Blog entry November 2009

Kids and I drove back yesterday from spending Thanksgiving in Texas with my family.  We celebrated my folks' 50th wedding anniversary, and they wanted all the kids there, so we sat 22 for T'giving dinner.

The trip down was uneventful.  Finally got all the kids out of school by Tuesday noon and the car packed and we left at 1:30pm... and arrived at 3:45am.  This was the first time we drove the trip straight through, usually we do it in two days.  But I couldn't get kids out early from school, so we had to do it in a day.  The pat on the back for me is that I let the three kids do all the driving, which is a huge concession for a control-freak like me.  They did a good job and we arrived safe and sound. Read more

The last couple days have been crazy-busy, so today I finally finished typing in all the notes and words for Jara's story.

Total book count so far:  28,026 words

Total NaNoWriMo count: 17.445 words

Total count of notes and backstory: 7,909 words

Which is all well and good, but I've now got to sit down and see where the story is going so I can tell if there is more that I can do before I start the rewrite.  As I've written, I've changed so much of the premise that I think I'm at the point were I have to just start the blasted thing over again.

Which is perfectly fine.  :-)  It means that I've got the raw draft done, and I'm starting on the first draft. Read more

I had class tonight; the craft and critique class.  It went well, I think.  At least it did from my point of view.  Everybody had good and useful things to say to everybody else, and they were all supportive and respectful.  And when I chimed in with my comments, the seemed appreciative.  So, I guees that's good.  :-)

I just wish that I could get my act in gear sooner for the class.  I printed off the last of the handouts five minutes after the time I was supposed to be leaving.  I made it to the room on time, and I had everything ready, but I really hate cutting things that close.  The trouble is that inspiration always seems to wait until the last minute.  **sigh** Read more

I got stuck... way stuck in Jara's story.  I've change so much of the premise and setting since I began the story that I'm not sure where it's going.

In addition, I filled the one notebook and began on the next.  Except, I didn't learn my lesson last time and nothing in the notebook I just finished is typed into the computer.  Which is driving me bug-nuts because I don't know what I've written so far, and I can't find this note or that note.

So, instead of writing, I spent NaNoWriMo #14 thru today typing in the stuff in the notebook.  Unfortunately, I'm only about 3/4 of the way through it. 

Stupid, stupid, stupid to leave it this long.  I swore after I did this the last time that I wasn't going to do it again... but I did.

So, now I'm swearing it again:  First thing every morning, I'm going to type in the stuff I wrote long-hand the day before. Read more

I got a few words yesterday.  I'll count them up later because I switched notebooks, which means that I changed the rough words-per-page count, so have to establish a new baseline before I can give a word count.

But for the most part I was stuck.  Sure I was writing stuff, but most of it was summary because there really didn't seem to be too much happening in the scene.  And the heroine was sitting back at home twiddling her thumbs, waiting for the hero to save the day.  Booooorrrrring. Read more

I got a few new words yestersday, which puts the story up to 23,800 and NaNoWriMo count up to 13,500...

But what I got was a new twist in the relationships of the hero, which totally changes his motivations.  He basically does what he did before, but for totally different reasons, and with much greater passion, because it now really matters to him, rather than just following orders.

The problem is that I have to rethink all of the book up to this point before I can go on.  I'm not going to rewrite the beginning, but I have to rethink and make notes of what changes, so I can figure out what he's going to do next, based on all these new motivations.

Which is all a good thing, but means many backstory words, but not necessarily any new story words for today.

The end of last week was a bust.  I spent Thursday doing backstory for the story, Friday getting ready to teach, Saturday teaching, and Sunday sleeping and reading.

Yesterday was NaNoWriMo catch-up day.  #4-son had a 2-hour robotics meeting that I needed to take him to, which is in a junior high school that's in the finishing stages of being built.  He did his thing and I found a table and chair far away from the noise of all the kids and wrote.  Then came home and wrote more.

By the time I was done, I got ~4800 words for the day, so words for Thurs, Fri and Sat.  Which means: ~13,240 for NaNoWriMo, and ~23,500 for the book. 

But I still need NaNoWriMo words for Sun and Mon, so I'll put them on today's to-do list. Read more

About 2,600 new words on the 4th and about 1,700 words on the 3rd, so at the moment the rough total is: NaNoWriMo: 8,440, Book: 18,740

Jara has just sacrificed her happiness for the good of all, and the General is trying to deal with the decision he'd never thought he'd have to face: which is more important, his duty or a woman?

The writing is going good, and while I'm dreading how long it will take to type it all in, the long-hand is working really will with my muse. 

I sat down for breakfast yesterday morning with a friend and we "parallel played".  :-)  We both wrote, then every once in a while one would look up and ask a question and we'd brainstorm for a couple minutes, then go back to writing.  I got a whole bunch of backstory and world-building done that way.  Lots more questions that need to be answered, but I feel like I'm finally getting a hold of it. Read more

I sat down to write last night with no real idea what was happening next and no real hope of getting any words, and ended up with a nice little scene and my 1600 words for the day.

So NaNoWriMo total: 4100  Book total: 14,400

The big thing I did last night that I've never done before when writing a first draft is: skip a really big part of the scene, summarizing it down into a couple sentences.

I did this because I don't have a clue where this story is going, and yeah I could have done that scene and put all the stupid details in, but if I don't know what's going to be happening over the rest of the book, that really doesn't make much sense.

Gee!  I think I'm finally getting the hang of this rough-draft idea.  :-)

And I officially signed up on NaNoWriMo today.  Userid: jackiepowers

I'm not an official participant in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), but I figured that since I have a story going, and I'm not that far into it... why not.  Why not see how far I can go with it this month.

Granted, the better part of a week is likely to be completely lost, given that kids and I are spending T'giving in Texas with family.  But I can see how far I get the rest of the month.

Last night I sat down with my notebook and pen, and ended with roughly 2500 new words, so total is up to 12,800. 

As I'm completely clueless as to how long this story is going to be, I can't say how far I'm into it.  But I know the black moment and the ending, so it's just a matter of how long it takes me to get there.