:nanowrimo week four:

In the home stretch of NaNoWriMo now, I'm at 43,500 words tonight, and we're supposed to reach 50,000 by Sunday night, the 30th. I'm pretty confident that I'll make it, although it helps that I won't be back at the dayjob until Monday. I do have to deal with Thanksgiving tomorrow, though. We'll see how the folks deal with me working on the laptop after the meal. But it'll be better than vegging out. I'd probably end up watching MST3K's Turkey Day instead anyway.

With excellent timing, I'm just hitting the real dark part of the story that I've been putting off for too long, perhaps. Why? I've grown attached to the main character, and now I don't want these awful things to happen to her. Crazy how that happens. I've also found that I really enjoy writing dialogue, because it's now flowing from the characters mouths so easily. I've even had random people come up to them just so I can write more. I'm sure some editor will say, "what was the point of that scene??"

I also found myself choosing locales for the visual aspect, thinking, how would this look if it were a movie, but I'm getting waaaay ahead of myself there, of course. I had the main character go to New Orleans for no real reason other than for a change of scenery. Ideally she'd have gone to England, but I've never been there. So I got to revisit my memories of New Orleans with her.

So next week should hopefully be the wrap-up of all this then we're heading back to visual art.

:nanowrimo week three:

For NaNoWriMo I passed the halfway mark of 25,000 words this past week, just at around 31,000 as of tonight, on the way to 50,000 by months end. I fully expect that I'll still be working on it with the laptop at the folks' house on Thanksgiving. 

I had a few other challenges this week, one chapter had a bar fight in it, and I've never really been in a fight, eight years of taekwondo doesn't really count, so I had to imagine quite a bit there. Also challenging was a chapter that involved seduction, and probably too much information for you here, but it's been several years since I could draw from my own life for that, so once again to my fevered imagination. Also challenging since it was from a woman's perspective.

Since I needed to spend every spare moment writing, I've withdrawn from the almighty Facebook for a bit, but truth be told, I was hitting a wall with it as it is. The signal to noise ratio was definitely more noise, and I was getting tired of reading things that I couldn't unsee. I obviously had a lot more time to work without it, and I'd like to see if I can keep that going as much as possible after the writing's done. But it's a sad reality that most people primarily communicate this way, so who knows what I've missed since they don't tell you in person much anymore, and I wonder if my absence was even noticed by many.

I definitely often suffer from the Fear Of Missing Out, and Facebork takes advantage of that. But if I don't see it, then I won't know what I'm missing. I also won't see people showing me how much better their lives are than mine. Oh, there must be a happy medium here. But it's frightening how much power we've allowed social media to have over our lives.

:nanowrimo week 2:

I hit just over 18,000 words tonight. According to NaNoWriMo, I should be at 20,000 to be on track to finish by the end of the month, but I do more writing on the weekends, so I hope to catch up then.

I've taken my laptop out and done the cliche thing and been writing in coffee shops, with varied results, depending on the locations and sometimes the denizens. Thank goodness for headphones. A side effect has been me reeking of coffee, and I don't drink the stuff, so it's more obvious to me. Last weekend I tried libraries, those were a bit better, although I've found that there's a least one crazy person who seems to live there, busy muttering paranoid things and working on their manifestos.

I'm still not sure how it's going to become novel-length, it's kind of writing itself at this point. The two characters I'm using now have quite some banter going on. I've also had to go to some dark places. One scene was with a serial killer, so I had to channel my own Hannibal Lector. Another took place in a hospice and I actually made myself cry, I was remembering my grandmother and other incidents.

Onwards!

:nanowrimo week one:

Technically it's only been five days, but close enough. I'm just under 7,000 words so far. Some people are already above 10,000, but I think perhaps some of them don't have day jobs in the way. I've been taking my laptop to work to do some writing on my limited break time. Every little bit helps.

I also went out with my laptop on the weekend to try to live the cliche and work in coffee shops. I went to various ones, with various success, depending on the ambience and such. Like at work, thank goodness for headphones. I reeked of coffee by the end of the day, though, and I've never drank the stuff.

I'm still setting up characters and themes. Right now if you read it you wouldn't know who the main characters are, although I know at least two of them so far. Still not sure how I'm going to stretch it to novel length. I've definitely read my share of stories that could've been much shorter.

Since a lot of it has to do with extreme emotions, I've tried to put myself in the mindset of the different characters to write them better, and it's not always been pleasant. I've drawn from personal experiences and others that I've observed.

Already my eyes are going buggy from this so I have to pace myself better. Although obviously the weekend will have to be marathon sessions to catch up.