Progress report?

Meandering along at about 3500, and my protagonist is making good progress on getting most of her people killed. :D

I've shot past 7,300 words now, and one of my characters has had an attack of the emo and stormed off into the forest on his own. I'm currently considering running a book on whether it'll be the big guy with the sword or the heroine that bumps him off first - I can't really see him lasting another 10,000 words the way he's going!

Bit of a slow start, but my characters have just started drinking, which means that they'll be waffling on about everything and nothing until Friday. And one of them's just jumped through a window for no good reason. It's going to be one of those NaNo novels...

Well, the murder that fuels the mystery has been committed, and the first red herring has been thrown into the narrative stream.

Altogether, it's going quite well. I'm past quota for the day, and I'm hoping to build up a bit of a surplus tonight so I can concentrate on writing a linguistics essay later this week.

I think my emo character might last a while longer yet. He seems to have developed the ability to kill someone with a touch. Not sure how that happened, but I think he's gonna last more than 10,000 words now. Oh well, so much for bumping him off nice and early.

Of course, this might conveniently turn him into a badguy since I don't have one yet!

I'm struggling a bit this year, churning out words because I have to rather than because I'm feeling any particular enthusiasm for the plot or characters. Samuel so far seems like a bit of a philosophical whinger who is just feeling old and miserable. I think I'm going to brighten things up a bit tomorrow - kill off one child, have one turn back towards the darkness and get the other seventeen into the light. Maybe. Then I can concentrate on world building on Wednesday before the next group of initiates turns up in Samuel's half-way house on Thursday. Since that group includes Samuel's future apprentice Jason, it'll give me someone to bounce a bit of dialogue and exposition off which will help with the pace a little (fingers crossed).

Meanwhile, I've got to the daily quota and I'm going to have an early night.

First year, late-comer (is that a word) and up to 15 words so far (and already distracted *sigh*) :)

Yeah - it's going OK. 3147 words in, 5 main characters introduced with the sixth lurking in the background. (He's the enigmatic priest; he's entitled to lurk a bit!)

But - flippin' heck - who knew writing was going to be this hard! My brain aches, and this should be the easy bit, introducing the characters. What'll happen when there's actual - you know - plot and that? Mental meltdown, I shouldn't wonder.

Enough procrastinating. 777 word minimum tonight to keep on course.

Well I've just reached the end of the first day of writing - 10,735 words down, just over 39000 to go. I've got another day off tomorrow, so I might be able to do another huge chunk then before I go back into work on wednesday. Damn them, don't they know this writing stuff is important?!?!? I'll probably not be able to write anything while I'm in work, so hoping to get the biggest head start that I can.

The main three characters are all doing ok, although I'm surprised by the way the characters are shaping up - the big dumb brute with a sword is turning out to be less dumb than I thought, and the heroine has turned out to be hearing music which no-one else can. Oh and Emoguy is turning into the badguy... no idea where he's going or what he's up to since he vanished about 3,000 words into the story! I'm sure he'll be back at some point in the not too dim and distant future.

The two good guys are currently looking for somewhere to sleep for the night, and I suspect that there might be an ambush, but that will have to wait until the morning - I can't quite see how it's going to happen in my mind just yet, but I can almost see the ambush happening....

It's going really well. I've only got the bare minimum of words; 1667 a day but it's going well; I'm really pleased with what I have to write.

Nano 06: Scarlet 151. Bio terrorist attacks wipe out the population of my home town.

Nano 07: Breathe. A story of recovery, love, and change. Possible start of a trilogy.

Nano 08: Disconnect. (Never got off the ground due to illness)

Sloooow. I'm 5000 words behind my target, and writing at 500 words/day when I've had whole days free (and the foxes were hiding under people's sheds last night because of the rain).

My Action-Packed Prologue(TM), in which supporting character #1 grabbed the plot-stick from leading character, was on the page by the end of Sunday's write-in, and he refused to let anyone else get a word in yesterday, despite not having put his pants on yet.

Speaking of which, it's almost time to catch the bus to work!

Have a gurt productive day 3, everyone!

Shaun

"Don't get it right - get it written" - Mrs Mills

Yea! Just cracked 5000 words, neatly corresponding to the end of Chapter 1.
All main characters introduced - now to make them suffer

After a dull start (essential character development stuff I like to think) I've just introduced a new character that's started to spice things up! I really love the way that if I'm bored writing, I know my audience will be bored reading, so it is clearly time to throw a ninja* into the mix!

:)

*no real ninjas were used in the making of my novel

"Learn as much as I can, at whatever cost, then give it away for free and ask for nothing in return"

And I thought last night's progress was awful...

I've managed three paragraphs of painful stilted stuff that I'm probably going to end up being deleted. In fact..... I might just delete the last thousand or so words for being so pitifully bad....

Nothing can save where I am right now - I've tried random men bursting in with guns (well, the fantasy equivalent), I've tried "but it was all a dream", and I've even tried the literary fade to black.

Unfortunately, what I've written makes the infamous shower scene in Dallas look like the finest writing of (pick any novelist you like - it's that bad :()

So far today almost 1700 words, which brings the total up to 19K+. I am still writing more this evening, so plan to hit minimum 20K, but hopefully more.

I am aiming for a full first draft (about 80K to 90K) so I have got to give myself high targets to finish the whole thing in November. But so far it's going well, and really enjoying NaNoWriMo experience.

Writing Blog - www.lostwanderer5.blogspot.com

Journaling Blog - www.journal-addict.blogspot.com

Hello. It's going alright for me. Hoping to finish chapter one tonight, although I currently have no plan for chapter two.

My novel was being pathetically slow and difficult and today it just got worse because my love interest revealed to my MC that he was an alien and she went "yeah right, aliens don't exist," which was a bit of a blow. But then he started being all weirdly psychic and my MC and I both said "uh, that's not very normal."

Then it turned out he was a time travelling alien - think somewhere between Doctor Who, Sliders and The Time Travellers Wife - and you've got where my story is headed. And all of a sudden things have gotten very interesting.

I don't come up with these things, they honestly think of themselves. I was sat in the Write-In, clutching my head in amazement going "good grief, that's utterly brilliant."

"It's not easy having a good time. Even smiling makes my face ache."

Ok well it was going quite smoothly but now it seems to be slowly grinding towards a halt and two of my characters seem to have completely disappeared... :S Hopefully I can rectify this over the weekend.

Still having a load of fun with it though!

'the little bit (two Inches wide) of Ivory on which I work with so fine a Brush, as produces little effect after much labor' Jane Austen

I just wrote THE worst sex scene that anyone has ever written ever. I think next year my characters should all be celibate.

Wait. What? Where did those two characters appear from, and what are they doing in my novel? They're nothing to do with me, I swear!

Still, they brought words to the party, and that's the important part.

Shaun

"Don't get it right - get it written" - Mrs Mills

20k. I am implausibly awesome. :D

And probably fairly knackered, having written until 2:20am?

Well done!!

"It's not easy having a good time. Even smiling makes my face ache."

Yes, shattered! And I have to spend today expanding the bare-bones stuff I scribbled down yesterday. But my graph is very happy with me. :D

Mine isn't.

A mad week has stopped me from writing since the 2nd, and now I can finally get back to it I've completely lost interest in the idea. I know what's happening next and what will come later, but I can't seem able to actually write it - I just took ten minutes to write 86 words.

So as of right now, it's going horribly. Maybe I should give up on this one - start writing something else and see where it goes.

Hopefully I'll have better progress to report tomorrow!

Hanelissar, don't give up! if you know what's coming, write that and fill in the inbetweens later on, it still counts towards the words, and it means you can do the bits you want to do rather than just trucking on with setting ups and plotbits...

2008 - Running On Faith - 62k
2009 - Dead Letters - ??

23 and a half and zzz. Time for more writings at the write-in tomorrow.

Oooh, a feeble day! 130-something words.

OTOH I was brave enough to let a friend read my efforts; and she laughed and went 'ooh!' in the right places, and demanded a sex scene between the least disturbing pairing of characters...which is all good & encouraging, so I won't give up just yet 8-)

Shaun

"Don't get it right - get it written" - Mrs Mills

Mine is looking at me sternly over its spectacles, and drumming its fingers...

"Don't get it right - get it written" - Mrs Mills

17,000 words went past a little while ago, so I've finally made it past the dead-end I was in earlier. Now all I need to do is figure out how to get the two main characters down the face of a cliff without the BadGuy catching up with them. Jumping is not really an option either unfortunately....

Looks like I might make that write in yet - although no idea what I'm gonna do, say... or thinking about it - not even sure I'm gonna find anyone. Can someone give a lost, scared and generally nervous person a clue as to what I'm looking for?