One-tenth milestone

I am not too distracted today.  I've kept writing, which feels great, to be honest.  I feel like I did in college when I would sit in my lectures and write ideas and snippets of conversation I wanted to remember in the margins of my notes.  I feel excited to write again, and so you can probably guess what my lunch break entailed today.  My idea from yesterday has made writing so much easier, and I feel like maybe, just maybe, I'm finally getting somewhere.

I don't know why I'm so occupied with the idea of completing a November NaNo.  It may be because the municipal liaison for Bloomington started talking about it last Wednesday when I went to the group.  She was considering where she could hold the weekly write-ins for November and the kick-off event.  She also talked about how everyone has a bead bracelet as an incentive to keep going.  For every 1,667 words written, you get a bead for your bracelet.  If you accomplish certain goals (stay on track for the first week, be the first to 50k words, etc) you get a charm to add to the beads.  Somehow I think having a tangible reward, however little, could be such a huge incentive.  But then, that is a couple months away.

I was roaming the NaNoWriMo website and found the pep talks from the past years events.  Published authors write them and email them out to all NaNo'ers each week during November.  It just so happens that the authors of three books I loved have written these pep talks before.  Two of them, Sara Gruen and Erin Morgenstern, have actually done NaNo before.  Sara's pep talk showed that even now that she is published and successful she still does NaNo.  Her pep talk mentioned that she was behind on her word count (which, of course, makes me feel a little better about my own progress).  And then,  it was great seeing the talk by Audrey Niffenegger considering that The Time Traveler's Wife is possibly my overall favorite book right now and has inspired certain elements of my book.  I also liked seeing that Meg Cabot, even if I don't read her books, did a pep talk and has done NaNo in the past.  I suppose that's just because she grew up here in Bloomington.  She went to high school just across the street from where I lived last year.

I probably won't write more today.  I have been reading Before I Go to Sleep by S. J. Watson.  It's not as relevant to my book as I hoped it might be, but I'm hooked regardless.  I may take some of my focus away from writing until I finish it, but I do plan to keep working on my word count tomorrow.

I read a quote on writing that made me feel better for missing my personal deadlines:

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."

- Douglas Adams

Total Word Count: 9102 (1/10 of the way to my goal!)

Trying to get back on track

It's been a while.  I kept trying to get back to work, but I couldn't.  I wasn't going to the NaNo group, and I certainly wasn't writing.  I was thinking a little about my story, though.  I am still going to do it.  I don't want this to be some passing dream that fades.  I just had other things going on in my life for a while, and somehow could not make myself write.  I would say I wanted to do it, but when it came down to sitting in front of my computer I couldn't come up with anything.

I'm working on it.  I went to a NaNo group on Wednesday, my first time since the very end of May.  Today I skimmed through some notes so I could start writing.  I wrote a little, but then something strange happened.  It's almost like my writing muse started tugging on me and telling me, "Alright, get back to it."  I had such a crazy idea.  I don't know how I didn't think of it before!  It just makes sense this way, as though my story was showing me how everything really unfolds.  It doesn't change much in practice--I will only have to rework a few sections--but it will add an entirely new level to everything.  It adds a new sense of motivation to why my characters might act a certain way, and creates more connections between a few events in my plot...but best of all, it ties everything together so much better.  Also, it is exactly what I needed to get excited about this again.

I am kind of sad I let both NaNoWriMo summer events pass me by.  Technically the August one is still under way, but there is no way I'd be able to catch up in time.  The official one will be in November, but I don't want to wait that long.  I need to write while I've finally got my motivation back.

Total Word Count: 8,077

No NaNo

Hi everyone.  I know my last posts have been optimistic about trying to do the June version of NaNoWriMo.  The truth is, I haven't started it, and probably just won't do it.  I'm not going to go into any details, but something came up, and I have not been able to muster up whatever it is that I need to write since.  I'm just trying to figure stuff out.

I am not going to give up on this, though.  In fact, there will probably still be a good window of time for me to do the 50k words in 30 consecutive days.  It just may not fall neatly into one month.  I hope to do my own version of the challenge, then.

Sorry, I know this is vague.  I'm still going to keep writing.  I just need some time off first.

Writing in OBX

I have been in the outer banks in North Carolina for just a few days now.  Although I decided not to write anything on my travel day, I am proud to say that on my first full day that I did, in fact, meet my 1,000 words goal.  I slipped on my second day because I kept falling asleep, but since today is cloudy I've already written 600 words this morning.  Today may be a good day to rent kayaks.

Writing here has been a little challenging.  I'm not short on ideas, but with everyone here it is difficult to want to close myself off to what everyone else is doing and focus on writing.  It hasn't stopped me, though, and everyone here is encouraging.  One of our family friends who came with us has some experience writing, and has offered to proofread my work (when I no longer think that it would be embarrassing to hand it off to someone else).  My dad has been trying to encourage me by showing me a novel he loves that became a big hit solely through self-publishing and word-of-mouth (just in case no publisher wants my story WHEN I manage to finish it).

It may be because of all the potential distractions that I am jumping around a little in my writing.  Normally I write more chronologically, but I've been leaving these blank spots where I'm  not really sure what happens.  It makes me uneasy even though I know it isn't a bad thing.  It could help me out in the long-run, because I'm still writing things out and, who knows, maybe I'm just writing these particular parts because I'm just particularly inspired about them.

Something kind of interesting is that somehow two characters just invented themselves this morning.  I hadn't planned to add them in, and I don't really have a good grasp of who they are yet.  I'm not really sure where else I can fit them in to the story, so I may have to make some changes to my outline.

I should get back to writing.  Between Jordan, my friends and I cooking dinner tonight and my brother arriving this evening, I need to get this done now.

total word count: ~6,000

Impending NaNoWriMo

Despite my last post's attempt to keep writing through my cold I was not able to keep it up.   The cold just would not die and on top of that I lost my voice for a good week and a half over it.  When I had the time to write I could not get myself to stay focused on the task.  I did do some writing yesterday, though, now that I am feeling almost better.

I'll be going to the outer banks in North Carolina this Sunday for a week.  I'm very much looking forward to it for obvious reasons (a break from work, time with friends and family, who doesn't like the beach?) but I'm also looking forward to having a full week without 40 hours to keep me from writing as much.  Yes, I do plan to make the most of walking on the beach, swimming in the ocean, and visiting light houses, but I'm not going to be outside enjoying the weather the whole time.  So, I am setting myself a goal that I hope is reasonable.  I am going to write 1,000 words a day.  I can probably do that in about an hour if I don't get caught up in editing myself as I go.

I have a couple reasons for wanting to do this.  I am completely intimidated about maintaining 1,667 words a day if I plan on doing the summer version of NaNoWriMo in June, so this would be a good warm up.  I hope.  On the other hand it could make me wear down on writing three weeks into June, before I can reach the 50,000-word goal.  We'll see.  I'm hoping this time off will help me develop the writing habits I will need to make 50,000 words possible for me.  Secondly, I would love to break 10,000 words before NaNo starts.  The way I see it, if I have 10,000 words beforehand and then add 50k to that, I will be 2/3 of the way to my goal.  I know that is a very tall order, but like everyone has been saying at my writing group (I went to another NaNo group last night) you just can't care about writing something that is polished.  It can be a pile of crap.  That is the point of editing... AFTER you finish the draft.  Luckily Jordan is 100% supportive of my writing, because if I do succeed in completing NaNo I'll be busy for 10 hours every work day.

 total word count: 4,500

... I can't help noticing how low my word count is for how far I am into the year and feel like I will need some sort of miracle to get through NaNo.

thank you, numbing lozenges

I was going to get a good chunk of writing done this weekend.  I did get some done, but not as much as I had hoped.  I've started coming down with a nasty cold.  I haven't been sick at all for about a year now, so I suppose I thought I had made it through the year unscathed.  It figures that I didn't make it.  When you work with toddlers you just can't escape it.

I did push myself, though.  I was afraid that if I didn't it would be too easy for me not to write tomorrow, or the next day.  I need to keep going, even if it is only a little bit at a time.  Sore throat be damned, I was going to write something.  Or else I only ended up writing because Jordan helped me pick out numbing throat lozenges... grateful as I am I'd like to think I would have written anyway.

I think I got past the tricky spot in the story.  The hangover comparison helped, or it at least satisfied me enough that I didn't feel too much nagging at me to fix it.  I've got something for now, and I'll fix it during future edits.  Right now I'm very much looking forward to my main character realizing something is completely wrong and starting to put the pieces together.  I've only just started that.  I won't need to be skipping scenes for a while.

My one concern now deals with my ending.  Luckily I've got a long way to go before I have to write it, so I can think about how I can make it better... but there isn't really any major way I can change it.  I've been discussing it with my writing buddy, and she agrees that there isn't really any other way to end it... but I want something happier.  It's a little more bittersweet than I wanted.  But hey, I've read other books with much sadder endings than mine, and I still loved them.  I'll just have to be super careful when I finally get to that stage of my novel.

I'd write more but my computer screen is giving me a headache.

words written today: ~1,100 words
total word count: 3,550 (1/25 of the way to 90,000!)

NaNoWriMo Writing Group

So I've attended my first writing group session.  I went to the bookstore with my laptop but at first couldn't even figure out who were the NaNoWriMo-ers.  I should have expected it'd be a favored spot for students studying for their finals.  There were laptops everywhere.  Turns out I missed the sign that clearly displayed the NaNo symbol.  I was intimidated at first (let's face it, all of them have much more experience than I have), but everyone was extremely welcoming.  A few of the people had already written several full-length books and novellas (at various stages of editing and revisions) and a few have self-published books available. I'm pretty impressed, and would love to reach that point someday.

The particular scene that may have derailed my earlier attempt to write this novel came up at the session.  Considering that I've never woken up from a coma before, I'd had difficulty writing anything I was happy with.  I got a few suggestions that should give me some direction, some of which involved me recalling what it feels like waking up after a night of heavy drinking... or reliving the experience if I need a reminder what it is like.  All for the sake of art, of course.  Seriously though, the comparison a terrible hangover gave me something to work with.  No need to get drunk.  Also on my to-do list: watch Life on Mars and Sliding Doors.  I'm wary of the former because it is a TV series, and those do terrible things to my productivity.  They take too much time and I tend to watch multiple episodes back-to-back.  But, if it might give me some inspiration for my book...

I'd intended to come home afterwards and do some good writing, but by the time I got home, then got my car back from the shop, blah blah blah, I ended up not really having the time.  Whoops.  I swear I've got the best intentions still!  I've been reviewing the notes I'd made on all my characters, and after that I'm going back to coma-scene.  If that fails, I'll just have to accept temporary defeat and come back to it later.  At the very least, the weekend is coming up.  I may be going to a Kentucky Derby party, but other than that I'm hoping I'll get to write.