Month: November 2012

NaNo – Day 8 – early to bed

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

It’s not early, but this is the earliest I’ve abandoned my manuscript.  Only about 1000 words today.  I labored on the most recent stretch, not quite happy with anything I was writing.  I should have just powered through and accepted the suckiness, but I knew it wasn’t happening the way it should and I needed the peg to fit the hole.  I think it did.

Tomorrow is Friday and it’ll be easier to get back on the horse.  I’m turning in for the night.  I’m still a couple days ahead on wordcount, so I’m not stressing…yet.  A few low yield days are to be expected.

Nano – Day 5 – a quarter of the way there

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

I have officially passed the 25% mark for my NaNo wordcount.  In doing so, I am still only starting chapter 8.  And I’m pretty far from my 2k word goal for today, though I did hit my finish-on-time minimum.  Worse, I’m looking at a lot of work-related distraction tomorrow.  Plus I have to vote; who knows how long that will take.

I’m fairly pleased with the chapter I just finished.  I think the suspense builds nicely and I paint my viewpoint character as the codependent shell of a person she is supposed to start out as, and I paint one of my bad guys as the dissociative nutjob he is supposed to be.  (I do not mean to suggest all codependents are shells or that all dissociatives are nutjobs; these things combine to encompass my characters.)  Now I am preparing to introduce my fifth and final viewpoint character as well as the true villain of the novel (different characters).  It comes a little late, but we’re talking maybe 15% of the way into the novel, not 25%.  The timing is important so that all the characters will get their respective calls to action at about the same time, with the possible exception of my first viewpoint character who may already have received his…it’s a little tricky.  Anyway, I’m eager t get these two characters introduced since things seem to roll along better once I know my characters.

So tomorrow may be a disappointment — and today wasn’t great — but I’m not losing steam, just losing freedom.  I’m still aiming for the 50% mark (of the 50k) by the end of this weekend.  Fingers crossed…no wait, that makes it really hard to type…

Nano – Day…what is this, 4? Really?

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

According to my NaNoWriMo profile, last year’s novel hit the wall on day 6 at 7281 words.  Today is day 4 and I am past the 10,000-word mark.  And I’m not losing steam…yet.  I’m pretty convinced that I’m gonna make the 50k mark ahead of schedule.  And I’m pretty convinced that this will be a sellable novel, though it will surely take some serious revision after thewords “the end”.  I’m comfortable with that.  It’s just nice to see the story — and moreover, the characters — taking shape on the page.

I’m planning to maintain a minimum target of 2000 words a day.  I missed it yesterday, but that was because midnight hit in the middle of a writing session.  Here’s hoping that life behaves itself and stays the heck out of my way for a while.

Nano – Day 2

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

I managed to steal some time at work (read: not eating lunch) to get some writing done.  I am so much happier with the quality of the writing I’m producing today.  I suspect it’s because I have the characters established well enough that I can just move the story forward.  There will definitely be some rewriting going on in my first chapter and a half, but not until December at the earliest.
I’m ahead of schedule for the month and almost at my desired 2k for the day already.  I plan to get some good time in tonight and maybe hit the evening write-in on Saturday.  As long as I don’t get complacent and fall behind, I’m in good shape.

ETA: I’ve crested 6600 as of 11:20.  I’m loving what I’ve been writing recently.  Some good character interaction going on, exactly what needs to be fixed in the first chapter.  (Not yet, Scott.  Not yet.)

I’m also focusing on writing more rather than less.  You see, short stories are all about accomplishing as much as possible in as few words as possible.  The plot must be perpetually propelled.  In a novel, sometimes you can develop character just to develop character.  Or setting, foreshadowing, backstory.  Novels are about the richness of the story more than the efficiency of it.  As I wrote chapter 1, I kept finding myself fretting over wordcount, thinking “I’m spending too many words on B and I need to get to E withing 2000 words, so I better get moving or I’ll have to cut C and D way short.”  Yeah, I was worried about the wrong problem.  Chapter 1 wound up about 1000 words short of my intention.  At least it helped me relax on the wordcount issue and now the story is flowing.

I wanted to hit 7k before bed, but I don’t see it happening.  I got sucked into the horror movie my wife was watching, Cabin in the Woods.  normally not my speed and I thought I could just write while I ignored it, but then I saw Joss Whedon’s name in the credits.  …  Let’s just say that Joss is one twisted individual with a sense of humor a little too close to mine for him to qualify as “stable”.  I don’t think I could call it a good movie, but I was entertained.  But please, someone increase the man’s effects budget.  Well, increase Drew Goddard’s effects budget; he was the director.
But I digress.

In short: NaNo going well.  Cabin in the Woods, twisted and fun in a splattery kind of way.

NaNo Morale Modifier: 9 (out of 10)

NaNo – Day 1

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

Word count came in under 4k for the first day of NaNoWriMo.  I was hoping for 5k, but I got distracted by all the great people at the local write-ins (both the midnight and 6pm varieties).  I’m planning to hit some of the weekend write-ins, but we’ll see.  I need to find a good place to pound out my wordcount and my living room doesn’t seem a likely candidate.  We’ll see.

Not thrilled with the quality of the stuff I’m typing, but I’m deliberately powering on.  Revision will take care of all that.  I suspect I’ll be shuffling some of the early chapters.  It’s slow trying to start 3 PoV characters in the first 3 chapters.  I’ll get back to the first when I hit chapter 4, then move on to a fourth and eventually a fifth.  Having never written more than one PoV in the same story (successfully), I’m a bit nervous about the whole thing.  But mostly I’m sleepy.  G’night.