Currently viewing the tag: "NaNoWriMo 2009"
Greetings! Pull up a chair. Oh, you’re already sitting down. Never mind, then.
Right, so I was going to go into this huge spiel about how pathetic and depressing 2011 was for me, and to share with anyone who cares to read it about how awful things were and how badly I handled everything and how I dropped myself into whole oceans worth of shit.
But you know what? No one will want to hear about it, and I don’t particularly want to write about it or even remember it, so fuck it, I won’t.
Instead, I’m going to talk about the good things I have to look forward to in 2012.
So I finished the novel I was working on for NaNoWriMo 2011. Woo. It is out with more beta readers as we speak, and I am sitting on my hands while I wait to hear back from them, chewing the skin around my nails like a rabid rodent.
I fully, fully intend to have this book released for public consumption by the middle/back-end of this year. The thing and/or problem with this particular book is that it’s been around in some form or another for a looooooong time now, and yet I feel I can’t move onto bigger, better things until I’m happy that the foundation I’ve created is solid. So the first book is winging its way back through beta readers and hopefully a variety of opinions will be winging their way to me very soon!
That said, I’ve started editing the second book, still (currently) titled “The Vampire’s Son”, my 2009 NaNoWriMo, which basically looks like a kneaded turd right now.
No, that’s not fair. The parts that are done are pretty decent, in all fairness. But then there are g a p i n g chasms where whole chapters should be, frayed and unfinished scenes, entire plot threads have unravelled and dangle loose, with the threat of the slightest breeze blowing them away. So it looks more like a moth-eaten blanket found buried in the basement, covered in dust and dead spiders.
But it’s definitely workable, and what’s there is good, if I do say so myself.
Anyway, that’s where I’m at with writing right now.
I’ve stopped playing World of Warcraft for an indefinite period, simply because when I do play, it takes over my entire life, and I actually have other things I’m supposed to be doing.
I love the game, and by playing it I’ve managed to meet people who I can say with some degree of confidence I would never have met otherwise. But I just don’t have the time for it. I only hope that soon I will get the time to be able to return to GlenCoco, my Worgen warrior, and get back to those heady nights of drunk tanking and getting everyone killed.
Even without WoW, I’m still managing to get in a fair amount of procrastination, though – if I do say so myself – it’s not as much as this time last year. I’d like to think it might be in part because of the wake up call that 2011 actually was.
I’m blaming NetFlix for the new bout of mind wandering, since that’s just been released in the UK, and of course I had to sign up for the free month.
Anyway, that’s where I am with everything else right now.
I have some plans/announcements that I’m going to be bursting out in the next few days/weeks for the VS series, so keep your lids peeled for that.
I plan to get back into the swing of updating this site as well, since it seems a little forlorn and filled with melancholy right now. I have a number of “Music to Write Novels By” posts still waiting in the wings, so I should be able to ease myself back in with a few of those.
Onwards and upwards, people!
2012 is the year!
Because I know you were all so very worried about me, it’s alright, I’m not dead! You can call off the search parties and inform the authorities as necessary.
OK, so wow, yeah, it’s been almost two months since I updated the online world of my [writing] escapades. The reasoning for this can be summarised with two points:
1/ I got married. Having a wedding to plan and manage and perform damage control for took up most of my free time, and any time where I wasn’t technically doing anything (which, to be fair, was a lot of the time) I still couldn’t concentrate because I was too anxious about the whole thing. In any case, it all went off without a hitch, you’ll be glad to hear, I’m sure, and a big thank you to anyone who reads this who was a part of it. And yes, I’m sure you can all appreciate (especially those of you who have been married) how that kind of took my attention away from everything else.
2/ I returned to World of Warcraft. Yes, it is an addictive temptress, and after just three months’ break, I found myself longing once more to pick up that hoove’d, horned vixen hunter Catrinna and start playing again. We started a new guild, and I’ve done a few blogs on there (which I’ve had the gall to call writing “exercises” but that really aren’t!).
And that’s about it, really. Between stressing about the hundred and one things that could go wrong at the wedding (none of which did in the end; it was a lovely day) and levelling a new Draenei priest (plus dual-boxing a druid / shaman combo), I haven’t really made time for any of this mysterious thing called “writing”.
But now, the wedding is over and done with, so I can let out the breath I was holding in equal amounts of anticipation and dread, and with only the prospect of a game looming over me as a freely available pastime whenever I want it, I can (hopefully) return my focus to the whole writing…thing.
The first two weeks of married life have naturally been bliss. We’re currently planning our honeymoon for July 2011; I desperately want to go to America, and – more specifically – San Diego Comic-Con, and because my husband loves me very much (enough to marry me, no less!), we’re going to incorporate it into our trip! We’re going to Vegas, San Diego and Los Angeles, which already sounds far too hot for me just typing it, but I’m sure I’ll get over it when I’m there (or I’ll just sit inside the air-conditioned hotel room and have husband visit all the sights on my behalf…with a video camera!).
In writing news – of which there naturally isn’t much – it would appear that Amazon have finally pulled their fingers out and released the Kindle publishing over here in the UK. While the site is about as easy to navigate as Undercity (WoW joke; don’t worry if you don’t get it, just means you’re not a nerd), hopefully I’ll be able to get the information I need to be able to force “The Genesis” on the general Amazon population Soon™!
And in the meantime, I’m trying to get some kind of organisational skills around the writing, since that really should deserve quite a hefty chunk of attention right now. I have about a half of “The Vampire’s Son” done, with the rest being stitched together by my muse, plus about a quarter of “Divided They Fall”. Both still technically first drafts (“The Vampire’s Son” is still the version that came from NaNoWriMo last November), there’s still an entire field worth of improvement room.
It’s good to be back!
Another failure in progression of any kind. So, it’s new year’s eve, the year 2009 drawing to a rather disappointing close, and in true style to myself, I am ill. Because I am ill, I’m not going out (well, that’s a lie, even if I wasn’t ill, I’m so very lazy and depressing that I probably wouldn’t have gone out anyway). Instead, I will reflect on 2009, with just one hour left in the year.
So what have I done this year? In a nutshell: I played on World of Warcraft far too much, then spent a very busy November (NaNoWriMo) catching up on a large amount of the work I should really have been doing throughout the year.
Now with just twenty minutes til 2010, I will briefly pass over my new year’s resolutions:
1/ I will start eating better. That isn’t to say that I will start eating healthy (let’s not go crazy here, these are new year’s resolutions, not miracles) but that is to say that I will eat more proper meat at mealtimes and maybe a sprig of cauliflower here and there.
2/ I will attempt to write at least one weekday and for at least two hours at some point of a weekend. That sounds reasonable enough, right? I managed 50k words in 30 days for NaNo; a couple of chapters a month can’t be that far out of reach.
Hopefully, 2010 will be “the” year that I’ve been intending to be “the” year since about 2005.
And so, with a cough and a sneeze, I will bid farewell to 2009.
So NaNoWriMo is drawing to a close. As of today I am within the closing 9,000 words (What?! Over 9000! …OK, I promised myself I wouldn’t go there, but how many chances am I going to get that opportunity in the future?). As far as the story has gone, it’s not finished. Not even close. But that’s not the point. I see the end of the tunnel, and the light is bright, and warm, and welcoming, and the light for a winner. Which I will be. In 9,000 words.
I have almost 30,000 words waiting from the old draft to eventually be merged into the work I have done this month, which will be my first job once I’ve verified my word count. Since many of the scenes in that draft were re-written as part of Nano, I imagine the end result will most likely be a 20-25k addition, if that. There was a lot of crap in there. There’s a lot of crap in this new draft, too, but I’ll work on that next month.
Taking part in this has taught me a lot. Mostly, it’s taught me that I don’t like deadlines. I have been this way for a long time, which is probably why I will never succeed at traditional publishing. The more I get pressured into doing something, the less I want to do it. The expectation is too much. I aim low, then anything extra is a bonus. But let’s not put too much of a negative slant on that.
The main thing I’m going to take away from this experience is that it is okay to produce a terrible first draft. It’s more than acceptable, in fact. All that has mattered is that you have your ideas, stuck them in a pot, and thrown something out there. If it’s crap, it’s crap. That’s what editing is there for! The important stuff can come next month, when you can trawl back through the mess and pick out the good bits, the really good bits, and throw away the other 40,000 words. And hey, you have a really superawesome mini novella. What are we calling it? NaNoEdMo? Can’t wait!
It was also a great experience to be able to share with thousands of other people via that technological behemoth that is Twitter. Listening to hundreds of people talk about the same things I am is like having an entire support group at your back:
“Hello, my name is Kat, and I want to write books.”
“Hi Kat.”
“Hi Kat.”
It has also reminded me to sort through my iTunes catalogue some time. The amount of times I was stopped from some incredible prose (including right now, where I’m bring interrupted by the Power Rangers theme, which is only made of pure awesome so we can excuse that) because the music went from some fierce techno rap metal to Ludovico Einaudi (both of which I love, but it doesn’t help when you’re trying to write a bloody, stabby, fangy action scene and Le Onde fills your senses with nothing but sheer serenity). Kind of ruins your flow for a minute while you skip back to some Spineshank or Skinny Puppy.
And lastly, it has reminded me that I do get a lot of support for this thing I call a hobby (but let’s face it: it is a bit more like an obsession). I have a better half who makes me cups of tea and doesn’t complain that I won’t come and sit with him for a while because I’m still a few hundred words behind count for the day. My family show me the best support they’re able to, which is great for a group of people who don’t even like vampires. My real life friends, for what ones there are out there, are interested when I chat on about vampires and the end of the world and whatnot. Or at least they pretend to be. I don’t care if they’re being genuine, only that they humour me. Same goes for my “online” friends, the Facebook and MySpace and more recently Twitter folks, and let’s not forget the World of Warcraft people (I’ll be back with you soon, guise, I promise!).
And so, with 4 days and 8,713 words to go: I thank you all, power to the people and all that, and I’ll see you all at the finish line!
This made me giggle when I was reading it over the NaNoWriMo forums, a post where you apologise to your MC for all the things you’re inflicting on him/her this month. Link.
So I decided to do one for Michael and for Amy. And then I figured I’d carry on. It kept me entertained for a while.
(This is from the point I am at now in the story, around 13k)
Michael, I’m sorry for making you watch your mother die. I’m sorry for leaving you with Vincent. I know he can be a dick. I’m sorry I made you fight all those times, even though you weren’t any good at it. You’ll get better, if it helps any. And I’m sorry for killing Amy. I know it’s not happened yet, but she doesn’t deserve to die. I’d stop it if I could, but this is a prequel story and she’s definitely dead in the future. So, yeah, sorry about that. Enjoy her while you can.
Amy. Whoo. Well, what can I say? I’m sorry for the gambling brother who ran up thousands in debt, who you supported and continued to help throughout, only for him to turn around and use you as a tradeoff with a vampire. Sorry for your job as a familiar. I know you don’t like it. If it makes you feel any better, I’m thinking about killing off your brother in a really horrible and gruesome way. And I’m really, really sorry for introducing you to Michael. I know you’re going to have some great times together, but really, it’ll be his fault that you die.
Sonny, sorry I haven’t given you more to do. It’s just that other people are popping up all over the place, and – well – they’ve got a bit more to say than you. Hang in there. I’ll find you something soon.
Chino. I guess I’m sorry that I had Vincent bring Michael to your bar, since essentially that’s what kills you. But you’re really the one to blame for that. You shouldn’t get so hot-headed all the time.
Vincent, sorry about Michael. He’s trying his best.
Sorry about your girlfriend, Richard. If it’s any comfort, she was actually doing OK as a vampire. Before you killed her, anyway.
McKenzie, I’m sorry Richard’s a bit of a freak.
Kyene, sorry I had vampires kill your wife.
Nathaniel, I’m sorry Kyene is your Dad.
Scout, I’m not really sorry about anything with you. Maybe that Michael and/or Vincent roughs you up a bit at some point, but you’ll get over it.
Obsidian, sorry I haven’t found out how to get you into the story yet.
Attilla, see what I put for Obsidian.
Catrina, sorry you’re not old enough to be written into this story. Miss you!
I am referring to my internal editor, who has already made herself very outspoken about the drivel I’ve churned out my attempt for NaNoWriMo so far. This early in the month, I shouldn’t be having these kind of feelings. But alas, she’s here already, tutting and pointing, mumbling the likes of: ‘You could move that sentence over there, delete that bit there, who cares about that bit?’.
I’ve done well so far, well-set in the mentality that I have to just write forward. I shouldn’t be re-reading really anything that I’ve written already; all I’ll want to do is reword, replace or remove it. And I know that. It’s only a draft. Even if it’s shabbier than a tramps underpants, once I’ve it written down, at least I have something to work on. And besides, 9/10 times I come back to what I’ve done a few days/weeks later and think ‘actually, it’s not that bad’.
So anyway, I’ve been looking for something that will help keep me in this forward mindset, and there’s a few things that have…well, without sounding too much like a cheesy advert…have enhanced my entire writing experience.
First off, there’s good ol’ Scrivener for the Mac, which I can’t praise enough, and have done regularly. It’s an amazing piece of software, which does pretty much everything I need to keep whatever I’m working on. It’s like doing it the old fashioned way; you put your scraps, your hand-written (scanned in, obviously; it’s not that clever), photos, videos, clippings and every other random bit of whatever that I’ve come across, and it stores it in a single file, which–suitably enough–is called a the Binder. It uses index cards to sort out each of your scenes, making it stupidly easy to rearrange bits that are fitted elsewhere.
The index cards are not locked to anything–you can move them around within the binder as suits your story.
There’s so much more to it, as well (without going into too much of I “I Heart Scrivener” campaign or anything). It’s all just so…jazzy. It was enough to make me buy TWO Macs just for this software.
So, yes, Scrivener is amazing. I worship KB (the creator) and the ground he walks on. But there is still something missing. For all its bells and whistles, I still get that nagging little voice in the back of my head telling me to go back and change something. It helps that everything is cut into scenes, as I can only see what I’ve literally just written, but I do still fall prey of the paragraph-by-paragraph edit.
That’s where these tiiiiiiiiiny little free applications comes into play. BlockWriter was actually a piece of concept software dreamt up in the mind of Khoi Vinh, whereby your machine literally becomes like a typewriter. So you have a document, like in any text editors, but here’s the thing. You can only type forward. Attempting to go back in the document just messes up the rest of your work.
What I’m doing for now is writing in BlockWriter, and when I’m done, copy/pasting it into Scrivener. That way, I’m getting the best of both worlds. There are a few drawbacks to the software, such as how it won’t save in simple TXT format and instead chooses to save them in RTF and only allows it with some silly shadow effect on it, but whatever. Minor niggles that don’t compare the ability to shove internal editor back in her cage and start poking her with a stick.
It works for me, at least.
Now, I have had BlockWriter for quite a while. I had it back before I started having all my problems on the MacBook, which is a good 12 months ago now. Thing is, I can’t exactly remember where I got it from. I suspect KB or someone else on LiteratureandLatte might have given mocking the software up a go. Either way, the long and short of it is that I can’t find a link to it. But, since it’s ridiculously tiny, I’ve put it up on my own site: Download BlockWriter (ZIP Format) So if anyone wants it…there you go. (This one will ONLY WORK ON A MAC. Read on if you’re using Windows.)
Also, there is now a version for Windows. Funnily enough, the guy who’s made BlockWriter for Windows was also tempted into buying a Mac for the fact that it had this software, only later to discover that it was indeed only concept software. So what did he do? Made it himself, of course!
Since I hadn’t seen this version up to this point, so I thought I’d give it a try. Basically, what you have in this version is WriteRoom for the Mac, but without the backspace button. See what I’ve tried to write up here:
As frustrating as it can be, it still propels you forward in the writing front, which has got to be worth something. More than that, the software is actually available for free, which you can find here: Download (.exe file) More Info
So anyway, that’s what I’m trying to beat my inner editor down with. Has it worked so far? Well I’m pushing over the 2k mark for Vampire’s Son on day 1, so here’s hoping! It’s early days yet, and only time will tell.
With just two hours to go til this weird and wonderful experience known as NaNoWriMo begins, I’m actually getting quite excited. I’ve never really done anything to a deadline (well, there is of course exams, but I haven’t doing those for what feels like decades), and it’s nice to (attempt to) bring some organisation to the chaos.
Besides, let’s face it, I have been putting doing this particular writing for a looooong time.
I’m all set to go technologically. I have Scrivener setup with all the ideas I could cram into a three-hour brainstorming session, which I am now calling my plan.
Anyhoo, enough chatter. I should be resting my fingers in preparation.
Man, I hope I don’t fail this too badly at this.
Good luck to anyone else who is taking part this year. I wish us all the will to succeed and the perseverance to reach our goals!
Other writers who read my updates may know about that little annual event known as NaNoWriMo. Those of you who don’t, I’ll point you in the direction of the official web site at NaNoWriMo.org, but the basic idea is that writers across the world take part in this event, which is an attempt to write an entire novel (assessed at a word count of 50,000, minimum) in a month (that’s for each participant to write a novel, as opposed to the entire world to come together and produce a single novel between them (although what an awesomely mind-blowing idea that would be!)).
That’s right, one month. Just one. And it’s not even one of the long months. 30 days to write the next masterpiece. The rules of the “competition” (I’m using quotes because I don’t intend to actually enter NaNo, for two reasons; one, because I am attempting to finish a half-finished novel, which is greatly advised against, and two, scanning over my first drafts do usually tend to suggest that they should never see the light of day) state only that you have to write at least 50,000 words from scratch in the one month you’re given to do it.
Now, I’ve known about NaNo for a good four or more years, after an online friend of mine mentioned she was writing a book for it. Did I do anything about it, either at the time or the years following my discovery? No. No, of course I didn’t.
So I was looking back over some old posts on my own blog, when I realised that I’ve actually had this idea in my mental pipeline since–get this–2006! Possibly even longer, if I was writing before I brought it up in my blog. So anyway, that’s three years ago. Not days, weeks or months here. Whole freaking years. I did have a sudden wave of inspiration some time last year (I didn’t document myself that well, which is a pain, in hindsight), where I did manage to spew out some literary vomit of a second (or was it third by this point? Who cares?) draft, after which I changed my mind entirely on the story and hacked away a good half of the manuscript. And once I’d done back, I sat back all smug and pleased with myself, unless the realisation sank in, and I thought to myself: OK, so what now?
Aaaaaaaand then I spent about six months basically dicking around doing sod all to do with writing or anything even remotely close, convincing myself that I would get to it later, and never actually getting around to doing it (I blame World of Warcraft, but more than that, I blame myself…but also World of Warcraft.). And, well, I have to get myself out of this hole I’ve somehow ended up in. There doesn’t seem to be a better opportunity (with the exception of new year, new beginnings, etc) to pull my finger out and get to it, than the idea that literally hundreds of thousands of people will be going through the same thing.
Of course, as I’ve mentioned, I won’t actually be entering NaNo. Why? Because of this rule. It says you have to start from scratch, which I don’t want to do. Besides, I quite like what I have written in the first half of the story. It’s just that pernickety little other half that’s not quite so good. You know, the bit I haven’t written yet?
So that’s my plan. 50,000 words (or thereabouts, it’s only a second half) in 30 days, averaging 1,666 (Hail, Satan!) words a day. If I’m going to get technical, I’m going to give it as working days (weekend’s my time off), so that’s 20 days for 50k. 2,500 words every day. Them’s a lot of words.
But before that, I have to get a good plan in place. And I mean a good plan. Not the plan I have at the minute, which is brilliant again for the bits I’ve already done, and for the second half, we have:
- Some guys fighting
- Some slayers attacking
- Some people dying
- Some other people dying
- Some other stuff
And seriously, that’s the best I have right now. But God help me, I’m working on it.
I’m even going to be investing in a new Mac Mini for the job (which I’m getting for the Scrivener software, not for the fact that it’s a Mac, since my attitude towards Macs has been soured since my piece of shit MacBook fell over on me last year and lost some very important work I had done on Divided They Fall).
I have 10 days to come up with a viable plan, which not only has to make sense and be liked by yours truly, but also has to be written well enough so I can plot and plan my time and word counts to work into the days that I will be working on it.
November is soon going to be my least favourite month.
I’m so screwed. And not in a good way.
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