667 words for each day.

What I learned this weekend: I can write at least 2070 words in a (weekend) day, even in an "uproductive" day.

Confession: I whittled away quite a few hours, both Saturday and Sunday by just puttering around - in real life and on Facebook. It felt very unproductive mainly because I had to force myself to write even if it meant staying up until 5am.

So I'm adding some stretch goals to try to get ahead. I'd rather go out when I'm ahead in my goals. I believe I can truly relax and have fun if I don't have to worry about playing catch-up.

Current word count 6791
Day 4 goal: 6667 words met at 12:30am,  Nov 5.
Day 5 goal: 8333 (official)
Stretch goal: 8500 before Midnight Nov 6

Progress as we enter Day 4

One of the things I'm finding awesome with participating in NaNoWriMo are the words of advice and encouragement from authors. Today, I received an e-mail authored by Kate DiCamillo (author of The Take of Despereaux and other YA novels) offering some words of advice on motivation:

It is a truly excellent to have someone to believe in you and your ability to write.

But I think it is just as helpful to have people who don't believe in you, people who mock you, people who doubt you, people who enrage you. Fortunately, there is never a shortage of this type of person in the world.

So as you enter this month of writing, write for yourself. Write for the story. And write, also, for all of the people who doubt you... Let them motivate you.

Your friend in writing,
Kate DiCamillo

As we enter day 4 (at Midnight), I have 4300 words. I'm 700 words from meeting my day 3 goal, but I have do doubt that I will hit it before I sleep tonight (whatever time that will be). My 6667 total word goal for Sunday will be a little more difficult since I do not have the option of writing until 6am. I'm hoping to reach that goal sometime in the afternoon. Keeping the promise I made when I started this challenge, I'm saying "no" to a social gathering that I'd REALLY like to participate in (Dim Sum with some friends). However, my one social event I'd allowed myself for this weekend was 5 hours on Friday night when I went out with Craig and Roz to dinner and to see Wreck-It Ralph. 

Onward to 6667.

Progress - Day 1

Day 1 Goal of 1667 met at 9:02pm tonight.

Pages for 1667 words = 3, almost 4, single spaced

Hours it took to write: 5

Current word count: 2310
Day 2 goal: 3334

I'm highly encouraged by my progress. I'm SO glad I did the prepping with the outline. Even though I already find myself deviating a bit with the details, I'm still sticking to the main points that is supposed to occur in the chapter. When I find myself stopping, I glance over at my notes and think, "Oh right! That needs to happen for it to develop the way I want it to develop. I really need that in chapter [insert chapter number here]." Finding the right words to explain or show the idea is so much easier when the basic idea is already written and plotted.

I'm finding hard to not go back and add things or edit, but I'm moving forward. These first few chapters are all about introducing the main characters. I'm hoping that I'm doing a good job at bringing them to life, with their interactions with each other, speech patterns, and mannerisms. I'm going to call it quits for tonight and try to get a an extra hour of sleep. I'm already 39% done with my day 2 goal.

With tomorrow being Friday, I'll be able to stay up as late as I want to to write. I'm optimistic that I'll be ahead of my daily goal by the end of the day on Saturday. My stretch goal is to be a whole day ahead of my daily goal, allowing me to create a buffer. Even better if that lead is extended. I'd much rather be creating more material early on in the month than trying frantically to catch up as we near the deadline.

In addition to the writing last night and tonight, I spent almost 3 hours on a SW game and 2 hours vegging out in front of the TV. This is also encouraging. It means that if push came to shove, I can carve out the time I need from other recreational time to devote to the writing. 

On chapter 1

Working on chapter 1, I've turned 4 lines of notes into 1150 words. I will have a few hours after work to complete another 517 words to meet my goal today and I hope to power through and get ahead of the goal. I'd rather be ahead of the game than playing catch-up. I'm hoping to keep up this momentum.

And so it begins

I'm 30 minutes away from Midnight (official start) and I really wanted to start writing this afternoon. But it felt like cheating, so I'm restraining myself. I did, however, make more notes and fleshed out my outline a little more. I currently have 19 chapters planned. It doesn't seem like much... but if there's enough material, I may get more chapters out of it.

The amount of support and encouragement I'm already getting for this project is awesome. Some people think it's an impossible task. Others think it's an awesome challenge. And I've heard form other authors embarking on the same challenge. Not only is it nice to know that I'm not doing this alone, it's also nice to actually know some other people who will be going through this with me. Since I'm not confident that my first draft would be readable, I'm not going to share it with anyone until I get a chance to not only finish writing it, but read it once through. I will, however, post excerpts and/or passages that I'm particularly proud of.

Working Title: Phoenix Rising

Final Preparations

I'm 22 hours, 30 minutes away from starting the novel.

So far, in my preparations, I've done:

- Created a dedicated work space to do my work
- Plotted and outlined the story. I know how I want it to begin, develop, and end.
- Outlined each chapter. According to the current online, I have 18 chapters.
- I know what I want the climax of the story to be and how I plan to resolve it.
- Developed the main characters - who they are, where they come from, their motivations and goals.
- Created the major relationships between the main characters and have an idea of how I want to develop those relationships.
- Decided who needs to die as a means of a catalyst for character development and story progression
- Decided on how magic works in my setting
- Created a short history for the setting
- Created political and religious background for the setting

I have 8 pages of copious notes to guide me in the process. I also know that as I'm writing, I'll probably come up with more ideas or change my mind about some of the development. I'm hoping that I'll just power through the need/want to make the changes and just write the original idea. The benefit of having my notes side-by-side with the manuscript on my screens is that I can easily toggle over and make potential revision notes without actually revising.

I've broken down my notes into chapters. It will give me a little more structure to work with so that I'm writing each chapter, and each page, with a specific intent and purpose. I have some chapters that need more development, but at least I know where the holes are. I'm hoping to fill in those holes as I write and perhaps add enough material to create more chapters. OR, I can just deal with some really long chapters.

The Hermit vs the Social Butterfly

So NaNoWriMo hasn't started yet and I can already see some of the hurdles. I was actually being fairly optimistic when I said I was up to the challenge. My weekends for the month of November were fairly free and I had no weekday plans scheduled on my calendar. Then, Craig and I started making plans. All of a sudden, the days that I was hoping to use to "catch up" if I fall behind on my daily writing quota were taken up. Now, I'm thinking, "will I really have enough time to write 50K words in 30 days?"

And here's the dilemma for me. Do I stick to my guns and be a recluse for most of the month of November? Or do I allow myself to go hang out with family and friends? I know one option I have is to take my writing with me... but how much will I really be able to accomplish when I'm surrounded by  people that I want to interact with? I love the gaming with my friends. I love evenings out whether it's a play, movie, large party or small dinner.

So, I'm making a decision... for the month of November, I will be more of a hermit. I'll schedule my time as if I'm still in school and finals are fast approaching. I will push myself the same way that I pushed when I had a paper due for class - utilizing any holidays during the month for the writing, sleeping when I can't write, and writing instead of sleeping on the weekends/holidays. I've never pulled an all-nighter for my writing before, but I have for school work. I think on the days that I can afford to (like the night before Thanksgiving), I can try to write through the night and plan to sleep while traveling. Thankfully, I won't be driving.

This doesn't mean I won't go out at all. It just means not being the last ones to leave a party. It means just having dinner with a friend instead of dinner and a movie (or shopping). It means excusing myself and finding a quiet corner to work while Craig continues to be social at gatherings.

One of the excuses that I've always given myself is that I don't have the time to devote to the writing. I've started projects, but they stay unfinished and under developed. However, I can't use that excuse anymore since I was able to make time for my other projects over the last few years. And for one month, I will not allow myself to use that excuse.

Office Space

Craig and I finally got my work space set up. I got rid of the hutch on my desk that was too small to accomodate my monitor. Now, I have my large monitor set up side-by-side with one of my laptops so I have the dual-screen action going. It's going to help a lot to have my notes on one screen and my manuscript on the other. It also helps to have a really nice ergo keyboard. The added benefit of not having the hutch is to not have the surface area/space to clutter with unneeded junk.

It feels really nice to have a more permanent set-up for a work space. I had a similar set up in the living room that I had to dismantle every time Craig wanted to have the space for his painting. My desk is a spot that I'm excited to use again, all because it's now comfortable to be there. Now, the challenge will be trying to both work in the den at the same time. He usually needs absolute quiet to concentrate on his DM stuff when he's prepping for games. I, on the other hand, focus better when there's some kind of background noise or music playing.

More preparations

I have 5 days remaining for prep. At this point, I'm not going to fill out any more of the character sheets. I'm going to allow my characters to be a little flat and underdeveloped for the time being. I'll just make sure that I have a cast of characters to draw from and what their place would be in the story. Yay for outlines!

I have a basic story outlined. It's a simplistic story that will rely heavily on character development  I know, it's ironic that I'm not developing them with the character sheets. However, in the outline treatment, I'm describing the characters' roles, motivations in the scene, and generally shaping the direction. I think having a loose idea of the characters at this point will serve my purpose a little more than having characters pre-developed.

In doing my pre-writing, and in some of the shows I've been watching, I've discovered that I really enjoy the sympathetic villain. The person that makes the wrong decisions, but with the best of intentions. You don't end up hating the villain... you end up feeling bad for them, for their plight, and you hurt and feel their pain and guilt as they do something that is outside of their current character, but will shape them to be the "bad" person that they become. The selfish person who just isn't entirely selfish (or doesn't realize she is selfish) and just wants to control their environment, to protect their loved ones, etc and feels that the ends justify the means.

The more I work on this outline, the more prepared I feel to start writing. I'm arranging scenes in the story and fleshing out relationships. I've worked out ways to incorporate the facilitation of information. I'm working out the system of magic. I'm working out the theology. I'm working out the political nuances  I'm working out motivations.

I need to work on character flaws - especially for my hero. Let's face it, no one likes a "perfect" character.

I'm hoping to have 10 pages, if not more, for the outline by Oct 31. I think the more I have in the outline (including rough scenes, literary devices like flashbacks, etc), the more I can focus on getting the exposition and dialog written during the writing blitz. I want to avoid my tendency of saying "[insert scene X here. I need to find a way to get A to B, but I don't know what yet so I'm putting in this placeholder]." I think that methodology will be disastrous for a project like this.

I shared my NaNoWriMo goal with my principal today and he's excited about the challenge and may try it himself. If anything, this may become a bonding experience for me and my boss which is kinda cool.

On Stats

Nearly 4 pages of scenes and plot outlined. I'm excited to be generating new content, writing down the ideas, and fleshing them out bit by bit.

I have characters:

A'lyora
Mikalov
Soraya
Rayari
Sorengh
Margery
Ian
Inn Keeper
Guards/Soldiers

And here are some goal incentives for me:
Meet my word count goal/benchmark for week 1 - new shoes!
Meet my word count goal/benchmark for week 2 - hot stone massage!
Meet my word count goal/benchmark for week 3 - New desk for office space!
Meet the Nanowrimo goal of 50K works by Nov 30 - ????

Do I set a ridiculous reward like a Burberry bag for the 50K word goal? Get a bag I don't think I can afford at this time? Am I setting that as a grand prize because I think I can't make the goal? Or will I make the goal because I really want that stupid purse?!

Following advice

One of the major pieces of writing advice I always gave as a tutor was to start with a brainstorm, start with an outline and just write down the ideas. It's about time that I took my own advice.

In prepping for Nanowrimo, I've done more pre-writing than I ever did in my college days. My experience with writing has always been organic. I have an idea, I write it down. I was able to reliable crank out a 5 page essay in a few hours. Later in my graduate work, I was able to crank out 25 pages in a couple of sittings, writing strong arguments and citing data.

The one feat I've yet to be able to accomplish as a writer is to write a novel. A long story with in depth character development and a plot arc. It's a far cry from a short story where it's almost like a snapshot in time.

A couple of days ago, I confided in one of my friends that my reason for wanting to participate in Nanowrimo was to push myself. I will concentrate on quantity and not quality. I will push to meet my daily, weekly, and ultimate goal. This friend gave me a piece of advice - have copious notes and a clear outline.

He gave me a sample treatment he did for a TV episode and I admit, I was surprised at how detailed the treatment was. And it was just the 2nd draft of the outline. (Yes, the outline had multiple versions/drafts). He also gave me a detailed character sheet to help develop my characters. The character development sheets are very similar to the treatments I'd done in my undergrad work. It's also similar to a character sheet for D&D and prompts for a backstory. You have to know where your character comes from before you can know where he or she is going, what they'd do, how they'd react.

With 6 days left for prep, I have 3 pages of a plot outline done and 2 characters being developed. Some characters were created during the outlining process and I will have to develop those characters further in the next few days. I've already decided to kill off a couple as a catalyst for my protagonist's growth. It actually feels really good to feel creative again without looking at how i'm crafting my words. I'm not looking at tone, word choice, or voice yet. That will come later.

The fear and trepidation I'd initially felt when I decided to start this project has turned into excitement and anticipation. I expect to write the most horrible first novel a part time writer can write in a month. And that expectation is exhilarating.