NaNoWriMo Day 5
Word count: 8,046. Today was a struggle, but I skipped ahead a little bit and had a bit of a monologue throwdown with Patrick's antagonist. Now, that was fun. Feels good to crack 8,000 in five days. Never have written so much, so fast. Good news, only need to write 2,003 words to get back on track, although it's not about the word count, but finishing the novel. Still, I need to have firm goals for myself. Now that I have the pacing down, I need to focus on knocking out scenes.
Had a panic at one point when I thought I lost about 600 words from some back Word-fu. All resolved well. The wing of the airplane was not on fire.
In other news, I'm feeling a lot of tension in my jaw. I'm probably grinding my teeth out of stress. I just do so well with deadlines. *sigh*
Today, my lovely wife and I bought our cats some toys and the most bad-ass pooper scooper in the world. Stainless steel, rubber grip. It's like if Craftsman made de-pooping tools. It's a sad thing to admit I look forward to the next time I clean the cat box. Anyway, we are treating November as the cats' Christmas (Catistmas? Hanukkat? Katwanza? Felinestivus?). Spoiled little fur-shedders are got a bunch of toys and will get a mondo cat tree to play with on Thanksgiving Day. Seriously, it's massive. It's the Ewok Village 4000. It's Lothlorien. If it was an apartment in Seattle, the rent would go for an easy $900. Lucky little nuzzling fluffheads.
Song of the evening: "Tape Loop," by Morcheeba.
Saturday, November 05, 2005
Friday, November 04, 2005
NaNoWriMo Day 4
Word total: 5,607. Getting better. Have the tension moving up now. A couple good character moments, and a slightly cheesy dream sequence. Oh well. Say it with me, it's a rough draft. Making up a bit for not writing a lot because of yesterday. Learned as an universal truth today that I cannot write at work.
Song of the Evening: "Just Like Honey," by The Jesus and Mary Chain.
Word total: 5,607. Getting better. Have the tension moving up now. A couple good character moments, and a slightly cheesy dream sequence. Oh well. Say it with me, it's a rough draft. Making up a bit for not writing a lot because of yesterday. Learned as an universal truth today that I cannot write at work.
Song of the Evening: "Just Like Honey," by The Jesus and Mary Chain.
Gray
Gray in body and mind. Exhausted after class last night and under siege from the thick, wet wool of clouds that are wrapping themselves in long, invading tentacles all over Seattle this afternoon. It's a day to just go home and burrow oneself in flannel sheets and take up extreme slumber. But the 20-foot-tall writing mistress dressed in leather and metal coming through the fog and reminding me I owe about 1,666 words today and about 4,900 this weekend. What's pleasantly shocking is when I walk away from the keyboard after a writing session with the fact I wrote about 7-8 pages. Granted, it's all rough, but it's down. No one said the first draft has to sing. It just needs to be a map of where I want the final draft to go. Last night, we worked on dismissing the critic, who sits to await the chance to march on literary ambitions the same way Godzilla strolled through Tokyo. I'm already there, which shocked the hell out of me, considering how much the inner critic was so present with me up until a couple months ago when my therapist and I deduced the source of the critic. And like that, the nagging and shrillness evaporated. Now, it's a voice to push and write and honor a commitment to something that, damn it, I've been meaning to do for so long.
So, the lesson is, if you need to have voices in your head, make them work for you. Not against you.
Gray in body and mind. Exhausted after class last night and under siege from the thick, wet wool of clouds that are wrapping themselves in long, invading tentacles all over Seattle this afternoon. It's a day to just go home and burrow oneself in flannel sheets and take up extreme slumber. But the 20-foot-tall writing mistress dressed in leather and metal coming through the fog and reminding me I owe about 1,666 words today and about 4,900 this weekend. What's pleasantly shocking is when I walk away from the keyboard after a writing session with the fact I wrote about 7-8 pages. Granted, it's all rough, but it's down. No one said the first draft has to sing. It just needs to be a map of where I want the final draft to go. Last night, we worked on dismissing the critic, who sits to await the chance to march on literary ambitions the same way Godzilla strolled through Tokyo. I'm already there, which shocked the hell out of me, considering how much the inner critic was so present with me up until a couple months ago when my therapist and I deduced the source of the critic. And like that, the nagging and shrillness evaporated. Now, it's a voice to push and write and honor a commitment to something that, damn it, I've been meaning to do for so long.
So, the lesson is, if you need to have voices in your head, make them work for you. Not against you.
Thursday, November 03, 2005
NaNoWriMo Day 3
Word total on hold. It's class tonight, which means I dunno. We might write in class, which could count toward the total if you wanted to be all picky about it. If I was using my brain this morning, I would have brought my laptop with me and kept a faster, more accurate count of my word-fu compared to writing it down on a legal pad and estimating the count. I know I'd cheat and round up to make myself feel better. The fact is, just two days into it, I'm feeling superhuman when I write. I'm banging out more than 1,600 words in under two hours. Mathematically speaking, I could drop 10,000 words in a day. Then again, I fool myself into thinking I could put away a marathon in three hours based on my 30 minutes at the gym.
But this subconscious humming I get from my fingers these days is nothing short of divine. Ideas are branching from each other, crossing and bypassing into other chapters. New minor character, new themes. Problems emerge and resolve. It's liberating to just write away with the freedom that a first draft brings. I'm racing on, keeping away the notions of tying it all together for now. Believe it or not, I think I gagged and shoved the inner editor down into the basement.
Much Coolness
Especially for fans of my departed yet beloved Mystery Science Theater 3000. You can now order every episode ever made here.
Song of the Day: "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me" by U2, which I just noticed could morph into a meta-anthem for Rayelle. Yowsa. The fates at work with serendipitous fingers.
Word total on hold. It's class tonight, which means I dunno. We might write in class, which could count toward the total if you wanted to be all picky about it. If I was using my brain this morning, I would have brought my laptop with me and kept a faster, more accurate count of my word-fu compared to writing it down on a legal pad and estimating the count. I know I'd cheat and round up to make myself feel better. The fact is, just two days into it, I'm feeling superhuman when I write. I'm banging out more than 1,600 words in under two hours. Mathematically speaking, I could drop 10,000 words in a day. Then again, I fool myself into thinking I could put away a marathon in three hours based on my 30 minutes at the gym.
But this subconscious humming I get from my fingers these days is nothing short of divine. Ideas are branching from each other, crossing and bypassing into other chapters. New minor character, new themes. Problems emerge and resolve. It's liberating to just write away with the freedom that a first draft brings. I'm racing on, keeping away the notions of tying it all together for now. Believe it or not, I think I gagged and shoved the inner editor down into the basement.
Much Coolness
Especially for fans of my departed yet beloved Mystery Science Theater 3000. You can now order every episode ever made here.
Song of the Day: "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me" by U2, which I just noticed could morph into a meta-anthem for Rayelle. Yowsa. The fates at work with serendipitous fingers.
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
NaNoWriMo Day 1
Word count: 1,674.
My lovely wife has promised me that if I finish the novel this November as part of National Novel Writing Month, she'll buy me a copy of Battlefront 2 for Xbox.
Tonight, a Patrick scene about 2/3rds into the story. It's okay. Not a lot of tension yet, but a lot of atmosphere and character.
Just FYI, to reach 50,000 words in 30 days, you need to average 1,666 words a day.
So far, so good.
Song of the Evening: "This Must Be The Place," Talking Heads.
Word count: 1,674.
My lovely wife has promised me that if I finish the novel this November as part of National Novel Writing Month, she'll buy me a copy of Battlefront 2 for Xbox.
Tonight, a Patrick scene about 2/3rds into the story. It's okay. Not a lot of tension yet, but a lot of atmosphere and character.
Just FYI, to reach 50,000 words in 30 days, you need to average 1,666 words a day.
So far, so good.
Song of the Evening: "This Must Be The Place," Talking Heads.
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