NaNoWriMo: day 12

20,316

Look at that word count go. Today another little plot development surfaced; and exactly what it is is not clear - though there is a man in a somewhat coma state. I haven't been told who the man is, yet. There are three likely suspects.

I am thrilled to be at 20,000 words. And I am terrified. What will I do with the other 30,000? Oh my gosh! The novel is not done, yet, but I can't yet imagine what I will do with all of those words. Maybe the unraveling and revealing of the plot will take that long, but somehow, I don't see it.

Never the less: one foot in front of the other! bird by bird! one brick at a time! baby steps! just keep moving forward!

Any other phrases for keep it up, *little by little* and you will get through.

Oh, how about this famous one: Just Do It (Nike claimed that one).

NaNoWriMo: day 11

Today I met with a writing friend at a coffee shop to write. The two of us have been meeting sporadically for a couple years to talk about writing, share writing, and sometimes we even did write, although that was probably the thing we did the least amount of together. He is also an interpreter, so sometimes a portion of our time together was spent on that topic. And his wife is pregnant (their first) so that has entered our conversation, too.

But not today.

Today we spent three hours writing. Okay, I'll be honest. We spent the better part of three hours writing; little snatches of conversation, mostly about writing and writing friends - probably a total of 30 minutes out of the 180 minutes. It was great. The coffee was great, too (True Brew on SE 11th in Portland, OR).

And I met my total word count goal for the day (plus a little). I am now at 18,437. I thought about pushing ahead tonight and getting in some more, but decided to take a night off, rest up, and play a little. I do have three days away at the coast coming up, just me and my laptop. With the hope that I can get some major work done on this novel and get way ahead of where I need to be.

By the way, my friend is not doing NaNo, but he is working on a novel and a script and a short story. He likes to have three writing projects going at once.

need a prod, gentle or otherwise?

Check out Dr. Wicked's Writing Lab tool, "Write or Die"

NaNoWriMo: day 10 (monday)

Despite oversleeping and being late for the first thing on my schedule (thankfully it meant I missed Tai Chi class and just did cardio at the gym instead and didn't mean I missed a job), then followed by working until 11 pm, I did manage to meet the daily word average accumulation. Because of what I was doing, I had a little "be alert" but not actually moving my hands time on the job (the client was watching part of a captioned movie with peers), I was able to get a little writing done, albeit by hand. On a later break, I added up the number of words and I had done 320 manually. Later I was able to get on the computer and I got my novel up to speed.

My current word count, at 10:05 pm is 17,022 (the goal was 16,670).

One of the main characters has disappeared completely and some suspicious items have just been found; another character (the man with the scheme) has been in a car accident; there was a break-in at a news anchor's office; a second mysterious French phrase has appeared in a new location; there is still the question of someone's behavior being a dissociative fugue or the resurfacing of a past life. And the name Emile Zola keeps coming up. Where are these characters taking me?

NaNoWriMo: day 9 = slogging

I did make it to the cumulative word count total for today. It took several short bursts of writing - primarily due to my schedule today - with a final sprint at 11:30 pm. But I did make it to over 15,000 today before midnight.

At 11:49 I updated my word count to 15,162 (the goal was 15,003).

It's interesting that what started out as the main characters are the ones moving the slowest and the least is happening with them. I mean, there is something major, but it is slow and being dragged out so that I am not even sure they are still the main characters. They are; but the action lies elsewhere, unless watching slugs move through grass excites you. Hopefully they will pick up the pace a bit.

One thing I am wondering, though, is whether that generally critical internal editor has a hand in this. A few days ago I was given the basic structure of a plot by the characters - with details omitted and a sense of what that will look like, absent. So I wonder if the internal editor is not happy with that plot and is forestalling having to actually deal with it.

See see!

NaNoWriMo: day 8 and still counting

I am writing in little spurts today, due to the nature of what I am doing. Little by little my word count is getting up to the daily average to keep on target if 50,000 is divided by 30. I also updated my "novel info" page and the "novel excerpt" (which is not really an excerpt yet since it is not in the novel ... but it will be). So far I am at 12,954 words and still building. I probably won't get much more done until 2:30, when the next round of this thing where I am gets started and I will have about an hour and fifteen minutes uninterrupted - minus a few little tasks I have to do at the beginning. So probably more like just over an hour of free (monitoring) time to type away and, just maybe, get to the 13,333 to be on target.

You can click through to go to my author's page on the NaNoWriMo website (which is running very smoothly and efficiently now that the start-up is done and they've been able to bring two more servers online) to read the very short synoposis and non-excerpt excerpt.

NaNoWriMo: day 7 (fri 11/7)

Today, again, I am almost back on track with word count. This is a fun experience and it is a workout. Sometimes at the end of a writing session I feel like I just walked for the whole time I was typing - which is exactly what I *wasn't* doing ... I was sitting. Interesting experience.

At 11:59 I updated my word count on the NaNo website: 11,286. That was a gain today of 2754. Hard to get to the writing today, but I made myself sit down and do it. Today I opted out of going out to write (I thought I would ... ) because I couldn't decide where to go and then the time to get there and I just thought, why bother!?! So I stayed in to write.

I also took a little time with family and there was something I had to go do, in addition to the one job. And still I got almost caught up. I am about 500 words short of the daily average, but I know I will be able to get caught up and make it to the end. I am maintaining confidence that I will reach the 50,000. I will I will I will I will......

totem

I've been waiting for my writing totem to appear. Other than the mug of coffee with soy milk and either my jammies if I am home or my found-in-New-York striped scarf if I am out in the world, I haven't had that little something which leads me forward as I travel the novel in a month road.

On Wednesday, I was given the gift of totem. Whew.

The Write Around Portland group I have been facilitating ended on Wednesday. Among a basket of things the group very sweetly put together (of things from a piece I had written, which had become an example for an exercise we did - such as a can of Campbell's tomato soup, jello, Tang - don't ask, when I get the piece cleaned up I will post it or publish it and you'll see, it makes sense) ... among the things was a Yellow Rubber Ducky cheerleader complete with pompoms.

I immediately knew that was my writing totem. When I am not writing, the ducky lives on the dash of my car, a reminder that I will get back to it and that I am rightly doing what I need to be doing at that moment - and my novel will move forward.

It makes me smile! Thank you wonderful writers of the group for this gift.

NaNoWriMo: day 6 (thu 11/6)

I decided to take this day off from the novel writing. Well, decided might be a bit misleading. Again, I have a choice to sleep or to write. I had work back to back at three very different locations today, with a one-hour workout in between two of them. I ate dinner at 9:30 pm due to my last job ... and now I'm tired. I only have one two-hour appointment tomorrow, so my plan is to get caught back up with my writing tomorrow. But, for now, sleep is calling.

So still sitting at 8532 words.