15 December 09

I have continued working on the novel. I now have (I think, anyway) all the major stuff in place, including tweaks to the story-line, several editing passes through everything, and now have the chapter headings like I want them for now. I have been putting in four or five hours most nights, usually ending at three or four in the morning. This last weekend I took off - we spent the whole time with old sailing friend,s one of whom was in town briefly.

And from that I had quite an experience. One of them is halfway through reading the book, the first person other than soul mate to see it. She started reading an older version that was laying on the desk - I wasn't asking anyone to start reading it yet. She said she couldn't put it down and had finished four chapters in a few hours. Thus far she is still enthused - I printed her out her own copy of the current version, and the deal we made was that she would call me when she was finished with it, regardless of the time. I'm looking forward to hearing, but still have that "walking on eggshells" feeling. Also I printed out the most vanilla of my poetry and short stories and it was a real upper to get approving reactions from them both as well. Also a first, the first time anyone outside of twitter has seen them as well.

I haven't rechecked the word count - it's high enough now that I think it will be taken seriously as a novel. I've been going through the post-nano stuff, and much of it is useful information as far as proceeding to the next step. This will be a long process.

9 December 09

The work continues. There were a few days I was just mentally empty before I finally got started on finishing what I set out to do. This involved adding more in areas where I thought the storytelling was a little weak, going through for consistency and plot sequence (never thought I'd use those words together), wording and meaning and just generally being the best work I could possibly produce, and then some more mechanical stuff - renumbering chapters where I added stuff, and so forth. I am just about to do a huge edit - tonight I think - of everything marked up and added. This gets a lot like work sometimes. Programming is easier, but (unfortunately) habitual by this point in my life.

I think the total is somewhere above 75,000 words by now - I'll know better after I'm through merging. At least it's up at the level it needs to be to be taken seriously as a novel. All of my friends made it through the 50,000 word point. They seem to be as shell-shocked as I am, judging by the lack of Twitter traffic or writing adventures from any of them. About the most I can manage is some erotic poetry for MicroFantasyMonday - I couldn't deal with prose in another venue at the moment. This is it.

I'm linking into this from my Facebook page - just finishing getting that up. Ah, technology...

At some point I need to produce a longer synopsis. That will be difficult - I'll probably post it here.

Found a quote (actually a number of quotes) from Hemmingway I liked - "I write about one page of good stuff for every ninety-nine pages of shit. I try to leave the shit in the trashcan"

28 November 09

Last night, or more correctly this morning at 1 AM I finished the novel. I feel empty- it has taken all day to just let everything drain out of me. Editing commas and apostrophe's all day and a little revision - not necessary for NaNoWriMo, but satisfying. Soul mate has been typing for me. This morning she asked me what I wanted where I had made an illegible note and I drew a complete blank. I said "I just cant do this right now." Took fifteen or twenty minutes to pull myself together and figure out what I meant. Sometime later tonight I'll run it through the word counter and pick up my win sticky - reminds me a lot of getting a finisher's pin in an enduro. It doesn't mean you did good, but it does mean you finished.



Some wag on the #nanowrimo twitter line posted something like "I used to have a life before nanowrimo. I just cant remember what it was" I am trying to get a list together of all the things I've let slide during November to get here. Starting with picking up the living room in my tiny LA apartment so I can walk across the floor without tripping. Clean dishes would be cool too. Getting the car smogged and licensed so I dont get a ticket. And maybe having an evening that isn't committed to 4 or 5 hours of writing, maybe get back to some TV. And having a weekend that isn't spoken for. Wow, I can imagine it.



The end result when I stopped typing was 64,383 words. Between now and the week of 6 December I'll be sending out copies to my review board. That's when I find out if its any good or not.



I wish the best of luck to my fellow competitors. Keep going, you've got a chance if you hustle.

24 November 09

Wrote much of the night last night. Wanted to sleep but the words just kept coming. If it weren't for Thanksgiving coming up I might have done so, but I'm heading from LA to home, so I needed the time today.

I am excited because I can see the end now. I have less than two and a half chapters left, the outline and my thoughts are pretty well matched up, and I expect to finish on schedule on Friday some time. Then its time to take care of the mechanical details of submission for NaNoWriMo and then start the editing and polishing process. Wow. I am really stoked. This was a new experience for me, one I was expecting to approach gradually in a few years.

I've also lined up several people to serve as a review board - I need the input as to how it reads.

Ultimately I have to decide if this is good enough to pursue an agent and try for publication. That will be a tough call. I hope it's good enough - so far when I go back and re-read things I find things I want to change (I'd be worried if that weren't true) but I dont think its crap. I've heard that comment from others and I dont understand, I guess. "I've written X thousand words, but its all crap" Why write junk just for the sake of getting junk on paper?

I am most of the way through chapter 23, and my total is 58, 085 words. Looking back at my earliest posts I'm glad I stuck it out. It hasn't been easy.

20 November 09

Posting this after the fact. Friday represented meeting my goal. Finished 50,645 words late Friday night, thus meeting the plan of 50K in 20 days. I really felt like I accomplished something. and I (like many others) put up an "I DIT IT" post on the twitter #nanowrimo topic. Finished Chapter 19 and well into chapter 20. I also can see the next 5 chapters to the end (finally) and the plot is falling into place. It looks like it will go a little over 60,000 words - the tale grows in the telling (Chaucer, isn't it? - I dont recall for sure. but it applies).

Anyway its interesting how the contents of #nanowrimo have changed in the last week. There seem to be fewer articles website references and more sticking to the job at hand. I'm guessing a mood change in the writers, but I dont know.

Anyway I'm happy. Luck to everyone.

19 November 09

Continuing on in relaxed mode, completed another chapter. Total word count 46,459 for a daily total of 2426. Also did some research on synopses and discovered that I'm not the only one who finds them difficult. Finally found a very useful suggestion on here

http://www.writing-world.com/publish/leblanc.shtml.

So I gave it a shot and thought I'd share. Also discovered that the standard font is courier unless the agent specifies something different - that wasnews as well...

Any comments welcome...

Synopsis of: Lucky Lady Genre: Romance

Mara Hennessey deals with the loss of her parents and childhood sweetheart by withdrawing. As a favor to her best friend she accompanies her to a sailing gathering; there she meets Peter Miller, a younger skipper who invites her to join his crew for local sailing races. As their friendship deepens she learns of his dream to enter a dangerous solo Trans-Atlantic race. He takes her into his confidence and she becomes co-leader of the team building his race boat and supporting his run across the ocean. Their friendship turns to passionate love during a relaxing short vacation in the Caribbean, and she later earns his respect and gratitude when she rescues him after an injury at sea. She is surprised to make the friendship of a group of other women while they all wait for their partners to complete the dangerous ocean crossing. An intense storm destroys his boat and she fears she must once again find the strength to deal with loss. In the end, though, love triumphs over the sea in unexpected ways.

18 November 09

Well, finally. Back to a normal plodding 2,500 word day (actually 2,800 and change). After yesterday I was kind of drained. I needed time to think and let the story evolve in my mind ( or maybe NOT think and let the story evolve). I had to leave it alone for a while even though I did have time during the day to work on it. Did a couple of mechanical things (chapter marker, page numbering, restructuring the outline). The last turned out to be useful. As the story changed the outline was useful, but it was time to tweak it. I also started doing something I should have done before, adding notes into the outline. I've been carrying this stuff in my head.

Anyway, today the total is 44,033. After all the stuff above plus the new chapter I could begin to see the end. That's a really good feeling. Now if Icould just sleep a little better...

17 November 09

Finally had a truly productive day - everything fell into place for the latest 3 chapters (through 16) and I now have a total of 41,230 words. I wound up writing until nearly 4 AM.

I should meet my goal of completing 50K words by the 20th. On another weird note, I finished what I think is one of the most sensual scenes I've ever written... and I'm down here by myself. Murphy, I guess :)

Hope all is going well for you all.

16 november 09

Finally - an end to a couple of hellish days. I went through a couple of days where my sleeping schedule was off and I only got a few hours, then got sick. It had nothing to do with nanowrimo - just one of those problems I occasionally have to deal with. Finally recovered Saturday, but for the first time since I started this project I am behind my own schedule, although still, according to nanowrimo, doing fine.

I am complete through the thiteeenth chapter, with a total of 33, 100+ words. That is the good news. the bad news is that I now have three chapters completed above the outline, with one more that I had already planned to add; if things continue to grow as they have thus far then this is closer to the half way point, which means that instead of having a week or more to edit and polish before the end I'll be going right up to the buzzer.

Hopefully I can get a little more output in the next few days and catch up...

10 November 09

I thought I wouldn't have time last night - worked late, had to go shopping, and my tail was dragging. But somehow when I got in AIC mode the words started coming. I finished Chapter 9 and got well into Chapter 10. I'm beginning to wonder how long this will go - I'm thinking I'm outpacing the outline again, although I have hopes of compressing two chapters there. At the moment I could easily see this getting to 300 pages, something I didn't expect.

Totals:

Chapter 1 - 2517
Chapter 2 - 2543
Chapter 3 - 2573
Chapter 4 - 2581
Chapter 5 - 2518
Chapter 6 - 2546
Chapter 7 - 2573
Chapter 8 - 2570
Chapter 9 - 2516
Chapter 10 - 712 (In progress)

Total: 23749, a gain last night of 2591. I'll take what I can get...

Tonight I should hit the "official" half way point, although as noted previously I suspect I'll be going a little beyond that.

Good luck to all the rest of you...

09 November 09

Wow what a rush today. I had an ususual chance today. The last few weeks at work have been overloaded with mental exercise, i.e busy thinking things out most of the time. Today though I've been working on something that takes a long time to build. So I had some time at work to sneak in a little NaNoWriMo. Unusual.

So todays values are:

Chapter 1 - 2517
Chapter 2 - 2543
Chapter 3 - 2573
Chapter 4 - 2681
Chapter 5 - 2518
Chapter 6 - 2546
Chapter 7 - 2573
Chapter 8 - 2570
Chapter 9 - 637 (in progress)

And the grand total (and this one, as they say in Texas Tea, is really grand) is

21158 Ahhhhhhh !

Today I managed 5164 words. A-f***ing-mazing. Well, to me anyway. Evenwith the weekend being dedicated to something else we are still 1K ahead of plan, a plan that ignores little things like commitments to something else. Wow. I'm a happy camper. Or a crappy hamper, as little Brian used to say.

And now, it's time for bed. It's tired out.

08 November 09

OK - this will be an end of the weekend update. Saturday and much of Sunday was spoken for in another venue. (Ironically it was another contest which embodies human endurance as well ). I got no writing done at home, so the pieces were squeezed in on the plane. Sunday night I was ready to collapse, having had only 3 or 4 hours of broken sleep. but I sat down to try for a little more while I waited for the Chardonay to take effect. Somehow I found a little more creativity and endurance than I was expecting, and I picked up a little more. The totals through Sunday night thus are:

Chapter 1 - 2517
Chapter 2 - 2543
Chapter 3 - 2573
Chapter 4 - 2681
Chapter 5 - 2518
Chapter 6 - 2546
Chapter 7 - 616 (still in progress)

With an over the weekend total of 2934. So all in all it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Grand total: 15994

Also I found another area where I think a chapter will be added. Means the book is longer, but makes nanowrimo more difficult if I'm going to finsih everything in time.

Luck to us all...

5 November 09 - End of Day

Actually it's 0200 the next morning. This is gonna be tough cause I gotta get up early tomorrow. Wow, was tonight productive.

Where we is now:

Chapter 1 - 2517
Chapter 2 - 2543
Chapter 3 - 2573
Chapter 4 - 2681
Chapter 5 - 2518
Chapter 6 - 246

Total: 13078 - I feel like I've really crossed into another level. Also, chapter 4 split into 2 and also chapter 21. Hopefully I can be over-productive and get them squeezed in over the same period.

Tonight: 481+2518+246 = 3245 - best yet - just got on a roll late tonight...

Tomorrow will be tough - maybe 45 minutes waiting for the plane and about the same on the plane. Hopefully I dont have to explain novel-writing to someone...

And this is a tough weekend, over-committed.

At least we're a little ahead of plan...

5 November AM

Actually didn't feel good yesterday, and only got two hours in last night. Woke up early today and decided to skip the gym to get caught up. So - totals are:

Chapter 1 - 2517
Chapter 2 - 2543
Chapter 3 - 2573
Chapter 4 - 2200 (almost finished)

Total 9833 words - coming up on the magic 10k point!

This gives me a total for last night/this morning of 2814 words, best night yet I think. Tonight will be a contest of priorities since the 49rs have a Thursday night game.

Looks like I may insert another chapter, since sime of this is coming out longer than I thought it was going to. Much better than coming out short. I'm happy with where the story is going (even though I wonder if I'm fighting off the flu or something...

03 November 09

This is getting to be a lot like grad school...

OK - this morning I had to blow off the gym because I had to do rent and prepare for shopping. After work I HAD to go shopping (I'm running out of food here - next nanowrimo I will stockpile food like a bear in hibernation. Logistics - big mistake. And I'm supposed to know better...)

So not only do I have that problem but being a small business (as I referred to before) I missed my date for submiting taxes. It's more a PainITA than anything else, but it takes awhile to get everythihng set up and out the door - due to the computer issues had to bring up the laptop, etc, etc... just lost too much time, but the necessary forms for the socialist in the whitehouse and the peoples republic of kalifornia are finsished, ready to be signed, and the appropriate (inappropriate?) checks are filled out, ready to go...

So - I have an external keyboard for the laptop, which eliminates the STUPID cases where the finger pad (or whatever they call it) catches my hands going by and drops a sentence in the middle of the work... frustrating. Damn Sony anyway. Now that doesn't happen. Also lets me use my new big monitor that hasn't been interfaced to anything else.


So I keep typing. I finished Chapter 2 (which I was beginning to despair on) and a good part of Chapter 3 - wow, I'm ahead of plan by 500 words. Good thing, because I need to fly back home on Friday and I'm going to be short of time. An hour (max) in the terminal, an hour on the plane (people next to you wondering why your little fingers keep dancing in the keys way faster than they can - I've been asked) Anyway trying to fit a schedule for the rest of the week which will be a b*tch.

Stats:

Ch 1: 2517
Ch 2: 2543
Ch 3: 1759 (incomplete)

Total: 6819 !!!

I probably could go further, but I am really getting tired. I can't do any creative stuff at work - I'm just too busy - but I may try to add a few words in the morning.

Anyway - love all you fellow nanowrimo's - have a good one

2 November 09

Its 12:30 and I'm tired. OK, my totals are:

Chapter 1 - complete, 2517 words.
Chapter 2 - Half way - 1277 words

Total 3794 - whee! No where near the 8 to 10K that others have, but I like what I've written so far.

Got in 4 hours toight - I was hoping for 5, but between work and gym time I'm running a little ragged here.

I promised an excerpt, so here is the first paragraph

------------------------------

Mara opened her eyes slowly, focusing on the unreal splendor of the sun setting over the ocean. She was foggy, hazy almost - the stupor induced by the meds making it hard to remember anything. She sat up on the couch for a minute, closing her eyes to regain her composure. The meds. Oh yes, she was taking meds. She was taking them for…depression, that was it. She was depressed, but why? She had never needed them before. It all came back to her so fast she almost felt she’d been struck. Peter was lost. He was gone and he wasn’t ever going to come back, was he. He had been the light of her life, truly her soul mate. She had waited for him after she’d been cheated of the sweetheart who’d grown with her since childhood. She’d waited thinking that it could never happen again - one woman just doesn’t get two chances at fulfilling love like that, but she had. She had felt supremely lucky. And now she’d been cheated again. It just wasn’t fair…

Beginning - 1 November 09

OK - its 2 November and I have started a new project. Thanks to my twitter friends @caseydamnmorgan, @asparkle, @nettagyrl, and @adelehaze who got me interested in National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo, as in www.nanowrimo.org) - I've been building up to this for the last six months, I guess - I just didn't realize it. Since it's been nearly 5 decades since I did any creative writing that 6 months has been great - I've been prolific, and the last project I was working on was a 10,000 word short story, so this was the right project at the right time. Also, racing season ended, leaving me some time to be reflective.

I have one advantage (other than old age triumphing over youthful exuberance and good looks) I've written many documents much, much longer than this, both alone and leading teams. So I've got the organization stuff down. However it is a little more difficult to write undying romantic prose than say to analyze the design of a guided missile.

But I digress - the goal here is 50,000 words by the end of the month. My schedule is simplicity itself - Sunday I laid out a story line that broke down into 20 chapters - at 2500 words apiece that gets us there. And it also means 2500 words a day for the next 20 days of the month, leaving me 10 days to polish the work, beg for reviews from my friends (or enemies) etc. Actually, I decided to split the last chapter into two, which is good since it holds the promise of a little extra in case there is a difference in word counting.

The hanger, of course, is that I have a perfectly nice consulting business, which means my time is spoken for during the day. Not to mention a soul mate, who deserves my attention, two partial weekend time commitments, thanksgiving, and maybe a sanity check here and there...It will be interesting, if nothing else. Given a plan, the rest is execution.

So here goes - at this point (actually early Monday afternoon) I am most of the way through the first chapter, along with additional organizing stuff out of the way. I'll try to post to this every day, probably at the end of the day when I'm dying to sleep...