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NaNoWriMo Day 5

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The Words: 8743 written today.

I decided to really make use of my day off. I work only about 20 hours a week, but those 20 hours are generally spread throughout Monday-Saturday, and I can be needed any time from 9am until 11pm on those days (or midnight on Fridays and Satrudays). So I highly value my Sundays off.

I came up with a plan today. My husband and I have been binge-watching Girl Meets World recently, since I came down sick and started from the beginning of the show on Netflix (we grew up with Boy Meets World and loved the continuity from that show, but hadn’t finished GMW yet). We’re in the final season, and have been enjoying watching it together. So I told him I would write 1500 words, and then we’d watch an episode, and we’d go back and forth like that, see how it went.

We went through 3 cycles of that, and then it was time to make supper. I helped him get supper started, and then wrote some more. When I realized how close I was to 25k words, I decided that would be my stopping point.

Then I validated my word count, and it came in over 1000 words higher than I thought, and I remembered that I hadn’t been counting all of my words, just my sprints. But I’d written some between sprints… anyway, the point is, it was a great day!

The Story: Well…I’ve been doing a lot of rehashing events from my very first novel, and I did do some more of that today. It’s been a lot of dialog between 4 people, and very little showing what they’re doing while they talk. I know this is mostly filler, and that it can’t stay in the story. And it’s not even the kind of filler that at least teaches you something about your characters or your story. But I don’t care. Because what it is is filler that has been so much fun to write. I have just been having so much fun having one or two characters share a crazy, fun, or surprising story from the past, and letting the other one or two characters who didn’t already know the story react.

But most of that has come to an end now.

Nathan has just left to stake out the building they visited in the previous day’s writing, the one where Rogan woke up. He’s hoping that Vin (the man who “saved” Rogan) will show back up and he can get a lead on what’s going on.

Total word count: 26,169

Don’t forget to check out today’s NaNoToons if you haven’t already: 2017 – November 5th

NaNoWriMo Day 4

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The Words: 4109 written today.

I didn’t get to any writing after midnight last night again, and I worked today. I didn’t get started on my writing until 9pm. The first word sprint with @NaNoWordSprints on Twitter at that time was a #1K30min (30-minute sprint where people push themselves to try to write 1000 words). I got 1700–the entire daily goal in one sprint. It was a rush!

My husband came in then, and we put our daughter to bed. A few shorter word sprints later got me to the word count I have, 5 minutes before midnight.

The Story: Rogan, Penny, Nathan, and Ari go to where Rogan thinks he was when he woke up the previous day.

Ari stumbles across a discovery that shakes Penny to the core. They decide they should not stick around this place, because of the danger involved.

(If anyone is following along with this, I know it’s vague, but I need to avoid spoilers.)

Total word count: 17,426

Don’t forget to check out today’s NaNoToons if you haven’t already: 2017 – November 4th

NaNoWriMo Day 3

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The Words: 3682 written today.

I didn’t get to any writing after midnight last night, like I like to do to get a jump start on the day’s writing. And I had a rather rough day of work today, that followed me through supper time. (I work from home for about 70% of my job, so I worked from home, but the work kept going after I’d quit for the day and ate supper. That isn’t normal, at least not to this degree, but we’re finishing up a long project…like, 1.5 years long, and it’s down to minor bugs and issues that we’re starting to stress over.)

I told my husband that I wasn’t sure I was going to get my words in today during supper, not because I didn’t think I’d have time later in the evening, but because I wasn’t sure my mind would be in the right place. And because I wasn’t sure if work would keep following me. Let me be clear about something though–I was already ahead of par going into today, by 3 days, and I’m aware that is really good. But I’ve always liked to still get at least the normal 1667 words in each day, no matter how far ahead I am, because I know there will be a day (usually later in the month) when I just can’t. So I store the extra for those bad days. I didn’t want to use some of that extra on day 3.

Rather than wait for after my daughter went to bed, I decided to take the hour after supper, before she went to bed, to steal away and see what I could get done. I had my husband’s blessing, so off I went. I got to the Twitter word sprints feed that I love so much just as one sprint leader was signing off. The next one didn’t join right away, so I started up a 10-minute sprint on my own. Two total 10-minute solo sprints later, a sprint leader came along and said we were doing a #1K30min (30-minute sprint where people push themselves to try to write 1000 words). I got 1500, which was fantastic. The others on Twitter kept going with another #1K30min, but I needed a break. My fingers were tired after that.

The Story: Nathan and Penny, finally alone after Rogan first showed up out of nowhere, take some time to discuss the situation. Penny goes through a range of emotions over the recent developments.

Then we move on to the next day, and Nathan and Penny meet back up with Rogan and their team leader Ari to decide how to proceed with the mystery about Rogan that has presented itself.

Total word count: 13,317

Don’t forget to check out today’s NaNoToons if you haven’t already: 2017 – November 3rd

NaNoWriMo Day 2

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The Words: 3830 written today. Last night after midnight, I wrote 772 words with my Neo right before bed. Then this evening, I sat down at my laptop and did a few word sprints with @NaNoWordSprints on Twitter. Forgetting for the moment that I had 772 words locked away on my Neo (I haven’t taken the time to get the cable out and transfer them yet), when I had reached 2800 words, I decided to round it off to 3000 on my own.

The Story: I didn’t want to try to remember where I’d left off in the storyline yesterday, so when I started writing on my Neo, I went over to the other storyline. This one is a sequence of letters from Vin, the title character, to a pastor that he knows to be a good man. Vin is going through a crisis of sorts, as he attempts to gain enough power to bend the world to his own morality. Because the pastor is the one who taught him about that morality, he’s pouring his uncertainties out into letters to the man, over the course of time. So far, he’s questioning whether or not lying to his great-grandmother to get her to give him some family heirlooms (so he can sell them) is stealing. And he’s musing about how difficult his father is to please, while the man himself is a pretty terrible guy.

The majority of the words were about Rogan. He’s in the house of his team’s War Games leader, a man that he really likes, so that helps his current situation a bit. That man, Ari, has been filling Rogan in on many huge events that have taken place lately. I may have gone into too much detail, especially considering that if this book is ever published, the reader would hopefully already know about a lot of these events. But boy is it good for some easy (and fun) word count.

Total word count: 9635

Don’t forget to check out today’s NaNoToons if you haven’t already: 2017 – November 2nd

NaNoWriMo Day 1

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The Words: 5805 on day 1. I started right at midnight with the midnight sprint, and got to 3458 before stopping for the night/morning. Then this evening, despite already being past par for 2 days, I wrote for another hour and a half.

All of this writing, minus the very first 10-minute sprint that I did to get warmed up, was done alongside the Twitter feed of @NaNoWordSprints. I can’t stress enough how motivating it is, and how helpful it can be to have someone else setting time goals and starting times! If you ever find yourself struggling to just get writing (and put aside distractions) or to write quickly without stopping to think a lot or to edit, I suggest checking out that newsfeed (even if you don’t really use Twitter).

The Story: I’ve still been uncertain about who my main character was going to be up until I actually started writing. I think it’s going to be Rogan (names will be changed for the sake of spoilers). I started this story reminiscing about Rogan’s first date with the woman he loves and has recently started a relationship with. We’ll call her Penny. Then, a mission for his militia had him down for a few days, but we get to watch him go find Penny to let him know he’s all right.

Unfortunately, things aren’t always what they seem.

Total word count: 5805

Don’t forget to check out today’s NaNoToons if you haven’t already: 2017 – November 1st
And in honor of November 1st, the first episode of the NaNoMusical!

On the Eve of NaNoWriMo

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NaNoWriMo starts in 4 hours where I am. It has been a hard-fought month of prep for me. For one thing, I was just getting myself back to a place where I could work on my writing regularly again at the beginning of the month. I got back into the swing of posting every day to hold myself accountable to doing some form of writing work each day.

There were 3 main things I wanted to do before November came:
1. Clean my main writing space.
2. Post a synopsis for my novel, along with 2-3 other posts about NaNo, writing in general, and my other novels.
3. Make a solid outline for my NaNoNovel.

Then I got sick. And let’s see how my plans worked out?

1. I did get this done, just today. Initially, my husband and I planned to clean more around my writing space too, but today, he said, “What do you want done, bare minimum?” So now my work desk is cleaned off, so I can put aside work things and focus on writing more easily, and I have even organized various papers, notebooks, and scrapbooking things into a filing cabinet that I’ve had for a while, but was too lazy to do much with.

2. This post is a compromise for me…I had more detail I wanted to share about things I learned during my prep time this month, but some of it has actually sort of been watered down in my mind by snags that came after the exciting moments. I know that probably doesn’t make sense, but that’s okay. Once I get past the first few scary days of November, and hopefully past this flu (I’m just guessing it’s the flu, but it tracks), I will still post some of the other things I wanted to share, but there’s one that will probably never be written (titled “Planners are Cheaters,” by the way).

3. And then there’s my NaNoNovel…The novel I’ve planned to write next month will delve into the mind of someone more broken and dark than any characters I’ve written about so far.  It’s not the first time I’ve planned to write something out of my comfort zone. Two years ago, I wrote 2 murder-mystery themed stories, which was a first for me. Last year, I wrote about the time my dad spent in the hospital for 3 weeks in September of that year. Writing like that was very different for me.

However, the shape and form of this novel has changed pretty drastically about 100 times since I started planning it 3 weeks ago. I have been concerned for most of those 3 weeks that I won’t be ready in time. I don’t need a long, detailed outline, sheets on every character, note cards, or any other such degree of planning. But I wasn’t even sure I would have a broad outline, and I can’t stress this enough–I am not a pantser. (I’ve tried.)

Fortunately, just yesterday, I finished a 2-page, handwritten outline. When I say “finished”…well, I got as far as I could without knowing where the writing will take me. I often (not always, but often) will write 2/3 of an outline, and then start writing, because I’m not even sure what is going to happen next, but I have good reason to believe that the actual writing will bring out the rest. This outline covers about half, maybe more, of the story. The other half(ish) of the story has a fairly solid timeline to help me know that broad plot points.

I’ve decided that I can’t post a synopsis for my story though, at least not more than the early one I already did. The story is still too much of a mystery to me, so much that I can’t even say what the true “main story” is going to be until I write it. This one’s going to be a fun one to edit, I think…

Okay, now looking ahead to tonight, and the rest of the month, I have two key things I want to say:
1. I will be starting right at midnight. 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!

2. I will blog every day about my experience doing NaNoWriMo. This will be the third year I’ve done this, since starting my blog (2014 and 2015). There may be those who are curious about how others get through the month (I know I am). I have also found that I really enjoy being able to look back in later years and read about my progress through the month. And since I already post here every day that I got any writing work done, as a way of staying accountable, it’s not much of a stretch.

I have not yet heard for sure whether or not we will have new NaNoToons this year, but if so, I will share those every day. (If not, maybe I’ll go back and share them from an earlier year!) I will also post episodes from the NaNoMusical throughout the month, because I still love it to pieces and can’t not try to get others to love it too!

I wish my fellow Wrimos well, and hope to hear from some of you during the month!

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

A Monday Moment: The Kidnapping

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When I started doing these Monday Moment posts, I vowed to post something I’d written in the last week, and that if I hadn’t written anything new by Sunday or Monday, well, I’d just have to get to writing.

However, I’ve written a fair bit over the last week…it’s just all too spoiler-filled, or too confusing if you don’t know a lot of backstory. Since I’ve been sick, I had no desire to push myself to write something else. It’s all I can do to keep moving forward on NaNoPrep.

I wrote this about 2 years ago. I did already post it on my blog back then, in a regular daily check-in post, because I liked it. (This was before I started my Monday series.) So I’m sharing it again now as an official Monday Moment. Prompt used is at the bottom.

Why should they get to have such an extravagant life while I have to wait until I’m 21 to see any of their money? I can’t believe they cut me off, just because I lost a little of their money. I mean, what’s $10,000 to people who have millions?

This will show them. I can’t believe how easy this is going to be. I know they’re not happy with me right now, but they still love me. They’ll pay anything we ask to make sure I’m safe.

I didn’t think those guys were really going to hit me. I thought we’d use some kind of make-up or something. Or fake blood like they use in movies. Man, that really hurt. But it’s okay. Once we get the million from my parents, I can get myself fixed up. The pain is so going to be worth it.

Why am I tied up? Why did I agree to this? Who said this was supposed to be uncomfortable? I just wanted to take some pictures and go stay in a motel. That girl they brought in really knows how to convince me to do things. Stupid things. First they beat me up, and then they left me here, tied up. Man, I’m hungry.

I’m starting to think that the guys I hired to fake this with me aren’t faking. Who would have thought that finding some guys in an alley would have led to this? I figured they’d be so happy to make so much money without having to do much, they’d go along with whatever I said. I’m so hungry, I would eat a rat right now. Hey…what’s that moving over in the corner?

I’m pretty sure…I’m going to die here. I haven’t seen anyone since they took the picture they were supposed to use as proof of life. The girl said she’d be back with food and left. I’ve been tied to this chair for two days now. I…I think I’ll just sleep now. Maybe it’ll make the end easier…

…hunh? What’s that bright light? Where am I going? Is this the end? Oh, there’s my mom. She looks mad. Why is she mad at me? I’m the one who was tied to a chair and left to starve to death. Wait, there’s that girl…what’s she doing here? Is she handcuffed? Oh, my wrists are finally free. Now I can get out of this chair and–

Well, moving didn’t really work. I seem to be at the mercy of these people who are lifting me onto a bed. I suppose I’ll have to go to the hospital and be checked out before I can go home. I wonder where my dad is, why he’s not here with Mom. Maybe he was too busy to come. Or he’s even angrier than Mom is. They must know what I did.

Oh, there’s Dad. Wait, why is he in handcuffs? What’s going on?

Prompt used: Staging a fake kidnapping to get money out of your rich parents

A Monday Moment: Vin & Missy

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Normally I put any prompts involved with a Monday Moment writing at the bottom, but I thought it was important to state it at the beginning this time.

From my Writer’s Emergency Pack, #9, question 1: Picture your hero on a date with each of the major characters in the story.
Vin and Missy are both major characters in my NaNoNovel, “Vin.”
The following gets a little meta.

They stared across the table at each other awkwardly.

“So…which one of us is the hero in this scenario?” Vin asked with a smirk.

Missy rolled her eyes.

“Hey, it’s a legitimate question. We don’t even know how much you’ll be in the book.”

“Oh, please,” Missy said, straightening up in her chair. “Every time a new book is written, I manage to push my way in to a near-main-character role.”

“Not the ones about Alexander.”

“Alexander is on his own quest so much, he is fine as the lead. You, on the other hand…”

“What about me?”

“We’re all still getting used to the idea of you not being a sociopath. It was all a lot easier when you…”

“When I was just plain evil?”

“Well, yeah…”

“So why am I not anymore?”

“That’s a better question for someone else, but I’d say it’s because you weren’t interesting enough to drive a story that way.”

“And now I am?”

“You’re complex. You have real motivation, as skewed as it may be.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but she silenced him with a raised hand.

“You garner sympathy–that’s the important thing. You saw a need and tried to help. Your somewhat broken past may have led you to a dark place during your quest, but your underlying intentions were good.”

He didn’t even try to say anything. What she was saying reminded him of Pastor Lede. Considering how he had always treated Missy, she was giving him more kindness than he deserved.

“This is supposed to be a date, you know,” he said.

“I know.”

“But how do you leave him out of it?”

Missy shook her head. “I think we’ve already ruined the premise. I’ll try to do better with Alexander.”

“There you go again, presuming you’re the hero,” he said, stopping short of sighing.

She stared across the table at him intently. “Vin, you may be the main protagonist, but do you really expect anyone to buy you as the hero?”

“Maybe it depends on who you ask.”

 

A Monday Moment: Vin Begins

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I had just started this series of “Monday Moment” posts a few months before I disappeared for a while, and I want to start doing them again. Because revision work (or in my case right now, planning work) isn’t usually as fun for me as the actual writing, I want to try to do writing practice more often too. So then every Monday, I will post a piece of writing practice from the previous week (or a little further back if necessary).

I won’t revise any of this, except for a spell-check. They’ll probably rarely be longer than 500 words. The prompt, if I used one and if I choose to include it, will be at the bottom. And I can’t even call them all stories, because there’s not always a beginning and end. Usually it’s just a moment in time.

This first one is very related to my NaNoPrep. This is a bit of writing I did with no prompt, as I first tried to delve into the mind of the protagonist of my possible NaNoNovel. It’s very short, but so much about Vin and the plot of his book came out from this writing:

My dad was a hard man. He expected perfection from both me and my mom. The older I got, the more I realized that he was anything but perfect, but my mom always said he was embarrassed by his mistakes, and that’s why he wanted more from me. He was doing me a favor.

I thought Cleric would be the only path that would allow me to be what I thought he wanted—good, righteous, perfect. I had already enrolled at the Academy when my dad died during a Madness run. I felt so much relief at his death that it flooded me with guilt. What kind of monster was I?

I turned to my mom for…not comfort, exactly. Absolution? Reciprocity? She was almost a shell of her former self. She acted like nothing was different—never grieved, barely even talked about his death. At one time I wondered if she was fully aware he had died. She went on with normal life, except something was just different about her. Any spark my dad had left her with was gone.

Tips for NaNoPrep

/ Kristi / 3 Comments

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In 2015, I wrote a series of posts about NaNoWriMo, covering things like tips for prep time, tips for November, help in the actual prep work, and even some of my favorite writing tools.

The problem now is that, though those things are all still helpful and relevant, there’s not a lot to add to them. I have picked up a few extra tips since then, sure, but those things I wrote about 2 years ago are still some of the most helpful advice I could give.

I could just reblog those posts throughout the month, but I don’t like that idea. Instead, I’m going to pick some of my favorite tips and share them in a few, boiled-down posts, while also suggesting that anyone who is interested in learning more visit the page where I’ve listed all of those posts from 2015.

1. Start writing now.
Take the next 2 1/2 weeks to learn what works best for you, so that by November, you know how to make the most of your writing time. Do you require absolute silence? If yes, when can you find that? Is your ideal time late at night when others are asleep? During your lunch break? First thing in the morning?

It doesn’t have to be the amount of time you will need to write 1667 words each day in November, but find maybe 15-20 minutes when you can sit down and write. For planners, work on the plot, characters, outline, or whatever you’re doing. For pantsers who are doing absolutely no planning before November 1, you can still make time every day to free write in anticipation of daily writing in November. In fact, free writing can be a great use of your time whether you’re a planner, a pantser, or somewhere in between.

Try to write every day, which is a good habit to have even outside of NaNo, but also keep in mind that if you can’t get to it one day, it’s not the end of the world. Just remember that if you’re like most of us, the longer you let yourself stay away, the less likely it is that you’ll keep the habit you’ve developed.

2. Find your space.
In a similar vein as figuring what when you work best, it can also be good to know in advance where and how you work best. Do you need a comfy spot? Maybe you work better at a desk or table with a straight-backed chair.  Where can you go to have the solitude you need? Or do you prefer some noise? Give coffitivity.com a try for a steady coffee shop background noise available anywhere you happen to be. Sometimes a little noise is good, but too much (people in the room, or even music with lyrics) can be bad.

Use your planning time to try out different locations and environments and see what works best. Do some work with pen/pencil and paper and some with a computer. Do you enjoy the tactile feel of writing by hand? Do you prefer the speed that typing can provide? This is the time to find out!

3. Gather your NaNo necessities.
Whether this includes consumables, physical tools, or making sure your laptop is set up and ready to use, make sure you know what you want to have handy for NaNoWriMo now, and procure as much of it as you can. When November starts, you don’t want to find yourself lacking.

4. Involve other senses.
I touched on sound above, so we’ll start there. Some people create a playlist for every story. I’ve read about people who will find music that matches the theme of their story, make a playlist from it (even if just on YouTube), and listen to it all month. Then, when November is over and they want to go back later and either finish the novel or revise it, they can listen to that music again, and it will put them right back in the mood.

Whatever your taste in music is, an alternative to creating an audio scene for your story is creating an olfactory scene. Scent memory is said to be very powerful. Go to the store and smell all the candles or all the scented wax (if you have or are willing to buy the wax melter to go with it). Think of your story, what it’s about, where it’s set, who the main character(s) is/are. Is it a romance? Maybe something flowery or sensual. Is it set in a tropical location? Something with coconut or tropical fruit, perhaps. There are outdoor scents if your story involves a lot of forest or other outdoor scenes. Not every story lends itself easily to a scent, but pick something that smells right and have it burning/melting near you while you write all month. Then later, you may just be able to immerse yourself back into the book by activating that scent again.

Check out this post for some NaNo-related music, comic strips, and even a musical!

5. The midnight sprint.
NaNoWriMo begins at midnight on November 1. That falls in the middle of the week this year, but if you’re the kind who stays up late, or can make an exception for one night, you can start writing right at midnight and get some words under your belt before going to bed. It’s purely a mental trick, getting a jump start on the day’s word count, but many people love to do the midnight sprint.

When November looms closer, I will post tips about the writing itself, and how to survive–and even thrive–during NaNoWriMo. If you’re don’t want to wait, by all means, here’s the link again to the series of posts I made 2 years ago, from which I’ll probably be stealing some those tips.

What about you? How are you preparing for NaNoWriMo? If you’ve done this all before, do you have any tips on how to get ready?