Saturday, November 30, 2013

Nano 2013 Progress - Wrap up

After reaching 40K NaNo seems like a downhill run. Writing 2 to 3K a day wasn't a problem. I reached 50K of new words on the 29th. After so many months of not having time to write, that felt really good!

The middle of this novel that had given me fits so many years ago just fell into place. It came in at 71,000 words - only 22K of which were written this November. The story still needs a few scenes and a good deal of cleaning up. Not to mention some seaming between the point I ran full force into last night and the ending I'd put in the there the first time around. The points meet up, but, yeah, need a little smoothing out.

I'm happy with the novel and the plot bits that I managed to pull together in my flurry of words. It's a simple story, which perhaps made it fun to write because it was so different than the last three novels I've wrapped up. This is one girls journey. The subplots are minimal. I'd like to get closer to 80k during the edits and polishing but we'll see where the story leads me when I get that far. I'm excited to finally introduce Sahmara to my crit group. Eventually. At least she's a lot closer than she's been for eight years.

There's a special feeling to finishing NaNo, but an even more special one to actually producing a completed story. Even if that story wasn't all written in one lump.

As to my first half of the month, Into the Blue could still work. It needs some time to percolate. Maybe even an outline so I can locate the ending and go there.

It's stalled out at the point that I've come to call "eating crackers" aka: stagnant. It's when my brain is overloaded with outside crap that eats up all my creative thoughts and turns them into drooling mush. I know what I want to write, but the words and flow just aren't there. And so, just like in last year's Jackson, my characters spend momental amounts of pages doing something trivial (which in that case was eating crackers) in the hopes that a brilliant flash of creativity will strike and the story will lurch back on track.

No flashes. Story go splat.

But all is not lost. As I learned this year, some stories just need time to work themselves out. Lots and lots of time.

Good luck to everyone still madly racing toward 50K today.

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Nano 2013 Progress - Week 2 and 3

Day 13 - Work, mom taxi duties, meeting dry wall contractor, and family time = no time for writing.

Day 14 - So tired. Managed 1000 words before eyes demaned to stay closed. Word coutt: 19,004

Day 15 - Online write-in. Thank goodness. Word Count: 22,086

Day 16 - I planned to have most of the day to write. Bwhaahahah. Plan flew out the window. House stuff and work took over my day. Word Count: 23,070

Day 17 - Okay today I'm really going to buckle down and pump out the words. Oh but we have more paperwork to fill out for the house? And then focus flew out the window and it took me three freakin hours of slaming my head on the keyboard to get my daily word goal? Blarg! Word Count 24,746

Day 18 - Well the weekend sucked for writing and the story was like pulling teeth. I was more excited by the prospect of cleaning toilets than writing more of it. Stress level on other fronts is at an all time high. As much as I like this story, I need to give myself a break somewhere. This is where. I can go back to it when my percolator is again functioning correctly. Instead, I wrote a short story and then switched to working on my first NaNo Novel that I've always wanted to get back to finishing. Total new words for the month: 27,309

Day 19 - 26 - Life was too busy to even get in here to document progress. In summary:
I enjoyed my last weekly write-in not so much for the writing (of which I didn't get much done at all) but for the human interaction beyond work and house. I laughed, I laughed so hard I cried, ah, I so needed that.

I think I just might finally finish Sahmara's Sunset (my first NaNo Novel from 2006). I tried to dig into it a couple years ago and had most of the rewriting done up to chapter 5, but it had a gaping lack of a middle that intimidated me beyond words. Surprise! The middle is flowing this year. I guess some things just take time and my percolator was in for the long haul on this one.

The best NaNo decision was to switch novels. Words are flowing without the gnashing of teeth or bruising of my forehead. I'm actually enjoying what I'm writing. That's a huge step above last year and the first half of the month this year.

We're finally supposed to close on our our construction loan next week. OMG, what a long and stressful process. Also next week, a possible closing on the sale of our current house.

Writing has happened despite life also happening at a rapid pace. Current word count: 44,176. Reaching 50k looks to be on my plate after all. Maybe right next to some leftover turkey on friday. Wish me luck.

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

NaNo 2013 Progress - Week 1

Day 4: Wrote a couple hundred words in the morning and didn't get a chance again until spewing out almost 2k at last night's write-in. WooHoo! Still behind though. However, that's pretty usual for me.

Day 5: Planned on writing in the morning as night is going to be busy. My plan was derailed with signing a contract for a short, receiving a rejection on another and then submitting it to another magazine on my list, and answering/reading regional forum posts. Darn you derailing writing related activites! At the end of the workday, I had to run to our Sunday write-in venue to sign contracts and get a key, then it was off to the used book store to drop off donations from Kickoff...and then to the store to buy supplies for the write-in and donations for the venue. Family stuff ate up my night. Ending wordcount:7282

Day 6: The bank's underwriters took hours of my day with all their extraneous needed details. I did manage to stop and get extra chairs for the weekend write-in and then got them and all the stuff that had slowly filled the back of my car loaded into the big van that will be transporting everything to the write-in. Then there was lots of work, dinner, followed immediately with a meeting with our builder. Then family time. Oh hey, there was finally forty minutes for writing. Go! Word count: 8003

Day 7: Got a couple hundred words in in the morning, then it was off to prepare bidding sheets for our silent auction this weekend. And, of course, work, and email subcontractors for our house. Had dinner with the electric contractor and then managed to get some words in. Word Count 9332

Day 8: Wrote a bunch of words. Worked a lot. Got bad news about our builder from our bank. Swore a lot. Word count 11,328

Day 9: Met with new builder. Got the unmarked creeper van loaded for the write-in tomorrow. I sure hope I come home with a lot less stuff. That van is backed. And its a big cargo van! Wrote a lot of words in the hopes of eventually catching up. Word count:  13,681

Day 10: Big write in day! Woke up at 4am and started thinking about all of our house drama. To sum up: Because we're within 500 feet of a county drain, we were notified we have to file a bunch of extra paperwork and pay more money for permits. This lead to discovering that the majority of our land is actually wetland. Thankfully this is not the area we'd planned to build, but we still have to pay another fee and file a bunch more paperwork because where we intend to build is right next to the wetland. ARG.

Left at 9:30 am for the write-in got set up, wrote about 2k, ate lots, had fun, and cleaned up. Got done at 6pm and then spent the rest of the night with family.

Day 11: Weekly write-in night. Had a busy day, but managed to get words in at the write in. Ending word count: 18,010

Day 12: Work, running around with kids, and then a lovely evening migraine. Word Count: 18,328

Monday, November 4, 2013

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