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!
Sunday, November 15, 2009
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.
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