I Warned You

Yup, I did. I warned you last week that you probably weren’t going to get any posts out of me other than Monday, and I was right.

I was kind of struggling with the words last week, falling a little more behind each day. Okay, on Tuesday I fell behind by a lot – only did 763 words, but I made up for it with words to spare on Wednesday and Thursday. But then Friday, which is always a bad writing day for me, I only managed 749 words.

And then I started coming down with a cold – stuffed nose, sore throat, the whole nine yards.

*sigh*

So, seeing as I had no where to go, I declared Saturday a pajama day and spent pretty much the entire day curled up in my chair alternating dozing, writing, and popping cold pills. I don’t know if it was the cold, the cold pills, or the fact that I was in my pajamas, but I was really tired that day, so it was a pleasant surprise when I added up the words at the end of the day and found I’d written a whopping 2,943!

Sunday I was still sick from the cold, but I sucked it up and got dressed for the day. I still spent most of the day in my cuddle chair, but I also did laundry and made the regular big Sunday dinner for the daughter, son-in-law, and grandbaby.

Normally on Sunday nights I watch Supergirl (which I like), followed by Charmed (which I can take or leave) but last night they ran the newest Tarzan (the one with Alexander Skarsgard) movie after Supergirl. I’m a big time Tarzan fan, so I opted to watch the movie instead of Charmed and kept on writing.

When I finally came up for air I had a total of 3,362 for the day giving me a grand total of 6,205 words for the weekend. Not bad, if I do say so myself. :-D

That means, that even if I only write my allotted 1,667 words today I’ll still only be 647 words behind. And if I just happen to write 2,314 words today I’ll be all caught up. Be still my heart.

So . . . how’s your NaNo novel coming?

Is It Over Yet?

A funny thing happened when I was working on my NaNo . . . I fell right out of love with my story. I liked the characters, I liked the idea, but it was becoming way too complicated and I really needed to just sit down and figure out where it was going. But this is NaNo, and I don’t have time for things like that. So…

At the end of October I sent a couple of friends a list of synopses (and yes, that is the correct spelling for the plural of synopsis – I looked it up) of ideas I had for NaNo. They were all stories I intend to write eventually, I just couldn’t decide which one to use. They ended up picking the same idea, but I chose to ignore their sage advice.

I went with a different one because I knew more about the general story, I had a couple of pages of notes, and I’d even named the characters. Ironically, I’m finding it easier to write the new one (that my friends picked) because I came into it with no idea of what I was doing. I had about a dozen lines outlining the plot – boy is a bit of an asshat and is disfigured in an accident, boy goes off alone, boy meets girl, boy and girl must part, boy and girl get together again in the end.

But while the writing is coming easier, I’m still struggling (mainly with distractions). Including the words I need for today I’m about 4,000 words behind, 9,000 if you count the words from the original story (which do count because they were written for NaNo). I would like to use only the words from the new story, like I did the other year when I switched stories, but we’ll have to see how fast I write.

I went to another write-in up in Peterborough, this one at the same café where my writing group used to meet, but although I wrote about 1,000 words I think I’ll give the rest of the café write-ins a pass. The atmosphere just seemed a little off and I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did the library.

Once again I skipped Friday’s post and unless I can get myself organized better I’m probably going to skip both the Wednesday and the Friday posts this week. Writing blog posts is a tad time consuming, and I need that time for my NaNo novel. Sad, but true.

So . . . how’s your NaNo novel coming?

National Novel Writing Month

There’s no date on this poem, so I’m not sure when exactly I wrote it, but it has to be at least a couple of years ago. Anyway, given I’m knee deep in my NaNo novel, I thought this was rather appropriate for today’s post.

NaNoWriMo

This is not for the faint of heart
A novel, written in thirty days
November first is when we start.

Just thirty days to do your part
The writing comes in such a haze
This is not for the faint of heart.

Writing itself is quite an art
E’en when done in such a blaze
November first is when we start.

Winning this sets us apart
Writing without hope of praise
This is not for the faint of heart .

Some will not finish what they start
Others have their secret ways
November first is when we start.

What wisdom is there to impart
A secret, key, a magic phrase
This is not for the faint of heart
November first is when we start.


Villanelle form

It’s NaNoing Time!

Words achieved: 5814
Where I should be: 8335
Words + or - : - 2521

I missed my Friday post. Whoops. What can I say, I was busy writing. At least I was for most of November so far. Yesterday I kind of fell off the wagon, which was a little ironic because I’ve been using the crappy weather as my excuse for not getting any writing done and yesterday was beautiful outside. But rather than take advantage of that gorgeous weather and go out and actually do something, I was huddled in my chair with a migraine on top of sinus pain and an allergic attack and a wonky stomach.

And I’m no longer sure the idea I chose for NaNo is the one I want to work on.

Sucks to me be, doesn’t it? LOL

The changing my mind thing is not new. I take heart in the fact that I did that once before, only I was 10,000 words and 1 week into NaNo when I changed my mind. And I still managed to win with the new story – I didn’t even need a boost from the original 10,000 words, which would have been perfectly acceptable because any words written during NaNo count.

Of course I was much younger then. ;-)

I finally sucked it up and went to one of the NaNo write-ins in Peterborough, and I’m glad I did. The new library up there is beautiful and the room they gave us to use was big and bright and airy. I met up with a great bunch of people and if at times we did more talking than writing it was because we were all so enthusiastic.

So yeah, even though it’s a pain in the butt to have to drive to Peterborough two or three times a week (I still have my speculative fiction class on Tuesdays), I’ll be going to more of these write-ins. Maybe I’ll even get a decent chunk of writing in.