NaNoWriMo Day 19

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The Words: 2271 words total for the day.

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.

Total word count: 52,953

Enjoy today’s NaNoToon from this day in 2009!

NaNoWriMo Day 18

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The Words: 609 words total for the day.

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!

NaNoWriMo Day 17

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The Words: 4407 words total for the day.

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.

Total word count: 50,073

Enjoy today’s NaNoToon from this day in 2009!

Book Review: The Two Towers

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The Two Towers
The Lord of the Rings #2
by J.R.R. Tolkien
read by Rob Inglis

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: Classic fantasy

Like with my “review” of The Fellowship of the Ring, this is going to be less of a real review and more just my thoughts on my experience with this book. This is my first time through the trilogy, and I’m listening to the audiobooks, because I don’t think I’d make it through if I was reading. One note about the audiobook–Rob Inglis, the narrator, does a fantastic job! He even sings the songs, and while I suppose it would be strange if the narrator of these books with so many songs didn’t attempt to sing them, I still think it’s particularly neat.

I liked this book more than the previous, as we jump right back into the story. It felt more swiftly paced, too, even during the part where Frodo and Sam were wandering for a while. As with the previous book, my notes on this book are from a standpoint of having seen the movies several times, and I prefer the movie that goes back and forth between the two storylines, rather than showing all of one, then all of another. But I do appreciate that they were written to be two separate books, and then had to be combined into one. I also liked better, in the movie, not knowing that Sam had taken the ring from Frodo when he thought he was dead, or knowing that Sam was even following him, until the right moment.

One of the things I’m getting most out of reading the books after having a cursory understanding of the story from the movies is getting to understand the world and the characters more. For example, I like having a better understanding that Gandalf is something special (celestial, even), not just a simple wizard (whatever that would mean anyway). Also, Gollum is so wonderfully sarcastic in the book, which I just loved!

I know that I’m not going to appreciate these books the way that many others do; I don’t think I’m the right kind of person to really get into the history and depth Tolkien put into his world. But I’m still enjoying them and am glad I’m reading them.

Find out more about The Two Towers

See what I’m reading next.

If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!

NaNoWriMo Day 16

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The Words: 2596 words total for the day.

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!

NaNoWriMo Day 15

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The Words: 3859 words total for the day.

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!

NaNoWriMo Day 14

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The Words: 1989 words total for the day.

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!

NaNoWriMo Day 13

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The Words: 3514 words total for the day.

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!

Book Review: The Death Cure

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The Death Cure
The Maze Runner #3
by James Dashner

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: YA dystopian

Spoiler notice: The following review may contain some spoilers for the previous books in the series, The Maze Runner & The Scorch Trials.

The first thought I had after I finished reading this book was, “Eh.” And in a lot of ways, that accurately sums up my thoughts on it. It was…okay. Not terrible (better than book #2), but not great either. The answers in this book only solidified my theory that Dashner did not have the trilogy planned out when he wrote the first book and didn’t really know where to go from the maze.

The reasoning behind all of the trials and “variables” was mediocre at best. Terminology was strange and didn’t always make sense (like “killzone”), and in the end, most of what was going on was not any more grand, exciting, or surprising than everything I guessed at along the way. The ending was more of what I would call a “non-ending.” Not satisfying in any way.

The characters didn’t get much better in this book. The only character I really liked throughout the series was shafted in this book. Teresa was even more pointless in this book than in the previous. And I seriously don’t get any kind of a feel for Brenda. So many people like her, but she seems fairly lifeless to me. And something she said near the beginning of this book, now that I think of it, makes no real sense and barely came into play.

So in the end, would I recommend this series? No. Not to adult readers, at least. Maybe teenagers get more out of it, I don’t know. It seems like it’s one of those that you either love or just don’t care for at all. I liked the first book, but the rest of the series didn’t deliver on that set-up. And I have no desire to read the two prequel books.

Find out more about The Death Cure

See what I’m reading next.

If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!

NaNoWriMo Day 12

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The Words: 2977 words total for the day.

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!