Shambles, or Not

Apparently I am not in an Apocalypse sorta mood. I know that shouldn't stop me, but it's been so hard to write and I'm currently on vacation. I'll be back in my usual roost in two days, but I'm already quite far behind my goal for the month and I'm a little disheartened. Since it's a rainy day and I've already run into town (15 miles away) I'm going to try to focus on my writing for a bit before and after I make dinner. It's hard to focus on what happens after most of the world is eaten by Zombies with the view I'm looking at, though, and it also doesn't fit with my November NaNo story waiting to be finished.

I am currently presented with a nice fire in a rough stone fireplace and a view out the large glass doors and windows of a bluff overlooking a beautiful green river and the hill across the way as rain and fog rolls across the land. The pine trees still have their needles, with the exception of the bug eaten one missing even it's bark, but the rest of the trees are bare. There are birds braving the rain to eat some seed strewn about on the deck and railing for them. There's a large selection, a cardinal, blue jay, lots of little sparrows and finches, even a squirrel visits every couple of ours. A woodpecker flits about nearby and occasionally pecks one of the deck posts instead of a tree. I've seen at least 10 deer in the last couple of days, though not the friendly fox that normally frequents the area.

It's beautiful in a way that I cannot begin to capture in words, and none of my writing endeavors even begins to appeal to me while surrounded by it. I've been out hiking, cleared logs and leaves from around the house, Geocached, read two books, and almost every meal has been cooked at home (most by me!). It has been a great retreat despite not being entirely necessary or planned. I'm glad I have this time to spend with my mom and boyfriend after the craziness of the holidays, but I'm ready to get back into my life.

I don't know what I'm going to write yet, so I'm not going to set a goal. I'm just going to admit my current word count for the year and scurry back to my hiding hole to enjoy my last two days before stressing or worrying about getting caught up.

Word Count: 1,015

Happy New Year!

I'm back from the holiday vacation and have already flown through the first two and a half days of the new year. I was separated from my planning materials until late evening on the 1st, and we had to unload the car and unpack. In the spirit of last minute decisions, I finally picked a goal of 500,000 words by December 31, 2012 as of the 2nd. With my goal, I finished my tracking spreadsheets and decided what I'd start out with.

Today I've begun writing on my short story about an unwitting zombie, and hope to finish it tomorrow. I'm guessing it will be around 5,000 words in the first draft, given my penchant for long scenes even when trying to condense them. If I finish it tomorrow close to my estimated word count, I'll be pretty much on track so far! It's going a little slow because I'm handwriting it thanks to an undeniable urge to do so, but I'm going to go focus on it as soon as I'm done here!

I hope starting with a short story and being on track in the first week of the year will help me push through difficult times with the realization that I've already finished one story, quite an accomplishment for me! Then, I'm going to move on by going back to my latest NaNo story in order to finish it. That'll be two finished first draft projects under my belt before I start a larger project!

I still need to do outlining for the story I think I'm going to work on next, Lunch Meat. It's less serious than either of the others stories, with all of the characters based on my current or former friends, and pokes fun at the current batch of Twilight inspired books (and Twilight as well). It centers around two girls whose friend begins to date a mysterious stranger and the disappears. Eventually, they connect the stranger with other weird occurrences in their town and decide they have to take him down. I'm looking forward to this fun little romp, even if I decide not to ever revise it.

Current word count: 238
Goal by end of day: 2,500
Goal by end of tomorrow: 5,000

NaNo Win

I forgot when I started this how terrible I am at blogging. I finished the 50k in November! Woo! I'm only about halfway done with my story, though, so I'm going to continue writing after the holiday season. I am, in fact, considering setting a goal for the whole of next year. I was initially tempted by MilWordy, but I already know there is no way I could write a million words in a year. I don't have enough time, drive, or material, and my wrists would probably fall off even if I wore the braces every night. Instead I am trying to decide between 1k a day, or 366k this year OR 500k this year, to go for a little extra. Since I'm doing NaNo for sure in November, and will probably end up doing at least one month of Camp NaNo, that works out to about 40k for the rest of the months.

To help prepare for this year of noveling, I've begun to organize all of the stories I've worked on. I've made a list of my progress in each one. I'm sad to report that my finish rate is abysmally low. Of the stories I would ever consider working on again, only TWO have full first drafts, and one of those is a short story! SO. My other goal for this year is to finish four or five of the other novels.

I am confident in my ability to finish my Camp NaNo and my November NaNo from this year, as well as the one from last year. They all have pretty great outlines, and every time I look at the one from last year I am struck by how well it's paced. I also have a zombie related short story I could start and finish easily since I already know the entire storyline.

This leaves me with my 09 and 07 NaNos (so long ago!) which need outlining work before I'd be able to finish them. I also started a vampire story based on my friends, which trailed off because I stopped speaking to the girl who was supposed to date the vampire. I think I'm going to pick it back up. I have some ideas as to where the plot needs to go, but I don't have a written outline anymore. I also lost all of the chapters except the first one. This is literally the only story I have ever lost part of, and I'm sadder than I realized I'd be. As it is, I'm going to rewrite the first chapter, as my writing style has changed somewhat and I'm not sure I could make it flow well enough.

Finally, I have 7-8 story ideas I haven't yet fleshed out enough to write. Several of them are new, and several of them are ones I've just now had enough insight into to justify putting them on any sort of "to write" list. Two of them will likely be my NaNos for next year, so I don't want to work on them until it's closer to those months to make sure I don't get tired of them too quickly.

I suppose there is one last category on my list. It has three stories on it. My second NaNo, and two stories I started in high school. I never want to work on them again, though I still have everything related to them. The high school stories just aren't interesting enough to warrant more time, and I've somewhat cannibalized one of them for a later NaNo to much better effect. The NaNo from 2008...Let's just say I didn't win that year for a reason. Hate is too nice a word for how I feel about that story. It was influenced by a short lived interest in being as green as possible. While I still recycle and turn lights off when I don't use them and take short showers, I'm not anywhere near as disgustingly maniacal about it, and I certainly lack any urge to preach about it.

So after such a long time between posting, this one has ended up quite long! I realize I don't have many any readers, but I do have another post planned for the near future regarding writing. Until then, I'll be planning for my big year of writing!

20k and Second Write-In

I reached 20,000 words right after midnight yesterday! Woo! Then I took the rest of the day off despite the words feeling like they belonged in Tuesday instead, there only being 900 of them, and not writing anything for an entire "waking cycle" that I usually consider a day.

Luckily, I went to a write-in this evening, and I have been motivated once again. I'm now just past 23k and have stopped right before a scene I've been looking forward to writing for quite a while now! Lindsay and Diego are going to do something very stupid, and I can't wait. I know I'm ahead right now, but I'm really hoping to be able to keep up the pace of at least 2k a day so I can potentially finish the book in November, not  just write 50,000 words of a story I will then stop writing and never finish.

10,000 Words

I reached 10k last night! Woo! I'm still at the beginning of my novel, so I feel like my plot is moving slowly compared to some people. I always end up writing epic length novels, though. I've looked at all the other people in my region, and I am pretty sure I'm 7th. This is obviously not good enough. I'm considering trying to have a huge word count today so I can be in at least the top 5. It'll also be easier once the board has an official top 10 and I don't have to open a bunch of tabs every time I want to see where I'm at. The competition is really helping me this year! Hopefully it can shove me through week 2 and into week 3 without me stopping like previous years! I think as long as I don't fall behind on my word count, I'll be okay. Hope everyone else has novels that are going well too!

First Write In

Yesterday I went to my first real write-in. It was pretty okay, I got to know some of my fellow NaNoers better. I also learned something important about myself. I already knew that online word sprints didn't really do anything for me, and that trying to keep up with someone who is above me is only marginally more helpful because I always slack off if I get ahead. BUT! Word sprints in person make me insanely competitive. I did 562 words in the one we did. The next highest number I heard anyone say was 40 words beneath mine. It was like a monster come out of me. Every time I felt anything like distraction, I chastised myself and was so worried I was going to have the lowest score. Hearing people around me clacking their keys was fantastic! I can't wait for the next one on Sunday.

I finished last night with 8k, and I'm hoping to break 10k today. I might see how far along the person who I've chosen as my regional Nemesis is (though I might have to pick again because she's blown me away so far) and try to get closer to her again. All in all, I'm feeling much stronger about this NaNo than last year, even though I LOVED that plot more than this one. This plot actually kinda scares me a bit. No excerpt yet, I've been using my time trying to get a bigger buffer.

Day 1!

Today I started at midnight and wrote exactly 1,667 in the hour after midnight. I didn't even have to stop in the middle of a sentence. I've decided this is a good sign. Since I'd gotten my daily word count and I was surprisingly tired I went to bed in the middle of the prologue. When I got up this morning I finished the prologue, coming in at 3,379 words. That's a little over double the daily word count, and I'm feeling good still. I haven't yet decided if I'm going to start the next scene and push for 5k or if I should leave it for tomorrow and a nice, fresh start. Since I'm ahead, I'm also allowing myself to edit somewhat as long as I don't remove words. This means I'll have a nice somewhat polished excerpt from the first scene for sharing soon!

I also know that I'm going to get less and less ahead as the month continues. That's been my pattern every time I've done NaNo, and I'm already a little worried about it. For now my plan is to actually go to write ins (next one on Thursday!) so I have real life people to do it with and feel all shame-y if I show up too far behind. I'm guessing the hardest part will be Thanksgiving, because I'm going to my boyfriend's family friend's house on Thanksgiving, and my family is having their Thanksgiving party the Saturday after. Two days of eating! My current plan is to write in the morning, but there are a million things that could get in the way of that. In any event, I'm ahead right now. Woo!