Stuff that pertains to the site and whatnot.
Didn’t get a whole heukuva lot written over the weekend, but I did get Part One of the book plotted out very loosely. Very loosely. I am up to 35,500 words, which ain’t half bad, I guess.
Hoping this first part will match up well with the second part, and that it will all feel of a single piece. Time will tell.
Also, anyone wanna edit this behemoth when it’s done?
Here we are on the sixteenth. I’m up to 33,219 words as of this posting. I need to average just over 1200 words per day for the rest of the month (not including the rest of today, when I can probably knock out at least another thousand or so words).
The problem, of course, is the one I identified a few days ago: I’ve pretty much reached the end of the story I was telling. Everything’s wrapping up, everything’s tied together and running to the end. I can probably stretch it out to about 37,000, if I’m good, but that’s gonna be about it.
So I did some brainstorming last night. I think I may have to go back and add a big section to the beginning, another case that I allude to in the story already but don’t really flesh out. If I have that case in the story first, I can probably squeeze another 13,000 words out, easy.
Granted, I don’t have that particular case fully plotted, so it may not go as smoothly as I’d like…
As of this morning, I’m sitting at 23,869 words. I’m on pace to get halfway through by this evening, which is actually ahead of schedule (what with today only being the 14th). I still need to go back and flesh out some more sections of the story, but I’m pretty confident I can get to at least 40,000 words by the end of the month.
I have revised my plans for the plot, ditching some of the stuff I’d originally planned because it was crap and coming up with some stuff that I think will work much better. We’ll see.
Managed to knock out another 3,500 words last night, bringing the current total to a little over 21,500. This actually put me up a bit, which is nice. I just have to average 1,583 words per day for the rest of the month to hit 50,000 words now, down from 1,667. About half of what I did last night was going back and filling in bits here and there, expanding some ideas, giving a bit more exposition, etc., while the other half was pushing the plot forward a bit with a nice conversation between the protagonist and one of his main antagonists.
The plan, then, is to try to average about 1,000-1,500 words per day on the weekdays, and make up any extra on the weekends. If the past week is any indication, I ought to be able to manage that pretty well.
So, as of quittin’ time Sunday evening, I’m up to just a hair over 18,000 words. I’m averaging about 1636 words per day, which is just around where I should be to get 50,000 words by the end of November. I made up a lot of ground today, knocking out about 6,000 words just this afternoon/evening.
I am anticipating a slight problem going forward, though: I don’t think I’m going to have enough material to hit 50,000 words.
As the story is progressing, I’ll be lucky to top out around 30,000 or 35,000 at best. That’s…well, more than a little shy of where I need to be, honestly.
There is some filling out I can do with more of the backstory. This particular novel is taking place in a universe I’ve already established with other short stories and such (including the super-secret comics project that’d get up and running if my artist could get a few more pages knocked out). As such, character interactions are based in large part on previous interactions that they’ve had in other stories.
So, I can always give a brief run-down of some of those other stories (I know I’m going to have to with at least two characters, just so their interactions with the protagonist and each other make sense), which should add some extra background and at least a few thousand more words. But I may have to rethink part of the novel, add some scenes in earlier in the book.
It’s a work in progress, I guess.
Sitting at 12,052 words this morning. Didn’t get as much written yesterday as I’d have liked (I mean, i should be writing about 2000 words a day at this rate every day), but I did get the rest of the book plotted out this afternoon, so I know where I’m going from here at the very least. Plotting is probably my weakest area, so having a plan – even if it’s rough and not at all fleshed out just yet – is better that fumbling forward with no plan or end goal in mind.
That said, I need to crank out about 8000 words today to really feel good about it all, but I don’t think that’ll happen. Maybe 3000 or 4000? Let’s see where we get.
As of this moment, I’m sitting at 10,032 words, which isn’t exactly as far along as I’d like to be (at this point, I should be closer to 15,000 words), but isn’t too terrible, honestly. Breaking that 10,000-word mark was nice, and felt relatively easy, all things considered. There’s still lots of story to go through, and I’m only just now getting into the meet of Act II.
Granted, I also didn’t get a comic done last night, so now I’m behind in two artistic endeavors. Three, if you include all the music I want record and haven’t yet. Why are there only 24 hours in a day?
So what the hell, I’ll try to write a novel.
November is National Novel Writing Month, a time when amateur (and possibly less-than-amateur) writers attempt to create a draft of a full, 50,000-word novel in a single month. It’s a daunting challenge, but it’s one I’ve always wanted to try. I’ve written a number of short stories in my day, including a few that were quite lengthy (upwards of thirty typed, single-spaced pages), but I’ve never managed an actual novel-length work. I mean, 50,000 words is a lot (at an average of 250 words per double-spaced, type-written page, that’s…um…200 pages. Had to do that math). A heckuva lot.
But hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? So I’m going to give it a shot. I’m already behind where I need to be (50,000 words in 30 days averages out to about 1700 words per day, and I’ve only got 6700 after six days), but I think I can catch up on the weekends. I’ve already written the first act, and I’ve got Act II mapped out and part of Act III. We’ll see what happens, I guess, and I’ll keep everyone here up to date.
I’m stuck at school this evening to welcome our students’ parents back to school. It’s…well, it is what it is, and what it is is something I have to deal with. One more hour, then freedom! Now watch as I magically spin some bullshit into a seven-minute spiel about the philosophy of history and its use in teaching critical thinking skills.
Sketches From Memory 