This is a place where one and all can share with the group their progress (or lack there of) and maybe get some motivation to keep going to reach the finish line.
Remember we are competing against each other, but trying to collectively reach an individual goal of finishing a novel, but more importantly learning how to make time to write for the rest of the year.
Each of us have different circumstances and writing styles, so don't let others progress depress you. Youare not themand they are not you.
Just don't make excuses, just write.
Don't play on the Internet, Write!
Don't play games on your computer, Write!
4 days in and I stand at 7101.
Mahalo.
rens
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Michael J Rener
http://www.renspubhouse.netii.net
skype: gudbudie
twitter: renspubhouse
Do or Do Not, There Is No Try.
48,240 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2009 - 09 28
I can most concisely describe my progress as "picking up steam". I had to step away from writing to research a little bit, namely figuring out the location for this segment of my story (Malaysia) and the name of the pivotal character in this segment. I was happily writing along and had to add a second character in a scene, which made the differentiation quite cumbersome. Perhaps I should have written it in a more "last man on earth" vein. ;-)
I've got this evening and the next two days off, which leads into the weekend, so I should really be ripping soon.
37,111 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2009 - 09 47
I'm at 5,320, a nice comeback after slipping on Monday. Nothing like the start of a work week to suck your brain dry.
I just wrote a 600-word blog entry about my NaNo progress so far. Since I talked about NaNo in it, I wonder if, like a business lunch, I can include it in my word count? ;-)
----------32,835 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2009 - 19 52
I am finding it challenging to crank out at least the minimum daily quota, let alone extra to compensate for my slow start. However, I found a few things helpful over the last 24 hours...
Still not really knowing what this story is about, I decided to quit figuring that out and interview some characters for awhile. Holy cow, once you get those people started and they just won't shut up!
TSOD: The home page's Procrastination Station had a link to all the necessary details (http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3266137) Hey, a villain's gotta do what a villain's gotta do...
And don't forget, tomorrow is Guy Fawkes Night (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes_Night). Perfect excuse to have something in your novel get a little crispy!
Now then, back to upping my word count for today...
----------52,188 / 50,000
Nov 5, 2009 - 10 50
I just wrote a 600-word blog entry about my NaNo progress so far. Since I talked about NaNo in it, I wonder if, like a business lunch, I can include it in my word count? ;-)
I say, "Yes." Slap it in quotes and put it in a character's or even a random passerby's mouth. 600-words shouldn't be wasted on blogs when Nanorwrimo's afoot!
48,240 / 50,000
Nov 5, 2009 - 11 26
I see Jeremy isn't wasting any time cranking out the words! ;-)
37,111 / 50,000
Nov 5, 2009 - 11 34
Blathering about a blog could make for a very interesting WWII character. Ooh, time-traveling Nazis!
----------15,448 / 50,000
Nov 5, 2009 - 13 30
I am at about 7800 words. It's been a great learning process to develop my own writing habits.
What I have learned:
1. I can not write in the morning. If I make time at night, I am more likely to accomplish it.
2. Journaling is ok. I some monologue with my character. I figure this is a rough draft, I can edit later.
I just make sure whatever I am writing, does have to do with the story and it not noise like "I have no idea what I am writing please kill me now." LOL
3. I try to not concentrate on plot questions. I've written for magazines and took a journalism class. Whenever I get stuck, I put the mark "t/k" in the section. This is journalistic speak for "to come". I also put it in capitals so I don't miss it when I come back through. It really helps me to move on since I have a marker to come back to.
Just some insight I have gotten into my own writing style - throwing it out there in case it helps anyone else.
Anna
55,340 / 50,000
Nov 5, 2009 - 17 17
Wow, Jeremy! You're so far. XD
I'm currently at about 13k and I've only written the first day of Sam's journey. It's kind of sad. lol Fortunately, though, I'm right on track for reaching 75k by the end of the month even though it's been hard pressed sometimes. Especially tomorrow since I'm heading on down to Caledonia to play pep band. Yay for amazing football teams and playing pep band two hours away from home. xD But boo for being unable to write for my novel unless I write some in a notebook.... Though, I figure that if I don't reach my goal of 75k, I'll still have been going high and I'll for sure hit 50k. Hopefully. :D
Now I really need to get ahead! *writes*
----------2007 - lost
2008 - WON!
2009 - pending excitement <3
32,835 / 50,000
Nov 5, 2009 - 18 49
After today, I'm dragging behind at less than 50% of where I should be (3851/8335). I think I am being hindered by my difficulty in getting my story idea to gel well enough to become a plot. So, right now, my characters are kind of wandering aimlessly, and in circles.
On the positive side, I think I have figured out what the overall genre and plot structure should be.
That said, I wish NaNo used genre checkboxes instead of the single genre choice. If nothing else, I wish Horror and Thriller was split, and maybe Mystery and Suspense as well. I think I've got a Thriller, but it's definitely not Horror. And I may have Suspense, but not much Mystery. It's like my book would fit easily on the B&N shelves, but not the NaNo shelves.
Yes, I know I'm over-analyzing the category, and genre is somewhat subjective. But NaNo just does it wrong! ;)
Tomorrow is another writing day!
(Did anyone burn anything in their story today? I kinda did it yesterday.)
----------37,111 / 50,000
Nov 5, 2009 - 20 25
I firebombed Nürnberg.
----------52,421 / 50,000
Nov 5, 2009 - 21 08
I'm pretty much on task in terms of words written but I want to have a truly successful day very soon. Actually, I'm going to need to have several of them. I just found out we're having four guests for Thanksgiving. My niece, nephew, and their two teen boys will be coming for the weekend. Oh my. Oh, and I sleep in the bed Christi and Mike get to use. Hmmm, I think I'm going to be on the couch. That's fine--it's my sister's house and I love her daughter and family and I know it will be lots of fun--it's the whole writing thing I need to be aware of.
I'm thinking I'll see what the hours are going to be at the library and plan to spend a few hours a day there (not Thanksgiving Day, of course, but the rest of the weekend). I hadn't even thought about not having a non-writing day. Of course if I were still living in Washington I'd have all kinds of time but now I'm in the land of the family. :-)
I'll just have to plan ahead a little and have enough words "in the can" to be able to take a couple of days off without any problem.
For today--I'm a few words ahead of the game--this is a very good thing.
32,835 / 50,000
Nov 6, 2009 - 05 22
I firebombed Nürnberg.
YES!
Mine was related to disposal of a body... (Now if that isn't a bright cheery thought for a sunny morning, IDK what is!)
----------55,711 / 50,000
Nov 6, 2009 - 12 45
Well yesterday I felt like burning down few things after upgrading the system to 9.10(five of hours of downloading and installing) and seeing how they cut out all the drivers for my wireless card.... AaaRRGGHH ! SO I kinda took the day off of writing yesterday and re installed 9.04.
Oh well I guess I have to stay a Jaunty Jackalope and no Karmic Kaola for me :^(
Mahalo.
rens
----------Michael J Rener
http://www.renspubhouse.netii.net
skype: gudbudie
twitter: renspubhouse
Do or Do Not, There Is No Try.
40,034 / 50,000
Nov 8, 2009 - 06 26
I'm having an awesome time writing - just wondering what the characters are going to do next since right now, setting up my imaginary city with my characters has been a great time. I seem to have the one dude who's going to be the major issue just sitting there, waiting for me to come and claim him as the bad guy. But then I think, "Ah, maybe he's not so bad."
We've been trying to sell our house for the past year. Shockingly, in my story, the bad guy is a politician who owns a real estate empire.
Therapy for the soul, a couple thousand words at a time.
Happy ML appreciation day, by the way!
Back to work.....
48,240 / 50,000
Nov 8, 2009 - 10 15
Writing is fairly therapeutic and ends up being like dream analysis. With the urgency of your writing this month, there is a lot of first impressions that end up on the page. Now is not the time to figure it out, but why is that your first impression. In my genius work, I have a situation where two parents and two daughters move to West Germany after the fall of the wall. The father is ex-Stasi, so he's escaping his past. So how does the family cope with the relocation is the question. For me the girls have no problem and have friends within days, but then its a bit of keeping up with the joneses in their social circle, which is foreign to East German kids, to an extent. Why did I write that? It flowed naturally from my finger-tips.
31,592 / 50,000
Nov 8, 2009 - 18 54
Well, at 11,783 I stand 100 some words above the DRA (daily recommended amount). I work overnight tonight so should have a good chance of making lots of progress. Working from sketches that go back two years it's interesting to find four words in the margin and turn them into major scenes and whole plot lines. It's setting up some nice alternative characters and juicy red herrings for my 1920's historical mystery.. With an editor from Poisoned Pen possibly interested, "Damn the participle and full speed ahead!"
Leland
52,188 / 50,000
Nov 9, 2009 - 06 50
Blathering about a blog could make for a very interesting WWII character. Ooh, time-traveling Nazis!
See, excellent idea! Or, swap out "blog" for "journal" or something else less anachronistic...
Everything I type/think stays. I have several spots where, for no appearnet reason, a character will say, "What the f--k was I thinking?" or "I forgot what I was going to type!" and similar...Now is not the time to edit out the garbage or irrelevant noise. Now is the time to let the garbage be what it is. Diarrhea of the words, so to speak. 11 other months for editing...if I so choose...
38,000 / 50,000
Nov 9, 2009 - 09 18
14,000 words and counting. Last Friday night, I put my social life on hold and played catch up. I had 7,000 words and wanted to double that in one night. So I did. I wrote from 9:30 to 5 pretty continuously, taking breaks only to get occasional refreshments, and it worked for me. I wrote 7,000 words in about 6 hours of good writing. There were chunks of time where I wasn't terribly productive, so I'm not including that in my 'good' writing comment.
Anyway, I'm relatively on track to do this, so I'm going to keep working away. My goal is 3,000 words tonight.
32,835 / 50,000
Nov 9, 2009 - 11 31
If the last few days is any indication, I'm writing it all in my head, if even that. Zero progress since Thursday night.
Of course, deciding to load Windows 7 wouldn't have anything to do with yesterday's lack of progress.... Installing the OS itself was cake, and easier than any other version ever. It was the waiting for Office and Visual Studio's near-endless supply of updates to download and install. While that was going on, though, I was able to work more on where my plot is supposed to be going, so it wasn't an entirely lost day. Close, but not entirely.
Hopefully, my family will let me hide most of the evening, so I can make some major headway. Seeing that others have been able to pull themselves forward into the running again is encouraging. It's too soon to have doubts about finishing!
----------10,573 / 50,000
Nov 9, 2009 - 12 07
I'm pretty much crawling to my word count everyday - notebooks are terrible to continue in (on?) for too long, and I remember why I love my home computer so much. As for the actually content, there are some "interesting" pieces and I'm still beating my inner editor over and over again. I'll make it, dead or alive.
48,240 / 50,000
Nov 9, 2009 - 15 16
Perhaps a major OS update wasn't the best thing to do. ;-)
I made sure that my system was fully updated, new apps (scrivener) in place, tested, and training done. I even went so far as to go through the process of cleaning up behind my server rack and get rid of unused cables and reroute things for organizational sake. And my office is cleaner and more organized than it has been in probably a decade. I went so far as to go through piles that have been untouched for a half decade and "culled the crap", which was usually a 90% reduction in volume. I wanted all the good organizational karma possible to fill my sails with inspiration. I even went through all my email inboxes and largely cleared them out. Less cruft in my face, the less distractions I have.
55,711 / 50,000
Nov 10, 2009 - 05 46
Well I figured out he last chapter and the epilogue. Now to fill in the ruddy details between where I am now and where I decided i am going to end up.
mahalo
----------rens
Michael J Rener
http://www.renspubhouse.netii.net
skype: gudbudie
twitter: renspubhouse
Do or Do Not, There Is No Try.
32,835 / 50,000
Nov 10, 2009 - 08 18
No, probably not. ;) Such are the pitfalls of maintaining status as the geek to seek when we begin tweaking code for the company-wide migration to Win7. If only I had been able to do my own upgrade before NaNo!
Now that's a project I WILL be putting off until after NaNo. What's another 20+ days after 10+ years? ;)
I did make progress last night. Not as much as I had hoped, but every little bit helps!
----------51,244 / 50,000
Nov 10, 2009 - 11 28
As of last night I'm at 30,200 + or -, depending on which program is counting.
32,835 / 50,000
Nov 10, 2009 - 14 29
Way to go, Brian!
I scored another 988 during the write-in today, and am now less than a week behind schedule now! Woo-hoo!
I'm excited that I get another 90 minutes to crank something out on the commute home. It's frightening how much NaNo actually makes me want to ride the bus lately! Oh look, time to run for the bus already...
----------38,000 / 50,000
Nov 11, 2009 - 10 10
I'm at 15,000 words total and climbing fast. I'm trying to get caught up by the end of the week, at which point I'm promptly going to fall behind schedule again due to not getting much writing done over the weekend until maybe Sunday afternoon/evening. Oh well.
I'm going to win again this year, I can feel it.
31,592 / 50,000
Nov 11, 2009 - 20 04
13k and change. Only 141 today. today's scene is a dance scene involving the Charleston and Foxtrot that I never thought I'd see my characters do. Up till now they had only tangoed.
32,835 / 50,000
Nov 11, 2009 - 20 47
Progress quite a bit slower today than yesterday, but the characters seem to be taking on lives of their own. I take that as a good sign. Sometime between yesterday and tonight, they all started cooperating with each other toward finding ways of connecting with each other. Also, a few new characters have joined in the fun. Now if only I could get all the ideas in my head on screen!
Psyching myself up for what I hope will be a very productive weekend, NaNo-wise.
----------55,711 / 50,000
Nov 12, 2009 - 05 07
Closing in on the halfway point and the characters are starting to take more responsibility for their own actions and coming more to life.
I am having too much fun with this and wonder why I pu tit off for so long. It's addictive.
I just hope I don't end up like Grady Tripp (From "Wonder Boys") and end up with a 10,000 page novel I can't stop writing. ;^P
Mahalo.
----------Michael J Rener
http://www.renspubhouse.netii.net
skype: gudbudie
twitter: renspubhouse
Do or Do Not, There Is No Try.
32,835 / 50,000
Nov 12, 2009 - 08 19
My characters seem to be changing the plot out from under me. Not that I mind too much, because I have yet been able to merge my two story ideas into something that works, and that has significantly hindered my progress. Now if only I can stay out of the way, and let the characters pull it all together for me...
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