November 2 Progress/Chat Thread

i feel like i had a good start yesterday. fleshing out my main character and getting 3000+ words down.

Today I have to wait around until I get out of work to write more. how inconvenient.

I guess i'm going to have to make serious use of my weekends to meet the 50k deadline.

Yeah, that's why I get up at five and write before work...

Kat
http://www.katwithak.com
http://www.partylite.biz/KatieWelsh

I have had a horrible start this year. I spent most of my day yesterday recovering from Halloween, so hopefully tonight I will bang out some words. Here's to hoping!

Aubrey
http://star-shaped.org

UGH...bad start...very bad start.... Tonight is basically day 1. :-/

."... Big men with big guns and big money. All equaled one big problem. ..."

I started my day ahead of schedule. I like that. Now I'm procrastinating, pretending there is other stuff I need to do online (for instance, writing in this forum) instead of writing my novel. I know I could get butt loads of work done today if I just buckled in.

Wouldn't it be nice to hit 20,000 words today? It's possible--with the jump-start I had last night--more than possible. Alright. I'll go fetch a can of fuel and start on auto-pilot. I'm sure the current will sweep me under, and I'll get taken for a ride. Some exciting stuff is coming up!

No thinking; just writing.

Follow our day-to-day NaNoWriMo progress: http://www.rjspindle.com

I had to write a paper for school and I had a screaming headache yesterday, but I managed to make the minimum of 1667 words wit ha little to spare.

I have about 6 handwritten pages I now need to type... Thank goodness for doctor offices, they make for good writing zones for me. I'm hoping to bang about about 4k more works today between photo processing and life. But overall I feel really good about this year :)

~Megan

A bit slower start than I wanted. My holiday celebrations took me til 10pm last night. I've got my first 12 scenes outlined and just finished a full page. Trying to convince another friend to join right now. :)

I just busted out 1000 words during my lunch hour!

NaNo 2009: Pawns of Power

My first attempt!

Lattes consumed: 2
Body Count : 4

Time for a downer post. It's day two . . . and my hard drive has crashed.

I started my novel at midnight on the 1st. I got into it again a bit later in the day. My word count was 3,511 when I stopped to work on a children's book and lab report due today. At around 5PM I attempted to restart my laptop. It never started. After trying numerous times to start up my darling laptop- he refused. I tried start up repair. I tried giving him time to cool down. After running diagnostics for two hours, I received an error code . . . my hard drive is dead.

This is my first laptop. His name is Damon, he's a Dell XPS M1530, he's about 5 months old, and I paid almost $2,000 for him . . . Considering that I'm just a kid, I never buy myself anything, and that's what I make for cash in two years with my football-season job . . . this is crushing.

I am currently using a computer which I have referred to as "a rock with a battery". My children's book is only about half done (all digitally painted illustrations), and I don't have many of my files backed up (none from the book). My lab report hasn't been finished. I don't know how badly my hard drive is damaged. I'm just hoping that I won't lose the majority of the two novels I've been working on, as well as the beginning of my NaNo novel. . . and all of my photos and music. Homework is going to be difficult. This unexpected stress is getting to me quite quickly.

After chatting with a Dell tech support rep. online this afternoon, it sounds like I'll have a replacement hard drive in two to three days. I'm quite confused about exactly what I'm getting, why, and how it's covered or not covered by my warranty, but that's a long story.

I'm currently on the hunt for someone who can get all of my files off my dead drive ASAP. I have two potential helpers. It may take a week at least.

For now, I may not get to write much of anything, and I'm very upset about the whole thing. I have tomorrow off from school due to voting (which I can't participate in because I won't be 18 for another 20 days- yay November), but writing will be extremely slow. Writing by hand is a miserable process for me, and this computer's keyboard is unpleasant to say the least.

I hope NaNo is getting off to a better start for the rest of you. I was extremely enthusiastic about my novel as I started it, and I'm hoping that once this computer mishap is sorted out, I'll be able to get back into the swing of things.

Bad start. Very, very bad start. Saturday night we had a power outage that lasted less than an hour and a half. No sweat, right? Except that when the power came back about 11 pm, the surge protector didn't protect. Wham! Out went the power supply unit on the tower, and with it my hopes of a 5K day. The repair shops were closed on Sunday and my guru is in Hong Kong. I managed to write a few hundred words longhand before turning to my knitting for solace.

Fortunately my wonderful husband Dave, who is even better than Harry, got the thing up and running while I was at work. Now I just need to type in those puny couple hundred words and try to get caught up. After sitting in front of a monitor all day on the job, I don't feel particularly enthused about spending a couple more hours in front of my personal monitor at home. Not even with a cat purring on my lap. It does NOT help that it got dark at 4:30 today!

On the plus side--well, I don't really see a plus side. Good luck to everyone.

Nikki
nikki@nikkiandrewsbooks.com
www.nikkiandrewsbooks.co,m

"If you're stuck being a caterpillar, at least be a spectacular caterpillar."

after a goose-egg for Day 1 I slammed out 3k words from Noon to 5pm and the plot is workin :-)

."... Big men with big guns and big money. All equaled one big problem. ..."

I'm keeping more or less abreast with the minimum requirement, my dream of 2,000 a day falling a bit by the wayside to be picked up later. Just found out my prologue basically doesn't fit any of my research or the later part of the story but its all about the wordcount and growing as a writer so I did one of those "pretend that this happened the way its supposed to" and just kept writing. 2,000 now, hopefully another 1300 before the end of the night.

PS Anyone in the Hampton area?

I am running at about 2,700 words and have realized I don't really have a plot yet. I am finding it to be a minor inconvenience. I am very impressed at the progress others have made though. Feeling like a bit of a slacker...

I'm at just over 5500 words, but I haven't really had the chance to write yet today. I feel like I've gotten to a good part of the story though, so hopefully it'll go smoothly tonight. =)

At 4608 after today. Not bad, and I got some bits of potentially good stuff written. I am finding that this plot is far less worked out than I thought, and it's not working well right now. Wish I'd fleshed it out more... Right now, I don't see it as a decent (or even vialble) story!

-Mak

If we weren't all crazy, we would go insane.

My NaNoWriMo blog: http://eyewryte.blogspot.com

About a day behind, but it's all good. The writing's not -- it's crap -- but I'm very rusty at this so I'm being patient with myself. Just getting used to the feel of scribbling again, building up a tolerance for it. The base of my thumb is bugging me. I've been writing while showing a video in class, and everyone found it a boring video, and I could hear all these little sighs rippling through the room like wind in the trees. Class over, time to get candy and go home and write more.

__________________________________________
I have no signature; I make empty space my signature.

I'm still just as tired as I was yesterday, but got on a bit of a roll, shined a light on some backstory and caught up to at least staying on pace for the day. I'm going to see if I can push it tonight and keep the ball rolling, but I really like the way my characters are emerging, however slowly, and how the plot cogs seem to be fitting together. Got over 2600 words just today, so I'm pleased.

http://www.device-magazine.com

Okay, so I got out about a day's worth of words. Can't call it creative, really; if anyone wants to learn how to mount a piece of art into matting, this is a good place to go. But at least it's words on the page, and I'll only be 2 days behind tomorrow instead of three. I hope to get into some good stuff tomorrow.

Nikki
nikki@nikkiandrewsbooks.com
www.nikkiandrewsbooks.co,m

"If you're stuck being a caterpillar, at least be a spectacular caterpillar."

I'm feeling good about this novel. I'm at 3696 words as I'm calling it quits for the night so I can get some rest. That and I've gotten sidetracked watching Castle tonight so that's all for me.

~Megan

I just realized how pathetic I must look right now...
I'm watching the Hannah Montana movie (yes you heard me) to get inspiration for my story.

Oh well....seems to be working so far!
Getting in another thou or so before midnight hopefully, since I won't have time to write tomorrow.

Nano 05: Without A Past- ! 52K
Nano 06: So Much More Than Gold and Finding Alaska- ! 115K!
Nano 07: Made To Be Broken and Jersey Heart - 93K!
Nano 08: Cowboy Boots and City Roots-- 53K
Nano 09: ???

I'm doing well so far - 7090 words in two days. I'm not taking anything for granted though, November is a really busy month for me (second only to September) so I hope any over-minimum-quota words will be a good buffer for the crazy busy days.

__________________________________________

http://sf-girl.livejournal.com

No husbands were harmed in the writing of this novel.

Cups of coffee: 5

Fast food fed to kids: 0

i'm at 6771.... anyone know how we're doing on our word war with vt?

Cups of tea: 3
Trips to bathroom to relieve myself of cups of tea: 3
Children strangled while writing: none so far, but considering it
Interruptions by the phone: oh, about 30. that sucker's getting ditched tomm!

Boooo.... not going well at all. Yesterday it took me a long while to get in the groove and I didn't start until late. Tonight I planned to punch out tons of words, but real life drama got in the way. It's all sorted out, so hopefully I'll catch up by the end of this week. It's looking like weekends are going to be my saving grace. Blegh. Not a strong start.

Horrid time today, was so tired for some reason, i only got about 300 words written today. But i am not behind, i am still ahead with 5,408 words written. But i hope to get some more writing done tomorrow. <3

Dance like no one can see you, sing like no one can hear, and write as though your life depends on it. <3

hey Kat! I know something about cheerleading - I coached it for Raymond. I didn't know a thing when I started, but YouTube and Google were my friends. And the movie Bring it On! If you need any info feel free to PM me, I'll try to help! :-)

As far as progress - well I came up with a great idea on Sunday, banged out 1200ish words, and now haven't been able to find any time to make love to my laptop. Silly kids/work/house/dog. Ugh. Hoping to get to the write-in in Epping tonight and make up it.

Anna

Nikki, why didn't you call me??? I could have tried to fix the thing or at least loaned you a spare computer!!

Kat
http://www.katwithak.com
http://www.partylite.biz/KatieWelsh

Thanks, Anna! I'll let you know if I have any specific questions.

Kat
http://www.katwithak.com
http://www.partylite.biz/KatieWelsh