Progress Report: NaNo 2013 - First Days

Due to a total fail on my part, progress is slower than I expected. Two fails, really.

Fail #1: Ambitious plan to submit a short for critique the week before NaNo, secure in the knowledge that my NaNo project was suitably prepared after locating my file titled: Into the Blue Notes. This plan would have been successful if not for the meddling new house project that ate up a ton of my time that I had planned to be revising the short after receiving critiques. Revisions didn't mostly wrap up until the afternoon of November 1. There's still the middle section that needs work, but I'm mulling over suggestions on that yet.

Fail #2:  That Notes file that I assumed contained the character and chapter information that I usually compile as I write...yeah, not so much. It contained the two articles I'd used for inspiration, but nothing else. *headdesk* So the rest of November 1 was spent compiling those necessary notes. I ended the first day with a big word count of 37.

Day two sat at 387 words for a long time due to the fact that I was still editing my way through the notes compellation part of the project. I added...I tooketh away. Evening saw a major rush of progress as one of my lovely wrimos, who was also lacking in words, challenged me to word wars until we were both on track

Day three brought our regional Kickoff Party. Lots of loading the card, driving, set up, hosting, posting pictures, counting donations and putting everything away, along with prepping next Sunday's supplies for the next event and then spending time with family to make up for being gone all afternoon, meant I didn't get much writing in. Ending word count 4117

2013 NaNo Project

November is fast approaching and I'm buried in work and house planning. In light these facts, I've decided to give myself a chance of getting to 50k by continuing a story I started months ago. Into the Blue was intended to be a novelette, but at 20K, I still had a lot of story to tell. Someday I'll master that novelette word limit. Just not today, or next month.

Into the Blue is the story of Dalmont Tibido, a sixteen year old boy who wakes from incubation in a deep space traveling ship to learn the AI has chosen him as the commander of their mission. Given that he has an entire crew of well-trained youth just like him eager to colonize the planet their ancestors have chosen for them, plenty of supplies and an AI to guide them in all things, what could go wrong?

Oh, pretty much everything.

Hence why 20K just wasn't near enough.

This is why I'm so happy that I made myself write notes about all those additional bad things I hadn't gotten to yet. It will make November just a little easier. Assuming I can make time to write, that is.

Getting Crafty: More Book Pages

NaNoWriMo is fast approaching and while I ready regional emails, event locations and details, and the pile of prizes I've stockpiled over the past year, a few more projects begged to be created. Who am I to say no? Okay, I probably should have said no rather than staying up late to make time to do them, but who needs sleep? Yeah, I know. I do. I also need to create something once in a while or I become a very unpleasant person, so I guess that's important too.

One night I made flowers from book pages. Henry the Eighth to be specific. The poor book had lost most of its binding. After doing a little origami, the first chapter makes a nice bouquet.

 

This project took a couple nights, but I ended up with three of them - sort of by accident. I was mindlessly making page cones when I realized that what I'd thought was enough to make a full flower wasn't. Well, not exactly. They were all the same size cones. It made for a nice stack-o-cones, but it didn't have the flower effect I was going for. Rather than throw them away, I made lots of the other sized cones I needed and ended up with three complete flowers.

 

It's hard to tell here, but they are fifteen inches across. It's a big flower! I only managed to burn myself once on my old malfuntioning glue gun. I new one might be in order soon.

In other news, a veggie picking expodition into my garden, yieled a black swallowtail caterpillar which is now happly muching carrot leaves in a vase on my kitchen windowsill. It's nearly doubled in size in the past three days. Very hungry caterpillar, indeed!

 

While clearing trees over at our property, my husband brought home a friend for my daugher. A brown snake. I am not a fan of snakes. At all. Yet, she was very excited about it and am I going to say no? Yes, except that it's a very small snake and it's now behind glass on my kitchen counter, where I can see it and know it's behind glass. Knowing is half the battle, right? 

 

I won't be holding the snake any time soon. Or ever. But I was nice and found worms for it. Worms don't bother me. A tad ironic, I know.

 

And so, with two new animal charges to watch over, it's time to ponder what I'm going to attempt to work on this November.

Juggling, Folding, and Hauling

I'm happy to say that one of the short stories in my juggling routine has found a home. A Little Thing Like Death will be in an upcoming issue of Isotropic Fiction. In the midst of all the non-writerly stuff taking over my waking hours, it feels good to know that productive things are still happening on that front.

This is what my weekends look like.

I did manage to find a couple hours to pound out some book page crafts after a long day of branch and log hauling last weekend.

Did you know that you can turn a tattered paperback into an ornament?

Outdated financial and internet books can become artwork for your walls.

Getting up two hours early on the weekend and ten minutes here and there throughout the day allowed me to draft seven NaNo preparation emails for my region. They will be appearing here as well in the upcoming weeks if you're interested in joining the November novel writing frenzy. I guess that also proves that I can find time to write as long if I don't sleep much. However, I'm not sure how many days I can do that in a row. This is the first November that I'm seriously doubting my ability to reach 50K in a month AND get everything done that I need to do every day. Time will tell.

Stuff and Things

Life is still hectic, but I wanted to check in to prove I'm still alive--for my sake as much as yours. I'd hoped to have a good news post here, but that's taking a little longer than expected so I'll get to that another day.

Life in writing land looks like email submissions instead of characters and plots. That's not all bad, at least I feel like I'm doing something with what I did have time to write.

House plans are back from the designer and pricing has commenced. We met with a General Contractor who is willing to let us do a lot of the work so we can cut costs. It's now a matter of time for us to get the pricing package together as we can for him to finish up and then go to the bank for money. Clearing the land is progressing at a weekend at a time pace. My poison ivy has mostly cleared up. Yay, for that!

NaNoWriMo planning is in full swing, at least as far as my ML duties go. I don't know where I'm going to find time to write this November, especially if we're mid-house, but at least my local writers will have their regional events, weekly write-ins and lots of prizes.