Writing Wednesday: IWSG Nov 2019

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For this month’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group post, I’m keeping my post short and simply answering the question posed on the IWSG site. Part of the reason for this is that I’ve got a novel draft to write, but I also have an interesting answer to the question.

Here is the question posed for today’s IWSG post:
What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever googled in researching a story?

In my early writing days, I looked up how long it takes for a dead body to start to smell. I thought that was pretty strange at the time. I’ll bet it’s actually fairly run-of-the-mill though.

I topped it in 2015, when working on prep for my NaNoNovel that year. For the climax of the story I was outlining, I looked up what red-hot metal would do if stabbed into a body. It was a difficult topic to research, but led me down some really interesting rabbit trails that were not necessarily helpful for my novel (like common Hollywood misconceptions about how blades are made).

Nowadays, most of my research involves getting an accurate idea of weather during a certain time of year in areas that my books are set in or near, or distance between certain locations (like Alaska and Maine). Not nearly as interesting, but necessary to make sure my novels have a real feel to them.

So what’s the strangest thing you’ve ever researched for a story?

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NaNoWriMo Day 5

Day 5 writing badgeThe Words: 4392 words. My husband and I both had today off, which isn’t very common (outside of Sundays, which are usually busy for other reasons), so I was able to find some time in the afternoon to write. I did some sprints with @NaNoWordSprints. The first one I caught was 15 minutes, but when I got down to 5 minutes left, my husband told me we had to turn off our computers. Apparently someone from the electric company was here to replace our meter, and he was going to need to turn the electricity off for a few seconds. Of all the ways I’ve been interrupted during NaNoWriMo word sprints, that was probably the most unique. After 3 sprints with the Twitter feed, I had 1800 words.

On Tuesday nights, we have write-ins at my local library. They’re the only write-ins I go to, because most of the write-ins in my region are about 40 minutes away (I live in a city near the actual city of my region). I planned to get another 1500 words tonight, and figured I’d get most of that during the write-in.

I should mention that these write-ins are kind of an off-shoot of a writing group at the library. We meet one Tuesday a month throughout the year, but meet every Tuesday during NaNo. However, of the regular attenders of the group, I’m the only one that does NaNo. While they do call the Tuesdays during November write-ins, for most of them, it’s just an excuse to write more than they normally do, of whatever they’re working on. So it’s not like your typical write-in (though to be honest, I only have a passing understanding of how normal write-ins are). We talk at least as much as we write, and tonight was no exception. We did do 2 sprints though, one of 25 minutes and one of 20. Between them, I got 2500 words (far more than my goal!) on my Neo.

So for once, I’m post before midnight, because I do not plan to write any more today. Night off, yay!

The Story:  The first chunk of writing was for storyline 1. The newlyweds were interrupted on the way to their honeymoon, and are now poised on the edge of trying to force someone to help them who is going to be resistant to the idea.

While I was at the write-in, I continued the 3rd storyline, which I have decided to label storyline 2b, because it will eventually meet up with storyline 2. Right now, it’s just introductions mostly.

Total word count: 20,209

Don’t forget to check out today’s NaNoToons if you haven’t already:
November 5, 2019

NaNoWriMo Day 4

Day 4 writing badgeThe Words: 3351 words. I didn’t get started on my writing until after 9 pm, which is normal for me, but I kept hoping to have time earlier in the day. Some of the writing was done with @NaNoWordSprints on Twitter. I did one 15-minute sprint with my region’s Discord group. Then at about 10:40 pm, I did the math to find out I was 700 words shy of my goal–3300. My husband would be coming home at around 11 pm, and I knew he’d like to play a game together tonight if I was willing. So I basically did a reverse sprint, where I wrote as fast as I could to get to 700 quickly, rather than writing for a set amount of time. I made it with a few minutes to spare before his car pulled in.

The Story:  I went back to storyline 2 today. The angry character got some words of advice and realize that underneath her anger was fear. And she decided she needed to do something about that fear, so she has brought another character to a location where, together, they can try to make a plan to find her missing best friend.

Today’s writing included a small “Aha!” moment as I stumbled over a chance to set something up that won’t come up until the book that follows this one. I love those moments.

Total word count: 15,817

Don’t forget to check out today’s NaNoToons if you haven’t already:
2019 – November 4th

NaNoWriMo Day 3

Day 3 writing badgeThe Words: 3628 words, all on my Neo. I tend to bring either my Neo or a notebook everywhere I go during November, just in case I have some free time. While in the car today, I realized that I was missing some prime writing time. Normally, I can’t do anything like read or look at a phone while riding in the car, or I get dizzy and queasy, but with the Neo, I could just type without even looking down at the keyboard. So on the trip back home from church, I wrote for maybe 15 minutes and got a bit over 600 words.

Later, I caught a couple of word sprints on my region’s Discord server for right around 2000 words, and a couple of sprints with @NaNoWordSprints in the evening got me to my total for the night.

The Story:  When I was in the car, I wasn’t sure where I’d left off in either of my main storylines, so I decided to start on a 3rd. It is technically part of storyline 2, but it’s a different location and separate character, which will meet up with the rest of storyline 2 at some point later in the story. Then the rest of my writing at home, I worked on storyline 1. There was a wedding and an explosion. What an exciting day!

Total word count: 12,466

Don’t forget to check out today’s NaNoToons if you haven’t already:
2019 – November 3rd

NaNoWriMo Day 2

Day 2 writing badgeThe Words: 2810 words, all on my Neo. Today being Saturday, I had dreams of getting some writing in during the day, but it wasn’t meant to be. My evening writing time came a little late too, with me finally sitting down to write at 10 pm. And the 2 hours from then until midnight (I always stop at midnight to count my words for the day) lacked focus, both in the time spent actually putting words into the Neo, and in the content of what I was writing.

When it got to be about 11:20, I planned to hit 3000 before stopping, but my numbers got thrown off by 400 extra words I found last night after midnight, when transferring my writing from the Neo to the computer. Though I tried to get the NaNo site to recognize that those words from the day before, apparently that feature isn’t working on the new site yet.

Anyway, 2800 words isn’t a bad number by any means! But my goal every year is more than just hitting 50k, but actually finishing the draft, because I know that if I don’t before November ends, I won’t for a long, long time after that. And based on the length of this year’s story’s outline and past experience, I think shooting for 100k words this year is my best bet. Hence setting my personal daily goal at 3333 words (double the normal amount). I didn’t make it today, but surpassed it yesterday, so I’m still on track.

The Story:  I switched to the other storyline today (I’ll call this one storyline 2, simply because I started it after storyline 1, but I don’t actually know which will start first in the final story). Today brought a character that has been around since the beginning of this series and is usually pretty calm and collected, but today she got to show a different side, as she is understandably pretty angry at her best friend, who made a huge, life-affecting decision at the very end of the previous book that she really doesn’t agree with.

I need to get a synopsis written up for this story…

Total word count: 8835

Don’t forget to check out today’s NaNoToons if you haven’t already:
2019 – November 2nd

NaNoWriMo Day 1

Day 1 writing badgeThe Words: 6025 words, all on my Neo. I started at midnight last night and wrote 3440 in about an hour and 40 minutes before going to bed. All but 5 minutes of this was done alongside the Twitter feed of @NaNoWordSprints. (If you don’t know what that is, be sure to check it out. It can save the month for you!)

The rest were done tonight in word sprints with others from my region on a Discord server.

The Story: I am basically going to be writing 2 storylines this year, and I’ve never been good at knowing where those storylines will merge while I’m writing. I’m better off writing them as individual storylines and merging them later. But I think it will help me a lot this month if I don’t just write all of one, and then the other. So for now, I’m planning to go back and forth between them every other day, and see how that goes. If I’m really feeling one and want to write it for a few days in a row, of course I will.

Mostly a lot of politics happened in today’s writing. Five characters basically discussed the recent state of their neighboring nations, over the course of several meetings, which will likely be broken up by the other storyline in the end.

Total word count: 6025

Don’t forget to check out today’s NaNoToons if you haven’t already: https://nanotoons.org/2019/11/01/2019-november-1st
And in honor of November 1st, the first episode of the NaNoMusical!

NaNoWriMo Eve

NaNo handouts

NaNoWriMo starts in 12 hours where I am. This month, known by many as Preptober, was much less full of prep than I planned. This was mostly due to a combination of working on final edits for my first full-novel release that is due out on January 10th and feeling like I could push off the prep work, because I’d already made an outline for my NaNoNovel a few months ago.

I did finally spend some time Monday and Tuesday this week looking over the outline, as well as the outline for the book that precedes it (it’s drafted, but had to be re-outlined due to a lot of changes needed). I re-read character interviews and wrote a new one with some brand new characters.

I am not sure I am 100% ready, and actually hope to look over the outline again at some point today, before midnight. But I do know that, if necessary, I have enough to get started. I’ll be starting right at midnight (known as the midnight sprint). I do that every year, and whether I write 500 words or 3000 words, anything I get done before going to bed is a huge mental jump start on the month!

And fair warning: I will blog every day about my experience doing NaNoWriMo. I’ve done this nearly every year since starting this blog (the only exception was the year that I had just started full-time at a very demanding job, and what I was writing for NaNo that year was a difficult, personal subject, so frankly, I was doing good to even reach 50k that year).

There may be those who are curious about how others get through the month–I know I am, and most days I also spend some time reading blog posts by others about how their writing went that day. I have also found that I really enjoy being able to look back in later years and read about my progress through the month.

I will also share each day’s NaNoToons, which incidentally will be the last year for NaNoToons. (In fact, the first one for this year just went up! I’m so excited!!) And I’ll post episodes from the NaNoMusical throughout the month, because it’s one of the best things to come out of NaNoWriMo ever, and every Wrimo needs to know about it!

I wish my fellow Wrimos well, and hope to hear from some of you during the month! Please feel free to add me as a writing buddy!

Are you ready for NaNo to begin? Do you plan to do the midnight sprint tonight?

Writing Wednesday: Prompt

WW Prompt

Here’s today’s Writing Wednesday Prompt:

Combine the following 3 elements into a scene, short story, story synopsis, etc:
prisoner of war
cashier at a dollar store
bid for immortality

(These elements were 3 randomly drawn cards from my Storymatic deck.)

If you write something from this prompt, by all means let me know! Feel free to share what you wrote, if you want!

**If you’re looking for more like this, you might want to check out the story seeds posts I wrote for NaNoPrep a few years ago. They are not specific to NaNoWriMo, and each contains a list of several different types of prompts or ways to generate story ideas. You can find them here: Story Seeds 1, Story Seeds 2, Story Seeds 3, Story Seeds 4**

Weekly Writing Update: October Week 4

Even though I got through 2/3 of the revision of my proof copy of “Pithea” in less than a week, it took me the rest of this week to finish it. This was mostly due to the fact that my husband wanted to spend time with me a lot in the evenings this week (evenings are my main time to spend on writing). How dare he…

I’m done with the main revision though, with only minor aesthetic things to proof, so I’m going to go ahead and order another proof copy to check my hopefully clearer cover that I had to redo again when the revision I did cut the pages down by just enough to require a different cover size.

While I wait on that proof to come, I need to spend the rest of this month prepping for NaNoWriMo. Thankfully, the outline has been done for months, but I need to get my mind back into that story, catch up with the remade plans for the story that comes before, and maybe flesh out the outline I already have. But no matter how much or little I get done during the rest of Preptober, come November 1st, I will start writing!

Writing Wednesday: Prompt

WW Prompt

Here’s today’s Writing Wednesday Prompt:

He/she is worth fighting for.

(Today’s prompt is the subtitle of the book I’m currently reading, Priceless by Joel & Luke Smallbone.)

If you write something from this prompt, by all means let me know! Feel free to share what you wrote, if you want!

**If you’re looking for more like this, you might want to check out the story seeds posts I wrote for NaNoPrep a few years ago. They are not specific to NaNoWriMo, and each contains a list of several different types of prompts or ways to generate story ideas. You can find them here: Story Seeds 1, Story Seeds 2, Story Seeds 3, Story Seeds 4**