Hello NaNo-Verse! I apologize for not updating this at all during the month of November, but I hope that you all will forgive me, because it was an incredibly busy month! Despite having to help with a show, pass all my classes, work part-time during the Black Friday/Holiday season, organize Bangor Area Write-Ins and other NaNo related events, AND attempt to retain some kind of a social life…

I managed to win NaNoWriMo this year.

With 56,701 words at midnight on December 1st, Derailed was not completed, but I definitely hit the 50k mark, and I was pretty darn proud of it. Even today my novel is not finished, but hopefully it’ll happen sometime soon. I’m getting there, I’m getting there. I swear.

It wasn’t easy though, I’m not going to lie. There’s going to be a lot editing going on in the next couple of months. I want to make sure that Sam’s character isn’t so much of an asshole, really. He’s just too much of a jerk, and Abby’s supposed to have a real problem trying to decide between him and Drew. Drew’s character and background story needs to be developed more, which will probably happen with more flashbacks and memories from Abby’s point of view.

Oh and Abby needs to be less of a whore. Haha. I mean, she’s not really a whore, but I don’t like how she is very much, and she’s kind of supposed to be me, so…I have some fixing to do.

It’s really hard when your characters are based on real people. I’ve mentioned this before, I know, but I can’t emphasize it enough. I’m thoroughly paranoid of the fact that people will recognize themselves if I ever intend to publish, so I think I’m going to change a little bit, so the characters aren’t so obvious. I mean, quite a few people would be thoroughly honored to be a character, but…I don’t know. Haha. Sorry, me just being paranoid I guess. :]

Anywho, I got a letter from Aynslie today that pretty much made my whole weekend. (It’s been incredibly stressful lately, as many are aware of, I’m sure.)

She said:

About a month ago I tried to attempt what many may have done before me – attempt NaNoWriMo without actually entering into NaNoWriMo.  That is, write 50,000 words on my work-in-progress fantasy novel in the month of November.

The verdict: epic fail.

Try 10,000 words (which, to be fair, is not that bad under the circumstances).  I tried, I really did.  But I just couldn’t find the time.  For most of the month, I was working 13-15 hour days, 5 days a week.  Travel time to and from work took up 1.5-2 hours per day.  Factor in 7-8 hours of sleep a night, keeping up with blog posts and needing almost the entire weekend to unwind and recover, that didn’t leave much time for writing.

Where does that leave me?  Two positives came out of this experience.  One, I progressed another 10,000 words on that first draft.  Two, and more importantly, I know for certain that if I ever want to finish this book, I need to find another job.  At this rate, it would probably take another 10 years, so it doesn’t really leave me much choice.

The good thing is that after yet another brutal week, I don’t feel like all hope is lost.  Even though I should be catching up on some much needed sleep, I ended up getting up earlier than usual because all I wanted to do was write.  That’s a good sign, isn’t it?

I finished writing the first draft of my first “official” novel in seven months: 3rd May-3rd December. I say “official” because I’ve written two others that were too short to be called novels but when I wrote them I thought of them as novels.

If by May 3rd 2010, I’ve finished editing/revising/rewriting it, then it would have taken an entire year from start to finish. Pretty good, I think, for someone who, by then (May 3rd) will be 16.

Word count: 50 956.

*pokes head out*

Anyone here?

First, let me blow the dust off this place.

Holy crap, I’m blogging! Wow, this post has been a long time coming. I’ve actually been pondering when to get out a blog post for a couple of weeks and I’m just coming off a 90-minute writing stint on Spirit Hackers. I’m going to try to keep this blog post somewhat short because while my posts have been few and very far between, I think long ones are a bitch to read, so I’m gonna try to keep it brief.

NaNoWriMo: This year I actually participated in National Novel Writing Month and I will say it was a spectacular failure for me. My grand total was 2,928 words, which is lightyears short of the 50,000 word goal. I really only wrote in three sessions and due to my work schedule I had no opportunities to get into the social aspect of the experience with meeting people and participating in write-ins.

Looking back on NaNo, my biggest enemy was time and also a lack of planning. I didn’t have a plot until November 7th and even then it was just an idea. There was no outline and nothing else. The bottom line: I had no story. I knew it would be a near-impossible task but now I know that unless you go into November with guns-a-blazing and enough ammunition you won’t get far. I’ll likely try NaNo again next year and see what happens.

Spirit Hackers: Contrary to (my imagined) popular belief, Spirit Hackers has not been abandoned and I have been getting words down into it. Granted it’s been slow as a snail but writing is writing. I haven’t forgotten about my old friend and I still believe in the story. I still believe that this can be a successful novel and something that has the potential to sell.

So here’s the overall breakdown of the book’s progress: As of my last update to this blog’s sidebar the book was at 30 pages with a word count of 11,395 words. Based on Scrivener’s stats, the book currently stands at 49 pages with a word count of 18,448. Now of course I’ve gotten writing done here and there since that last update so this jump is a compilation of many sessions. Today’s session was a good one though at 1,421 words, which is 10% of that updated word count. It’s up to chapter 12, which is probably a quarter-done right now.

The story still has legs and looks good. I’m still hopeful that once it’s eventually finished, things will move a lot faster and I can get it edited, out to some betas and then submitted for agents & publishers.

Podcasting: My podcast The Geekcast is still going strong after it’s re-launch back in February. I’ve moved into two episodes a week with two separate co-hosts to make it easier. While the show takes up a bunch of time, it’s much easier to do with other people rather than solo, which is how I did it for three years. I think writing is similar to that where you don’t have anyone to rely on or to hold you accountable. As a solo enterprise, writing has those pitfalls of self-discipline, which for me is rough.

Alright, so that’s it for now. I’m hoping to slowly get back into updating this place more often than every four months but like everything else, we’ll see how that goes. If anyone still checks into this place and reads this post, I want to thank you for believing in me and for sharing in my experience.

Be well.

So, as you saw, I finished last night. My novel is finished. That means that I won! And it also means that you will be getting regular posts again. I’m going to be editing this novel for the rest of the week. I feel alright about it as a whole, and luckily have tons of people waiting to read it. Right now, I need to do a quick read through for shit errors, not content and then give it to people. I really want to print it to edit for real, but… let’s see how many pages…

50,105 words. One Hundred and Two pages.

Mom would not be happy. I may have to buy some paper. It just feels good to physically edit it. That word count is palindromic, which makes me happy. I also need a good title, so if any of you have awesome titles… I’d love to steal them. Peter and I have considered “Coconut pie”, “Pie In A Nameless Town”, “Chasm of Dreams: A novel”, “Your Bottomless Wish”, ”Inter State” (The best so far), and if he had ended up in Montana: “Highway to Helena”. I suck at titles.

Other news: I ate a pomegranate today for my reward, and I was extremely happy with it. I really want to cut my hair. Mom made turkey enchiladas for dinner at my suggestion. It was surprisingly good. I just don’t think I can take it to school with me. Soon mom will make her infamous post-thanksgiving turkey pizzas. Strange? Yes. Delicious? Actually, yes. It’s so past time to sleep. Max is a horrible influence on me. Gnight.

MWA-HA-HA-HA-HAHAHAHAHAHHAAAAAA! *w00tage*

I did it. For the fourth year in a row, I defiantly looked my inner editor in the eye and gave a big a ol’ sloppy raspberry. Translation: I wrote over 50,000 words in under 30 days (I’m an every other day kind of writer).

When the shiny certificate appeared on the NaNoWriMo website after validating my count, I did get teary eyed. This was a story I was very fond of, very proud of, and the best idea I’ve written to date.

This calls for some celebratory bubbly and a chance to bask in the accomplishment of knowing I did it while watching a few episodes of “House M.D.” Hugh Laurie and champagne is a reward worth having.

My official word tally is 52,843. But who’s counting?

2009 has been a fantastic year, especially where NaNoWriMo is concerned. As the bar graph to the right shows, I beat out last year’s count with 10,000 extra words. With all the pressure of a 30-day deadline, juggling life with passion—aka school & writing—, losing sleep for the extra time needed to handle everything, I’m not sad to see November hand over its baton.

Alas, with December comes even more stress (is that even possible?). The homework, bills, job hunt, etc. that were put on hold for the sake of writing now return to the front of my mind with frightening speeds. Two weeks left of school! That’s it. Then I’m done, finished forever, tossed out on the street to see if my skills are strong enough to help me make it on my own.

Ok, so I won’t be on the streets quite yet, as I’m temporarily residing with the parents again. I actually realized on the drive home today that my life is very parallel to the MC in my recently finished novel: her story begins and ends in an airport. In my case, my current story ends with living in this house again. Not my top option, but when you’re broke and outta work, you take what you can get, right?

My biggest goal for December, besides surviving finals, is to keep up with my writing. I know this comes up every year, resulting in epic failure, but with rough-draft novels piling on my flashdrive, I need to actually sit down and start revising stuff, so that I can get myself out there. Keep watching the twitter for updates about that. If I dig up something fun, I’ll post an excerpt here. Till then, I’m off to hibernate beneath the collected layers of homework, my only shelter from the impending cold.

Next week should be better. Less work, more sleep. ^_^

http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/603186

I went to D&D today. That was pretty freaking fun. Sam is a zombie now, because he died and this dick grey elf brought him back and left us with an undead hydra that just followed us around. A big theocratic town was like hey you can’t come in, so we just sent Dalton in and Sam and I rode around in the boat, and tried to teach the hydra to sit. I named it beatrice, but Sam and Dalton wanted it to be named farkle. Wtf. Beatrice is a much nicer hydra name. Then we teleported back to our home base where the grey elf is from and the rest of our buddies killed the hydra and we stopped before the oncoming dinner and discussion about what to do with undead sam and everything. I drove back home so mom could take the car. Now I’m writing my face off for NaNoWriMo since I haven’t made any progress yet today and I have to get it in by midnight tomorrow. AHH DEADLINES! More later.

4:30- My ass is asleep but I have 6,000 words to go! Buddy is being adorable and sleeping on my lap while I work, but that means an extra 25 pounds on my lap and not being able to shift at all. That’s alright. I can man up and deal with it.

6:15- Feeling hungry and it’s only 5,000 words to go. Samwich time? Yes. Yes, I think it is. Turkey leftovers samwich plus delicious sweet potatoes to fuel my awesomeness. LOVE IT! Mom made a turkey last night.

7:00- Back on track from 5,000. Dinner was so yummy. I love sweet potatoes so much.

7:30- Okay, seriously writing now. Damn it.

8:30- 4,000 words to go and going to decorate that tree.

9:30- Dude that tree looks awesome!

10:45- Okay seriously have to write. MORE WORDS WILL SLOUGH AWAY! (ew.)

11:30- People are done distracting me. Almost 500 words written. /deaaaath. After this thousand I’m presenting myself with pie.

12:20- Okay 3,000 to go. Pumpkin pie time!

1:55- 2,400 to go. Peter distracted me with discussion about the xmen character Colossus, who has the coolest name: Piotr Nikolaievitch Rasputin. Fuck yeah. Plus Colossus is not only the most intensely strong one, he is incredibly sweet and innocent and surprisingly noble. I used to have a huge crush on him. Back to words.

2:25- 2,000 words to go! I need to get some junk done in this novel RIGHT NOW.

3:00- Digging back in… Peter is being rararar about my ending and wanting it to be less happy. I want a happy ending that leaves them in a good place. I think they’re going to be happy for now, kids.

4:00- 1,000 words to go!!!!!! We are almost done!

4:30- I’m DONE!!! I FUCKING FINISHED!  This novel is DONE! I need to sleep now. It’s been fun. This is insane. Seriously. I just wrote a novel. I have to like read it through tomorrow now for grammar. Right now I deserve some sleep… Goodnight everyone!

Sending love, caffeine, a quiet place to write, and a lot of inspiration to all my fellow WriMos who are still in the race. You can do it!

Yesterday was a hardcore writing day for me. I was a bit behind the Word Count Eight Ball, but I managed to keep my focus together enough to where I pulled over 6,000 in an afternoon. I am officially over the 40,000 word hump!

YES! Much w00tage!

The remaining 10,000 will not be as laborious or straining because I am getting to the juicy-filled adventure part of the story. Once I venture into that tasty tid bit, my fingers will be a blur upon this keyboard.

My Novel:

Because it is the month for Nanowriomo, and because my novel has to be finished by 31st January 2010, although I am hoping for an extension on account of poor document management and losing 30,000 new words I can never recover or remember in its entirety (Hint! Hint!), I am pleased to say I have been doing nothing but hammering away at the keyboard making a concerted effort to get to those final two all important words – THE END.

I do have some wonderful news to share with you regarding my novel, but I can’t do it yet since not all the details have been finalised yet, and I don’t want to jinx it!

My Writing Routine:

Since I am very lucky to be able to write all day, I’ve unconsciously found a good writing routine that seems to be working out very well for me. It’s simple too.

I sit down at my desk at 9.00am, check emails, and start my book research, re-read my previous work, and if needed do all the little things like adjust my plot, build my fantasy world and the rules for it, get to know my characters better and keep tabs on my word count every now and then.

By 10.00am I then start actually writing, and can quite happily do this all day long, with few breaks for things that I have to do around the house, errands and whatnot. I know! I’m groaning too, but these things are sent to try us and have to be done.

My Daily Word Count Goal:

I’m learning from experience that I don’t check my daily word count goal as much as I should. You may also have noticed that because of this, I’m notoriously bad at updating my WIP gadgets in the sidebar. That’s something I will have to improve on, but for now, I am happy with the knowledge of actually writing every day and that’s the main thing. I will do it soon, probably at the end of Nanowrimo when I have to submit my 50,000  words in order to win. If I have made the target, that is. I’m not keeping track of it so far, and write in many documents at the same time, so I can’t add it up yet.

My Blog Posts:

Without making a conscious decision to do this, I am regularly updating my blog every Friday. Is that enough? Probably not, but I say it has to be better than leaving it to rot. It does mean I am still keeping in touch, and that much of my time is being taken up with writing, which you’ll have to agree is a very positive and productive habit.

The Drawback;

Okay, with all this good writing news, I do have one drawback to it all. Concentrating on my novel does mean that I’ve been struggling to break away and join in with the Friday Flash Fiction challenges, but I’m rooting for everyone who is taking part. Go peeps!

Another Good Girl Point:

Incidentally, I’ve only just discovered how to add other peoples feeds to this blog! The first feed I have set up is the “Write a book with author Holly Lisle”, which can be found towards the bottom of the sidebar. This is the author’s personal project and way of getting other writers to be productive. She does this by encouraging us to set a daily writing goal with an anticipated minimum word count and sticking to it, with the opportunity of reporting back with your own word count results. I don’t know when this started, however, since I have a lot of catching up to do (with probably Holly Lisle’s word count and my own personal goal) this has got to assist my writing needs and deserves another good girl point in my opinion.

So, that’s me done for another week. What about you?

In my great experiment to write a novel backwards, I am at last into the final 10% of the draft (the 1-10% if you look at it forward-ly).  Yippie!  I will write a bit this morning before the festivities begin, then I am off work for a long weekend, so I will be pushing up my NaNo word count (or daisies by the final day, perhaps, hee).  HAPPY THANKSGIVING, everyone.

If you head over to my NaNo user page you will notice that I have uploaded my novel for word verification already. There is a massive back story to such a simple act as uploading the novel, so I thought I’d treat you to a missive on how things which seem easy can turn out to be a massive nightmare of complications, alterations and attempts at tricking my web ‘n’ walk stick into letting me perform such a relatively straightforward action. I figure that this might come in useful for anyone else having difficulties uploading their material, so I’ll share my method of getting around the problem of constricted web activity.

This is not a rant, before you start up on me… This is merely me venting some frustration. There is a difference.

So… three o’clock in the morning, and I’m thinking that I really ought to make sure I remember to verify, because it would be a fucking disaster if I went through all this and neglected to actually put my novel through the NaNo word counter. Fine, I think, no time like the present to be getting the paperwork out of the way. The bit on the ‘My NaNoWriMo‘ page is easy to find, so there is one hurdle down. I stitch all of the pieces together in OpenOffice and save the completed material as an RTF file. I open the file up in Wordpad and copy the text into the box on the webpage and hit the button to send.

And I wait. And I wait. And I wait.

And the fucking useless web stick dies on me. I hit the refresh button and wait once more. Same thing happens again. My heart is pounding in my chest, the li’l vein on my forehead pounding away, a thousand profanities pouring forth from my lips as I try to work out what the hell is going on. The stick, it turns out, is using too much bandwidth… Or something. It cuts out after about half the material is sent, meaning that I get a white page which has failed to load in Firefox. Fine, I try to get the information down to a manageable level.

This means going through the text and taking out every… single… blank… line. It takes forever, but I finish up, save the document, copy it into the wordbox and try again.

And I wait. And I wait. And I wait.

And guess what? Same shit, same problem. The web stick doesn’t like me this morning, so I have to find a way to get the material down even further. This is where I get creative, and start using Find & Replace to squeeze every single word down. I change every use of “Talos” to “Tal”, “robot” becomes “bot” and “the” is squeezed to “t” in an effort to minimize size. I go through the text, quickly swapping out every word longer than five characters long for something smaller. It ain’t pretty, but at least it’s gonna go through to NaNoWriMo.

But it doesn’t. At this point I open the RTF and save it as a TXT, hoping to shrink the information by way of magic and belief in the digital gods. It’s right about this point that I’m wishing I had some grass in the house so I could chill myself out a little, the nerves and fear of failure pounding at my brain like a demented midget from hell. Again I try uploading the material, fingers crossed for the trickery to work on the damnable stick.

And I wait. And I wait. And I wait.

The familiar white screen pops up on Firefox again. This is the point I really lost my cool, and the thoughts running through my head really, honestly don’t need o be spelled out here. I get myself in enough trouble without threatening the health and safety of whatever moron was in charge of coding the Bytemobile Optimization Client in the toolbar, which turns red at the slightest provocation. With little option, I switch off the web ‘n’ walk screen, run Crap Cleaner, defrag, clear my internet cache and bring the web n’ walk back up again.

By this time the text is all but unreadable anyway, so I figure I may as well add to my chance of success by pruning a few thousand words from the end of the document to get it even further down to a “reasonable” size. I save the file, copy its’ contents, close Notepad (which has taken over from Wordpad in my haste to shrink size) and paste it in the wordbox at NaNo.

Take a stab in the dark here. What do you think happened?

Damnable, fucking useless piece of outdated shit, pretending to be a bloody internet connector…The pile of cigarette stubs next to me has grown by a count of ten in the three hours I have been messing around with the document, and I still had more pruning to do before it accepted the text, but I did it. I got my winners page up on screen. I also have a rasping sore throat, a headache and a temper that would make even Old Nick himself think twice before fucking with me, but I managed to get everything working.

The wordcount (on NaNoWriMo) stands at 135,750.
The wordcount (unbutchered) stands at 196,942.

I haven’t hit my goal of 250,000, but – considering the obstacles the universe likes throwing in my direction – I’m lucky to have gotten this far.

There ya go. The best advert for getting broadband access you’ll ever read.