Words/Time: 23 minutes working on prep for my 2015 NaNoNovel. I started a timeline for “Too Many Irons in the Fire.” I was going to do a lot more, but then my kids came home and the next hour was spent getting them ready for bed. And then I worked on a blog post for tomorrow, which took me longer than I expected to write. So now it’s midnight and I never got back to my work. Maybe I’ll do some more before I go to bed…though I’m really tired, which doesn’t usually happen to me this early. It’s been a long last few weeks.
500 Words Challenge
Daily Challenge Check-in: October 12, 2015
Words/Time: 20 minutes working on prep for my 2015 NaNoNovel. The weekend is over, so I wanted to make sure to do some writing work today. However, there’s still a lot of craziness as I recover from my work’s busy season. My head isn’t in the right space yet, and probably won’t be until at least Thursday. For now, though, I’m making lists of things that I want to use in my writing next month–observations I made at the last few rendezvous and things I remember from 12 years of attending these shows. And I started writing up a more detailed synopsis for the plot, only to decide it was getting too detailed (I was aiming for no more than 5 paragraphs). I’ll have to work on that some more.
Daily Challenge Check-in: October 10, 2015
Words/Time: 0. I’m physically tired…and sore…and just mentally exhausted. It’s a rendezvous weekend, and I’m technically in the middle of said rendezvous (Mississinewa 1812 in Marion, IN). I was up early this morning to drive out there and join my parents, for whom I work, helping to take money for things we sell, while my dad demonstrates blacksmithing. Normally rendezvous are a full-weekend event for me, meaning that I’m gone all weekend. This one is close enough that I came home tonight. I have to teach children’s church at my church tomorrow, and couldn’t really get out of it (we’re low on teachers), so I’ll go to church tomorrow, then back into my funny clothes and back out to the rendezvous for the rest of the afternoon.
I don’t enjoy rendezvous as much these days because they leave me tired, sore, and often headache-y. And I’ve never enjoyed teaching children’s church because I’m not great with kids and really not much of a teacher, but our church is small and the need for children’s workers has always been great, so I accept the role I was asked to fill. However, doing that on a rendezvous weekend is sort of a conglomeration of stress for me. So I’m taking the weekend off with writing work.
One thing I have realized during all of this (rendezvous season has been non-stop the last 5 weeks) is that writing is somewhat therapeutic for me. I’ll probably make a separate blog post about that soon (in which I may repeat a lot of what I just said, so sorry for anyone who reads this and then that one too). I also have a whole list of tips for the actual month of November that I want to share soon, for NaNo hopefuls (especially newbies).
I’m looking forward to delving further into the plot I’m working on for November, and getting more revision done on “Pithea.” I’m just too tired to do any of it right now.
Daily Challenge Check-in: October 9, 2015
Words/Time: 35 minutes figuring out character names for my 2015 NaNoNovel. There are nine (for now) reenactors that the main character will interact with at some point during the story. That’s more characters than I’ve ever planned for at the outset of a story. I’ll have to work on a way to make sure they’re distinct enough. If I get confused during the writing, there’s no hope that future readers won’t be lost.
Daily Challenge Check-in: October 8, 2015
Words/Time: 58 minutes developing my 2015 NaNoNovel. I’ve reworked the synopsis a bit from my original plan and given it a more official title. I then set to work on naming the main character’s husband, father, and mother, all of whom have prominent roles in the story. And I have a cast of about 8 characters who are all important side characters, and they all need names. I think I’m actually so used to coming up with fantasy names now that picking normal names that I like is…a lot harder than I thought it would be.
I’m going to make a full post later once I’ve fleshed out the synopsis from 2 sentences into a few paragraphs, but for now, here is what I have:
“Too Many Irons in the Fire”
When a loud, obnoxious blade smith disappears during a historical reenactment, the daughter of a neighboring blacksmith attempts to track him down. Her search is hindered by the rendezvous crowd, her own obligations to the event, and the odd behavior of the other blacksmiths.
Daily Challenge Check-in: October 7, 2015
Words/Time: 613 words of writing practice I did. After a full day of work and a rough evening, I didn’t get to my writing time until 11:30. My brain wasn’t in the best space for quickly figuring out what to work on, so I pulled up a prompt and wrote for 15 minutes.
Daily Challenge Check-in: October 6, 2015
Words/Time: 2121 words, most of which was revising “Pithea” with two of my sisters over Skype. Also known as the 57th meeting of the Tri-County Sisterhood of the Traveling Book. We got through 5 pages of double-spaced text. There was less off-topic discussion tonight than we’ve had for a while now. But we came across more areas than usual that hung us up because we couldn’t come to agreements on how to fix them. More than one of them ended in the, “I’m the author so I’m just going to pull rank,” line. I don’t like doing that, because I’m sure it makes them feel like I’m dismissing their concerns. But when the concern isn’t a mistake but more of a difference of opinion, sometimes “pulling rank” is the only way to move on.
The rest of the words were from some writing practice I did. I’ve been trying to do a prompt every few days, partly because I’m still generating ideas to fill out the plot for my NaNoNovel, and partly to be in the groove of actual writing (instead of revising) before November comes. The prompt I pulled wasn’t one that I connected with, but I refused to let myself pass on it. I’ve been trying to stretch topics and themes that I can or will write about, so I’ve done some writing practice that was awkward or fell flat lately. This one, though, turned out rather interesting to me. So I’m going to do something I rarely do, and share what I wrote.
Keep in mind that this is raw (unedited) and I wrote it quickly without any forethought or pausing to think through where I wanted to go. The prompt came from 1000 Awesome Writing Prompts.
Prompt: Staging a fake kidnapping to get money out of your rich parents
Daily Challenge Check-in: October 5, 2015
Words/Time: 155 words and 30 minutes, the latter of which was spent adding revisions for “Pithea” that were made on paper into the computer.
The words were a short introduction I wrote for the main character of my NaNoNovel. Just a few minutes ago, when I went to put my novel into the newly relaunched NaNo site, I decided to title it “Too Many Irons in the Fire.” I’m not sure I’ll keep it, because it’s a little long, but for now, I like it. Maybe just “Too Many Irons” would be better? It implies the same expression but is more succinct. Any thoughts?
Daily Challenge Check-in: October 1, 2015
Words/Time: 23 minutes working on developing the plot for my 2015 NaNoNovel. I’ve semi-officially decided that I’m going to write a murder-mystery novel tentatively titled “Murder at the Rendezvous.” I’m nervous about it, because I’ve never written any kind of mystery story. Also because the plan is for the story to be a lighthearted take on the genre, and I’m not sure I’m good at light, comical writing. So this will certainly be a challenge to me in many ways.
The reason I say it’s semi-official is because I am not above changing my mind at the last minute. Some may find this lazy or cheap, but until a month ago, I had planned to write another novel in my “Pithea” world. It’s around two-thirds outlined already. If in the next month I don’t produce a solid enough outline for this story, I will fall back on the previous plan. I would rather put “Murder at the Rendezvous” on a shelf, maybe trying again next year, than to risk wasting NaNoWriMo. Besides, it’s not even like I’d be wimping out on the challenge of writing something I’m not used to. The novel I’ve already partially outlined is a mystery/suspense novel…no matter which way I turn, it appears I’m writing mystery this year.
I won’t post anymore daily check-ins until Sunday or Monday. I’ll be out of town this weekend, attending a rendezvous. My dad demonstrates blacksmithing at historical reenactments, and I go along to some of them to sell his products. The next two weekends are our biggest shows of the year. (This weekend is Feast of the Hunter’s Moon in West Lafayette, IN, if anyone happens to live nearby. It’s a pretty big deal.) This year, I’ll be paying more attention to my surroundings than usual at these shows, because I’m basing the setting of my novel on these events. This will probably be the biggest case of “write what you know” I’ve ever done.
Daily Challenge Check-in: September 30, 2015
Words/Time: 43 minutes and 2382 words. The latter of that was revision of “Pithea.” I’m trying to add more description about what characters are doing while conversations are going on. I was pretty lazy about that when I first wrote this during NaNoWriMo 2013. And I’m trying to ease back off Evan a bit, because I know I’m harsher on him than I always need to be.
The time was spent responding to notes left by others of the TCSTB, in our shared file that we use for meetings every week. It sometimes makes the meetings progress more quickly if notes are read and responded to ahead of time.
A Journey of Words 