11.21.2010
Sundays
Well, it has just become Sunday, and I have just under 24 hours to write another 4,024 words to be at my weekly goal. This scares me, because if you look at my progress calendar, I seem to be working in a pattern. Saturdays tend to be good days for me, which today was with over 3,000 words written, while Sundays I usually underproduce. So, for now I'm going to go to bed and get the rest I need to crank out 4,000+ words by this time tomorrow. Wish me luck!
11.15.2010
This Week's Goal
Well, I finished the week off at 21,285 words. Not too bad! I'm past where I told myself I should be. This week will be the challenging week, however, as I have set the goal of writing 14,581 words this week. If all goes as planned, that will put my project at 35,866 words by next Sunday!
11.13.2010
Weekly Goal
Well, at 20,643 words, I have just reached my goal for the week a day early!
And now I'm all out of words...
And now I'm all out of words...
11.12.2010
NaNoing
Well, this week has been fairly productive on the NaNo front. To reach my personal goals that I set for myself, I need to be at 20,524 words by the end of Sunday. With my current word count of 16,740, that leaves me with just 3,784 more words to go! And considering that my goal for just Saturday is 5,000 words, I think I will make it!
The hardest part about NaNo this week has been wanting to go back and look through what I've already typed. There are a few scenes that I feel are just not very good at all. But I refuse to work backwards! I will stand strong, and I will avoid my inner editor! (One of the NaNo pep talks warned about the inner editor who tries to take over in week 2!) I will keep plugging away in a forward direction!
I have been doing some 15-minute word wars over the last couple of days, too. How this works is you just type for the allotted time-in this case 15 minutes-and see how much you can get typed in that amount of time. Then you post your words for the other word war participants to see. So far, I have yet to get up to 500 words in 15 minutes, but that is my goal to work for this weekend.
Until next time...
The hardest part about NaNo this week has been wanting to go back and look through what I've already typed. There are a few scenes that I feel are just not very good at all. But I refuse to work backwards! I will stand strong, and I will avoid my inner editor! (One of the NaNo pep talks warned about the inner editor who tries to take over in week 2!) I will keep plugging away in a forward direction!
I have been doing some 15-minute word wars over the last couple of days, too. How this works is you just type for the allotted time-in this case 15 minutes-and see how much you can get typed in that amount of time. Then you post your words for the other word war participants to see. So far, I have yet to get up to 500 words in 15 minutes, but that is my goal to work for this weekend.
Until next time...
11.08.2010
First NaNo Update
Well, I did it! I had a modest goal of 8,334 words for the first week, and I ended up with 10,109! We had an out-of-state wedding to attend over the weekend, including lots of prep, so I set my goal a little lower than the suggested 1,667 words per day.
This week, my goal is actually 10,415 words for the week, so as long as I do as good as I did last week, I should be able to nail that! Beginning Tuesday afternoon my life will be returning to its normal schedule, and I can officially get into a NaNo groove!
This week, my goal is actually 10,415 words for the week, so as long as I do as good as I did last week, I should be able to nail that! Beginning Tuesday afternoon my life will be returning to its normal schedule, and I can officially get into a NaNo groove!
10.31.2010
Halloween - The Busiest Day of the Year
With just ten hours left before the kickoff of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), I have a billion things I wish to accomplish. I will already be losing a few precious days of writing due to a highly-anticipated, out-of-town wedding, so the more I can complete now, the more I can write on the remaining days.
Before I can begin hammering out chapter one at midnight, I need to finish a few household tasks, including loads of laundry, straightening up the schoolroom, and handing out Halloween candy. In between, I'm polishing up my outline and planning out dialog in my head. My plan is to be ready to go at the stroke of midnight as my pumpkins turn back into notebooks, dictionaries, and thesauri!
Happy NaNoEve... err, Halloween, everyone!
Before I can begin hammering out chapter one at midnight, I need to finish a few household tasks, including loads of laundry, straightening up the schoolroom, and handing out Halloween candy. In between, I'm polishing up my outline and planning out dialog in my head. My plan is to be ready to go at the stroke of midnight as my pumpkins turn back into notebooks, dictionaries, and thesauri!
Happy NaNoEve... err, Halloween, everyone!
4.14.2010
Bleeding For Your Craft
It was Walter Wellesley "Red" Smith who said of writing "All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein." I thought the quote was charming, maybe slightly credible, when I first heard it. In reality, it is profoundly true.
When I first began this journey, I tried to remain inside myself. I was extremely selective about the people I informed about what I was doing. I didn't want people to know because I didn't want people to want to read what I was writing. Basically, I didn't want them in my head.
When you are writing a character-driven novel you need your characters to be real. And if your characters are going to be real, a lot of soul searching is inevitable. You have to step into your situations to try to learn what your new friends will say, how they will feel, how they react. Sometimes it comes naturally, like remembering what it was like to hold your child for the first time. But other times--well, other times require you to reach deep into yourself and pull out emotions and memories that you may have long since buried. Emotions and memories that cause pain once you rip them out.
Is it worth it, this cutting into yourself and opening old wounds? If I can take a slice of myself and effectively use it to breathe life into another being, then the answer is undeniably yes. And if that being is able to bring some sort of escape, enlightenment, or encouragement to someone else, I can even let people inside my head for a few hundred pages. After all, as E.L. Doctorow said, "writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia."
When I first began this journey, I tried to remain inside myself. I was extremely selective about the people I informed about what I was doing. I didn't want people to know because I didn't want people to want to read what I was writing. Basically, I didn't want them in my head.
When you are writing a character-driven novel you need your characters to be real. And if your characters are going to be real, a lot of soul searching is inevitable. You have to step into your situations to try to learn what your new friends will say, how they will feel, how they react. Sometimes it comes naturally, like remembering what it was like to hold your child for the first time. But other times--well, other times require you to reach deep into yourself and pull out emotions and memories that you may have long since buried. Emotions and memories that cause pain once you rip them out.
Is it worth it, this cutting into yourself and opening old wounds? If I can take a slice of myself and effectively use it to breathe life into another being, then the answer is undeniably yes. And if that being is able to bring some sort of escape, enlightenment, or encouragement to someone else, I can even let people inside my head for a few hundred pages. After all, as E.L. Doctorow said, "writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia."
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