I made it!

I hit the 50k mark this morning. I was beginning to wonder if I had time to do it, this week's just been crazy. I've validated at 50518 and I'll leave it at that for the moment. The book's not finished. I've written a chunk of it and then this morning I skipped to the final scene and wrote that. That was enough to slip me over the 50k. I need to do some plot sketching to make sure the plot arc flows. I have to work out exactly where everything fits so I don't leave any great gaping holes in the logic - there are heaps there now. But all that will take time that I don't have at the moment.

There's a workshop on at uni next week that I really need to go to. That requires a whole heap of reading and 'serious thinking' and I have only two evenings to do it all in. Normally I'd take a couple of weeks to do it and feel prepared but I don't have that time.

Today is another family day. It was my birthday last week so Lauren has been spending lots of time with me. We went shopping yesterday. It was only going to be for an hour or so but it ended up being for most of the day. We both hate shopping, particularly close to Christmas, so it was a real feat to do it. I now have a new chair for my office - a nice red leather one that makes me sit straight. And I have new eyebrows. Lauren says I'm at the age now where I looked washed out so I needed to get my eyebrows coloured. Lovely child.

NaNoWriMo Day 26

The last two weeks have been all up and down. Last week I struggled to fit writing in with the research and this week I've had a killer headache. Serves me right for sitting at the computer for five hours straight on Sunday, I suppose. All my muscles are still frozen solid but at least the pain's gone for a while. Just over 46000 tonight. Only 4000 to go to target.

This week is also my birthday so I have a lot of family-oriented stuff happening. Last night Lauren took us to dinner. I walked into the Modern Thai restaurant and she had everything organised. She works at the restaurant so she'd set the table herself, chosen the wine and the food and tea. It was wonderful. All I had to do was sit there and enjoy the company. I know I've said it before but I'm so lucky she's mine. I can't think of a better daughter or a better friend. She's fantastic.

I floated an idea with Lauren at dinner last night. I've been thinking of selling all my property and consolidating, buying two houses in the same street so she can live in one and I can have the other. She looked at me in total disbelief, then snapped, "We had that and you left." She's right. When she bought her first house and moved out of home, she bought a house at the other end of the street from me. Then a couple of years later I moved to another suburb. She's obviously still not happy about it! Now that's love. ;)

NaNoWriMo Day 21

I went to the library yesterday and borrowed about a dozen books for my research. By the end of the weekend I'll have a list of others I want to buy. I figure if I'm going to spend three years analysing them I'll want to writing notes in the margin - can't do that with library books. When NaNo finishes I'll begin compiling the annotated bibliography and doing the literature review. I'm really looking foward to it, but I've made myself put it away for a while. I'll keep reading and making notes but it won't be my focus until after NaNo.

Making that decision and getting that little bit organised has helped me get back into my book as well. I've struggled all week to write anything and have only managed around 600-700 words a day. Last night with the issue of the research decided, I wrote 2440 words. Much better. I'm hoping for 3000-4000 each day this weekend to get me back on track for hitting the 50000 by the end of next week.

I created another wordle from what I wrote last night. I like the wordles: they give you an idea of what is happening without showing how bad the writing is because I haven't thought about it much or edited it.

NaNoWriMo Day 19

I've had a week of 600 word days. A lot of that is because I've been focused on some research and trying to pull a proposal together out of thin air. I've reread a lot of material from a year or two ago and started working on the context and purpose of the study but there's still heaps to do, and an interview to get through tomorrow.

As far as my novel is concerned, I've been playing with Wordle. What a fantastic procrastination tool. I think it could also be used to help with quicksand plots too. Just putting a couple of paragraphs into Wordle and letting it do its thing could bring a whole new idea to light. Check out the wordle I created from the first couple of paragraphs of the novel. What pictures does it bring to mind? What assumptions can you make about where the story and characters are heading?

Image (cc) Wordle.

NaNoWriMo Day 15

I wrote just over 3000 words today, going just past the 30000 word mark. I probably could have done more if I'd forced myself to stay at the computer but I work better if my mind gets to percolate ideas for a while in between writing jags. Today I've written both a sex scene and a panic attack, both highly emotional things. I haven't portrayed the emotion at all well and I'm not looking forward to editing it to put it all in.

Sometimes I think there's just too much emotion in the world and not enough of just sucking it up and getting the damned job done.

A lot of my friends and family shake their heads at me and tell me I have too much testosterone to be a real woman. I wonder if I'm supposed to go through life on an emotional roller coaster, never be able to make a logical decision and be totally drained at the end of every day. I much prefer the ordered routine I have where I have plans of action for possibilities and fix problems logically and calmly.

No excerpt again today. The writing's not good enough to share.

NaNoWriMo Day 14

I missed the deadline to add my word count to the NaNo website last night. I wrote until about 12.30am and my word count for the day added onto today's record. That's disappointing, mostly because I don't like seeing that records show I didn't do any work one day but also because I passed the magical half-way mark (25000 words) and when I put my entry in tonight, there's not going to be a record of exactly that time. I know - build a bridge.

At my writers' meeting last night we talked briefly about what to do when the plot stalls and you don't know where to go. One of the girls suggested changing the morality of one of the characters. I thought about that for a while, trying to decide who it would work best with, what way their morality could change and how it would work best. That's where I got 1500 words last night in just on an hour. That small change has also given me the set-up for the next chapter and a way for all the major characters to begin to deal with their internal conflicts. What a fantastic way to get things moving again.

I'm not putting an excerpt in today. As I've become less sure of where I'm going with the book, my writing has become less ... less everything. There is the occasional phrase that's pretty good, but the rest is telling, not showing and, basically, absolute rubbish.

NaNoWriMo Day 13

I'm to the stage where I'm so tired I can't remember what day it is. It took me a full five seconds to realise that the date is also the day we're in on NaNoWriMo. I suppose it goes with putting my Berocca tablet into my cup of tea this morning instead of in the glass of water beside it.

November is one of the busiest months at work and having my book stuck in my head constantly has made it more difficult to concentrate and get things done. I'm also not sleeping well, barely getting five hours a night this week. I think I'll sleep in tomorrow morning before going to a write-in. I'll be in a place where I have no choice but to sit and write. Hopefully that means I'll get a lot done.

What I wrote last night is rubbish so I'm not putting it up here. Today's extract is from the middle of a previous chapter. As usual it's not great writing but it's not the rubbish I wrote last night either.

When Starr came here, he came face to face with his childhood. Every time. He knew Natch loved to play with that. When Starr walked in there Natch would be sitting behind his desk with the thick crop beside his hand.
Starr entered the corridor, strode to the end and went down the stairs. He never hesitated. Not now. He had once. Only once. He knocked briefly on the double sized black door and pushed it open. Once he was in front of Natch’s desk he stopped, hands clasped over his crotch in a futile attempt to protect it.
It was long minutes before the fleshy man on the other side of the desk looked up.
“You’ve been busy Starr.”
Starr nodded but kept his mouth shut. Natch had plenty more to say yet and Starr needed to find out what he was supposed to have done wrong this time.
“I’ve been getting reports in from all over about you and your pyromaniac tendencies.”
Starr frowned. He had no idea what Natch was talking about. He hadn’t set fire to anything since his last visit here. Not unless you counted Freema’s ship.
“Those were your pirates?” When Natch glared at him, Starr realised that one question had earned him a beating. Not that it took much to convince Natch he should beat Starr.
The crop was snatched up as Natch pushed himself up from his chair. Starr almost didn’t feel the first slice; his suit protecting his upper arms. The second one landed across his chest as Natch rounded his desk. The third, across his abdomen and crossed forearms.