NaNoWriMo 2010: Week Four

Today marks the end of Week Four of NaNoWriMo, and I am starting to really feel proud of myself, in a peaceful way that I hadn't felt throughout the rest of this. Up until this point I was excited (which I still am!) and it made my pride probably unbearable for everyone else. Now I'm sort of just calmly reminding myself that I've got this in the bag (which I have!) and that this novel is going to be great (I hope.)

Believe it or not, until this week I hadn't actually started the most important part of my plot. Up until about Wednesday, everything was just build up. I can already see that a lot of what I wrote is going to end up being cut. Sarah had been slowly decending into insanity a bit already, but the things that push her really over the edge only started recently. Friday night, actually, is when I wrote that first scene. From the beginning i was so eager to write that scene, and I've finally written it, and it felt like gold. I managed to write 1749 words in only 45 minutes. For those of you who don't know, that's fast. I can type that fast on any day, but to actually create that fast, to choose the right words, and build a scene that fast..... I impressed myself.

I'm still right on track for winning, and I love that I can say that. Last year, as I've probably already mentioned I didn't make it even to 14k. Not even halfway. This year, I'm going to win it, and be very proud of myself for writing 50k in a month. My novel wont be finished, and I'm going to try and keep myself going at the same rate through much of December if I can, or until the novel gets finished. It's starting to look like it's going to be somewhere upwards of 100k. I'd hazard a guess at around 125k, but I can't say for certain. The 47k that I've already written was supposed to only be about half that length, so I wouldn't trust that number.

I'm rambling aren't I? But this past week there hasn't been anything noteworthy. THe words flowed from my fingers with very little effort. I even managed to exceed my word-count goal on Thanksgiving, and in truth I didn't expect to write at all that day. But one minute I'd sit down, and the next I'd be nearing 2000 words and I be like "hmm, how did that happen?"

I love when I get into a flow like this, but it's also a bit scary. Just like a coffee-high or a sugar-high, it's going to eventually be followed by one of the most painful crashes. But you know what? I wouldn't trade this writers-high for the world, even if it does come with a crash later on. Because of this high, I'm thinking I might just win NaNo this evening. I haven't started writing today, and there are still two days left after today, and I've only got 3000 words left to write before I can officially call myself a winner. I can do that. I did more than that on Day One. My goal now is to write as much as possible before Midnight on the 30th. See how much I really can do.

And then I can start planning for next year.

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NaNoWriMo: Week Three Recap

Woops, I forgot to do this last night, and forgot again this morning. So let's all pretend that this isn't a day late.

Let's also pretend my landmarks are not all a day late. You see, this week, there have been two days this week where I haven't written at all. And another two where I haven't met my word count goal. Somehow, miraculously, I did not let that get me much behind schedule. I am still on track, I'm just no longer ahead. It seems that week three was feast-or-famine week for me. I've had two 3k days, and I'm progressing forward. I'm going to do what I can to do a BIG PUSH this upcoming week, and see if I can't finish NaNo by the 27th.

It's become very clear to me, over this week, that Only Make Believe is not going to be finished by November 30th. The 50k will be (I'm determined that it will be!) but the story wont. I'm at 37k, and it's November (in-story-timeline, not just real-life). If the story goes according to plan, it will finish on June 7th. I don't think I can' do a 6-month decent into insanity, in the course of 13k, and 7 more days. Especially when you consider that I also have to follow Amy (Sarah's sister, who turned into a main character by surprise) through a pregnancy. Pregnancy wasn't my plan when I started this story, and I have never been pregnant myself. It's going to take a little more research.

Regardless, I'm still excited about the story. I started to worry, last week, about whether I was going to get sick of my story by the end of November, but my love for it came back full force. I can do this. I will do this.

Let's kick some NaNoWriMo ass!

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NaNoWriMo: Week Two

So if you read my last post, about my baby sister (forgive me, my teenage sister) you'll know that I mentioned to her that I had hit a bit of a block.

My problem was that I was SO READY to jump forward to January (on the book's timeline, that is.) The scene that I have been DYING to write since I started takes place right after the kids (remember, it's set in a second grade classroom) come back from Christmas/Winter/Holiday break. Last week I was totally ready to jump from September AAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL the way to January, but there were a few other key scenes that I would be skipping that were important to the plot. It made me want to stop writing, because I didn't want to skip those scenes, but I also didn't want to write them.

Talking to my sister, knowing she wrote all that bunches of writing, made me want to write. She pulled me out of my block, and I had a FIVE-THOUSAND WORD DAY! Now to some, that might not be a lot. I have talked to a couple of other WriMos (or whatever the most accepted term is) who managed to write 10 or even 15k on day one. So I guess to them 5k isn't grand.

But it sure as hell is for me. So I managed to get past those scenes, I realized that there are a couple of other scenes I'm exited to write, and all in all, I've gotten past the dreaded "Week Twos" which are apparently a common problem (see, I never knew that until now)

More importantly, last year, I only managed to write 13,885 words (I thought it was 13,500 ish but I checked this morning) over the whole course of last Novemeber. This year, though I thought it would be awesome to reach 50k, I didn't think I would be able to do it. So my unofficial goal was to reach and beat my score from last year.

I've beaten it. And I've gotten far enough ahead of the game that I anticipate everything going smoothly from here on out. I reached 25,000 on Saturday. According to the "schedule" I didn't have to reach that until, well, today, Monday. So I'm confident now that I can win this thing!

I hit a bit of writers block earlier this week, but once again I'm back on track. I just keep telling myself: I will win NaNoWriMo this year. This upcoming week is going to be full of distractions: My birthday, the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1, my Dad's birthday. (along with all the regular things like college stuff, and working awful hours.) But I think I can do it.

How has your week two been?

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NaNoWriMo: Week One

Originally, I planned on writing a post here ever day, in addition to doing NaNo..... what am I? Crazy? Apparently so. Clearly that didn't happen, so I think I'm just going to do things at random as needed, and then do a weekly update every Sunday (because NaNo started on a Monday this year)

Day one was fantastic for me. I ended up writing over 3000 words, so I'm a day ahead of schedule, which is great, especially considering I have no hope of writing on Thanksgiving. My fiance's mother asked me to do Thanksgiving dinner with her this year. For me, that's a huge huge honor, and I'm very excited, but she lives almost 2 hours away, and between driving there, cooking, eating, spending time with teh family, and coming home.... there isn't going to be any writing time for me. So I'll probably end up not being ahead of schedule later in the month. Or maybe I'll get lucky and I will find a way to get even more ahead.


The week in general has been great. I've met my minimum-word-count-goals each day, my characters are coming to life... and my plot. OH MY GOD! SO GOOD! I feel so enthusiastic! I've had so many wonderful revelations, and I feel that everything is really coming together. I'm excited to write (though I haven't started writing today yet, because I have an assload of other things on my to-do list) I'm enjoying things. My MC is supposed to go completely insane by teh end of the book, and I was really nervous about how to do that, but I was looking though what I wrote last night and realized that she's already heading in that direction, naturally. I hadn't even meant to start her down that path yet, and it just happened.

Sometimes I get tangled up in the details, it's been a long time since I've been in second grade, and some things I never thought to research in advance... that's where facebook comes in. I am friends with so many different types of people that all I have to do is change my status to "How long in advance are field trips announced, and permission slips sent home?" and suddenly 4 people have commented on my status with various information, one telling me that permission slips are sent home 2-3 weeks in advance, the other talking about when the school board finds out about them, one mentioning that they're usually due to be turned in 2 days before the field trip. All useful, relevant information, but all different. So good!

My current word count (from last night) is 11,759. I've been keeping it update on my facebook, on the NaNo site, and now I'll keep mentioning it here too.

Good luck, to everyone else doing NaNoWriMo, as we go into week two. This week last year was my downfall. Let's hope it goes much more smoothly this time around.

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I'm Absolutely Terrified!

So let me be honest. I'm absolutely freaking terrified of writing this book.

For one thing, NaNoWriMo, though super exciting, is also just a Li'l bit scary. That's a lot of words, in not a lot of time.....


For another thing it's horror. 
Let me tell you a story about when I was in 3rd grade. It was around Halloween, and we had an assignment: write a scary story. I wrote it. It's title was A Little Girl's Horror. I worked so hard on it, and was so proud of it, that I brought it in to school early, and showed it to my classmates! Apparently, scaring your classmates in 3rd grade is rather frowned upon. I got in trouble, and was even made to see a therapist. I haven't written any "scary" story since then. Not one. Since I was.... about 88 or 9.  I turn 20 during NaNo.

I'm scared that I wont be good at it anymore. I'm scared that once again, people will get angry at me. I'm scared that once again, people will question my mental health. And I'm scared that once again, people will be disappointed in me. My mother was so upset by my story. When I was 8 or 9, her opinion meant a lot to me. Her opinion still means a lot to me. Right now, my relationship with my mother is strained, at best, but still, her approval means a lot to me.

And then there's just the accuracy-problem. My book deals with a condition called Selective Mutism. I was never a Selective Mute. I have never known a selective mute. In fact, until I read a memoir about a women who specialized in selective mutism, I had never even heard of the problem. I've read a bunch of books now, an scoured the internet for information. But some of my information may not be right, because I don't have first-hand knowledge of the condition. Even more of my knowledge my be wrong, because I choose to disregard it. Because it doesn't fit with my story. Plus my Selectively Mute character is my antagonist. She's my horror-monster. My bad guy. I don't want to offend anyone who has dealt with or knows someone who dealt with Selective Mutism.

I guess this is mostly just a rant.

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NaNoWriMo: Part 2

First things first. If you NaNo, add me here. Now, the more fun stuff

Welllllllll I talked Chelsea into participating. I'm glad to have someone I know IRL in this with me. Of course, I have all the amazing writers from Accentuate, who I love to bits, but as much as I love them, I love my IRL friends too. I think everyone should do NaNo. Yeah.

So, I think I should give you a little information on Only Make Believe, because really, I've shared it all with the rest of the internet, why not my blog readers?

(Unrelated: speaking of blog readers, I live for comments. Give me some love? I'm totally not above begging.)

I've drawn out these GORGEOUS character profiles. The have pictures of the characters, and small, not-overly-detailed, but substantial, list of things about them. I have a horrible habit of forgetting what my characters look like, so I also added a few small details about their appearances (things you cant tell by looking at the pictures)..... and I drew them by hand, and have a broken scanner. Perhaps tomorrow I'll line them up pretty to take pictures of them, but I feel silly taking a picture of them.

 In the mean time, I'll tell you a little about the story itself.

It's supposed to be horror. I haven't written anything even remotely scary since I was in 3rd grade.
Time now to write a scary story. Hope I can do it.
Since I'm lazy, I'll just post my synopsis here

Sarah Marsdon is excited to be back in school, teaching a second grade class, after three years in the 5th grade. What she hadn't counted on was a selectively mute student, Katie. Why hadn't anyone warned her? Katie appears to talk to her cousin Chris, also in Sarah’s class, but hardly even acknowledge anyone else. Katie is bright, that much is obvious, but so unbelievably withdrawn. Sarah attempts several times to reach out to the family, but they don’t answer the phones, don’t respond to the notes, and never seem to pick the children up or drop them off.
For Sarah, the questions and confusions of dealing with this difficult and confusing child become even worse when Katie starts talking. From one day to the next, she isn’t consistent in attitude, speech, and suddenly, not even school work.

 __________________________


Oh and I realllllyyyyyyy want this. Perhaps if I win the Lottery.... which wont happen because I don't play the lottery... but perhaps if I decide to play the lottery, and win it.

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NaNoWriMo 2010: Official

This is part one, because I'm sure there will be more parts and updates. I don't know how many or when they will be, but there will be. I;m officially signed up for NaNoWriMo 2010. For those who don't know, NaNoWriMo stands for NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth. It's a challenge to write 50,000 words of a novel (according to the official rules, a new novel that you hadn't started yet) in ONE MONTH.

 I've registered. If anyone wants to be my writing buddy, you can add me under Boatkicker. This month, pre-nano, I'll be doing two things.
1) Taking a break from The Circle. In fact, this break will be a two month break
2) Pre-planning for my NaNo novel, which is currently titled Only Make Believe.
3) Trying to convince my dear friend Chelsea to participate with me.

I think I'll post some of my pre-planning here, starting with a copy-paste from something I wrote over on the Nanowrimo forums. The thread was called "Things you will do differently this year."

This year I will
1) (Hopefully) Not get a computer virus at the end of week 1
......1a) If I do get a computer virus, I will NOT spend ALL of week two fixing my computer. Instead, I will keep writing on paper, and if I have time after meeting my daily word goals, THEN I will work on the computer.
2) If I get behind, I will not give up. Last year, the virus got me way off track, and being so far behind everyone else unmotivated me. I lost at 14,000
3) I will participate in lots of word wars. Oddly enough, some of the best writing I did last year came from those short bursts. Last year I only did a few. This year, I will do many!
4) (If there is one in my area) I will go to a write in. I've never been to one before. It sounds like fun.
5) Research BEFORE November. Last year I didn't do any research before starting. Then, I wrote slowly because I was researching as I went along. I've already started this!
6) Appearance lists? Yes please. Most of my characters jump into my brain with mostly-formed personalities and NO physical appearance. In editing last years novel I noticed that I had a black-haired brunette blond with red hair. No, I'm not kidding. Missy's hair color changed several times... without any hair dye. And another of my characters was both "extraordinarily short", and "rather tall". This year, I will be keeping track of what everyone looks like.
Last and most important 7) I WILL WIN NANOWRIMO!

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