I was gone all afternoon so didn’t get any writing done until after supper. I did one 10-minute sprint with my daughter then, and then we did more sprints later, before she went to bed.
The Story: The main character of this storyline had a very dispiriting task to complete, which he succeeded at this time, though he may have wished he hadn’t. Then I got to write the aftermath of an event in book #2 in the series (which is coming out in 10 days!!), and that was a lot of fun for me.
I was beginning to think I wouldn’t get more than 600 words again today, when I hadn’t done any writing by 9 pm (even though that used to be the beginning of my writing time). But then my daughter and I did a couple of word sprints together. After she went to bed, I did one more by myself and at least got close to the daily word goal I’ve set for myself (2500).
The Story: The main character of this storyline was given a daunting task, but he rose to the challenge. He really did have a decent plan, and it wasn’t completely his fault that he failed.
I had one of those moments that happens sometimes, where my outline states that something happens, but doesn’t say how. Because at the time I wrote the outline, I failed to realize that there would need to be some detail there, or it wouldn’t come across very well in the story. So I had to try to brainstorm what the character would do in this situation, preferably without slowing down my writing output during a sprint. And it led to my first real “Aha!” moment this month. A completely random thing I wrote into the story two days ago turned out to be exactly what I needed in this moment! It was a small “Aha!” moment, comparatively, but I still loved having that realization, and it was enough to award myself the “Eureka Moment” badge.
One 10-minute sprint was all I did today, a bit of a break after hitting 50k yesterday.
In a case of epic timing, my winner’s shirt arrived in the mail today (I pre-ordered it in October), a perfect reward for winning yesterday! That’s one of the reasons I decided to push for the win yesterday, even though it meant writing more than I’ve been wanting to per day. It’s also another reason I only did one sprint today–to keep from running out of story before the end of the month.
The Story: Not a lot happens in 600 words, but I did get a chance to revisit a location and a scene (sort of) from a previous book. I always enjoy things like that.
Total word count: 50,682
Enjoy today’s NaNoToon from this day in 2009! And this is a good time to watch episode 4 of the NaNoMusical, where things really heat up!
Even though just yesterday I said I was going to stick to 2500 words per day for a while to avoid running out story before the end of the month, when I got to 2500 today, I realized I was just under 2000 words away from winning. So I did a few more sprints this evening with my daughter and hit 50k! Woohoo!
Tomorrow, I’ll give myself a little break and compensate for so many words today, by just doing one 10-minute sprint or something. Because I definitely have more to write!
The Story: I tried my hand at psychology today and showed some of the childhood of a character who grows up to be a surly, mediocre mercenary. Then we see him as an adult, having to answer for the actions of someone else. Poor guy can’t really catch a break, to be honest.
I’m sticking to 2500 words per day for now, until I see how things go for the next few days, to hopefully avoid running out of story before the end of the month. I’ve been watching memories go by on Facebook from the last several years showing me hit 50k over the last few days (for example, Nov. 14th in 2013; Nov. 11th in 2017, which I think is the earliest in the month I’ve ever reached 50k words) and know that I’m still 4500 words away and want to stretch that another couple of days. It’s strange to suppress the desire to overachieve in favor of a wish to be able to spread the story out over the entire month, rather than possibly finish early.
The Story: I finished storyline #2 today, and I really liked how the end of it turned out. It’s the one storyline that has a lot of text past the point where all 4 storylines meet, so I don’t know how that’s going to flow when it’s time to work on this book in the future, but I hope I don’t have to cut any of it.
Storyline 2 came out to about 14,500 words, which is just under half of storyline 1. This doesn’t bother me yet, because I know I’ll be cutting storyline 1 down some. I don’t think I’ll cut it in half, but I also do think of it as a more prominent storyline than the other 3. Though maybe I shouldn’t. It’ll be interesting to work on this in the future. (By interesting, I mean potentially headache-inducing, considering how hard it was to combine 2.5 storylines for Outcast.)
Total word count: 45,666
Since I didn’t realize that there were only 20 NaNoToons in 2010 and the next one is Thanksgiving (over a week away), enjoy today’s NaNoToon from this day in 2009!
I took advantage of a quiet, lazy Sunday afternoon to do several word sprints with @NaNoWordSprints on Twitter. I almost stopped at 3200 words, which was enough for the day anyway, but decided to push it for one more sprint.
The Story: Things are not looking good for the prisoner, who has been locked up for a few months now. Now he’s questioning his sanity and the benevolence of someone he met in prison.
This storyline is almost done–I’m guessing I’ll finish it tomorrow or Tuesday, at the latest. Today is the halfway point of the month, but I’m sure I’m more than halfway through the story, since the last 2 storylines will be closer to the length of this one (which is just under 12,000 words right now) than the first storyline (which ended with 30,000 words). So it may be time to cap my word counts at a lower number from now on.
Total word count: 43,070
If you want to join me in my journey through the first year of NaNoToons (with a storyline), check out the NaNoToon from November 15, 2010!
Though today was Saturday, I wrote less than normal. One of the reasons for this was because my daughter wasn’t pushing for us to do sprints as much as she has been lately (she started about a week late, so maybe she’s hitting the week-2 blues now). We did a couple this afternoon and then stopped so I could get some other things done. We never got back to it together.
After she went to bed, I was approaching my own bedtime, since I have to get up really early tomorrow, but I only had 900 words. So I did a couple of short sprints to at least be above normal par for the day and am calling it a night.
The Story: A bit of time has passed for the prisoner (weeks, maybe months, I’m not sure myself, because I’m not paying attention to my timeline as I write) and he’s just about had enough of this place. He’s not so sure about the wisdom of talking to the person in the adjoining cell anymore either. And in today’s words, he had a few unnerving conversations with the antagonist (of the whole book, not just this storyline).
Total word count: 39,211
If you want to join me in my journey through the first year of NaNoToons (with a storyline), check out the NaNoToon from November 14, 2010!
I didn’t have a chance to write until after supper, but fortunately, my daughter was ready to write then too. We did 2 15-minute sprints and a 5-minute, then got her ready for bed. Then we did 2 more 15-minute sprints with the @NaNoWordSprints Twitter feed.
The Story: In another perfect example of how terrible I am at estimating word counts in advance of writing, I was really thrown off today. Yesterday, I finished storyline 1 (of 4) for this book, and it came out to a total of 30k words. I knew I’d be slimming it down a decent amount in revision, but still, I’d expected about 18k per storyline for the other three.
Today I started writing in storyline, which I already had written 2500 words of back on day 2. And in adding 3500 words to it, I’m already halfway through the outline for that storyline. So…hmm… I guess 12k words won’t be too bad, since I always knew storyline 1 was going to be longer…I’m curious to see how the other 2 storylines come out though.
As far as the story goes, I really enjoyed writing about this character, who is basically a prisoner of war, and a connection he’s making with someone in an adjoining cell. (Sort of strange to say I enjoyed writing about a prisoner, though.)
Total word count: 37,222
If you want to join me in my journey through the first year of NaNoToons (with a storyline), check out the NaNoToon from November 13, 2010!
I did a 20-minute sprint with my daughter this afternoon, which gave me 1/3 of the words I needed for my daily goal (3000) and also tipped me over to saying that I write the most between 3pm and 4pm.
That’s definitely new for me, because for years, I’ve written mostly at night, somewhere between 9pm and midnight. But this reflects how much I’ve been doing sprints with my daughter, which we’re most likely to do in the afternoon or in the evening before she goes to bed.
Then she went to go play a board game with her dad, and I did a couple of sprints with the @NaNoWordSprints Twitter feed, the second of which I stopped at the halfway point, because I had finished the first storyline of the draft and didn’t want to dive into the next one mid-sprint.
The Story: The rest of the first storyline (of 4) in this draft went by in a whoosh today. That’s because I finally got to the big battle that the book centers around, but the battle isn’t shown in any detail for this storyline. It’s really only shown through a few letters between some of the main characters.
Then I came up to the final scene of the storyline. I’ve had this scene in my head for around 11 years, and I finally got to write it. And it was perfect. Not that it won’t need any revising, but the experience of writing it was just incredible.
I never used to be one for music while I was writing, as much because I didn’t know what kind of music to listen to as anything. In recent years, though, I’ve found that I like having music playing while I write. These days it’s usually some sort of World of Warcraft music, because let’s face it, it has music for every mood. But earlier this month, I realized that there was much better music for this particular quarter of the story–music from the BBC miniseries North and South. I specifically chose to play Northbound Train during that scene, and it was perfect. It even swelled at the exact right time. I honestly don’t know if I’d have had the same feelings if the music hadn’t been there, but all of it together had me in tears while I wrote the scene. I love those moments in writing.
I had to take a break after that, figuring I’d start into storyline #2 later in the evening. But now I’ve decided to just let it rest for today and start new tomorrow.
Total word count: 33,708
If you want to join me in my journey through the first year of NaNoToons (with a storyline), check out the NaNoToon from November 12, 2010!
And if the week 2 blahs have got you down (or even if they don’t), it’s a good time to check out the 3rd episode of the NaNoMusical!
My daughter and I did some more sprints today, which got me about 300 words shy of my daily goal of 3000 words. Later in the evening, I caught a 20-minute sprint with the @NaNoWordSprints Twitter feed and wrote 948 more to get the total you see above.
My daughter decided to make her participation official today, so we signed her up for the Young Writers Program. She set her goal at 20,000 words and at right about par right now.
The Story: One character got some major catharsis today. Then there was a big celebration and some fun (for me) additions of characters from some of the other books, which was followed immediately by the unpleasant news of a looming battle. That’s where I’ll pick up tomorrow.
Total word count: 30,731
If you want to join me in my journey through the first year of NaNoToons (with a storyline), check out the NaNoToon from November 11, 2010!
A Journey of Words 