10K Shoutouts - Durham Region Style!

I flew by the 10K but I am stuggling to hit 15K. Seems life gets in the way. I am struggling at work to focus on my crunching oh-so-boring sales data but keep getting tangled in thinking about my plot. I have to grab my notebook and jot down the thoughts before they vanish. I have even resorted to pulling over on my way to work to capture an idea. Luckily I do not have to drive on the 401.

I've hit 10K. So far, things are still flowing relatively well. My concern is that my story might wrap itself up before 50K (I'm a chronic short story writer, so getting up to novel length will be the trick). No wrinkles in the plan thus far...

J.

My imaginary friend thinks I have mental problems.

Hee hee...uh...Did I mention I'm single, I live in Montreal where there are 8 coffee shops within walking distance, I live 2 hours from my closest family, all my friends are in Ontario and I have no life?

I'm up to 38k.

I figure I should have the thing done by Sunday night. I have company coming in from Toronto for the weekend, otherwise it would probably be done by Saturday morning.

But I took yesterday off! I SLEPT! And I slept again last night! Wow!

Have I mentioned I'm really, really proud of you guys?

We're proud of you too, Miss 30K+ WriMo Superwoman.

Yeah I hit a bit of snag at 12K with a character that's based on someone in my life. Talked to him last night and it kinda threw my whole plot off balance but now it's all good.

Braggarts. I'm struggling to reach 2k. Any tips on how to do 10k in a night with nothing more than a box of Turtles chocolates and a bottle of Coke?

Chris Charabaruk

Type at a rate of 1,000 WPH for 8 hours straight. But before you do, make a pot or two of coffee and stock up on chocolate and candy.

Let us know how it goes.

Chris. Put down the Turtles. Consider things like...salad...meat...pasta...things that involve cutlerly and plates.

Secondly. Don't think about 10k. Get a good story question and PLAY. Have fun. The more fun you have, the faster you write.

I don't know if this is any help or not, but here's what I did.

I stepped WAY outside my genre, just to see if I could do it. Mystery. So far so good. Then I said, Okay, I need a character that I've never ever used before. I need a really funny detective to offset this dark plot. Then I asked, what's so different about this detective compared to all others? "He can't walk?" No - Ironsides, it's been done. "He's an addict." Nope. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle pretty much covered that one. "He's suicidal." Nope - been done MANY times. "He's blind." Nope. "Deaf." Yawn.

And as I was falling asleep, I thought, "He's got no tongue."

Aha - okay, so I have a character that's going to be a challenge. He's witty, but he's gotta keep it all inside. That has an effect on his personality. Then I wondered, well how the heck did he lose his tongue in the first place? Character develops. How's he going to communicate? How's he going to ask for help? Or explain himself to the police? And then I think, what could possibly be worse? Then I introduce the love interest.

The story begins. I figure, what's the most outrageous position I can find this guy in? I hang him in a store front window in a Halloween costume, trying to steal something that someone else is in the process of stealing. Funny! Then I figure, what's the worst that could happen? The police arrive while they're both there. I ask myself, And then what? And then what?

So, I took a completely off-the-wall idea, flung it into a genre I've never tried before, I don't know what the HECK I'm doing or where the plot is going, I'm throwing caution to the wind, I'm HAVING FUN.

Thirdly, I have friends outside NaNoWriMo - writers and non-writers - who are keeping tabs on my progress. I ask them for research. I ask their advice on the plot. I explain the character to them, and the premise of the story. They won't LET me stop.

Fourthly, I set limits on how much time I'm allowed to write, and I set a goal for that time (i.e. 45 minutes with a coffee, my goal is three pages); and then I aim to beat that goal. 45 minutes here, an hour and a half there, next thing I know, I have 10 pages done in one day.

Fifthly, music and entertainment. Since this is set in 1944, it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing. All the movies, all my music, everything has been from that time period. I even have a hard-boiled detective novel written by Ed McBain, in case I need a brain-break. Unless it's black and white, I'm not watching it. In the car, swing. On computer, swing. On my iPod at work, swing. It keeps me, ahem, "In the Mood."

Oh yeah - and I eat properly.

All that seems to be working for me.

That, and the promise of beer at the end of this.

...I'm sorry, it looks like I wrote another novel. GOOD LUCK CHRIS!

Margo I need to find out more about your detective! I can see his internal monlogue going off the charts.

Chris, the biggest thing is commitment to have fun just like Margo said and to add to that even if you don't make the 50k don't stop at the end of the month keep it going. Sometimes it can take years to write a book, but that doesn't mean you have to stop at the end of a month.

I'm at 17k and I'm there because I had some health things I had to sort out about mid week and now I've just been blasted by some bad news about a family member, it's all pretty evident by my stats. I have a nice little plateau thing going on for a couple of days. Tonight I'll be making amends for that.

Because the thing is when you're writing you don't let the rest of life drive the car or even sit in the backseat. Make it your passenger and take it for a ride, you just might find you like the conversation on the way and that conversation of the good and bad things happening may be the fuel your word processor needs. So whatever you do don't tell life to shut up and get out let it in and exploit it!

Way to go Margo. Here's hoping you get your goal of an early finish and an early start on the second mystery novel starring Mr. No Tongue.

Write horror from the heart, where all the darkest things grow

By "off the charts", I hope you mean "This guy's hilarious!" and not "MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! THE ENDLESS DRONING IS MAKING MY EARS BLEED!" I do try to keep the internal monologue to a minimum. He's okay with one-liners.

I hope everything's settling down in BrandonWorld...but 17k is just about the 1/3 mark, and here we are, 1/3 through November, so kudos! Actually, I think just about everybody on my buddy list is at the same mark, so, congratulations everybody! You are exactly where you're supposed to be. Hoowah!

And uh...yeah, I've already got my eye on the sequel. "Mummer's the Word," might just be followed by "The Mummer's Curse." Tee hee. I've really gotta get a life.

Chris - this is the place for it: why don't you tell us where you're stuck and where you want to go? We'll get you unstuck.

Wait a second! You're eating Turtles! Well THAR's yer prahblem! Turtles! Get it?

I did what I swore to myself I wouldn't let happen: I'VE FALLEN BEHIND.

Today's my grandpa's birthday, tomorrow's my aunt's. And I'm gonna die.

*runs in a corner and hides*

*chases after with spare pen, paper and coffee, saying "Dying is counterproductive!"*

If you're gonna go hide in a corner, take your book with you!

And if the corner's too loud, apparently, there's always the bathroom.

Tell Grandpa and Auntie that we said Happy Birthday!

Thanks.

I'm not leaving my room until I finish YESTERDAY's quota. I'll party. Then write later. It's okay right? I'm still good.

I hope that I can make it to the Pickering Library one of the days there's a write-in there.

Thanks, Margo. It's really too bad you're not around the area. I'd love to sit and hang out with you at a write-in. You seem uber cool.

Thanks! I've never even been "cool" before! Ubercool...wow...thanks!

By the way.

I'm done.

Congratulations Margo. Is this a record?

Despite a difficult week I have managed to get to 19K.
So back to the page! Gotta pass the 20K by lunchtime.

It's a personal best, but I don't think it's a NaNoWriMo record.

And now I don't know what to do...What do normal people do on their weekends and their evenings off again?

Got hit with some serious bad news now I'm waiting to find out how bad it will get. I should be at 25,ooo by the end of the weekend. Here's hoping. It seems in my downtime you've taken the whip Margo and it looks good on ya.

Write horror from the heart, where all the darkest things grow

Still behind.

I want to get to 20K today.

I'm working on it.

I'm starting to hate my characters.

But I'm gonna write through the suckage.

I need a write-in real bad. I need to meet with people.

I have some extra time on my hands in the evenings...why don't you NaNoMail me or something? Maybe I can help you get unstuck? Not exactly a write-in, but it might help...

December 8th should be good for me. I am nearing mid-point and hope to hit by it today. Do you find the writing comes in spurts? I am starting to like my characters more but then at any moment I expect to do an about-face and see them as insipid morons.

Willkommen to our newest member in Germany.

Margo - did you find something to do now that you are over the 50K?

Okay, I confess. "Mummer's the Word" is actually the 28th full length novel I've written since 1998, not including rewrites. Add to that 87 two-act radio plays, a handful of short stories (gosh, do I envy people who can write short stories), and well over 10,000 pages of journalling, I can usually find something pretty quick to occupy my time. Reality TV blows anyhow.

Spurts? Uh...yes. Lots of them. In sustained bursts that all kinda run together in one really big spurt. But I think that happens with a lot of people. Sometimes it just flows. Sometimes life interferes and spoils the ride.

But, because of this, I can honestly say, you control the character. I had a few characters like that - rebellious and insipid. I took them into the backroom, liberally applied the baseball bat, and advised that if the behaviour continued, the project would be dropped. Usually works for me.

As for what's on my plate now: I like Mummer enough to try and sell him early next year. The next few days: editing, beefing up the historical details, clarifying the plot, really tuning up the contrast of characters...I should be stripping off about 5k of sludge and packing on 15k of muscly good stuff in its place. Should land me at about 60 to 65 k, I think. I have friends in the army who have loaned me armloads of research that I have to read before the Military Police track me down at work. Wouldn't THAT be a conversation starter...

I'm thinking Print on Demand, until a genuine publishing house realizes I'm a word factory. Freedom 35, here I come!

I made 20K today, that is all.

Thank you for being so encouraging in all posts and NaNoMail, Margo. You deserve the love. Can't wait to meet you on 12/08.

I've been thinking a lot all of you, and how amazed I am that you guys are actually still driving forward. I wanted to encourage you on a bit more, now that you're at the half way point.

I remembered tonight something that I haven't told many people. Most wouldn't get it. I think you guys will.

When I was fifteen, I was here, in Montreal, working my summer as an "au pair," a live-in babysitter, for the purposes of learning French. One day, I took my young charges out to a park in NDG - an anglophone suburb which I now live in. While I was there, I let the kiddly-winks run screaming off into play land, I sat on a park bench and wrote in my journal (now that I had some relative peace and quiet). I was writing about how hard it was to be in someone else's land, for the first time socially and politically aware. I was a stranger in a strange land, I was the enemy. On top of that, oh, the horrors and cruelty! Babysitting five little sweethearts all under the age of nine, with twenty-nine consecutive days of rain. I wanted to go home.

An old man came over and sat down beside me, asking me a question in French. He recognized the look on my face, gave me a sweet, tired little smile and asked the same question in English: "Are you writing in your journal?" I said I was, and he sat down beside me, smiling again.

"There's a friend of mine," he said, "who's in a great deal of pain. He's been in pain for years. There's no end in sight for this man. He will live and he will die with this tremendous pain. 'How do you live like this without losing your mind?' I asked him the other day. And he looked at me and he said, 'I write.'"

And with that, he stood up, took up his cane, smiled and said good bye, and I watched as he slowly, painfully, walked away.

It took me seven years to realize he was talking about himself. I have no idea who he is. I'll never know. But I can tell you this: he is the greatest story teller I will have ever known, because a master story teller heals others, even as he heals himself.

Good luck, my friends.

Wow...that guy sounds pretty cool. I hope you have the chance to meet him again, even if only by chance. :)

I'm rather amazed myself that I've crossed the halfway point. I figured my life would have seriously interefered with this whole process and that I'd still be sitting with about 10000 words by now. Instead, I'm on track and I'm still enjoying the process. Hopefully, the momentum will carry on for the entire month.

Here's hopin' for 50K. :)

Best of luck to everyone.

J.

My imaginary friend thinks I have mental problems.