Nano 7 - End of Week 1

Well, good and bad news. The good news is that I am way ahead of where I need to be on word count.

The bad news is that I was really hoping to break 15k tonight, and would have normally been able to. I was only 400 words off. But I just had a slow day. The numbers didn't want to come.

More good news is that, despite it being a really slow and trudging day for word counts, I still came pretty dang close to meeting the daily goal.

I very definitely plan to keep this up and break 30k at the end of week 2.

Daily: 1492 (teehee.)

Total: 14,578

I don't have any insights today. Sorry. The slow day affected that too. So instead, I give you an excerpt. I was going to do a different part, but for it to make sense, it had to be kind of long. So I picked this one instead. It's part of the one on my nanowrimo profile.

**Note, this is from the pre-nano part. Which is itself about 15k words. (I started my nano count at like chapter 8 or something.)

Even more than before, the strange shadows crossed his mind, giving him chills. He pulled out his knife, determined to get the job over with quickly.

A shadow passed by on the right, just outside the netted barriers. He tried to ignore it. Nothing dangerous could get through to him now that they had improved their perimeter security. Or at least, he hoped so. All the same, he sawed at the dead leaves a little quicker.

A strange tingling spread across his skin. He knew that he should be safe, but he couldn’t suppress the feeling that something was right behind him. He prepared to push off from the ground, and head back to the shallow waters. As he did, he turned around, just to reassure himself.

There, not ten feet away, was a mermaid.

Aiden knew that she was a real mermaid. Something about her made him quite certain that she was no illusion. She had a human torso, and a long, scaled tail. Her skin was a murky, pale green, making her difficult to see clearly. Her tail was a darker version of the same color, and her hair was coarse and flat, almost like sea weed.

She smiled at him with sharp, evil-looking teeth, and then lunged. She was obviously more at home in the water than Aiden, and covered the distance between them before he could get away. He had pushed off, and started paddling for the surface, but she caught his ankle in a grip that he knew he could never break.

He struggled against her, kicking and stroking, but it was useless. She was far too strong, and he was almost out of air. The look on her face was one of glee. She was just playing with him. Drowning him with such ease that she found it funny.

Aiden’s lungs screamed for air. He only had seconds left before he blacked out, and then he would be at the mercy of the sea. A picture of Rindi appeared in his mind just then. The thought of his sister gave him enough strength to swing his arm down upon the mermaid in one last strike.

He had forgotten about the knife in his hand. It slashed the green-skinned forearm, and she squealed in rage, releasing his foot. He paddled desperately for surface, only vaguely aware of the green creature that took up the chase.

After what had seemed like an eternity, he burst out into the air and sucked in huge lungfuls. He was coughing and shaking, and only had about a second to recover before a long-nailed hand was groping at his ankles again. He kicked as hard as he could while treading water, and connected with something. Then he began the swim to the shelf, all the while knowing that it would be impossible to out-swim a mermaid.

Nano Day 6

This is going to sound a little creepy...

More than anything else about writing, what I really enjoy is being the puppet master. Having the reader's emotions on strings so that I can tug whenever I want and be in complete control.

Come to think of it, that may explain some of my results from those "what kind of villain would you be?" quizzes.

I don't know why, exactly. But there is something intensely satisfying about having the audience captured so thoroughly that they laugh or cry or burn me in effigy. That because of something that I created, I have their emotions in my iron grasp, to dispense as I please.

Maybe it's a good thing I'm NOT a villain.

Nano midnight daily count: 1842

Total: 13086

Nano 5 - Magic

Writing stories is the closest I will ever get to real magic.

I've never been able to use the force, or fly. (I have tried many times.) But stories are the next best thing. When I'm in my groove, I feel like I'm ruling the world.

Literally.

You know those movie scenes where one of the characters is standing on a mountain top, crazy with power? You know the drill, outstretched arms, laughing maniacally, lighting zapping through the sky above them. Sometimes fireballs and incinerated villages are involved.

I like fireballs.

That is what I mean when I say magic. That feeling of power and confidence and energy that makes you laugh psychotically because there is no other outlet. (Sometimes incinerating villages doesn't even do it.)

Writing isn't like that every single day. But when it is, that sure makes up for all the rest.

Today was one of those days. My word count was spectacular. I met and surpassed 3 different goals. I did 1,035 of my words in one hour. With facebook breaks.

Today, I really am the supreme chancellor of the world. (See the url for my other blog, if this statement confuses you.) ( http://supremechancellorsra.blogspot.com/ )

Nano update:

Today's daily: 3,268

Total: 11,244

Nano Day 4

There are a lot of numbers in this post.

Today's nano experience was interesting. I didn't quite meet my daily quota (which is 1,667 words per day) but I came pretty close. I hit 1,612. This puts me at 7,976 for my day four total.

Yeah, I am still ahead of my needed goal. (1,667 x 4 = 6,668). Well ahead, really. I have a 1,308 safety cushion. (For now.) But the thing that was fun about this isn't that I'm still easily on track. It was the word sprint I just finished.

I am far too easily distractable. I made the mistake of checking my etsy store to see if this lady had bought her order yet. This turned into a searching for christmas presents party. (Which I did find, btw. I got some good things.)

At 11:32 pm I suddenly realized that I had spent far too much time there, and not enough writing. I was at 7,196. I needed 8,031. I had 28 minutes in which to do said 835 words. (Literally half of my needed daily quota).

At 11:45 I still needed 522. I hadn't even gotten halfway. So I kicked it into high gear. I started typing with reckless abandon. I did 458 words in 15 minutes.

That's 30.5 words per minute. Spectacular.

Yes, I can type way, way faster than that when I know what I am saying. (I average like 60 wpm). But I didn't. Also, even though I didn't stop to fix all of my typos, I did fix some of them. And I had to stop a couple of times to think of where to go next. So all in all, that was a pretty awesome victory.

Nano Nov 3 - Aurelus

The story I'm working on for nano is actually something I've had on the back burner for a long time. So my nano count is actually starting at something like chapter 8.

I decided to work on this one specifically because I feel like it has a great deal of potential, but I was totally and completely stuck. Nano is energizing that way. It gives me motivation to just type my fingers off. Like I said in the last post, when I stop to think, my thinking stops.

The story is called Aurelus.

Aiden is just a sea farmer. A young boy who works hard tending kelp and fish alongside his sister. After a violent storm, he happens upon a strange girl, who is wounded and unconscious on the beach. Chaos follows. Lava flows chase him down. A real live mermaid tries to kill him for helping the girl. And the girl herself turns out to be an Aurelus - A "mermaid" of the air.

Aiden has stumbled into a war between the elements. The balance of the earth is at stake, and by extension, the fate of the human race. And he, as a human, might just be the key to establishing peace between the warring elementals.

I got the idea for it when I was randomly googling pictures of the 4 elements. I came across this one:

It's called the elemental goddesses, by someone on deviant art, I think. It's cool as it is. But when I very first looked at it, it was just a tiny thumbnail, and I thought they were mermaids. You know, except for each element. Like an air-maid, and a fire-maid, etc. That idea was super cool to me.

When I clicked on it, I saw that wasn't the case at all. But the idea was in my head. Elemental "mermaids". It was one of those ideas that sort of hit me over the head until I started working on it. It love and hate when that happens.

Current word count: 6079 (For a daily count of 1470. More to come after work later this evening.)

Nano - Nov. 2nd

Today's nano thought:

It's not hard for me to crank out high word counts. It is hard for me to not want to go back and make those words actually good.

I can type fast. And my best thinking comes when my fingers are flying across the keyboard. If I stop to think, my thinking stops. Unfortunate but true. I just have to keep going.

However, there comes a point in every nano project when you realize that what you're writing is not very good.

Because, let's face it, it never is. Writing 50k words in 30 days is not going to produce anything resembling quality.

But what you have to remember is that no book ever became good on the first draft. Even bestsellers by people like Stephen King or Dean Koontz take drafts upon drafts to become publishable.

Once you have a draft written, that's when the real work begins.

It's just hard to remember that. I keep thinking of things I want to go back and fix, but I must force myself not to.

Today's total word count at midnight: 4609

(1728 yesterday and 2881 today)

(not counting these blog posts. ;)

NANOWRIMO Headquarters

I officially declare this blog (for november at least) to be my nanowrimo headquarters.

Just in case someone who doesn't know what nano is comes across this post, allow me to enlighten you.

November is National Novel Writing Month. But it's not really just national. Thousands of people from all over the entire world participate.

All you have to do is write a novel in 30 days.

*screeching brakes* What the???

Yes, you read that right. One novel. 30 days.

(And yes, most of us are completely bonkers.)

Rules?

-No stopping to edit.

-Just write up a storm.

-50k words from midnight on Nov. 1st to midnight on Nov. 30th. (This averages to about 1667 words a day.)

We're not talking publishable, here. (Yet. Editing comes later.)

And we're not even talking long. (50,000 words. That's the bare minimum for a novel length publication.)

The point of all this is really to get it done. For most people who want to write, the hardest part is just doing it. Once there's a rough draft to work with, there's motivation and a sense of accomplishment, and things happen.

The worst enemy for any writer is a blank page.

Nano is basically "confront that blank page and kick its sorry butt" month.

Anyone can do it. You don't have to be an aspiring author, or an English major.

I did it last year.

To be a winner, all you have to do is meet your goal.

Just go to nanowrimo.org, type in a user name, and start keeping track of your word count.

It's only the 2nd. You still have time.