Bad end to the year

I did no writing in December 2010 due to personal reasons. Also, I was sick. Nothing went right.

Christmas was good when it finally happened as was old and new, which means New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

Slowly I'm getting back into writing. Very slowly. I've been reading about writing at the moment. Today I need to start writing and I mean more than this post.

I'm thinking about writing a diary. That's something I've never done, but I know several writers who find it very useful. They begin with writing their diary entry and then find it easier to move to their work. I'm going to try this, starting tonight.

NaNoWriMo aftermath

I am so glad the NaNoWriMo is over. I will freely admit that I didn't enjoy it much this year, which came as a surprise to me. I thought I would. However I hated my story, which I think is the reason. The story was easy to write as I had a wonderful, detailed outline, but the story was boring and obvious. I chose it for that reason, so that I could finish a story from start to finish, where the plot didn't morph on the way. It's boring.

The characters, on the other hand, are interesting. They just didn't get to do anything interesting. So what I'm going to try to do is blend this year's characters with last year's plot. It may not work, but it also helps me get round a plot hole or two that I was having problems with.

And I start this weekend. Hopefully. A new outline, then new scenes, and finally a new novel.

Watch this space...

NaNoWriMo

So I finished with 51992 words according to the offical word counter. I din't blog much, because I was writing.

I wonder if next year I will take part and if I do, if I can do this without having to write so much during the last couple of days....

No progress

I'm still at just over 33000 words, which means I need to write just under 17000 words before midnight tomorrow. Definitely doable. OK, I might not finish until late tomorrow, but I will finish. I'll aim for 40000 words today and leave the last 10000 until tomorrow.

33000 words

Not too bad, not the 35000 words I was hoping for, but a lot better than I feared. And tomorrow is another day.

writing

I ended yesterday with just over 30000words. Today I've added about a thousand more and I can't think of a single thing more to write. I'm not feeling very well, but that's just an excuse. I really don't feel like writing. I was hoping to end the week with 40000 words, I'll be lucky to hit 35000 words.

Of course, this doesn't mean I won't reach the magic 50000 words. It just means I have more to do in the last remaining days. That is what I'm good at. I just wish I could be more consistent.

My spelling is improving, but I get the feeling my grammar is getting worse.

Today

Yesterday I ended up with a touch over 26000 words. I'm hoping to get to just over 30000 words today. It should be possible. In theory. Trouble is I was never very good at theory.

I have added 500 words so far today, which is progress. Let's hope it continues.

25000 words!

So I am now over the halfway mark. Less than 25000 words to write to win NaNoWriMo. I will write enough to win, but I won't be anywhere near my original target.

However I will have a good first draft, that needs expanding, re-writing and editing. In the end I will end up with a good manuscript. I have no idea if it will attract an agent, but I should get to that stage this time.

After NaNoWriMo, I will work on one chapter a week. I will, however, not start until next year, before that I'll work on the outline to another book. I need a break from this one. But this is, by far, the most advanced story I have to date. It is consistent.

The weekend

I reached 23000 words over the weekend. Not exactly brilliant, only an extra 500 words. But we are now into the home straight, so I know I'll start writing more.

Only 8 days to go and 27000 words, that should be no problem. It should take 6 days, so time to spare. Now it is time to write.

yesterday, Tuesday 16th

I wrote 1400 words, bring my total to 21700 words. So I'm still behind the NaNoWriMo average total for the given date. I'm not feeling well today, but I'll see how I do.

Some how I see myself writing the last 25000 words in the last weekend, and making it just in time. Sigh.

Writing

I'm finding it increasing difficult to write each day. I keep trying and I fail miserably. That doesn't mean I don't want to write or that I have nothing to write, but I just don't want it to become routine.

I don't know if that makes any sense. It makes sense in my head. I know I'll win NaNoWriMo - barring accidents of course - but it won't be until the final week. Then the deadline will be looming and the adrenalin will be flowing and I will end up writing 10000 words a day. It's the way I always win.

What worries me is will I be able to write away from NaNoWriMo. I didn't do so well last year, but part of that was a lack of an outline, meaning I got lost in an ever changing story. I've started the outline for that and I do intend to do the re-writing. I'm just worried I won't have the discipline to write consistently. Maybe I was never meant to do that.

Having the outline definitely helps. It's the best thing I ever did. This years NaNoWriMo is much more consistent than previous years. However it is nowhere near ready to submit. I'm skipping over chunks of the story by putting in a "telling" section. These need to be changed into "showing" scenes. I may even go back and start writing these before the end of November, as long as I've reached the end of course.

I may even need to do that to reach the 50000 words.....

Update

I wrote a total of 1100 words over the weekend. Not good, but at least I wrote something. This week I'm hoping to write 20000 words, with a target of writing 5000 words a day for 4 days out of the 7. I should be able to do this because I have done it before. It simply means I have to write. That means not writing here, or surfing the web or wasting time.

I'm very good at wasting time. Time to start writing.

no more words

OK, so that's not strictly true, but...

I didn't write a single word for NaNoWriMo yesterday and only 200 the day before. That is not good. I would love to use the weekend to catch up, but I somehow get the feeling that it won't happen. Life continues as does NaNoWriMo.

I'm not worried because I know I will make it to 50000 words before the deadline. Even if I have to write the remaining 33000 words in the last couple of days. I know this because this is how I normally write and win NaNoWriMo.

The trouble with that is that NaNoWriMo only happens once a year and so I have no push to write the rest of the time. There are so many other things to do. I do write, but only a little and very infrequently. I need to change my priorities. But will I?

10th November

I wrote a grand total of 200 words. Pathetic, but never mind maybe I'll do better today.

yesterday's progress

I wrote 3200 words yesterday. Bringing my total up to 16700 words. I even remembered to put the total in on the NaNoWriMo website. It went very well yesterday. I wrote until the battery in my netbook died. That's the first time this year that I've found it so easy to write.

Let's hope today goes as well.

Today's tally

I've just reached a total of 13500 words, so I am back on track to hit 50000 words on 30th November at 1667 words per day. I've added 2750 words so far today and I'm not done yet, but I probably won't update again this evening. That's a pretty good total and I did it easily, though I did have fewer interruptions today.

Tomorrow will definitely be different and I will have to make an effort to update at least NaNoWriMo in the evening, so that the graph looks reasonable. I can always write a new blog entry the following day.

Things are looking up.

The weekend

I wrote a grand total of 250 words over the weekend. I didn't bother to update NaNoWriMo or here. I'll add those to today's total. Assuming, of course, that I actually add to my total today.

OK, I know I will add to my total. I'm not quite that bad yet, but I definitely write better when the deadline is looming. I should say I write more. There's no proof that it is better.

Progress today

Do far I'm at 10500 words. By far the most I've written in one day in this year's NaNoWriMo. OK so it is only day five, but still it is much better than some of the other days.

My biggest challenge over the weekend will be keeping the NaNoWriMo website updated with my word count. I rarely go online at the weekends, but I have to make a special effort this month.

Yesterday

I managed to the total to 7800 words yesterday and update NaNoWriMo. I'm hoping to reach close to 10000 words today. I should be able to do that. It's just a little over 2000 words, which is close to my average so far.

This is a very boring entry, but there isn't any thing else to say.

Today!

So far my total is 7000 words. Not bad. Not brilliant either, but it's better than I feared. I'm hoping to make it to 8000 words by the end of the day. I should be over 10000 words if I want to write 80000 words before the 30th.

Still maybe I'll write more at the weekend. I probably won't, but perhaps I'll be disciplined enough to do it. If I keep up my current rate, I should end up with about 54000 words. I will win, I just won't be anywhere near what I was hoping for. Of course, I will only have myself to blame.

yesterday seems so far away......

OK so it's a dreadful title. I ended the day with 5500 words written. I managed to update NaNoWriMo, but forgot to add an entry here....

I wrote much less than I hoped, but work got in the way. I spent too many hours struggling to instal a program on my computer. Failed miserably and ended having to go another route, which basically meant working out how to make two other programs talk to each other. Still I finally got something working.

The result is that I never finished chapter three - the idea was to write a chapter a day - but I did stay roughly on track. Time to go and post my 5k shoutout.

Yesterday

I ended the day with 4400 words. I forgot to update NaNoWriMo as I had intended to do. Never mind, the extra words count towards today's total instead.

I'm still finding it difficult to get into the flow, but I think that's just the lack of urgency. If it was November 25th, then it would be a completely different story...

Trouble

I'm having trouble writing today. I have in fact managed just 250 words all morning. I wouldn't call it writer's block. I'm not sure what to call it, but I just can't seem to get into it. But on the bright side, at least I don't need to go an pick up any extra notes. I'll have plenty still to write during the music lesson. There should be time to add about 1000 words, then I'll continue once I get home. I'll also try to update NaNoWriMo website too.

A mistake

I just realised I only brought the notes for chapter two with me. I should have picked up the notes for chapter three as well. The reason for this is that this afternoon I have to take my children to their music lesson. This will give about one hour to write while I wait for them. It's highly likely that I will finish chapter two before then. I might swing by home to pick up the other notes, but it depends on the time. I normally have a pretty tight schedule.

word count update

I finished yesterday on 2200 words. Not bad for the first day. Chapter one is written. It's not ready for publishing, but the first draft is there.

On to chapter two. I'm hoping for roughly the same word count. A little higher would be nice, but not necessary. However I do think that this first draft is going to be a lot less than 90000 words. It will probably end up 70000 to 80000 words. At worst it will be 54000 words and that's if I write 2000 words per chapter.

1500 words plus

I have now written 1541 words. Far more than I thought I would write when I started about one and a half hours ago. So I should definitely make the 1700 words. I'll see how much more than that I manage.

1000 words written

So the fire alarm went off and we all had to leave the building. But despite this I just hit 1000 words. Another 700 to go for the minimum and 2000 more for the average. I think I'll end up somewhere between these two values.

And I'll stop posting so frequently too. I'll probably end up posting twice a day. Once in the morning and once in the late afternoon.

It's going pretty well so far...

Hit 500 words

I finally started to write and I have now reach 525 words. Just under 1200 words to reach today's minimum and just under 2500 words to reach my average daily goal.

Somehow, it doesn't feel real yet. I think I work better with deadlines. If today was the 20th November, I would be more motivated to write.

Well I still have lots of time to go. However I won't update here or NaNoWriMo after about 5pm CET (Central European Time). I'll update first thing in the morning if I write after that time. This of course only holds until the 29th November. On the 30th, I'll update as I need to, if I haven't already finished that is.

By the way, I'm writing in UK English.

NaNoWriMo blog chain

Rebecca Enzor has started a blog chain for NaNoWriMo. Click here to go to her post and add your blog to the chain.

My NaNoWriMo total is still at zero.

Not yet started.

So it's now 12:15pm and I haven't even started writing this years NaNoWriMo. I will start to day and hopefully complete the minimum (1700 words). I might even make it to 3000 words, which I hope will end up being my average for the month.

My excuse is that I was on holiday last week, from work at least. So now I have to catch up on all the missed emails and work I should have done.

Though I been waiting for NaNoWriMo to start, it feels more like an anticlimax than anything else. But then again, I normally do most of my writing in the last ten days when there's a greater sense of urgency. Maybe that's the problem.....

More outlining

I'm now up to chapter 8 on the outline re-write and only 18 days until NaNoWriMo begins. Time to pick up the pace and really get these outlines ready. There are 28 chapters in total and if I can write 3000 words per chapter, I'll end up with a book with 84000 words.

I'm really looking forward to the start of NaNoWriMo and I'm getting a little nervous.I just want November 1st to be here.

And welcome to all the new people following my blog. I wish you all good luck in your NaNoWriMo attempts.

Update on NaNoWriMo outline

Instead of continuing with the outline of the previous NaNoWriMo story, I picked up the new outline again. I wrote a character list and a quick synopsis, which misses a few points. I did it out of my head and not referring to the chapter outlines I had already written.

I did that so I could see how much of the story I could remember. It's amazing how many little changes crept in. After writing the half page synopsis, I started on Chapter 1 outline. Very little changed, but names were added and a couple of minor points were clarified.

Now I'm up to Chapter 3 and it's taking longer than I thought it would. I guess I shouldn't be surprised really. As in this round I'm making sure that there is consistency in everything, through names to places etc. I know in the first outline some characters changed sex to make them fit better in that particular scene, now they are fixed and hence some scenes need to be redone.

Consistency...I'm not very good at that.

Update on outline

So the second outline is now at chapter nine. I wrote five more yesterday. I'm hoping to reach thirty in total as with the previous outline. This is for the simple reason that then I need to write about 3000 words per chapter in order to produce a 90000 word novel.

It doesn't actually mean the finished book will have 30 chapters, but it might do. I'll make that decision when I have actually written it. I'll work on the current outline until Sunday, then I'll switch back to me NaNoWriMo outline. Once that is smartened up and correct, and if there is time, I'll switch back to this outline.

I actually think working on more than one project is helping me. That might sound a bit weird, but I seem to be able to concentrate better on one after I've completely taken a break from it for a while. I came up with some pretty good subplots for the old novel in a very short time once I restarted. I'd had real problems before.

I hope to reach about the halfway mark, before I have to switch back to the NaNoWriMo story. And I hope to have the outline finished before NaNoWriMo starts.

New outline

I finished the outline for NaNoWriMo as I said and I have started on the detailed outline for the draft I wrote for last year's NaNoWriMo. I am just starting on Chapter 5. Chapters 1-4 went quicker than I thought they would.

I only really had Chapter 1 in the first draft. The others are new to the story and provide some background and show some of the relationships between the characters rather than just telling the reader what those relationships were. I think it's an improvement.

Having said that I don't think the draft could be any worse. The new chapters provide some red herrings and clear up some things that were obscure in the previous draft. They also set up the killer, which was missing from the previous version. That, however, was due to a switch very late on in the first draft.

The killer switched identity, which made far more sense in the story, but caused some problems with the draft. Hopefully writing the outline will eliminate those conflicts completely.

I'll continue to write this outline until October, when I will stop and go back to the outline for this year's NaNoWriMo. I need to do some changes to that outline - some characters keep switching gender and some switch names - so that it is ready for November 1st. If that's ready before November, I'll switch back to this new outline.

Currently it is all going well. I wonder how long it's going to last...

Outline finished!

The first draft of the outline is complete. I ended up with 27 chapters. If, during NaNoWriMo, I write about 3300 words per chapter per day, then at the end I have a finished novel of about 90000 words. Sounds easy.

I will now ignore the outline for a couple of weeks, and work on another outline instead. Then in October I'll come back to it and add/change what I need. The whole thing should be ready by November 1st.

Feels good to have finished the outline. Something is actually complete.

Another update

I really have to start thinking of some titles. I can't use "update" all the time.

Anyway to the update - I have now outlined 15 chapters. That means I am halfway through the outline. It does need some revision and character/place names, but the plot is coming together. This also means that I should be finished before the end of September. If I am, then I shall start the outline of the previous NaNoWriMo and leave the this outline for a week or two.

I will review it in October, before NaNoWriMo starts. I'll edit it and make sure all the details are there and then come 1st November I'll use it as a guide. I'm hoping to write 3000-5000 words a day. If each chapter is 3000 words and I have 30 chapters, thats 90 000 words in total. A real book. If I run out of time, I'll skip or skimp on parts so that I finish in time, but it will be much easier to go back and fill those parts in.

What all this means is this year I am going to write a full length book for NaNoWriMo. In previous years I have written a first draft, but I've never had much luck going back and making a real book of it. Hence the change in approach for this year. I don't know if it will work, but I think it's worth a shot.

For the last year or so I've been trying to get more serious about really writing a book, but with little success. I keep changing my mind and the story ends up so confused it's impossible to work out what was supposed to be going on. So now is the time to outline.

I'll add one other thing, in the past I've always finished NaNoWriMo in about 10 days or so, by writing 5000 words each day. So theoretically I should be able to extend this and write every day, instead of just the last 10 days of November. Of course, life will get in the way so I won't actually be able to write every day, hence the lower target of 3000 words a day. Some days I'll write more, and some days I won't write at all. But I will write.

Update

I have now outlined 12 chapters. Not bad. I expect to end up with about 30, so I'm over one third done. I do need to go back and edit a little, plus I still have to name some of the characters.

Time wise, I'm doing well. I should have the complete outline finished and revised before Novemeber 1st and NaNoWriMo. I don't think I'll have time for the second outline I was hoping to write. It would have been nice to have written that too, but it's taking me longer than I thought to write the first one. However, it should save me a lot of time later on as all the kinks should be ironed out now rather than later.

I still haven't worked out how to change the spell checker language, so the posts are still not checked. It's a little bizar, because I do have English selected as the language, but the spell checker seems to be ignoring that.

more writing

So now I'm halfway through writing chapter seven outline. I'm trying to do at least one chapter outline per evening and so far it's working out. It would be wonderful to manage ten a week, but that might be pushing it. I get quite tired from just doing a little over one chapter outline as it is.

Still at one a night and six completed, it should take me another 24 nights. That is assuming I end up with thirty chapters. Which means I will be finished before NaNoWriMo starts. Hopefully I'll be able to write about 3000 words per chapter, so the final draft will be about 90000 words.

Also by writing this detailed outline, I should only have to correct for spelling and grammar with perhaps the occasional re-write of a scene or two. But there won't be any problems with changing storylines or characters changing sex at random. At least that's the idea...

More writing!

Yes, I have actually been writing. I now have four chapters outlined and I've noticed something. I keep changing things. Even now in outline and even though I'm only at chapter four. One of my side characters started off female, became male and has just reverted to female.

Not very consistant, but that is the problem. I'm going to make her female and keep her that way. If something in the plot/story doesn't work unless she becomes a he, then it's the plot/story that will change not the sex of the character.

I'm writing very slowly at the moment. Much slower than I would like, but I only have myself to blame. Time to pick up the pace. If I don't I won't be ready for November and NaNoWriMo. I'm only outlined four chapters and there looks like there'll be about thirty in total. At this rate I need thirteen weeks and there is only nine weeks left.

And I need to create a character list. I don't have names yet, just things like MC, sister, client etc. That will help fix the characters and stop them from morphing at will. Time to find a binder.

And this post has not gone through the spellchecket. For some reason the language for the spellchecker has been set to Dutch and I can't find out how to change it. The language setting, that I did find, was set to English, so I have no idea at the moment how to change it back again. Very annoying.

Outlining

Well I've been away for a while. First on vacation and then ill (again). However during this time I have been experimenting with different ways of outlining and I think I've found a way that will work for me.

OK, so I still have to test it fully, but so far it's looking good. I've tried several methods, but none have lasted more than a week at most. This one's been going much longer and I'm much further.

I've got an idea for a story. I've got a more detailed breakdown and currently, I am writing a very detailed outline. I'm going chapter by chapter, through the story and working out what happens in each one.

I know I'll probably move things or even break up or combine chapters, but it is much more detailed than before. I've started a new story, which is a bit naughty, but I need a break from the old one. I think this new story will become this years NaNoWriMo.

If this turns out as well as I think it will, I'll go back to the original story and start planning it out in the same way. OK so the devils in the actual writing, but strangely enough I've never had a real problem with that part.

It's the plotting - well keeping a coherent plot - that I find hard. I change my mind and think I can just go back and change it later, but that never works. At least for me. I get too lost and just can't find my way back again.

So short term goal - for the next month or so - is to finish the detailed outline for NaNoWriMo 2010. Then if I get that finished before 1st November, I will start trying to plot out my failed novel from last year. With luck, both will be complete before NaNoWriMo.

Not much

Well I wrote for a couple of weeks, then became ill and lost it. I haven't written since then. I've got ideas and scenes floating around in my head. I just haven't written a word of it.

I have no excuse. Time to try again...

Writing habits

For the last 10 days or so, I have been writing. Each session has produced 500-750 words, which is pretty good. Last week I managed 2900 words in total and so far this week the total has increased to 4500 words.

I did start off with the goal of 100 words a day, or 700 words for the entire first week, so I blew that goal completely out of the water. As I completed almost 3000 words last week, my new goal for this week is 3500 words to give a total of 6500 over the two weeks. Only 2000 words to go...

In terms of progress on the novel, I would like to get to 5000 words a week. This is eminently doable, but as always it is me that is holding it back. So far this week, I'm not doing too badly. Last night I was ill so I didn't write, I slept instead. However I have no excuse for tonight.

I should add that I was seriously ill at the end of last week due to a viral infection. The doctor was worried it was even worse than it turned out to be, but I was still very sick. I'm still feeling the effects now and that is why I slept for so long yesterday.

I will admit that this is a new story I'm writing. I decided to take some time away from the other one as I was getting more and more confused where it was headed. I haven't completely abandoned it and I will go back to it when I've finished writing the first draft of this story. At that point I will then make a decision as to either continue with it or abandon it for good.

Of course I could be a serial first drafter, never getting any further with anything, but somehow I doubt it.

So slow

Not doing so well. No surprise there. I just don't seem to have the energy, but that's just an excuse. I also forgot to recharge my mini laptop. That's an excuse too. Not to mention that not plugging it in is probably an unconscious way of avoiding writing.

Maybe I'm reading too much into this. Trouble is I know myself very well and I know I'm doing my best to avoid writing. I do similar things to avoid housework too. I am lazy.

Tonight, as soon as I get home, I will plug in the mini laptop. I will. And I will write using pen and paper while it's recharging.

Habits

I no longer write every day. I've managed to drop the habit and I am having some trouble trying to get it back. So yesterday I decided that I would not go to bed until I had written at least 100 words, with a goal to write a minimum of 100 words a day for the whole week.

The idea is to increase that to 200 words a day for the following week. And each week, up the daily total by a hundred, stopping at either 500 or 1000 words a day. I like the idea of 1000 words a day, but I need to see how practical it is to do.

And being practical, I have to allow for some days with no writing. Sometimes it won't be possible. But I could write extra on the days that follow, which I think is probably the best idea so that the week total remains unchanged.

This is, of course, more difficult if I go for 7000 words a week, but not impossible. I manage much more than that during NaNoWriMo. I'm just not sure it's realistic over such a long period. For 3500 words a week, it would be much easier.

So last night I sat down and wrote. In the end I had 1073 words, which is not bad. Tonight I still have my goal of a minimum of 100 words, but hopefully I will again write more. I'm going to force myself to write everyday until I have finished a draft.

Let's see what happens this time.

Today

I wrote a thousand words in an hour. OK not the fastest rate in the world perhaps, but I did get interrupted every now and then. At least that's my excuse. The point is that it was easy today. Very easy. As soon as I had a free moment I sat down and wrote and the words just came. I wish everyday could be like this.

If I keep this up I might even get a manuscript finished...

Back to writing.

I'm writing again. Slowly at the moment, but I have added some words. I think I need to start again. Not right from the beginning, but start a new draft. This will be the 3rd draft. Let's see how many things I change this time.

Dreaming.....

I meant to write this yesterday, but it never quite reached the top of my to-do list.

I read quite a few blogs. OK, so I read a lot of blogs and yesterday one of them, Rachelle Gardner's to be precise, featured an email from someone having trouble writing. The whole thing really struck a cord with me. Here's the link to the story.

"Wondering" loved dreaming and finally tried to write down those dreams, but was finding it difficult. Now I love dreaming too. I do it almost constantly. I don't have a problem writing down the dream, but problem comes from turning that dream into a book.

Let me try to explain. My dream isn't a constant thing. It's always changing, mutating. Characters merge or simply change with no reason. So from beginning to end, my story follows no one line. It changes to match the people/location etc.

This is my problem. In order to write a book, there has to be one constant storyline. I need to fix it in place. I'm not so good at doing that. Writing down the dream, that I find easy. I don't worry if it doesn't make sense, because I know I can fix it later.

Writing is hard. At least writing a book is hard. Keeping to the point is hard (for me). Making excuse not write is very easy.

Now back to dreaming.

long time, no write

And not just here on the blog. I have re-written my outline, but it stopped there. I haven't written in weeks.

Well technically that's not true. I should say that I haven't written anything in the way of fiction. I have written several reports for work, including re-writing an existing report, totally changing another one so that it was ten times as long, and wrote a couple of totally new reports.

But as far as fiction goes, not a word. Nothing. And now I'm repeating myself.

OK so things have been busy in the rest of my life, but I shouldn't use that as an excuse. I have spent an hour or so watching TV some nights and I could have easily been writing instead.

The break is now over and I'm going to start writing again. Honest. Actually I've already tried, but deleted both efforts. They were bad, and I mean really bad.

However I am writing again, so hopefully I will start blogging again to. I hate writing a blog post about nothing. Mind you, this post isn't really about much....

Just a quick update

I am still writing, honest. Just not on a computer. I'm almost to the point when I will get back to typing and word counts, but not quite.

I do have a confession. I haven't been writing as much as I should have been. I seem to run out of time and I just can't seem to give up sleeping. However in a short while all the reasons that took up all the time will be gone.

Then I will have more time to waste again and so should have more time to write. I wonder what I'll do, waste the time or write? Should be interesting to find out. I'm hoping to write a bit tonight, but I also need to do some sewing too and I don't think I'll manage to do both.

At least the busiest part of the year is almost over. It'll be so nice to have some free weekends again.

Not dead...

just not around much at the moment. Deliberately so. I have been writing and crossing stuff out and writing some more and so on. All using pen and paper. I will start actually writing the story again, I just don't know exactly when.

I'm going at a much slower pace now and it seems to suit me. The new outline is getting there and is much more detailed than the previous attempts. In fact it is almost a first draft in its own right. However there is far too much telling and no showing.

But the story is emerging and though the general description still fits, the subplots are entirely new and add another dimension to the story. In fact, I realised that it was the lack of complications that meant that the book didn't work as I wanted it too.

My mind has been wandering too. I have a couple of new book ideas, which are still in the baby stages and may not make it any further. I also have a short story idea, which I'm pretty sure will work. I might write this as well as continuing with the book outline.

Might be good for me as long as I don't get too caught up in it and abandon my novel. Anyway back to work. I'll write more later.

Not around much

I've been away from the Internet for a while now and will not be around much for the next few weeks. I'm doing some writing the old fashioned way and trying to get my story straight. (Why does that sound like I'm in trouble with the law?)

Things are moving, just slowly. I haven't written much with a pen and paper for some time. Typing seems to be quicker, but that may be a false impression. It's much easier to calculate how much I have written on the computer (crtl W), and so I check it quite often. With hand writing, I either estimate or, if I'm really stuck, count each word carefully.

The consequence is that I don't tally up as often when hand writing. Sometimes I don't check for days. That may lead to a feeling that I'm writing more slowly when, in fact, I'm writing at a similar speed.

Of course speed isn't everything and as long as it is good writing, there isn't really a problem. I'll try and update every now and then on how the writing is going.

back to the beginning

At the moment I am writing using pen and paper. I'm re-doing my outline and one thing I've learned is, I need an outline.

There's nothing wrong in what I've written, but at the moment none of it hangs together. It doesn't help that I wrote some of the scenes for one storyline, only to alter the plot and not edit those scenes straight away.

Maybe that was the problem...(and before you ask, it was the problem.)

I think that I should have just started from scratch with the new plot and not tried to bring in what I had already written. I got lost. Very lost.

Now I'm going to write a detailed outline, and then write a list of scenes. Then, and only then, I'm going to start to write on the computer again.

Writing the outline down on paper, helps me to see the story more clearly. So for the next week or so, the word count won't increase, but hopefully I will make progress.

If I change my mind about the story line again, I'm going to go back to this stage immediately rather than trying to continue and adapt what I have already written.

Starting again

Not completely from scratch, but I have deleted a large proportion of what I had written. I'm now down to about 8k words and more may vanish as I go.

The storyline in my head didn't match the one on the page. I thought that they did, but by going through what I had written scene by scene and summarizing them, I found out otherwise.

I deleted all the scenes that were not right. They still exist, just not in my main file and I probably won't look at most of them again. I will simply write the scenes from scratch.

I'm going to write out the story line again and make a list of scenes. I'll then write those scenes. The ones that stayed are from the beginning, which has received the most attention and they did follow the story in my head.

My word count has gone down, but I made progress.

Progress

Not much maybe, but I am getting back into things. I really did get stuck, so I took a break and read some blogs and books and things.

http://www.timothyhallinan.com/writers.php is a great piece on actually getting through the tougher times and finishing your book. It has helped me enormously and is the reason I'm back to writing again.

In fact, I'm not actually writing parts for the book at the moment, but I taking stock of what I have written and really getting into making sure that it works. I know I started this by myself, but reading that other people get like this too really helped.

So at the moment I'm writing about the book and making progress.

The weekend

I actually started to read my pages this weekend. I got about one-third of the way through, which seems to be normal for me. Let me explain.

The beginning of my novel is not too bad. It's the part I've spent the most time on. The rest of the book just sits there, unread. It's not that I'm trying to make the first part perfect. It's just better to read than the rest of it. So I don't read the rest and it never gets edited and it never gets better, so I never read it. Are you seeing a pattern here yet?

I need to re-write some scenes. I need to add in new ones. I need more complications and conflict. I just can't seem to write them. I'm not sure what I should do at the moment. I could try to push on and actually tackle the rest of the book or I could take a break and start something else.

I need to write and at the moment I'm not writing anything. I'm making lame excuses to avoid it at all costs. Ridiculous really, but right now that's how I feel.

Thursday evening

Last night I did what I had predicted I would, I slept and I needed that sleep. The consequence is that there is no change in the progress of my book and there probably won't be until the weekend.

It's unlikely that I will do much today, so tomorrow will be the first day that I will actually be able to sit down somewhere quiet and work on the scenes.

Flu

I have not posted recently because for the last week I have been in bed with the flu. Today is my first day back at work and the first day that I have felt human again.

The consequence of this is that my current word count stands at 45080 words, just over half of the end total. I have printed out all of the individual scenes and now I have to go through them all, editing and rearranging them.

I find this a daunting task. It doesn't scare me, but I am really not looking forward to it. I am hoping to start tonight, however I am a little worried that I will not have the energy left after a full day back at work. I still get tired quickly.

I am resolved to do some editing this weekend. Even if it's only to go through one or two scenes. I need to get started. I know it will get easier once I start. And I know this because of a short story that I once wrote. I had real trouble getting up the courage to re-read it and to begin editing, however once I started, it went really well and the second draft was so much better than the first.

Also, I need to add in more scenes. Currently missing are the subplot(s). These just don't exist. Well one has been started, but all I have done is introduce a character. The actual plot is still missing.

More detail still needs to be added as well. Most of the conversations are just talking heads with no action attached. Hopefully at the end of this, I'll be much closer to the 80-90k words that the novel should reach and the scenes will finally all be in the right order.

I'm hoping to get this all done before the end of January, but as I just lost a week that could be pushing it slightly. I haven't given up on getting it done by then as there are still just over two weeks to go, but I wouldn't put money on it.

I am content with what I have done so far. I wish I had done more and some of that is due to me, the rest though is due to ill health and I can't control that.

Wednesday.....

I have yet to print out the individual scenes and go through them. I intended to do that yesterday, but yesterday was Wednesday, which is never a good day for me. I did nothing in terms of writing or editing.

What I did instead was to try to resurrect my dying desktop computer. It's been randomly rebooting itself for a couple of weeks now and yesterday, it began producing warning messages whenever I did anything. The warning message was rather dire at that.

A hardware check showed nothing wrong. So I did a software check and there were errors. Lots of errors. I had to run a full CHKDSK and it appears to have been successful. However I haven't used the computer enough to be sure of this.

This weekend will be the real test. In the mean time, I'll print out the scenes tonight and tomorrow, I'll start to edit, reorder and combine the scenes. I'll also look for places to put new scenes and mark those in with a scene summary.

Today, I will do very little. I might start reading through, but I much prefer a paper version for reading. I find it much easier with a hardcopy.

Today

I wrote about 1000 words today. Not much and nowhere near my goal, but more than I have written in a while. I have also split my file up into scenes. So that each scene has its own file.

Tonight or tomorrow, I will print out those files and then mix and match the scenes. I know that the story doesn't flow at the moment and due to the changes in the storyline, the timeline is dodgy at best. And I'm still either contradicting myself or still leaving in references to now removed encounters.

It's all a bit confused. I need to sit down and reorder the scenes. Mark out which parts need to be removed or altered that still remain and work out where there still needs new scenes/information added. None of the remaining scenes need to be completely deleted, but the may need a complete re-write.

Some of the conversations still need annotating. Currently that's all there is, talk. No action, no interruptions, just talking heads. Time to add more substance.

So on the writing side, didn't make my goal of 2500 words in a day, but I'm more organized now. Whether that is a good thing (which I think it is) or a bad thing, is still to be seen.

Update

The total so far is 44069 words. I started this morning with 14068 words. The majority of this increase came from adding the good scenes from the first draft. I've added about another 1000 words as I have gone through, editing the new additions.

This means I dropped about 9000 words from the first draft, which was written during NaNoWriMo '09. Not a bad keep rate, especially for me. I am going through and editing the scenes, which for the most part is producing an increase in word count. Of course I am deleting parts, but I am also adding new bits.

I've already reached my daily goal, but I'm going to continue as it is currently going well. My main goal for this month, is to have a second draft finished before the end of January. In this second draft, I hope to have most of the book written. There maybe details missing, and a few parts that still need more research, but for the most part it will be complete.

In February, I hope to fill in those details and check the facts. After that, I'll start with checking the English - grammar and spelling separately - and then leave it for a few weeks, before reading through again. But that's all far in the future. I still need to get this second draft finished. And I might need a third before all the scenes are complete.

Happy New Year!

The snow got worse and the schools closed and I stayed home until today. Actually I did go out between then and now, but I didn't go back to work. I also didn't go on the Internet much nor did I write much. In fact I didn't write at all. I did have a great time with my family and got a netbook at Christmas.

This should mean that I can write more when at home, but one thing I learned over my two and a bit weeks at home, is that my family are exactly helping me to write. Every time I tried to sit down and write there was something someone wanted, or it was time to cook again. Still the house was cleaned top to bottom and everything that needed polishing was polished. Now all I have to do is find time to write when at home.

Today I hope to fit a little in this afternoon. I'll blog later on with the result...

Snow, and lots of it.

And because of the snow, there will be very little writing/editing done today. It took me just over two hours to get into work. That consisted of about 1 hour and 40 minutes in the car and another 20 minutes walking.

This means I need to leave work at about 2pm to be sure that I get my children to their Christmas party on time. It's going to be a short, white day.

Not that there are many people in today. Most haven't bothered trying to get here and I don't blame them. I'm taking my computer home with me tonight so that if the weather doesn't improve, I don't have to come in tomorrow.

Everything does look pretty.

Progress at last.

I know today is Wednesday and all the way through NaNoWriMo I never wrote on a thing on a Wednesday, but today I did quite a bit.

With the problems I've been having with writing a new scene, I decided to do some editing instead. The result of this is an additional 8752 words have been added to my total, bring it up to 12528 words.

Now I know this is mostly editing. I have deleted a lot and I have rewritten parts, but mostly the increase in my total is due to the bits I wrote during NaNoWriMo that were actually quite good. (OK, so I think they are very good, but that might change over time).

I think I will continue like this tomorrow and possibly Friday. However I might run out of good parts by then and so I'll be back to writing again. My biggest gain from doing this, is the feeling that I am actually accomplishing something. My lack of progress in writing a new scene was really getting to me.

I was starting to lose confidence. Going back and getting stuff from my first draft has cheered me up tremendously. Not mention it has boosted my word count. I've also identified where new scenes are needed. I haven't even tried to write these yet, I've just simply put a note in the text, which includes a brief description of what I think the scene should include.

I think that I'll end up using about 30000 words from the first draft and hence will be dropping about 20000 words. I don't think that's a bad ratio. Especially since I re-did the storyline and changed the identity of the killer. I think I've worked out a new sub-plot that will increase the word count while illustrating the behaviour of a couple of characters.

So onwards and upwards.

Today's progress

Miraculously I wrote something today. Not much, but it's better than nothing. I added 361 words to my total, bring it up to 3776 words. Nowhere near as much as I should have written, but at least the total is increasing now.

I'm hoping to get more done over the Christmas break. I get 2 weeks off work, so I should be able to get something done. The only day that I know I won't get much done is the 26th December. That's visitor day, when we open our doors and everyone turns up. It tends to end up as a very long, chaotic day.

Now I know that we will also go out on at least a couple of other days as a family, but I should still be able to write. Hopefully I will get into a routine that will help my total increase and perhaps, I'll even reach my goals.

If it turns out to be a real disaster, I'll re-evaluate my plan. Perhaps I'll change to another storyline/plot. We will see.

Here we go again....

I didn't write again yesterday. My excuse is work. I did a lot of work yesterday and that took up all my time. When I got home I did the housework I hadn't done on Sunday because I was out a birthday tea instead.

But today, I have time. Trouble is will I write? I would be stupid not to and I have the time. All I have to do is to start typing. I think writing this post will help. It is at least some sort of writing and is a start. Now all I have to do is get creative.

Update (lack of)

Unsurprisingly, I did not write over the weekend. I managed 0 words.

However I did work out that I needed to change the location of the scene that I'm stuck on. If I move the location and add in a new character, one that isn't actually new, but was deleted from the NaNoWriMo draft because I thought that she was superfluous. Now I realise my first instinct was the right one. Moving the scene and adding the character will add a new dimension and solve some other minor problems. My MC will show herself off in a different environment and that is needed.

It will increase the word count too and that's no bad thing. The first draft, written for NaNoWriMo, was only 52000 words long and the final draft needs 75000-90000 words to lie within the "normal" book lengths.

I might change the timeline a bit too, not sure about that yet though. I think I need to write more before making a decision. Perhaps that's something for the next draft. Keep with the current timeline as is in this draft and see how the whole thing pans out. Sounds good to me.

On a separate note, I seem to have lost the spell checker from my post editor. I have no idea how I managed that, but I really need to find it again. My spelling is so weak, it's scary.

Quick Update

Today's final word count is 3415 words. So the second draft total is 3415 words. It's completely edited, so I did make my 2500 words goal. However I do need to write a new scene. Currently there is a paragraph that basically describes a scene, but I don't actually show it.

I've tried twice now to write that scene and have got absolutely nowhere. I need to approach it from a different angle. I know leaving it for later isn't going to work. It was in the first draft in just about the same form as now and it hasn't gotten any easier to write.

Trouble is I don't understand why this one is so difficult. Maybe it's just one of those things that just don't seem to have an explanation, they just are. Still it's bugging me a little. I think I will start by expanding the paragraph I have now and see if that will lead to proper scene, but that is for tomorrow and I will be writing tomorrow.

At least a little. I know I won't be writing on Sunday as I have to go out for the entire day, hence I'm determined to do at least something tomorrow. Maybe I'll get that scene written.

Writing

So far today, I have added 3884 words to my new draft. This gives a total of 3884 words in the second draft. Most of these words come from the first draft and a lot still need editing. I'm 750 words into the edit. I've already deleted some scenes that are no longer relevant. I just have to re-write the ones that are still relevant.

My goal for this second draft is to get 2500 words written and/or edited per day for at least five days per week. I failed miserably to do that this week, but in defence I did only start writing today. I should have started earlier, but didn't. Still I should be able to make my daily target for today at least.

As for NaNoWriMo, I'll keep a total going on here so that I can track my progress. I'll also update my spreadsheet to see how I'm doing and see if I can meet the goals I'm setting myself. Christmas is coming so that will affect things. I just don't know how at the moment. I won't be working, but there is far more family orientated things to do. Should be interesting if nothing else.

Other things I am doing is adding the scenes into a spreadsheet, which includes a timeline, words per scene and how many scenes I need to reach my word goal. For example, I've set my total word count for the entire novel to 80000 words, which is a reasonable length. Now my first scene is 750 words long. Now if all my scenes are that length, I would need 107 scenes to reach my target.

Of course not all the scenes will be the same length and the exact word count won't be 80000 words, but it's fun to track my progress. I'll keep an update on my average scene length and how many scenes I need to reach 80000 words. I'm hoping that the 107 will come down...

Time to go back to editing.

Argh!

So didn't do much yesterday, but it was a Wednesday. Still can't work out why I don't do much on a Wednesday, I just don't. In the writing sense that is. I do lots of things. I guess I do them on Wednesday so I don't have to do them for the rest of the week. I need to start writing at the weekend and just forget about writing on Wednesday.

Now I have two outlines (actually I have three, but the original NaNoWriMo one is no longer relevant) one of which is very close to the original I used in NaNoWriMo, but with the changes I wanted after having completed the 50k. The other one is no where near complete, but what I have done is, in my own opinion, better than the completed one.

The problem is I'm having trouble completing this outline. I keep going back to it and I don't seem to be able to get any further, so for now I'm going to set it to one side. I am going to start writing and editing the text I do have in order to get my second draft done. When the second draft is done, then I'll go back and see if the third outline is any good or of any help. If it isn't I'll delete it.

I should say that the beginnings of both outlines are almost identical, but they rapidly diverge. I like the direction that the unfinished one takes, I just not sure that it is something I want to write. Sounds a bit weird, but it makes sense to me. I often read books that I would never think of writing.

Lottery by Patricia Woods is one such book. I loved this book. I read it in one sitting. I think it's a great concept and it is written very well. Having said that it is not a book I would write. It's just not my style, but it is a great book.

And I think that might be my problem here. The second outline might produce a great book, but I'm not convinced it's one I want to write. On the other hand, maybe it's the one I need to write.

Outlining

At least that is what I should be doing, writing a new outline. Instead I'm surfing the web, doing my job, cleaning the house etc. In fact anything but writing a new outline. I am a little stuck at the moment, however that shouldn't stop me, but it has.

My excuse is that I'm looking for new inspiration to add to my story as well as boosting what I already have. That's just an excuse. I'm not really doing anything. Part of this is post NaNoWriMo exhaustion. I've been so intensely involved that I needed a break.

The other part is fear. Fear of failing, of being bad, of just not being able to finish what I've started, so why not fail now and do something else instead. None of this is real, it's just in my head. Part of me wants to work on several projects at once to increase my chances of at least one working out.

I know that if I start multiple stories, none will ever get finished. I have to concentrate on one and right now, that's difficult. It's time to knuckle down and get on with it. I know I can, trouble is will I?

One constructive thing I have been doing, is reading. Several books so far and I've another 4 I would like to read. At least 2 have been so bad, it's amazing they ever got published in the first place. Though both had interesting concepts, but, trust me, the writing was atrocious.

One book I couldn't get beyond the first page. It was that awful. I know I've read the book before, but how I managed it, I do not know. Another, one of the really bad books, had so many "She got home, had some dinner and a drink, then went to bed" scenes it was truly amazing. Well, they weren't really scenes, but you know what I mean.

The one I'm currently reading is very well written. It's not a subject I would write about, but that's just personal. The flow is good, but I think there are parts that could easily been cut to make the whole thing tighter, but on the whole these are few and far between. If I had written this book, I would be very happy. I know it's not going to win awards, but it is a good read and that is what is important to me.

Progress and Posts

I am making progress, but it is very slow at the moment. The upshot of this is that I will not be writing a new post every day. Instead I will update my blog 2-3 times a week, more if I happen to be doing well and when I am in a writing frenzy, then I'll update everyday.

But for the next two weeks or so, things will be quieter. I'm working on my outline and refining my characters, including either renaming or simply naming a couple of them. They aren't actually changing, just getting a cosmetic makeover. A bit like the outline.

Hopefully just before Christmas I will start writing in earnest again.

Congratulations to all!

Congratulations to all NaNoWriMo Winners and to everyone who met their own goals. I hope you all enjoyed yourselves no matter what the outcome and I hope you are happy with what you've achieved. You should be.

I meant to write this yesterday, but ended up working and dealing with real life instead. Today is very full as well, so I writing now as I don't think I'll get another chance. Tomorrow should be quieter...

New Outline

Returning to the outline was definitely the right thing to do. I'll probably be working on this for the next week or so. The corpses remain the same, as does the killer. The story arc remains intact - the killer returns, kills people, gets caught - but the telling of the story is changing.

I have a different reason for bringing everyone together and a minor character is now the MC (Main Character). The focus is also shifting slightly. I might change the POV (Point Of View), but I'm currently undecided at the moment. The POV will shift slightly, just not change completely. I will probably write the opening using at least two different POVs and see how they work.

Of course the whole thing may change again, but I'm happier with this newer version than with the previous one. I probably won't use much of what I've already written, but I will use most of the scenes. These will have to be re-written due to the change of MC and POV.

Verified!

I just verified and my word count was given as 51992 words. My word processor said I had 52020 words. I'm curious what the missing 28 words are.

One other point, this year I didn't have to expand all my contractions to win. One year, three or four years ago, I changed all my "don't" and "can't" etc. to "do not" and "can not" etc. in order to win.

And of course I didn't have to write a lot about nothing to make up the word count either. Both indicate progress on my part and I'm happy about that. Now back to the outline/synopsis.

The Last Day

I am going to verify my NaNoWriMo in a moment. It will end up as about 52k words. I haven't written anything since last week. I can't think of anything to write. Nothing. I need some more scenes, but right now I can't think of any.

What I need to do is go back to the outline and re-write it so that it matches the story I've written. Then I can create the new scenes. At least that's the theory.

Over the last few days I've tried just sitting down and writing, but it isn't working. I have no idea what I need at the moment. I'm getting lost. So it's time to review, delete and re-write.

I'm off to verify my first draft, knowing it is woefully incomplete and in need of a miracle. Let's hope in the next few weeks I find one...

Day Twenty Six

And again I have written 0 words. It's a good thing that I am already over 50k, because there's a chance I won't be able to write until the weekend.

Work got in the way. All the things I have been putting off, had to finally be done. So the day went in a blink. Looking on the bright side, I did get a lot of things done.

I gave to go out this evening, so I know I won't get anything done when I get back. Still there's always tomorrow...

Day Twenty Five

I didn't write anything yesterday. Not a single word. I didn't even open up the file. Hopefully today, 26th, will be better. All I have to do is think of something to write.

Update day 24

So far today I have written 2270 words. I'm not sure I will write much more, hence I decided to write this post. My total is 52020 words. This is actually higher than I thought it would be, as I was unsure that I would write too much once I had reached the magic 50k.

But I reached 50k and, even with work and meetings, I continued to write. So not a bad total. Unfortunately tomorrow is Wednesday and I never seem to write on a Wednesday. I will try, but no promises.

I know I need to look at the outline again and completely re-write it so that it matches the current storyline and is more detailed. This will be the synopsis in the end. At least that's the plan.

Then the only thing missing is the cover letter, but that is for another day, which lies far, far into the future. Still it fills me with dread just thinking about it.

Back to the novel. I'm hoping by the end of December to have a completed draft. All the scenes completed and storyline fixed in place with no holes. I, also, hope to have about 80k-90k written. Then I will start deleting stuff, including full scenes. The idea is, I will write more than I need, so that I can get rid of the stuff I don't need and only leave the best in the book. That's the theory, I wonder what will happen in practice...

And by completed draft, I don't mean one ready to submit (not the final draft, the novel), but one ready to be properly edited for grammar and spelling and the like. At that point I would hope that there won't be any major re-writes. Famous last words.

Day Twenty Four

I just passed the 50000 word mark. My total word count, for my original story, is 50005 words. NaNoWriMo is won! Now to finish the book.

Day Twenty Three

I had trouble getting started today, which is not surprising due to the fact that I haven't written a word since last Thursday and that was only a few hundred words.

I wrote just over 2700 words today. My total is 49750 words. Only 250 words away from completing NaNoWriMo and a long way from completing my first novel.

I could write those 250 words today, but I think they will be improved if I leave them until tomorrow. There is no rush as there are still seven days to go.

I will continue to add to my word count until the 30th November, when I will verify my word count. Then I'll begin the real editing. That should be interesting. Or do I mean terrifying.

And yes, I know I repeat myself a lot, but as this blog represents my thought process that isn't so surprising. It does help me keep on track and that is important.

The Weekend - Days 21 and 22

I didn't write a word the whole weekend. I was very busy, but that is no excuse. On Saturday I took the kids to 2 parties and Sunday I was in recovery.

Still the kids were happy even if they were a little hyperactive. I was tired. Still am, but never mind.

So I still have 3000 words to write before I reach 50k. Then I still need to add at least another 25k to make my draft into a novel. I am halfway through reading what is already written. Most can actually stay.

I just need to add more. Not to mention I need to redo the outline. The change of murderer requires a few changes, not to mention the fact I changed my mind about one detail after I wrote the first scene introducing that detail. The scene does contain other information that is going to stay so I only have to delete or re-write the parts that are no longer relevant.

And I still have a missing body or planted evidence, which still needs explanation. I have no idea how I'm going to do either. I don't think I'll introduce another body, which means I need to explain the planted evidence instead.

Today I hope to write at least 2500 words. If I'm very lucky I'll reach the 50k mark. I will continue to write and I won't verify my word count until the last day. Hopefully it will be significantly more than 50k.

And while re-reading this post before publishing it, I just worked out how I can change my detail to allow give a reason for the planted evidence. I need to change the speaker, but otherwise it will work.

Day Twenty

Bad day today. It wasn't the writing, it was everything else and that affected the writing. The result was that I wrote just 886 words. I guess that's just the way it goes sometimes.

I will write over the weekend. I will. Until I don't do it of course and by then I should have thought of some excuse.

So my total for the original story is 47028 words and there is still ten days to go. Somehow I feel quite bad that I haven't finished yet, but I shouldn't. What I have written so far is better than anything I've ever written before. It's not perfect, but it is an improvement.

And yet I feel that I'm not doing enough. I think this is because I always won NaNoWriMo by writing 50k in ten days and so far I've spent 20 days writing just 47k. Doesn't really make sense, but it's how I feel. I know I need quantity, but I need quality too.

Day Nineteen

I switched back to the original story today and I have so far written 3629 words. I am going to drop the words I wrote for the other story and move them to another file. So my grand total is 46142 words.

I probably won't reach 50k tomorrow, but I might over the weekend and even if I write nothing at all on Saturday or Sunday, I will hit 50k on Monday. I'm way ahead of schedule. I know I won't end up with anywhere near 75k before the end of November, but I will have written more towards a book than ever before.

I've hit 50k for four different NaNoWriMos. In each case, that was it. I did nothing more on the stories and to be truthful, they weren't very good. In fact most of the time they didn't really have a story line buried anywhere in them.

This year I do have a story line and I have scenes and I have subplots and everything else. This year I planned and this year I intend to edit and rewrite until I have a novel. I've never done that before and it should be interesting to see how it goes.

Day Eighteen

OK. I'm starting to see a pattern here. Wednesdays are no good for writing. My schedule is much more erratic and this means that my usual writing time isn't available. And no I can't move things round, unfortunately work doesn't allow for that.

I might write this afternoon, but I might not. I did print out what I have already written and I'll start reading through it to find out where I can add. (And where I need to delete.) I won't rewrite anything yet, but I will mark it out for later.

Still 12 days to go, so I should still make it. It is definitely harder now I've finished the story line. I think I should have marked the places that I skipped, so that they were easier to find. But I didn't.

The story needs to reach 75k to 90k in order to be of publishable length, so I must be able to add in stuff somewhere. Either that or I need to add to the body count again.

So my status so far:-
Original story 42500 words (approx.) and story line is complete.
New story just under 3000 words and only just getting started and I have no idea where this ones going.

If I stick to the original, to win NaNoWriMo I need another 7500 words, which should be doable.
If I work out a very detailed outline plus some scenes for the second story, I only need another 4500 words. All numbers are approximate values. In this second case, I would end up with 2 "first drafts", but I fear I'll get sidetracked if I do.

See http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3138144 for a good explanation for my fear.

The link is also in the comments of yesterday's entry. All thanks go to Bill, because it is such a perfect match.

I will add one little thing, all this blogging is definitely helping my spelling.

Day Seventeen of NaNoWriMo

So writing was easy today. Better than I expected. However (in my own opinion) I did cheat a bit. I started writing something new. I have added it to the NaNoWriMo word count, but I might delete it from there later. For some reason this new story got stuck in my head and I had to get rid of it. I should add that it is only the beginning of a story, but it's not bad despite that. At least I think it's not bad....

So today I wrote 2610 words, giving a grand total of 45123 words. However it is across two stories. But I did have to write the second one.

Tonight I plan to print out what I've written so far and then start editing it. I'll cross out the bits I don't want and I'll mark where I need to add stuff. Hopefully tomorrow I'll write some of the new stuff. From the main story I won't delete anything, just white it out. Still undecided about the second story. Maybe I'll move that one.

Still there are still 13 days to go, so I should do OK.

Quick update

I thought I'd just have one last try at a few more words and I made my daily goal of 2500 words exactly. So my total for day 16 is 42513 words.

And I am happy.

Day Sixteen

So here we go again. Unfortunately that's the way I feel today. Still I've so far written 1991 words, taking my grand total to 42004. Not bad, but I haven't reached my daily goal.

At least not yet. I might write some more. I might not.

The story line is now finished. I'm just starting on the aftermath section. In which, I'm putting in any missing explanations and showing what happens to the characters. This section will almost completely vanish in the final version, but I want it here so that I don't miss anything. If the novel works properly, there should only be need for a short summary at the end.

Only 8k words left to find in order to "win" NaNoWriMo and two weeks left to write them. From that point of view, I'm ahead.

Day Fifteen

So I wrote today. I managed 2456 words, which is just under my target of 2500 words per day. My total is a very respectable 40013 words and the story isn't finished yet.

I thought that it would be over by now and I would be wrapping up the loose ends, but due to a change in the killer I'm still to finish. It won't be long now, probably around the 45k mark. Then some wrapping up, most of which probably won't make it beyond the first draft, but I want to include it for now.

After that I will add some scenes so that I go over 50k and then I'll start editing. Hopefully by the end of NaNoWriMo, I'll have something decent to work with. And a good habit that I can keep up.

Day Fourteen

Well I didn't write at all yesterday. So my total for the day was 0 words. Real life got in the way, but I did get all my Christmas shopping for my family in England done. So now all I have to do is wrap the presents, put them into boxes and send the boxes abroad. If my family are very lucky, they'll get their presents before Christmas this year.

As for today, day fifteen, I'm already at 500 words, so maybe I'll make my goal. We'll see.

Day Thirteen Update

Starting to write today was like pulling teeth - extremely painful.

The result was 2546 words, giving a total of 37557 words. So I made my 2500 goal. Just.

I guess, and from current experience, bad days are more common than good ones. I don't know if this is because this I am new at this writing business or whether it is just me or whether other writers find this as well.

Now there is one difference here to most writing situations and that is NaNoWriMo. I have to write everyday. I can't decide to edit instead. Having said that, I think it is a very good thing.

My reasons:-
1) I am actually going to complete my story. No procrastinating and using editing as an excuse. I will have written the story.
2) It forces me beyond the "I don't want to write" or "I can't write" stages of the day and it makes me write. I feel guilty if I don't write something, even if it is only 400 words.

When I finally finish the story, I will go back and edit, and add, and do all of that, but when I reach that point I will have a first draft. It won't be 50k, I know that, but I will have a draft. I'll add to it until I reach 50k and then do some more serious editing.

And the other thing that happened today was that my nicely planned reveal has completely changed. The murderer is someone who I thought was completely innocent, but can be completely guilty without having to change the story line. It was not one I had considered before, but it works.

At least it works at the moment. Perhaps when I re-read it all, it won't make any sense. We'll see.

Day Twelve Update

So I reached 35011 words. Amazingly, I'm still going.

Today I wrote a total of 3520 words, which is not bad as I was having a bad day. I wrote in short 500 word sections. Then did other things, such as work or lunch. Slowly the writing got a bit easier and I went over my goal of 2500 words. So I made up 1000 words missed yesterday, which is not bad.

I just had a difficult time persuading myself to write. I want to go back and edit stuff, deleting and moving parts around. Instead I wrote and I had to force myself, but I did it. I know at the end of NaNoWriMo, I've got a lot of story to move and delete.

Still I should reach the end soon, which will be a relief. I will have to add either more scenes or more detail to reach 50k, but I can also start moving text so it makes more sense within the story. And of course, I can blank out bits that I don't want. (Turn the text color to the same as the background color.)

Hopefully I'll be a lot further on by the end of NaNoWriMo not just with the story, but also with the novel.

Day Eleven

I wrote practically nothing on day eleven. In fact I wrote just over 400 words all day. I have no excuse. I just got caught up in work and my home life. However I will try and catch up at least some of the missed words, but I'm not going to worry about it.

Even with missing a day, I still have plenty of time to reach my goal. I currently have written 31491 words and, if I write every day, will pass the 50k mark in about a week. As it is only the 12th November, I have plenty of time, not just for writing but also to begin the first edit.

And hello to Wendy :)

Day Ten

Well today I hit 31k words about which I am very happy. I might write some more later, but for now that's it. So my total written today is 2659 words.

I definitely much more relaxed about the new daily goal and I find I can write better. I'm less concerned with hitting the 5k and more concerned about the story and where it is going.

I still think that I will finish the storyline before I reach 50K, never mind 75k. However I know I've skipped over sections and there are definitely some scenes missing, so I can go back and add.

I know I've contradicted myself at least once, and probably more times. These I am going to leave in situ at the moment and only delete them or re-write them once NaNoWriMo is over. Chris Baty would skin me alive if I deleted something during this month.

However once I'm over 50k and the storyline is finished, I am going to start some editing. I just won't get rid of it before November 30th. I will add to the file and move sections around. This means I should finish with a good total.

The further I get through the story, the better I can see how it should be. If that makes any sense. The story is definitely evolving and it is not the one I originally thought I would write. Having said that, it is one that I like and I think I can make it into a book.

I don't think it will be the longest book in history, but I hoping for 75k to 90k in total. I would guess it will end up at the lower end of that scale. I know I'm writing a first draft, but I can start to see what might actually come out of it.

Altogether it's been another good day.

Update day nine.

Well today went very well. Much better than I ever expected it to. I actually wrote almost 5000 words without much effort at all.

I think that this lower day goal I have set myself is working. I'm not spending my time worrying about whether or not I can write 5k words. I just write.

So my total for today is 28360 words and the story is going smoothly. I am more almost two-thirds of the way through the storyline, but much less than that on the word count. I am not worried, because I know that when I finish the storyline, there are plenty of scenes to go back to where I can add detail or change things from telling to showing.

I deliberately skipped over some scenes because I didn't want to write them at that time, but that means I can easily up my word count. I think that there are some scenes that are also missing. I have added a few already. I will go back over the beginning of the story and add a few extra there.

Overall it's been a good day. The words came easily and I wrote a lot of them. Let's see if this continues tomorrow.

Update Day 8

Well all I had was a bad cold. I soon got over it and I did manage some writing over the weekend. My total is 23364 words in the first week of NaNoWriMo. Not quite the 30k I had originally set myself, but still not a bad total.

This week I'm going to write a bit slower and attempt to average 2500 words a day. This should give me an extra 12500 words over Monday to Friday. I'll use the weekend to make up any shortfalls that may occur and perhaps to give myself a boost for the following week.

Overall I'm happy with how the first week turned out. Let's hope the rest are as good.

Damn it.

Ok, I'm sick. I admit it and I'm going to bed. So I'm not going to make 30000 words by the end of tomorrow. I'm probably not going to hit 30k until sometime next week.

I'm at 21k as I write this and I probably won't write any more today. If I'm lucky I'll hit 25000 words by the end of Sunday. At least it would be nice to get there. In the worst case, my total for week 1 of NaNoWriMo is 21100 words, which still gives me a nice cushion.

I might post an update if I feel up to it. Otherwise it will be next week.

Good luck all.

Day Four Update

Well I made it to 20k words. I acutlly took my total to 20011 owrds. Not bad at all. Yesterday was a good day. The writing was much easier than Tuesday's.

Not much else to say. Except that I might change my word goal at the end of the week. At the moment I am trying to write 5000 words a day, with the goal of reaching 30000 words by the end of Friday. This is a lot of writing in a day onto of my regular work. So starting next week, I'm going to change my goal slightly.

I'm going to have 2 goals - a minimum goal and a "would-be-nice-to-get-to" (wbntgt) goal. The minimum I want to write in one day is 2500 words, which is still more than the NaNoWriMo minimum. And my wbntgt goal is 5000 words per day as I have been doing this week, but I'm not going to go to extremes to get there.

I believe that the result of this, will be a more balanced writing habit that I can continue to use after NaNoWriMo. At the moment, I find the balance completely wrong so that I find I'm not sleeping well and my hands are killing me from all the typing. Of course, if I ever give up my job, I will spend more hours writing. But for now, less is more.

I will probably change my mind next week and then again the week after and so on, until I find something that works for me and that I can use in my everyday life.

So time to write today's 5000 words and get a total of 25k words.

I hope everyone else is doing well and acheiving their own goals. Good luck to you all.

Day Three Update

So yesterday I was supposed to hit 15k words. I didn't make it. I only reached 14610 words, which means I missed my goal by 390 words. Not too bad, but also not good. I mustn't let the gap get any bigger.

I have to admit that my cunning plan to write at work was the reason I missed my target. I'd set things up so that I would be running simulations all week. Unfortunately events took over and I actually had to do other work as well, meaning I had less time to write.

Well that was one of the reasons. The other was that yesterday I had a bad day. I had trouble writing, even though I knew what I had to write, I just couldn't seem to get into it. But I persevered and ended up with a decent total. Towards the end of the day, it did get easier to write. It never flowed quite as well as the previous day, but it wasn't that bad.

Of course now I'm worrying I won't have enough story and I won't make 50000 words. I get the same worry every year and I always seem to find enough to write about. I also know that I can go back and fill in some of the parts that I've skipped over. Where I've used a lot of telling, I can replace it with showing. It will take longer to write, but it will produce many more words.

If I'm having trouble with a scene, I tend to tell the reader about the scene. I've done that in a couple of places so far. I know that writing those scenes so that I show the reader the action instead will take me quite a bit of time and mean I will need to look up some details first. If I have time at the end, I will do this. But only if I have the time.

For now I will continue as I have been going and try to write another 5000 words today and reach 30000 words by the end of Friday. If I fail, then I'll make up the difference over the weekend. If I succeed then I'll take the weekend off - for the most part. I'll probably write 2500 to 5000 words over the two days, but this is a lot less than I've been doing per day so far.

So my tally so far: 1 good day and 2 bad/not-so-good days

I reached 10K

To answer Bill's comment from yesterday: yes, I do care about my characters. In fact yesterday's writing went extremely well, much better than I had been expecting. I really got into the story and made up for the low word count on the first day. I wrote 6272 words yesterday and ended the day with a grand total of 10029 words. Pretty good even if I do say so myself.

My goal this week is to reach 30000 words by Friday. That's 5000 words a day, which I know I can manage easily. Anything above that is more of a stretch. I know yesterday I wrote more, but the last 1000 words were very difficult and took the longest amount of time to write. Not because I had nothing to say, but because I start to struggle at this point even if I have a clear path and I know where the story is going.

The most that I have written in one day was over 10000 words, but that was so hard. It was made worse by the fact that I had no outline to follow and the result was dreadful. Yesterday, I had a clear outline of which scenes I was writing, but the last part was still hard to do. I know that when I look back over what I have written, that last section will be one of the worst and need the most changes.

However if I can keep up the momentum, I should have no problem finishing before 30th November, even if I need to take some days off. I just have to write whenever I can and not make excuses for myself. Remember to reach 50k, when writing 5k per day, you only need 10 days. To reach 75k, you need 15 days.

So what I have learnt is that I can write 5k a day and I should write 5k a day. If I miss a day, it won't be a disaster, but I need to get back writing as soon as I can. I can't write more than 5k a day easily. Maybe that should be I am not happy in writing more than 5k a day. I find it becomes to much of a strain on my poor little brain...

And as for my story, that's going really well. It is definitely mutating, but I knew that would happen. Some of the minor characters are taking over a bit, but that isn't a bad thing and some, which I thought were a little boring, are becoming far more interesting. The story line is still intact and my preferred ending looks like it will still happen.

So onwards and upwards...to 15ooo words.

NaNoWriMo has begun!

Which will come as no surprise to most. I have started to. I wrote 3747 words yesterday. Less than I had hoped for (which was 5000 words), but more than I needed to write (min. 1667 words).

What I do know is this, and it is as I suspected, I have no sense of urgency at all in my writing. I was afraid that this would happen. Thirty days seems like such a long time and I know I can write 50000 words in ten days.

The upshot is that I feel like I don't have to write. I have no motivation to write. I have to force myself to sit down and write. And that worries me. I am afraid that at some point soon, I'm just not going to do it and I'll leave it until the last few days as usual and write very badly as usual.

One difference I have this year that I didn't have last year is a detailed outline of the story. This might help me write better at least, so that I might end up with a coherent story at the end of November, which is more than I have achieved before. It will need serious editing and I do mean serious, but maybe having the story there will be enough.

Perhaps what I need to do is set myself one or two week deadlines. So I have to write 25000 words in one week or I need to edit a chapter a week. Something like that. Maybe that will work for me.

Well I just hope that I can complete NaNoWriMo and end up with something usable. Here's to the next 5000 words.