Hi guys! It's Stuart, from the East Orlando NaNoWriMo writers' group!
I have to say that this has been the most wonderful challenge I've ever taken. I never thought I'd get even this far, and I never thought I could get this far this soon, but today . . . I crossed the 30.000 word mark. I'm 3/5 of the way through the challenge.
My work is a novel exploring the creation myths of the Lucumi (Santeria) faith. Some of you might know that the Lucumi religion comes from the Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria, and we share the same mythology.
I'm a bit disappointed in myself. I ran what I have of my novel by my godfather today, and it turns out that I have some of the events out of sequence. So I have to stop, backup, cut it apart and piece it back together again. It's going to take me a few hours to do that; however, once I'm done, to recapture the "flow" I have additional material and scenes to write. Once I write this additional material and scenes in the new order given by my godfather, more or less, my novel will be done.
At least the rough draft, that is.
I'm wondering how far the other members of the local NaNoWriMo group have gotten with their own work? Can anyone give updates?
Stuart (a.k.a. Ochani Lele)
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14,828 / 50,000
Nov 6, 2009 - 03 20
Wow, 30K. That is an impressive word count! I think normally you're not supposed to edit during NaNoWriMo, just draft as much as you can and edit later, but since you're so far ahead, you probably have time to get your sequencing straightened up and still get your 50K finished.
I'm only at 6,692 right now, so a little behind but not out of the game altogether. I'm not much for writing after work, so I've been trying to write in the early morning but I think I'm going to put in extra time this weekend to get caught up and get a jump on next week.
I'm a first-time NaNo-er, and this first week, it's been tough to silence my inner editor. The first day of NanNo, I was so paralyzed by fear that I didn't type so much as a cover page. Finally, I had to kind of force myself to sit down and get started. Now that I'm on a roll, it's getting easier but when I'm not writing, it's still hard to silence that voice that tells me this is silly and my story is crap. My husband has been super-supportive though, which really helps. He's been listening to me brag about my word count every day, god bless him!, and he is totally behind me doing this.
How's everyone else doing? Any other first-timers out there want to share how the experience has been so far?
-- Diane
35,959 / 50,000
Nov 6, 2009 - 05 11
I'm in awe of that 30K. Then again, I was poking around yesterday and saw someone who'd already filled the bar. o_O
7555 here, which was great when I got there on Wednesday night and not so great when I failed to do any writing at all yesterday. Curse you, career survey! 30 pages of listing accomplishments and evaluating talents and BLECH.
Sunday was very good: I broke 2800, I think partly because I made it to the first write-in. Haven't done as well as that since--1400+ Monday and only 1200+ Tuesday--but I broke 1700 Wednesday and was still ahead of the ideal total count and was so proud. Sigh.
Then again, after this morning's Career Assessment class (Curse you, career survey!), I'm planning to spend a few hours writing at a cafe or something--maybe at the site of the first write-in; that really is a good spot. Tomorrow will be busy until evening, but then I've got a few hours more. And Sunday ... there's something a friend wants me to do in the afternoon, but that shouldn't take more than an hour or two. So here's hoping.
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59,742 / 50,000
Nov 6, 2009 - 21 39
Congrats on the 30K!
There's a few people I've seen that have not only filled the bar, but have gone over 20, 30K.
I'm at the moment, pacing myself. As long as I write about 2,000 words a day, I should be able to make it. I've been going over but I'm not letting myself get under the 2,000 word limit. Plus, I have to remember I have an essay due for class by the end of the month as well, and I can't afford to fail the class haha.
But so far, I'm pretty impressed at myself. I'm keeping up with most of the word count I've seen, and I haven't run into any muck yet, yay!
----------52,326 / 50,000
Nov 7, 2009 - 08 06
Hi Guys!
Yes, it's Stuart again!
I took yesterday off from writing. My brain was fried. I returned to it at 6:00AM. I did some backtracking and added additional material in previous chapters. I just updated my word counts. After 5 hours of writing, I am at 35,288 words. Only 14,712 left to go. I'm so close.
This has been an incredibly creative week. I'm feeling empowered.
To be honest, I never thought I could do anything approaching a novel, so until NaNoWriMo, I've never tried. All my published works to date have been nonfiction (Ochani Lele is my pen name -- google me or look my books up on amazon). I finished a collection of short stories a couple of months ago, and my publisher contracted for it. It comes out in August 2010.
So, between my experiment with short stories and this wonderful thing called NaNoWriMo, I might, just might, be able to call myself a professional novelist in a few months!
Thank God for the NaNoWriMo people!
Stuart.
PS: I'm probably bringing 4 more NaNoWriMo'ers with me to Starbucks on Colonial Drive tomorrow night. We had a writeathon here at my apartment a few nights ago. We got a lot done!
37,570 / 50,000
Nov 8, 2009 - 19 58
Wow! You're almost finished. Congrats! Don't feel you have to stop at 50,000, though. Keep on writing.
----------I'm a bit behind, but nothing that I can't catch up to. I've got a few days off coming up this week, so I intend to make good use of them... providing I can peel my attention from the forums and facebook and all that. ;)
The Guise of a Traitor -- NaNoWriMo 2009