Writer’s retreat accountability update for week 1

Well, it looks like I wasn’t good at updating every day, but I’ve been working hard!

Tuesday: Finished scene: 550 words.

Wednesday: Started a scene outline for generation ship novel. 7 scenes, 267 words

Thursday: 5 more scenes for outline, plus a prompt question. 189 words

Friday: Outlined 8 scenes, 249 words
Revose for 2 scenes on Magic Milkshakes

Saturday: Finished revising third scene for Magic Milkshakes.
Questions for the end of the outline

Sunday: Finished draft for the outline. (Revisiong from earlier versions. 279 words, 11 scenes)
Started second new scene for Magic Milkshakes: 317 words

Will be starting on my week 2 progress today! 🙂

Nanowrimo Spotlight: This Blog Has An Imposter

Good morning, friends and followers. I’ve got one more interview left, and there might be another coming in before tomorrow. This one is from EvanescentDreams, who might have been eaten by one of the Nano monsters, because she didn’t respond to my follow-ups or post a word count. But here’s what (she?) had to say:

Hi, readers of this blog. I’m not really an imposter; I’m being interviewed:

NaNoWriMo and I:
This year is my first go at NaNoWriMo, so I am most definitely a NaNoNewbie.

I have wanted to write a novel for many a year; NaNo simply gave me the metaphorical kick in the behind I needed. I decided to participate after discovering the concept on Youtube, (oh, the Internet) while searching “How to write a novel”, or something similar, and said concept appealed to me immediately because, well, it seemed (and still does seem) such an amazing, inspiring, brilliant idea. The community is a very lovely and welcoming one, as well.

What are you writing about this year?
I am writing a novel inspired by the concept of the Grim Reaper; The idea is, every few centuries, the current Death takes on an apprentice, whose job is to assist Death in their usual activities, and to take over when the current Death retires. This system has worked for time immemorial. But the new (and unwilling) apprentice is horrified by the Afterlife, and, deciding he has nothing to lose, rebels against Death’s reign of tyranny.

What is your favorite book – you have to pick just one!
My favourite book… I have so many… This is so difficult… The Amber Spyglass, (by Philip Pullman) I think. It encapsulates everything I want in a novel: Beautiful and vivid prose, engaging characters, edge-of-your-seat pace, wonderful originality, and, re-readability.

What advice would you give to all your fellow Wrimos?

Nanowrimo week 1 update

Okay, so – I am trying to set my pace to reach 50,000 words at the Night of Writing Dangerously banquet in San Francisco, and since it falls on Nov 18th this year, that means my target is a somewhat staggering 2778 words per day.

And I’m just on target! My word count at the moment is 19,510 words, which is actually 7.02 days worth according to my word count spreadsheet. I was feeling a little doldrum-ey today, still several hundred words behind even after writing on the bus, but I joined in some #NanoWordSprints and made up the difference.

I kinda like the way the story’s going so far. My characters have explored a lot of the planet Chazwa and gotten involved with Jo Grant, (name subject to change, since I didn’t realize that Doctor Who had dibs,) who’s recruiting them into some undercover shenanigans to con criminals.

It’s moving a bit slowly, but then, I don’t need to get to THE END by 50k, and I’m not sure I need to finish it during November, though that would be nice. This is better than the opposite problem, of running out of story before I reach 50k.

Are you doing Nano? How’s it coming so far? Any sign of the doldrums?

Nanowrimo Camper Check-in, week 3

Well, I’m past the half-way point now. Total word count in August, 34,405!

I feel like I’ve got a bit of a handle on my plot structure, too. Nashua has undertaken a three-quest challenge to cut the psychic link between herself and the demon, Ishtapel, before Ishtapel finds her and carries her back to the witch’s tower. Odesio, the son of the witch from the travelling fair, has undergone a temporary psychic link to Nashua, so that he can share in her spirit quests. The first quest is moving along pretty well – she has to go into the mirror worlds and reach the innermost shrine of the Monks of Manifest Mystery, who take a dim view of intruders. 😉

I’m having a lot of fun with the strangeness and internal rules of the mirror worlds, though they may not make much sense to anybody else. And Nashua and Odesio are always fun to have together, so them questing together is working out well.

I want to have one spirit quest-type in a different venue from the mirror worlds, though I’m not sure what that’ll be yet, and one quest in the real world, which will be the most dangerous, because once Nashua leaves the home of the witches that she’s hiding with, the bad witch will be able to find her!

Nanowrimo Day 1 – It begins…

Word count: 1432

Writing sessions: 3 (as of 5pm)

Doing fairly well. Got some words written before I left for work, and on the bus both way. Managed to forget my office key-card, and as I’m usually the first to flex-time in, ended up walking around the neighborhood listening to Storywonk podcasts, eating my apple and drinking my strawberry milk, until 9am. If only there had been a nice comfy place to write open that early.

I’m starting to wonder if I’ll run out of outlined plot before 50k. However, with Star Patrol that shouldn’t be much of a problem, as I’m also well familiar with the second adventure of these intrepid space adventurers – the Imperion Confrontation. So if I need to, I can just jump right into that storyline!

Write-in tonight at Williams coffee on the pier. Whoo-hoo!

So how’s your nano going?

Pushing yourself for word count

As we race headlong towards the start of National Novel Writing Month 2011, I’ve been thinking a bit about writing for quantity. Trying to get yourself to write more can certainly be a worthy goal, though it isn’t the only worthy writing goal, and Nanowrimo certainly helped to show me what I could accomplish in terms of my raw writing output. But what about after November has come and gone?

Some people look for a different ‘50,000 words in a month’ challenge every month, or set goals for an entire year’s worth of writing – I’ve participated in Nanowriye several times, but I’m not sure that it’s the best way of going. Being able to choose your own goal and decide when you can take it easy and when you’re going to swing for the fences is key, as well as having a timeframe that doesn’t seem so distant or keep you from recalibrating your performance frequently.

I’ve thought about trying to count my word count on a week by week basis, but never actually gave that a try. A month is a good timeframe – I love the idea of Ninja Novel Writing Month, which is every month. And for a truly supportive monthly word count tracker whenever I feel like writing – yes, the Stringing Words forum has got that too.

Monthly word counts on Stringing Words are pretty simple affairs, no flashy gimmicks, but they work. You pick your target at the start of the month, or whenever you get around to it. You write, you track your count, and you cheer each other on. That’s about all there is to it.

Roughdraft, the word processor.

Well, I’ve talked about writing gadgets on this blog, but never really thought to blog about writing software until today. (This changed when I was suddenly inspired by a Storywonk podcast.) So, I’ll tell you about my favorite word processor for writing new material.

Now, when I’m actually writing, the key for me has to be speed. I’ve never really found something like MS Word or Works to be good for keeping up with me when I’m coming up with new stuff, and on windows, OpenOffice writer didn’t seem to cut it either. (I find OpenOffice.org much speedier on the linux eeePC, which is good, since abiWord sucks and they’re apparently the only two options in Ubuntu town if you want to work with RTF files. But anyway…)

The thing is, I don’t want to write in a program that’s bloated down with a lot of features that I’m not going to use for writing. Each feature takes up RAM, it occupies space on the menu or the toolbar, and it’s a potential distraction. Of course, once the initial writing is done and I’m doing revision or formatting a manuscript, something like MS word is clearly the better choice.

For a long time, I was writing my stuff in WordPad and then copying to a more feature-rich word processor when I needed to – like to check on my word count. This became very frustrating once I was participating in National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriYe and began to live or die by my word count.

Nanowrimo Day 20 – Ran out of Snowflake

Forty six thousand, eight hundred and forty three words.

Thirty-one hundred and fifty seven short of the target.

And I’ve gotten pretty much to the end of my snowflake outline. The bad’un has been defeated, the hero and heroine have sorted out their issues and found happily ever after, the whole kit and caboodle. So what do I do now?

I could try to write a little epilogue and describe a little of their happily ever after, maybe the start of the hero’s next mission. I could go back and look for places where I can insert or expand new words.

I suspect that maybe I’ll need to do both in order to get where I need to be.

Wish me luck! And many thanks to the San Fran natives who welcomed me to the write-in this morning at Reader’s cafe.

National Novel Writing Month 2010 – Day 1

Stats Roundup:

Words written today: 2,588

Scenes written: 6

Times I’ve had to resort to brackets and [include something I’ll research later in here]: 1

Local write-ins attended: 1

Local writers that attended the write-in, including me: 6

Times my eeePC started flashing a low-battery light during the day: 1

Characters appeared from my outline: 3

Characters appeared who weren’t included in my outline: 2

A good start to the month, overall.