My NaNoWriMo Blog

August already?

2007-08-20T20:39:00.000-07:00

And quite a ways through that month, too!

NaNoWriMo beckons again, even though last year was disastrous for me. Dare I take the plunge again?

However, this time, no matter what I decide - no cam!

Slogging Through

2006-11-07T18:19:00.000-08:00

Things are not going as well as last year. At this point, I have a terrible word count deficit. I think this weekend will determine if I sink or swim. Unless my plans are altered by the outside world, I should have a lot of NaNo time Saturday.

2000 Words

2006-11-02T17:10:00.000-08:00

That is my goal each night: 2000 words. If I accomplish that, I will be done in 25 days. It's what I did last year, and it really came in handy when I got off track.

So I did manage to get in 2008 words yesterday. Hard slogging, though.

After Midnight

2006-11-01T14:26:00.000-08:00

Well, I did write a small bit last night (after midnight), and almost went to sleep at the keyboard. Good to get started, though, even though I am definitely uninspired and I have a plot like a wet piece of toilet paper.

Be sure to check out the cam, later tonight!

NaNo Eve

2006-10-31T17:47:00.000-08:00

Here it is, October 31st. When much of the world is concerned with All Hallows Eve, there are a select view that are anticipating the coming day with a mixture of wonder and dread. I am in a much sadder state than last year. I have some plot, but it's bare bones. There are lots of things missing. To make it even worse, it's a mystery, so it is crucial that all the plot points line up and fit.

I am starting a bold experiment this year. It is the NaNoCam, found above. Now you can watch a writer pound away at his computer keyboard, which is only a bit more boring than watching grass grow. But check it out anyway. You can see me drink a beer or two, pick my nose, and if you're really lucky, you may see a cat or ferret. You will find me at the desk most nights at about 8:00 to 10:00 PM CST. Weekends may vary, and write-in nights I won't be here.

I try to write a few words in the first few minutes of November, so check back at the witching hour.

Gearing up for 2006

2006-10-10T20:25:00.000-07:00

Hello to anyone who may be out there.

It is almost time for NaNoWriMo 2006. As my region's Municipal Liasion this year, I am very excited. I hope to recruit more participants this year.

Please excuse any outdated links to the right - I will clean them up ASAP. More to come later.

Mission Accomplished

2005-11-30T19:47:00.000-08:00

Well, I did get a complete novel, even if the last few paragraphs jerk you to an abrupt stop. As President Bush once proclaimed, my mission is accomplished. Of course, he took a lot of heat for that statement. But he was correct; the invasion was over, and in that sense that mission was accomplished.

Now, I face the aftermath of my month long invasion into novel territory. I must take the "mess" I made, and put it into a more palatable form. That's editing, I suppose.

But I will probably take most of December to rest and enjoy Christmas holiday. If anything goes on with the book, I will post here. But if not... see you next year!

Winning, but not finishing

2005-11-29T19:07:00.000-08:00

On November 27th, I uploaded my text thus far, and I was over 50,000 words. I was declared a winner, and I got to download my "trophies":

So, that's cool. Just one problem. I'm not finished.

When I reached 40,000 words, I recognized that the rest of the story would not fit in 10,000 more words. When I officially reached winner status, I started to go into outline mode and fill out the rest of the novel. I wrote snippets of prose and dialog from "future" pages in the book. These snippets were not descriptions of what would happen; they were like little glimpses into the future. Here is an example:

Jim and Zach walked up the closed gates of Humbert's mansion. Zach wore the huge 10 gallon hat that had once belonged to an abomination named Sheriff Shorty.

The gate swung open. The pair walked toward the imposing doors of the mansion.

Roman Jacobs scanned Sara for a briefcase, or a folder, or anything that might hold a document. "Miss, what do you have for me?"
Sara reached inside her purse and pulled out the snub nose revolver. "This, your honor. Now please sit down."

Ed looked around, the judge's smoldering glance following him. "Did you replace your mirror, your honor? I'm sure you did. Now, where is it?"

The spaces are where I fill in the surrounding story. Reading over it reminded me of something. It was like the beginning of part 2 of a 2 part TV show, where they recap what happened last week in little slivers of video. Except I'm going over what will happen.

When this was done, I had about 5 pages of broken story. I expect to end up with quite a bit more when it's finished (hopefully by the 30th, so I can feel like a real winner), and possibly a lot more on the second draft.

40K+

2005-11-23T20:34:00.000-08:00

Almost there! The only problem now is that I have plenty of story left, and not much November. Oh, what a problem, you say in mock pity. Well, it's strange. When I started this, I expected the problem to be 5000 words and not one word more. But now I find myself confronting the task of "hurrying up" and wrapping everything together. The first 40K words are a stroll. The last 10K will be a sprint.

It is important to actually finish, not just get 50,000 words on paper. If I don't finish by December 1st, I may never finish.

I think I can do it. It will require wrapping up plots and subplots with a thud, but what the hell. It has to be done.

It was a dark and stormy night...

2005-11-16T20:46:00.000-08:00

...and that threw me off track. For the past 14 days, I had been averaging 2000 words per day. But last night a line of dangerous storms moved through much of the mid-west and mid-south. At one point, our local TV station indicated a tornado might be forming, with a path leading right toward our house! At this point, our power went out.

Scary. Fortunately, our immediate area received no damage. If I had not been watching TV or listening to the radio, I would not have known anything was going on but a thunder storm.

Anyway, I could have written on my wife's laptop, or my Tandy Model 100 (my gadget at write-ins). But I was shaken up. I did manage to write a little with pen and paper by lantern light. Very moody!

Publishing, the Open Source Model

2005-11-09T18:34:00.000-08:00

The month is going well enough. So far, 2000 words per day seems like a pace I can do. The trick is, don't look back.

I have a Google news alert to bring mentions of NaNoWriMo to my inbox. Today I got a press release regarding one participant who is writing an "open source" novel. The text is published as it is written. At the end of November, the manuscript will be edited (and thus improved, is the idea) not by just the author, but others as well. J. Wynia also has a helpful blog regarding self publishing.

Write-in? Go right in...

2005-11-04T19:50:00.000-08:00

Our little group here in Bowling Green had our first write-in tonight. Our ML, poetsworld, had scheduled these for us. He had a good job opportunity pop up, though, so we were without him tonight. He will not be back for at least 3 weeks, so I am filling in as ML, for what that's worth. We did have another area participant join in though, so that still made 4 of us.

We wrote for 2 hours, and it was very productive. We had a little conversation, but I did get about 1700 words written at the little table in Starbucks/B&N. TechWidow (my wife) discovered it's a better place to write than home.

What's in a (dog's) name?

2005-11-03T16:47:00.000-08:00

Ok... I'm not doing too bad. The prose sucks, but that's expected, right? My writing is not good even when I have time to think about it...

Regarding the last posting, I called the dog "Jerky." Terrible name. If I knew anyone that actually named their dog Jerky, I would kidnap their dog and rename it. But that name was previously "Fuzzy" in the text. Why "Fuzzy?" Because about 2 sentences into a 50K word novel, I had to name a dog, and couldn't. I could have well called the dog "The Refrigerator" Perry, because I just had to get something down and go on. Heck, that's 3 words compared to one, and 10 mentions (so far - don't look for this dog to be a major player, though), an extra 20 words if things get desperate!

Anyway, the dog's name is now "Sam," which some web site tells me is Hebrew for "listener." I would guess "Samuel" actually, since I don't recall many "Sams" in the Bible.

And They're, no, They Are Off!

2005-11-01T20:57:00.000-08:00

I just wrapped up my first official NaNoWriMo day, finishing the day's work with 2,526 words. Not bad for a beginner, eh? I posted an excerpt, and grimaced when I read it. Here is an example of what I'm talking about:

Jerky shot bolt upright, as dogs will do, and shot a sharp report of a bark into the dark cloudy night.

Here, "Jerky" is the dog's name. Notice that I use "shot a sharp report" right after "shot bolt upright." With shooting like that, you might want to keep real guns out of my hands!

But, I'm not going to fret. I resisted the temptation to go back and tweak it. That may lead to wholesale editing, and that would be disastrous. Besides, that's what NaNoEdMo is for!

Tick Tock, Clarice...

2005-10-31T17:54:00.000-08:00

In just 4 hours, it will be November 1st (CST). I plan to write at least a few words after midnight to kick the enterprise off, then roll into bed.

Our local group got a small write-up in our daily paper. It's one bit of publicity I have not shied away from. By putting my intentions out there, to the public, I hope to generate enough fear of failure within myself to get through this.

Salud!

2005-10-26T15:52:00.000-07:00

As November approaches, trepidation builds. I have written some in the past. For example, you can look over my abandoned web site. It's just full of "stuff" with no particular theme. (Please forgive all the ads; they weren't always there.) I have written almost everything there. There are short stories, poems, even a fan-fiction TV script. But I have never tried 50,000 words.

So about 4 days ago, I determined to make the run up to the start of the month by writing 1667 words per day (for the unwashed, 50000 (words)/30 (days) ~= 1667 per day). First night: about 700 words; second night: about 900 words (better). So I saw some improvement. But it was hard. Oh well, wish me luck!

"It Came from the Sub-Conscious ..."

2005-10-21T20:19:00.000-07:00

I don't know if anyone noticed (heck, I don't know if anyone's reading!), but I named two of my characters after child molestors. One is a real-life child molestor, the other a literary one. I did this with no intent whatsoever. As it turns out, those two do have a history...

Nothing to do with anything...

2005-10-20T06:47:00.000-07:00

...I just HAD to have this picture of a chicken though. The stars lend a regal bearing to this noble fowl, don't you think? However, the context - avian flu - is a serious subject.

Character-building exercise

2005-10-19T20:30:00.000-07:00

I thought out some of my novel's characters today. There probably won't be too many more prominent characters, but we'll just see where it goes.

Jim Talbot: Our Small Town's deputy sheriff, and the story's main character

Sara Talbot

Jim's wife. Right now she's just window dressing, but with an important part toward the end. I'm sure she'll become a fuller character once I start writing.

Zach Abrams

Sheriff of OST (Our Small Town - as you can see, I'm still working on the town's name.) The whole police force will probably consist of 4-5 people.

Hollerith Humbert

A local celebrity who had a kids show in area in the late 1950s. The show was kind of like "Howdy Doody." Humbert never did make it nationally.

Roman Jacobs

Humbert's attorney in the past, now a judge.

Ed Moffett

A man who, as a boy, had a disturbing encounter with Humbert.

"Linus" & "Lucy"

Two children, presumed to be siblings, that show up at the beginning. They are somewhat of a mystery, having amnesia to some degree.

Emma & Ronnie Baker

A couple of local children that disappear shortly after Linus and Lucy arrive.

I think if there are too many more, I could get swamped. However, since the primary goal is to get to 50,000 words, you may see me chucking in characters that go by 3 or 4 names (Billy Joe Swanson, Jr!) telling their life stories!

Every word counts in your Word Count

2005-10-18T13:44:00.000-07:00

Chris Bridges, writing in the Dayton Beach News-Journal, has some good advice for those lacking in the word count department. Hey, they're not much sillier than tips from NaNoWriMo's forum, "Reaching 50,000!"

Waiting 'til November

2005-10-18T11:44:00.000-07:00

After becoming intrigued last year, I have bided my time. You see, it only happens once a year, in November. I am referring to "National Novel Writing Month," or NaNoWriMo for short.

Will I make it? I am tempted to say "I doubt it." Fifty-thousand words is pretty daunting, even if it does make for a pretty short novel.

But I'm not going to doubt it. I am going to seek out others, visit forums, and allow myself to be held accountable. I hope that some local participants can get together in Bowling Green.

I hope to have short excerpts from the novel, plus some other stuff. So stick around.