NaNoWriMo #28: Winning and Aiming Higher

This is just a quick check up post today. I won NaNoWriMo on Sunday night and got fully validated. Now I’m desperately trying to reach 100,000 words by Friday. I managed a 10,000 day yesterday and I’m aiming for the same again today.

The novel write of o.S.a.M is coming along well. I’m getting down important parts and a fair bit of dialogue but I’m a little worried that I’ve gotten too exposition-y. I’m working out stuff about Labolai and the world it’s set in as well as the magic system as I go so I tend to write down every little thing that I can think of. Actual world building is something that I plan to work on once NaNo is over. For now I’m hopping between stories and different chapter, starting a new one when I finally figure out how to start a new story and going back to others when I figure out where it’s going.

I’ve also started a new novel, one that I just make up as I go along. It’s an idea I got from watching too much Death Valley and I’m not really sure if it’s actually going anywhere. I have fun, lots of fun with it, just typing in any strange situation thing that I can think of and it fits because the world it’s set in is crazy enough for it.

I’ve completely left the first story behind, just leaving it sitting there on my hard drive. Sure I might go back to it at another point but for now I’m just including it as a failed experiment. I’d need to go back and take out the parts that are dares and work on the description and dialogue but the bare bones are there. It helps that I didn’t keep working on it even after I began to hate it. If I had done that there’s a good chance I would have failed to win NaNo at all.

As it stands I am currently at 67,152 words. By the end of tonight I hope to be at 77,000 or even possibly 80,000. How’s your NaNo going?

Keep Writing.

RoW80 - Sunday Check In and problems with titles

So it’s that time of the week again. That’s right it is my RoW80 check-in. I don’t have much to report if I’m honest. I’ve been so focused on building up my NaNo word-count and feeling under the weather that I haven’t gotten much else done. Am I disappointed? Sure. Am I going to let it bother me? Nope.

I know what I want to do. I want to write and sell my books. I don’t want to do it for money, I just want to get my stories out there. The money is just a shiny extra in my mind and that little incentive I need to encourage me to work harder and faster.

I have been thinking about my current novels, the ones that are finished and the ones that are still on-going in my mind, while I’ve been at work this week and it has helped me a little with my goals.

1) Write NaNo every day; success.
and
4) Figure out how to convert o.S.a.M to novel format; ongoing
Some days the word count may not have been as high as I wanted and I am ridiculously behind on my intended word-count if I were aiming for 100k. But I have several days of uninterrupted writing time and I’m hoping that I’ll be able to make it up with those. In fact I managed to write 4k last night. Granted it took me like 5 hours but that was with lots of distractions going on such as tv and films. Tonight I’m aiming at a little over 8k by midnight. I don’t know if I’ll hit that target but I’m hopeful. Incidentally I’m still struggling on the rename but more on that in a little while. What is most important is that I’m finally managing to tell this story that has been bubbling away in my mind for the last 6 months. It’s coming along, gradually, but it is coming along.

2) Edit Darkling Watch once a week; fail.
So I’ve done no editing this week. Again. I’m a little down about it but there’s not really much I can do other than put my NaNo to one side and concentrate on the read-through. That isn’t something I want to do. Darkling Watch is not going anywhere and were I to try and edit it now the story would just end up suffering. I have found at least one, possibly two, beta readers for The Darkling Watch once I finish those edits though and I’ve even set myself a cursory release date for the first book; September 2013. There’s quite a lot I plan to do with Darkling Watch and the Darkling series but more about that another day.

3) Write one Feral Diaries entry a week; fail
I haven’t written anything for Feral Diaries again this week. It’s in the same situation as The Darkling Watch. I’ve been thinking about it though, considering how I would write it when I’m done with NaNo and how I’m going to go about editing it and that’s all good progress.  I’ve even managed to make a few contacts for certain areas of it and get a bit of research done. So although I haven’t actually written anything for it there is progress being made. It just isn’t tangible.

5) Blog at least 3 times a week; success
Despite last week’s failure to get any posts written I’ve done a lot better this week. I managed to keep to my set schedule and I’ve even ended up with a two part Monday post that I personally think is a pretty good read, but that’s just me. I haven’t seen any particular growth in readership or people favouriting my blog for quick reading but that doesn’t really bother me. What matters is that I’m managing to make regular blog posts that stick to set schedule. I’m overcoming a massive weakness of mine and in the long run it can only prove helpful.

 I’m still trying desperately to come up with a new name for o.S.a.M as Of Swords and Magic sounds like a really boring dissertation title for a literature degree. With this problem in my mind I thought I’d give a little synopsis of the story and then let you, dear readers offer possible suggestions.

It’s about a witch and two knights, travelling the country of Labolai, tracing curses with a similar magical signature and trying to find out exactly who destroyed the magical school/city of Magewick (dodgy name I know, I’m working on it). They have several adventures and it is more a collection of short stories joined by an overarching plotline, sort of like tv programs are. I want to include the name of the country Labolai in the title and I’ve been considering Tales of Labolai but it seems a bit... trite and doesn’t really explain what happens in the story. So... does anyone have any suggestions?

Keep Writing.

A Tough One Today

Today has been a hard one to write for me. I don’t really know what to say. I did plan to write something about how much I love to do lists then I realise that I’ve written about to do lists before. It’s difficult to come up with something personal and writer based to talk about this week.

Well almost. I may be doing some ghost writing of a gentleman’s life story. That should be interesting and a good experience in terms of writing. I’m not sure what his story is but he was so excited to have finally found a writer to write it for him that I don’t mind. There may be a chance to make some money from it but that really isn’t important to me. It’ll give me the chance to learn to write from someone else’s direction and to just write in a different genre. Now I just need to figure out how I’m going to actually do this.

If anyone actually knows anything about ghost writing please let me know.

Keep Writing!

NaNoWriMo: Day 21 - Slowing to a crawl

Well what to say this week. It’s really been the same as ever. I’ve been writing every day. Some days the words come easier than others but for the last few days, for the last week even, I’ve hit the NaNo daily target of 1667 and often going a small bit past it. I am not however, where I wanted to be at this point, both in the story and in terms of word-count. I’ve been consecutively 30,000+ words behind every day. I could put that down to my illness last week but that’s still on going and I’m managing to write a fair amount each day. I could put it down to hating my story at the start and having to change it.

Those excuses are too easy, too cliché, too... not enough. A lot of it is sheer laziness, on days where I have nothing to do at all, few and far between though they may be, I’ve not written much. In fact, when I think about it I’ve written less on those days then i have on the days where I have to squeeze in my writing time. Who knows what is going on in my head though, even I don’t have a clue.

For now I’m going to plow through and keep writing.

I’m also still seriously consider including the word-count for my blog posts on the NaNo site, as they have all been written in November. Should I?

Keep Writing!