Home Stretch

Broke through the 40k barrier today (cue fireworks and marching band). Oddly enough, due to day job related distractions (aka auditions - a good thing), the bulk of the past 10k was written after dinner between 7:30 and 11:00. I say oddly because I'm usually a morning writer who likes to split my word count into 1k+ before lunch and the rest of it anytime during the day when I can squeeze it in. This night writing has been focused and quite enjoyable so, who knows, maybe I'll switch things around for a bit.

One thing I do know is that I get a little nervous I won't hit my word goal when I start late. Maybe that's why writing at the end of the day seems to be working for me. Go fear! Whatever the reason, I'll take the words.

According to my stats page, I'm averaging around 2200 words a day and at this rate should hit 50k on Tuesday 11/23. See you then!

Feelin' Good at 30k

Hit another mile marker after a very comfortable day of 2431 words. Broke it up in chunks throughout the day so it didn't feel like I was pulling teeth to reach that number. Today's work included a big action sequence that was a hoot to write -- humans, a wizard, and several mythological creatures all squared off for a classic sword and magic smack-down. 

Onward to 40k!

What He and She Said...

Author John Scalzi scores again with his blog post in defense of NaNoWriMo putting published anti-NaNo snobs on notice to just chill. A quote:

"So if you’re a pro novelist or whomever wringing your hands over NaNoWriMo, remember that hands are for typing, not for wringing, and get back to your own work and let the kids have their fun. If you’re a NaNoWriMo participant and you’ve heard the grousing of the pros, ignore it and enjoy your experience of banging out words. In the end, no one cares how or why or under what circumstances a novel has been created, they care about the words on the page. Readers don’t read process. They read novels."

Go over to his site and read the post in its entirety, then visit published author Mary Robinette Kowal's blog to see the (also) excellent post which inspired Scalzi's spirited defense.  

In other news, I broke through the 25k barrier by cranking out a satisfying 2029 words today, ending up with a total of 26430 words on the 11th day of the challenge. That's over halfway to 50k! Go me.

Chugging Away Past 20k

Surprised myself by hitting this mile marker a little bit earlier than expected. Not complaining in the least, mind you, just surprised. Here are my personal stats thanks to a stat thingy they added to my Nano stats page:

Today's Stats:

Words Written Today 2476

Words to Write until 1667: 0

Suggested Daily Word Count 1667

Cumulative Word Count 20147

 

Total Stats

Current Day 8

Suggested Cumulative Word Count 13334

Average Words per Day 2519

At This Rate You Will Finish On Nov 20

Days Remaining 22

Total Words Remaining 29853

Words per Day to Finish on Time 1357

I find this kind of stuff to be interesting. Then again, as mentioned in a previous post, I'm a "geedork". I'd really like to keep up this pace and "finish" the challenge on the 20th. As always, we'll see.

Onward!

Some Get It, Some Don't

Here's a snarky anti-Nano article from a snob at Salon who doesn't get it, and here's a well-reasoned response from an editor at Orbit Books, who does.

Bottom line, while we all hope our NaNo project gets picked up by a major editing house and sells a bazillion copies, the main reasons we do NaNoWriMo are:

1. It's fun.
2. It helps improve your writing.
3. You meet some very nice people through the forums and elsewhere online. 
4. It forces you to get off your butt and give writing a novel a shot.
5. It helps you learn what it feels like to write on a regular basis. And,
6. It's fun.

That's good enough for me. What do you think?

Ten Thousand Words and Counting

Hit the 10k mark today, a full day ahead of my personal goal of reaching that number by Friday. I must say, I'm really enjoying this round of novelling craziness -- we'll see how I feel about it in week four.

This is my first time writing a sequel and I'm liking that, too. It's an interesting challenge to find the proper balance between reminding the reader of what happened in the first book and not laying those reminders on too thick. I think I'm doing okay with that. In the back of my mind I keep hearing the voices of my then grade school aged daughters as they read out loud the later books in a series about a certain boy wizard. When they'd reach such a "reminder passage" they'd invariably sigh and say, "But I already know that!" I'd explain the (brilliant) author wanted to make sure everyone remembered that important bit of information, but the memory of their impatience has stuck with me and guides me. I try my best to "remind" only when it is absolutely necessary.

I'm also having fun spending some time with my characters from the first book. I feel excited about sending them off on a new adventure and even though they're entirely fictional, I sense they're excited about that, too.

In other news...I got nuthin'.

Look for the next NaNo update when I hit 20k.

The New Widgets are Here!

Okay, so I'm a geek. And maybe a dork. A geedork? Anyway, it's just not NaNo until I can slap a word count widget onto the top of this page. There it is on the right in all of its minimalist glory. During the month of November I will update it daily through my NaNo homepage. As you can see, it keeps track of the cumulative word count, percentage toward completion, and the number of days left in the challenge. Feel free to stop by and mock me if I start to slack off.

Boy oh boy! Things are going to start happening to me now!