Monday, November 22, 2010

Oh Hey, I'm Done

Saturday I finished, just before heading off to see Harry Potter. I took the time to shower, but that was even a close call. As a result, I didn't get to validate my wordcount and all that until Sunday. Oh well. I'm trying to remember... finishing on the 20th might not be my fastest time for wordcount, but I'm pretty sure it's my fastest for finishing the novel. I love it when a plan comes together. Yiridi and Poeyan died, Derad and Antrin got to move on with life... happiness. I probably didn't handle my plot very well, as usual, but it's NaNo, so I don't care. I don't.


I probably missed a few scenes (almost definitely the epilogue) on description, but I did say to the best of my ability, didn't I? So anyway, I managed to include a lot more description than usual. I'm pretty pleased with that. Technically I always have some description in a scene, because whenever someone does anything I describe that, but we were talking intentional appearance description and such-like. Uhm, anyway, I think I might get my map.

Now that NaNo's done, I can resume working on origami Christmas decorations and working on a few recorded songs (which is kind of a secret project for a friend's family so I won't talk about it much, even though none of them read my blog), things like that. I'm taking the week off of school, since if I take off I might as well take a whole week or else mess up my schedule. I need to read a few day's worth of Frankenstein, but that's pretty much all the "homework" I have. I also need to finish up the story I started posting to FictionPress, and maybe work on editing Crystal Frontier a little bit more, since I have a few friends wanting to read that one too.

And Christmas lists. Crud. I hate making those.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Nearing the Finish Line!

Probably a short post today. My novel is nearing completion (I miscalculated my chapters before. I usually have 12 chapters in a book, but I've only got 10 in this one), and I have... 43,000-odd words as of last night. I was hoping maybe to finish up my word goal and story by the time we head out to see Harry Potter 7 Part 1 this evening, but I don't know if I'll manage it. 6,000 or so words in a day, with a later start than I wanted and an earlier finish than possibly desirable? I'm going to be too tired to write by the time I get home. Hmm... Eh, piece of cake. Six or seven hours of writing are still in the day. If I can just hide and keep myself away from distractions, like the computer and my blog. I owe my non-existent readers an update, don't I? Or maybe not.

Anyway, with the scenes I have left and the words I have left I need about 2300 words per scene or 4600 words per chapter, not including epilogue, but of course epilogues are short for me. My prologues are usually longer than my epilogues. Just a little finishing up touch because I can't resist. I usually should just edit them out. Oh well.

Um, what else... Rapa is planning on doing the absolutely insane thing of writing virtually all of her 50,000 during Thanksgiving break. Oh dear. She's got a few thousand, but that's still 40,000+ to be written in something like nine days, three of which are spent at her mom's. But I should probably poke her into posting that on her own blog, shouldn't I?

Wordwars and candy! And fudge. Lots of fudge.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

It's Not Just for Blog Posts!

Did you know that there's this thing called rambling? I tend to employ it a lot when I'm blogging, but I heard something new Saturday: this rambling thing can be used in novels too. So instead of advancing my plot -- which is running out -- on Saturday night, I spent near 2,000 words sending my characters on a tour of the capital city. Since then I've stayed in chapter five, and I'm close to 20,000 words now. Worries quickly vanish in the face of the ramble!

Anyway, it's Week Two!

Friday, November 5, 2010

There May be a Slight Problem...

NaNoWriMo is perking along happily (the verb "to perk along" might make the adverb "happy" redundant, but I'm not sure), and the awesome people at OLL even managed to get their site to speed up finally! Poor NaNoSite...

Anyway, all might not be well with my novel. I have a plot. That's not the problem. I love my plot. That's not the problem either (the plot isn't the problem on two counts!) My characters are interesting enough, I suppose, and I've described most of them adequately. I should add more description to Antrin. I forgot, ok? But that's not the problem I'm speaking of.

I've been doing a little under a chapter a day. Nice pace, for when I want to finish a novel, but here's the problem. My wordcount says I'll only be 26% of the way to 50,000 words by the end of today (assuming I write just my usual 2,000 words). With 12 chapters, I'm nearly halfway through my book, but only a quarter of the way to the goal. This is a slight problem, and now is the time to correct it, yes? Usually my later chapters will stretch longer anyway, but now I need to not worry about curtailing conversations and suchlike. Getting bored with them is not a good excuse (well, if they're really really boring.... maybe). I need words!

And it's only Day 5.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

I Slept in Today...

Kinda. In truth it was mostly a case of comfy bed syndrome. At any rate, I haven't gotten anything written yet today. So! I have a plan. I will write some 500 words, and then I get to practice a song on piano. Then another 500, followed by another song. Repeat until I have 2,000. After that I get to play just about as much as I want.

We'll see how this works. Other than that, NaNo has been going well. I could technically skip today if I wanted, but I'm not going to. I'm not.