NaNoWriMo Winner

So, I just won the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge of writing 50,000 words in 30 days.  I still have a bit to write to complete the novel (it's currently at 74,012 words total, with 50,012 of that counting towards the November word count), but this is a huge success.  Go me!

Cover Art

My other half is a very talented artist, and he just concepted the cover of my book.  It's surreal to see my name on a book, even in a digital, early-draft version of the cover.  Even though my book will only be in the first draft, we are going to print off a couple of copies when I'm through in a week or so with the cover he is designing.  That way, I can have a great motivator sitting on my shelf to actually finish the long revision process and see what my book would look like if I were able to design the cover (if I'm ever published it isn't likely I will have a say in what the cover looks like). 

I'd like to show you what the book looks like, but you'll just have to wait and see if it ends up on the book when/if it is published.  I don't want to ruin my chances of actually having a say in the cover by posting the art online - I'm not sure of the legality of the art rights.  Oh well.  Trust me - it's beautiful!

Onward and...Painful

I am writing with other NaNoWriMo folks right now.  With less than 20% of my words left to write, I'm excited to reach my goal this week (I have until Monday!).

Today, I wrote the most gut wrenching scene I have ever written, involving one of my main characters finding out her parents were killed.  Listening to "The Poet Acts" from the soundtrack/score of the movie The Hours really helped get into the mood (if you've watched the movie, I'm sure you can guess the scene I'm talking about) - not in a bad way, just getting the emotions going.  I almost cried.  Is there such thing as a 'method-writer'?  I know there's a 'method-actor' but this may translate to writing as well...

New Widget!

So that I don't feel like I need to update you on my word count for NaNoWriMo, I have added a temporary widget to my blog (see the upper left corner) that you can look at to see my progress.  I'm at a 'write-in' right now, so I've got to get to writing! 

Half-Way Mark

I've made it to 25,000 words, half-way to the 50,000 word goal for November!  There was a party for my area's NaNoWriMo participants today to congratulate ourselves on making it half-way to our goals, with pizza, live readings and writing 'sprints.'  With over 70 people there, we logged approximately 210,000 words written today just while we were there.  That's amazing.  I added about 3,000 while I was at the party, though the constant sound of people talking around me or into the microphone was distracting at times.  Thank goodness for my iPod.

However, my total word count for November is actually 27,447 and my entire novel is now at 51,447 (50,000 is a very short novel).  I'm doing well, and I'm on track to making my goal!  Planning ahead for Thanksgiving means more writing more often to make up for the impending lost time.

Well, I'm sick of writing today, so I'm signing off.  Hope you had a great weekend!

Five years coming!

I'm so overwhelmed!  I finally got to the one scene that I have been planning on writing for five years!  FIVE!  (actually, it may be six by now)  One of my main characters, Synovee, opens herself to magic(k) (I'm not sure how else to say that) and...well, you'll have to read the book when/if it's published to know what happens - no spoilers here!  I've had the image of this particular moment in my head for so long that it's almost sad in a way to finally have written it down.  I didn't mean for it to happen exactly the way it did, but I guess that's how it works.

Update:  I'm currently at 16,001 words towards the 50,000 word count for NaNoWriMo.  Hoping to write some more tonight, but this wooden chair at the coffee shop is killing me (aka my butt). 

NaNoWriMo Write-In Success

I went to an official NaNoWriMo 'write-in', where participants in the area can go to meet up to write together.  The format was interesting, but turned out to be very effective.  We did 'writing sprints' where we wrote for 10 minutes straight, then took a ten minute break - repeat over and over.  The meeting was from noon to four in the afternoon, and I wrote almost 4,000 words while there!  When I came home, I wrote some more (I know, surprising, right?) and my total word count for the day is 5,626, for a total of 13,378 towards my November goal of 50,000!  This doesn't count about 24,000 words I wrote before the month of November that won't be counted towards the NaNoWriMo goal.

I just noticed that was a lot of numbers - to make it simple, I have written a total of 37,378 words total for the novel, with 13,378 of that going towards my 50,000 word goal in November.  That leaves 36,622 words left to write this month (just so you don't have to do the math).

Plus, I'm all the way to the middle of chapter 12!  With the word count goal, this is really pushing me to go for quantity not quality, but at least I'm going to end up with a finished first draft, right?  There are pros and cons to taking part in NaNoWriMo.  I'm going to try and focus on the positive...since I'm in the middle of the chaos.  Just keep writing.  Just keep writing.

I've joined NaNoWriMo

I've made the plunge and registered for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month - this takes place every November).  Although I had already written about 24-25,000 words, I'm supposed to write 50,000 words during the month of November.  In spite of my work schedule and the Thanksgiving holiday, I hope to make it to a full first draft of the novel and successfully complete the challenge.  Here's to hoping I can find the time and mental strength to do it!

Right now, I have a little over 4,000 words towards the challenge...but I'm supposed to be at about 10,000 by this point (if I go by the schedule of goals that NaNoWriMo.org sets up).  I've got some writtin' to do.  I'm almost done drafting chapter 8, and I just need to keep telling myself that my first draft is going to be absolutely horrible and be okay with that - silence the perfectionist deep within.

Slogging Along

I made some real progress late last week on my novel.  Now, I'm just trying to get my mind back into the story to continue.  A lot of artists/writers around me say the inspiration comes in spurts, and in order to inspire those moments, he/she will go to great lengths to try and recreate the last instance that worked.  I've discovered this is how I work as well; maybe if I park my car in this spot...no, maybe the one right next to it...that's a little better, maybe if I cross my legs...nope, maybe if I cross them the other way and place my cup of coffee in the left cup holder, not the right one...on and on and on and on.  It's really strange!  I have my little quirks when it comes to getting into the 'zone' of writing and I was very happy to discover that my struggles are not that uncommon.

I'm still working on the second half of chapter 7, after taking a small break to read a novel (see my entry from today) that didn't inspire me the way I had hoped - other than inspiring me not to write what I am now calling a 'fluffy' book.  You know the ones - where there's no real substance, the sentences read something along the lines of 'he looked at her and realized how lonely he was' (which brings back memories of romance novels I used to read as a teenager), and the plot centers around...nothing, really.  My novel is not going to be fluffy if I have anything to say about - that's why you have people critique your work and editors comb through the book before being published (if my book makes it there).  No fluff for me.

Disillusioned Writer

I’m reading through the final book in another series and…wow. I’m having a hard time. If anything, I’m learning what I DON’T like about some novels. That’s a good thing – it may help me figure out what not to do in my own novel.

I’ve found a couple of typos (my pet peeve) and there are a lot of characters to follow – two of which are brand new and are the main characters. Also, I think the author is trying to cover so much ground in a single book that she had decided to forgo the ‘show don’t tell’ mantra in order to shorten the ultimate length of the book. I may have to go through the other books to see if they are also like this. I remember liking them a lot, but now I have a different eye and my tastes are changing as I write my own novel.

There’s just no depth to the book. I take that back – there are a few moments that seem like she spent some time making the scenes or interactions really work, but the remainder of the book feels like it was the first draft. I hate to say that. I really do. Writing takes a lot of time, patience, coffee and hair pulling and it’s hard to say bad things about any author when I think about the massive amount of work that went into writing the book. On the other hand, there’s a certain level of writing that I am becoming accustomed to as I read through novels to learn the craft. Unfortunately, I was looking forward to this book...