October hits in two days.... November isn't very far beyond that.
Okay, October is going to be a getting-crap-done month, if I'm going to do NaNoWriMo this year. Principally, my grad school applications need to go out, before taking up this challenge again. That should be quite managable, given that I've got a decent start on them.
The rest of October will be set aside for preparation, then. Last year, I went from here's-a-silly-idea to ready-to-go in under two weeks, but this year, I don't have the advantage of starting from scratch. Last November, I wrote 50,000 words and added another 5,200 in December, before completely burning out. Fifty-thousand was the word count goal for November, but as it turns out the first draft of Consent of the Governed will be larger than 55,200 words. In fact, I think it stands to be a lot larger. Large enough, in fact, that if I commit to another 50,000 words this November, I doubt that I'll run out of plot. This October, then, I need to reacquaint myself with the characters, events, and my outline, before I pick up the reigns again.
Challenges abound in November too. Last year, I had every advantage. At work, there was little to be done and an express prohibition in place on leaving early, so I had six to eight hours a night to write. This year, my employers are running their business a little more like a business, slashing my at-work writing time to a few short breaks each night. The time constraint is by no means insurmountable, but burnout seems like more of a danger on a write-work-write-sleep schedule. Moreover, last November had four full weekends, plus an extra Sunday, providing an extra day of uninterrupted writing time. That extra Sunday is gone this year, and compounding that, this year is mine to work Thanksgiving weekend, so there go another two days that had been writing days.
It's not all doom and gloom, though. I do have November first and second approved as vacation days, so I can tap some of that early enthusiasm and hopefully build a bit of a word surplus to keep me afloat, when I'm dragging near the end of the month. Moreover, I've got some experience under my belt. I wrote for NaNoWriMo last year, and I hit the word count goal; it's fully within my ability to do it again.
Let's do this.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Midmonth Recap
Roight.... Not exactly updating as frequently as I had hoped. As it turns out, meeting my daily word count quotas involves staring at text on an LCD long enough that, by the day's end, my eyes are trying to roll out of my skull in protest, so the easiest thing to cut back on is the writing that has no deadline: this!
After two weeks, though, it is worth putting in an update. As of last night, my word count stood at 23,589, according to Word 2000. Recalling the quotas I set for myself at the off (1,750 per weekday, 2,625 per day on the weekends), you may note that I'm behind by some 4,500 words. Believe me, I know, and I'm working on it.
I have not had a smooth run at all reaching this point. Oddly enough, the weekends are proving most difficult. With the benefit of hindsight, I see that setting the higher quota on the weekends has just made the goal seem more daunting than it actually is. I've yet to hit the 2,625 quota once, and two out of three days of my last weekend, I did not write at all, hence the massive word deficit, that actually peeked just shy of 6,000 words.
Up until yesterday, I had been slowly chewing through that number, getting it all the way down to 4,100 words, with a plan to be zero words behind my goal by November 21. An eight-hour turnaround for work (only three of which were spent sleeping) led to some poor decisions eating up my writing time yesterday, and instead of taking another 400 words out of my deficit, I added 300 to it. I'm still bound and determined to be caught up by the twenty-first, but the quotas to do so are mounting. I'll be spending several hours cranking out 3,025 today and next Saturday, and throughout the week, I'll have to write between 2,400 and 2,500 words per day.
If I get that done, I think I'll be over the hump, though. At that point, I will have cracked the 40,000 mark, and I will be able to return to my normal quotas, which are starting to appear paltry by comparison to what I'm making myself do now. If I stay on the ball, it will be an easy stroll to the 50,000 word mark, the day before Thanksgiving. After that, I plan to spend an all-nighter writing on Black Friday, which past experience suggests should provide me with around 7,000 words. That would then put my 60,000 word goal within easy reach for the next day or two worth of writing.
Ah, but what about the novel itself? I have a nasty history of running out of outline, before reaching the word or page count goals, when writing lengthy works of fiction. At the start of Nanowrimo, my principle concern was that I would reach the story's climax around the 25,000th word be finishing up right around the 40,000 word mark, which would be disaster. I can say, right now, that is far from happening. At 23,500 words, I haven't even finished the first act, leading me to believe that even after I crack my 60,000 word goal and claim victory near the end of November, I will continue writing, well into December, just to finish up the plot.
I have so much material right now because I'm not sticking as rigidly to the outline as I usually do. At first, I found it a little difficult to let myself off the rails, since I'm just not in the habit of doing so, but there is a certain ease that I am now finding in just following the natural progress of some events. Rather than using brute force to stick with the events I had planned out, the plot is evolving more fluidly, with me gently guiding things back onto course, after indulging in the detours. Sometimes this is beneficial, as it avoids a scenario, where a character will act entirely unnaturally, just to get back to the plot. Other times, this has generated entirely pointless scenes, that I foresee being edited out, once the first draft is complete.
Another pleasant surprise is that after years of neglect, my inner-editor has been entirely demoralized and is proving easy to keep under control. If I had been writing this novel, many moons ago, instead of today, I would probably be even further behind than I am now, simply for the fact that I'd spend as much time deleting and rewriting scenes as I would generating new material. As someone who rarely wrote multiple drafts of anything in school, I am finding it surprisingly easy to remind myself that what I am writing now is a first draft that will be utter garbage, until I edit it, later.
Now, I've put enough words into this, so I'm going to get back to my novel. Hopefully, the next time I update, I will be caught up with my cumulative quota, with victory in sight!
After two weeks, though, it is worth putting in an update. As of last night, my word count stood at 23,589, according to Word 2000. Recalling the quotas I set for myself at the off (1,750 per weekday, 2,625 per day on the weekends), you may note that I'm behind by some 4,500 words. Believe me, I know, and I'm working on it.
I have not had a smooth run at all reaching this point. Oddly enough, the weekends are proving most difficult. With the benefit of hindsight, I see that setting the higher quota on the weekends has just made the goal seem more daunting than it actually is. I've yet to hit the 2,625 quota once, and two out of three days of my last weekend, I did not write at all, hence the massive word deficit, that actually peeked just shy of 6,000 words.
Up until yesterday, I had been slowly chewing through that number, getting it all the way down to 4,100 words, with a plan to be zero words behind my goal by November 21. An eight-hour turnaround for work (only three of which were spent sleeping) led to some poor decisions eating up my writing time yesterday, and instead of taking another 400 words out of my deficit, I added 300 to it. I'm still bound and determined to be caught up by the twenty-first, but the quotas to do so are mounting. I'll be spending several hours cranking out 3,025 today and next Saturday, and throughout the week, I'll have to write between 2,400 and 2,500 words per day.
If I get that done, I think I'll be over the hump, though. At that point, I will have cracked the 40,000 mark, and I will be able to return to my normal quotas, which are starting to appear paltry by comparison to what I'm making myself do now. If I stay on the ball, it will be an easy stroll to the 50,000 word mark, the day before Thanksgiving. After that, I plan to spend an all-nighter writing on Black Friday, which past experience suggests should provide me with around 7,000 words. That would then put my 60,000 word goal within easy reach for the next day or two worth of writing.
Ah, but what about the novel itself? I have a nasty history of running out of outline, before reaching the word or page count goals, when writing lengthy works of fiction. At the start of Nanowrimo, my principle concern was that I would reach the story's climax around the 25,000th word be finishing up right around the 40,000 word mark, which would be disaster. I can say, right now, that is far from happening. At 23,500 words, I haven't even finished the first act, leading me to believe that even after I crack my 60,000 word goal and claim victory near the end of November, I will continue writing, well into December, just to finish up the plot.
I have so much material right now because I'm not sticking as rigidly to the outline as I usually do. At first, I found it a little difficult to let myself off the rails, since I'm just not in the habit of doing so, but there is a certain ease that I am now finding in just following the natural progress of some events. Rather than using brute force to stick with the events I had planned out, the plot is evolving more fluidly, with me gently guiding things back onto course, after indulging in the detours. Sometimes this is beneficial, as it avoids a scenario, where a character will act entirely unnaturally, just to get back to the plot. Other times, this has generated entirely pointless scenes, that I foresee being edited out, once the first draft is complete.
Another pleasant surprise is that after years of neglect, my inner-editor has been entirely demoralized and is proving easy to keep under control. If I had been writing this novel, many moons ago, instead of today, I would probably be even further behind than I am now, simply for the fact that I'd spend as much time deleting and rewriting scenes as I would generating new material. As someone who rarely wrote multiple drafts of anything in school, I am finding it surprisingly easy to remind myself that what I am writing now is a first draft that will be utter garbage, until I edit it, later.
Now, I've put enough words into this, so I'm going to get back to my novel. Hopefully, the next time I update, I will be caught up with my cumulative quota, with victory in sight!
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Day Flappin' Two
Let's see how long that theme keeps going....
I hate to be so concise about today, but it was a long day at work, punctuated by a frustrating experience in the grocery store, and a slow plod to meet my daily word count quota. That said, though, I met the quota! Huzzah for the day-two victory!
Anyway, I'm too knackered to upload today's work right now, so here's a brief excerpt. I will post the whole of today's work a little later on, as I introduced another major character, but for now, Gregory McKinnis is reminded of some events predating his birth....
Gregory’s slow stroll ended at his desk. On its darkly stained, faux-wooden surface sat his flat, metallic data net interface, its screen darkened, as it sat idle. Underneath that, though, were three paper documents, a rarity, outside of April’s binder. The first two Gregory knew well, the government’s charter and the combined oaths of office for common members of Parliament and the Prime Minister. Next to them was a handwritten document, sealed in a thin polyurethane block, like a wayward museum piece.
The document was a transcription of a radio transmission from Earth, one of the last. On this day, like the other occasions he sat down to look at it, Gregory could only read the first two words. The story behind the transmission was simply too tragic. A so-called limited nuclear engagement between three world powers produced a cloud of fallout that rode along the jet-stream, eventually encircling the planet. In eastern Europe and the Middle East, they could only watch the forecasts of the wind currents and hope against all hope that the lethality radius would cease its expansion. When it did not, and when they knew rescue would not be forthcoming, those with transmitters powerful enough would send their goodbyes to anyone who might listen on the growing lunar and Martian colonies. These were not pleas for assistance or the prepared speeches of politicians, but the unbridled emotions of individuals resigned to death. The messages were transcribed by concerned citizens on the moon, in the hopes that the sender could be identified and the message given to the next-of-kin.
Unlike the others, though, this final transmission, carried an eerily positive note to it. While the sender had never been positively identified, widely accepted theory was that he was a Finn, who had served in the final war, before his homeland withdrew from the conflict. He spoke of humanity as a whole behaving as individual humans do. Civilization reached its adolescence on Earth, learning important lessons, of consumption, of decadence, of warfare, all the hard way, despite the warnings of a few prescient individuals. Perhaps, among the stars, humanity would reach adulthood, adopting the foresight of an individual who knows, in hindsight, the consequences of ignoring dire warnings.
Gregory took his leave of the still-empty Parliament chamber, exiting through a small corridor to the left of his desk. With any measure of luck, there would be work waiting in his office to take the edge off of the tale he had recalled.
I hate to be so concise about today, but it was a long day at work, punctuated by a frustrating experience in the grocery store, and a slow plod to meet my daily word count quota. That said, though, I met the quota! Huzzah for the day-two victory!
Anyway, I'm too knackered to upload today's work right now, so here's a brief excerpt. I will post the whole of today's work a little later on, as I introduced another major character, but for now, Gregory McKinnis is reminded of some events predating his birth....
Gregory’s slow stroll ended at his desk. On its darkly stained, faux-wooden surface sat his flat, metallic data net interface, its screen darkened, as it sat idle. Underneath that, though, were three paper documents, a rarity, outside of April’s binder. The first two Gregory knew well, the government’s charter and the combined oaths of office for common members of Parliament and the Prime Minister. Next to them was a handwritten document, sealed in a thin polyurethane block, like a wayward museum piece.
The document was a transcription of a radio transmission from Earth, one of the last. On this day, like the other occasions he sat down to look at it, Gregory could only read the first two words. The story behind the transmission was simply too tragic. A so-called limited nuclear engagement between three world powers produced a cloud of fallout that rode along the jet-stream, eventually encircling the planet. In eastern Europe and the Middle East, they could only watch the forecasts of the wind currents and hope against all hope that the lethality radius would cease its expansion. When it did not, and when they knew rescue would not be forthcoming, those with transmitters powerful enough would send their goodbyes to anyone who might listen on the growing lunar and Martian colonies. These were not pleas for assistance or the prepared speeches of politicians, but the unbridled emotions of individuals resigned to death. The messages were transcribed by concerned citizens on the moon, in the hopes that the sender could be identified and the message given to the next-of-kin.
Unlike the others, though, this final transmission, carried an eerily positive note to it. While the sender had never been positively identified, widely accepted theory was that he was a Finn, who had served in the final war, before his homeland withdrew from the conflict. He spoke of humanity as a whole behaving as individual humans do. Civilization reached its adolescence on Earth, learning important lessons, of consumption, of decadence, of warfare, all the hard way, despite the warnings of a few prescient individuals. Perhaps, among the stars, humanity would reach adulthood, adopting the foresight of an individual who knows, in hindsight, the consequences of ignoring dire warnings.
Gregory took his leave of the still-empty Parliament chamber, exiting through a small corridor to the left of his desk. With any measure of luck, there would be work waiting in his office to take the edge off of the tale he had recalled.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Day Freakin' One
Oi vey. It bears mentioning that the last big, honkin' chunk of fiction I wrote was the short story that I linked to in my October 18 post. That story was written in 2005, so as you might imagine, I'm a little rusty, and my muse sleeps later than I do.
That said, I started my writing around 17:30 today, shooting for my weekend quota of 2625 words. In that span I wanted to use no more than my first pair of plot points: a character introduction and the first part of a two-stage disaster. The end result was that getting those two plot points out of the way got me close to my quota, but not quite there. Today's total was 2,400 words, out of my intended 2,625.
While it has been an awfully long time, since I wrote a short story, I find myself putting a lot of effort into not using the pacing of a short story. Shorter works of fiction either allow or force the author to gleen over some of the details or do a bit of hand-waving in lieu of explanation to remain concise. When done properly, it gets across the detail that's absolutely necessary, without sending the word count spiralling out of control.
Detailed descriptions aren't necessarily something to be avoided, though. When there's no upper limit on the word count, you can take the opportunity to paint a complete picture. Thus, as I write Consent of the Governed, I'm already stopping myself from describing with one sentence what really deserves a paragraph or two. I can give the odd glimpse into characters lives and properly characterize them through actions, rather than expository summaries.
Of course, the final word count will reveal if I get better or worse at maintaining pacing appropriate for a novel, instead of a short story.
And now, without further adieu, because I'm such a nice guy, the sum total of Day One's effort. I figure that while I'm writing introductory bits, I'll post the whole of each day's work, so that when I provide only excerpts later, you won't find yourselves completely lost.
That said, I started my writing around 17:30 today, shooting for my weekend quota of 2625 words. In that span I wanted to use no more than my first pair of plot points: a character introduction and the first part of a two-stage disaster. The end result was that getting those two plot points out of the way got me close to my quota, but not quite there. Today's total was 2,400 words, out of my intended 2,625.
While it has been an awfully long time, since I wrote a short story, I find myself putting a lot of effort into not using the pacing of a short story. Shorter works of fiction either allow or force the author to gleen over some of the details or do a bit of hand-waving in lieu of explanation to remain concise. When done properly, it gets across the detail that's absolutely necessary, without sending the word count spiralling out of control.
Detailed descriptions aren't necessarily something to be avoided, though. When there's no upper limit on the word count, you can take the opportunity to paint a complete picture. Thus, as I write Consent of the Governed, I'm already stopping myself from describing with one sentence what really deserves a paragraph or two. I can give the odd glimpse into characters lives and properly characterize them through actions, rather than expository summaries.
Of course, the final word count will reveal if I get better or worse at maintaining pacing appropriate for a novel, instead of a short story.
And now, without further adieu, because I'm such a nice guy, the sum total of Day One's effort. I figure that while I'm writing introductory bits, I'll post the whole of each day's work, so that when I provide only excerpts later, you won't find yourselves completely lost.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Extra Meta Edition
November is getting painfully close now, so I'll be writing in earnest soon. Presently, I'm jotting down all manner of notes, from plot points to character foibles to how an interplanetary parliamentary government is supposed to run.
There's some decisions to be made about this little chronicle of the process too, which I've been glossing over, thus far. For example, you'll notice I haven't posted any outline material yet. The wall I've run into there is that the outline is....well....an outline. I can't help but feel that it'd give just a little too much away for even a spoiler warning to suffice. It'd be like standing in the ticket line, before the first screening of Empire Strikes Back and talking not just about Vader being Luke's father but about Luke's attraction to Leia being illegal in forty-two states. Just saying, "Spoilers!" isn't adequate before ruining two-thirds (THERE WERE NO PREQUELS) of the saga.*
Mayhap, I'll post excerpts of the outline with corrisponding excerpts of the novel. Hopefully that can illustrate the process, without destroying interest in following the novel itself.
...And now I've written about writing about writing. This has to stop.
* -- Lesson learned: No writing after midnight. I start channeling Lucas, and no good could possibly come from that. Ewoks.... *Shudder* (Remember: No prequels.)
There's some decisions to be made about this little chronicle of the process too, which I've been glossing over, thus far. For example, you'll notice I haven't posted any outline material yet. The wall I've run into there is that the outline is....well....an outline. I can't help but feel that it'd give just a little too much away for even a spoiler warning to suffice. It'd be like standing in the ticket line, before the first screening of Empire Strikes Back and talking not just about Vader being Luke's father but about Luke's attraction to Leia being illegal in forty-two states. Just saying, "Spoilers!" isn't adequate before ruining two-thirds (THERE WERE NO PREQUELS) of the saga.*
Mayhap, I'll post excerpts of the outline with corrisponding excerpts of the novel. Hopefully that can illustrate the process, without destroying interest in following the novel itself.
...And now I've written about writing about writing. This has to stop.
* -- Lesson learned: No writing after midnight. I start channeling Lucas, and no good could possibly come from that. Ewoks.... *Shudder* (Remember: No prequels.)
Friday, October 23, 2009
Outlining Begins
I began prewriting today, starting with a timeline of the events leading up to the novel. In hindsight, I think I went a little further back and into a little more detail than I hand originally intended, but since I'm gearing up to write a freakin' novel, that's probably not a bad thing. Moreover, while I went a little out of control, the word-count for what I wrote today, hovering around 1,600 words, is pretty encouraging. It means the quota I've set for myself, once November hits, is pretty realistic. As long as I don't run out of plot or find myself with a gaggle of dead characters, this might just be doable.
In any case, the TIMELINE!
Ye gods, there's probably a better novel to be had in the background of Consent of the Governed than in the novel itself. Dammit! Oh well.... What's a good idea, without a wealth ofshitty prequels to cash in on flesh out later? Roight, maybe I'll not look to George Lucas for any further pointers.
Incidentally, if you're a fan of Tom Clancy's earlier works, you may notice a bit of influence from Red Storm Rising in there. You may also notice that I didn't pussy-out, where Clancy did.
In any case, the TIMELINE!
Ye gods, there's probably a better novel to be had in the background of Consent of the Governed than in the novel itself. Dammit! Oh well.... What's a good idea, without a wealth of
Incidentally, if you're a fan of Tom Clancy's earlier works, you may notice a bit of influence from Red Storm Rising in there. You may also notice that I didn't pussy-out, where Clancy did.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Oops....
Remember that book I was worried I wouldn't finish quickly enough? Let me give you a timeline of this past evening:
3:00pm - Relieve first shift.
6:30pm - Finished work.
7:20pm - Finished lunch.
10:00pm - Finished book.
11:30pm - Scheduled end of shift.
Roight. Outlining begins tomorrow. Huzzah!
3:00pm - Relieve first shift.
6:30pm - Finished work.
7:20pm - Finished lunch.
10:00pm - Finished book.
11:30pm - Scheduled end of shift.
Roight. Outlining begins tomorrow. Huzzah!
Litany of Errors
There is a bit of pregaming necessary to having any hope of cranking out a novel in thirty days. I for one, would like to get the protagonists and secondary characters outlined, along with the plot and some of the history leading up to the events of the novel. Pounding out 2,000 words each day is a whole lot easier, when I know what I want to get across ahead of time.
I'm also trying to kill off the book I'm currently reading, A Tale of Two Subs, so that I don't have to set it aside for thirty days and entirely lose the plot. Up until the last couple of days, I had been doing pretty well at grinding through that. No small part of that is due to the positively immense amounts of downtime I have at work, allowing me plenty of time to read (and later write). Naturally, as I realize today that expediency is the best course, we've begun having networking issues between our automation and database, slowing the day's work to a crawl.
Really, I'm worrying over nothing. Even with the added time spent babying machines, I should still finish the book up on my Saturday shift, as planned, and have a solid week for outlining. I'm just suffering from a bit too much excitement, I suppose. I hope.
Of course, there's little progress to report on the novel itself. I have one character named (though with very few other details to go with him), and I'm gravitating toward Consent of the Governed as the title. Popular Rule feels a bit too literal, and Spheres of Influence just doesn't quite fit the story. Though I'm trying to choose a good title ahead of time, I pretty firmly believe that whatever I do wind up choosing will last until about November 28th, and over the following two days, I'll change it hourly.
More to come next week, as I start to nail down some details.
I'm also trying to kill off the book I'm currently reading, A Tale of Two Subs, so that I don't have to set it aside for thirty days and entirely lose the plot. Up until the last couple of days, I had been doing pretty well at grinding through that. No small part of that is due to the positively immense amounts of downtime I have at work, allowing me plenty of time to read (and later write). Naturally, as I realize today that expediency is the best course, we've begun having networking issues between our automation and database, slowing the day's work to a crawl.
Really, I'm worrying over nothing. Even with the added time spent babying machines, I should still finish the book up on my Saturday shift, as planned, and have a solid week for outlining. I'm just suffering from a bit too much excitement, I suppose. I hope.
Of course, there's little progress to report on the novel itself. I have one character named (though with very few other details to go with him), and I'm gravitating toward Consent of the Governed as the title. Popular Rule feels a bit too literal, and Spheres of Influence just doesn't quite fit the story. Though I'm trying to choose a good title ahead of time, I pretty firmly believe that whatever I do wind up choosing will last until about November 28th, and over the following two days, I'll change it hourly.
More to come next week, as I start to nail down some details.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
The Idea
Everything starts with an idea, and sometimes that's the toughest part. Fortunately, I've had the basis for an idea gathering dust for nearly four years, now. During the Fall, 2004 semester, I took a creative writing course, and my big, end-of-semester project was a short story that wound up running 7,500 words. It would be cheating to reproduce all that text as part of the novel, but I am recycling the setting.
"A Turn of the Coin"
It's nothing particularly ground-breaking, but it provides an original sci-fi setting, with a broad conflict to utilize. Where this short story looks at the end of a series of conflicts between Io and the rest of the solar system, I think the novel will focus on that military strife and the politics that touched everything off. The twenty-word summary, as posted on the Nanowrimo forums: "The tyranny of the majority plays out across the solar system as incumbent politicians are reelected over objections of laborers."
Presently, I'm brainstorming titles. The two front-runners in that race are Popular Rule and Spheres of Influence. [addendum]Consent of the Governed may be more apt....[/addendum]
More to come as I settle on a title and do some more detailed outlining.
"A Turn of the Coin"
It's nothing particularly ground-breaking, but it provides an original sci-fi setting, with a broad conflict to utilize. Where this short story looks at the end of a series of conflicts between Io and the rest of the solar system, I think the novel will focus on that military strife and the politics that touched everything off. The twenty-word summary, as posted on the Nanowrimo forums: "The tyranny of the majority plays out across the solar system as incumbent politicians are reelected over objections of laborers."
Presently, I'm brainstorming titles. The two front-runners in that race are Popular Rule and Spheres of Influence. [addendum]Consent of the Governed may be more apt....[/addendum]
More to come as I settle on a title and do some more detailed outlining.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Of Projects and Sleep-Deprivation
It's 4:00am local time, here in dank, rainy Knoxville, and you may have noticed that I'm writing this post, instead of sleeping. I'd say there's a reason for this, but there is absolutely no way that I could defend such a remark. Anyway, to the point, and then to bed....
As I am wont to do in the wee hours of the morning, I've committed myself to an ambitious project. I've signed myself up for Nanowrimo 2009. I plan to use this site to chronicle the venture and post occasional excerpts, as I reach for that mythic goal of novelist-in-a-month. Being that it's still October, it would be cheating to put pen-to-page, so there isn't much to be done yet, besides set goals and brainstorm.
On that note, my tenative schedule is to reach for 1,750 words-per-day, Monday through Friday, with 2,625 on Saturday and Sunday. That should make for 60,000 words in thirty days. I can already see the Thanksgiving holiday throwing a wrench in the gears, but that's what I've laid out, with crossed-fingers.
That's where I am now. Hopefully, I'll have some manner of outline ready by the end of the month, but don't expect much activity, prior to November.
As I am wont to do in the wee hours of the morning, I've committed myself to an ambitious project. I've signed myself up for Nanowrimo 2009. I plan to use this site to chronicle the venture and post occasional excerpts, as I reach for that mythic goal of novelist-in-a-month. Being that it's still October, it would be cheating to put pen-to-page, so there isn't much to be done yet, besides set goals and brainstorm.
On that note, my tenative schedule is to reach for 1,750 words-per-day, Monday through Friday, with 2,625 on Saturday and Sunday. That should make for 60,000 words in thirty days. I can already see the Thanksgiving holiday throwing a wrench in the gears, but that's what I've laid out, with crossed-fingers.
That's where I am now. Hopefully, I'll have some manner of outline ready by the end of the month, but don't expect much activity, prior to November.
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