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...