nanowrimo

NaNoWriMo Update #9

| xeyeti

I think I’m done with the first draft of the novel.

I’m up a bit later than I really should be, considering I haven’t slept much the past two nights, but I was so close to being done, and felt kinda inspired tonight, so I decided to just push on through anyway. I ended up with about 50,100 words or so, give or take.

Admittedly, this is just the first – probably very rough – draft, and it’ll need some other eyes to take a look at it and make some suggestions and help me make sure it makes sense and isn’t complete rubbish.

But hey, I’ve written a novel-length story, or two stories that I’ve stitched together haphazardly into a single story! Huzzah!

Hard-Boiled: The Playlist

| xeyeti

When I’m doing most of the things I do, such as writing, I tend to also listen to music. Music’s always been pretty important for me, and I find it difficult to concentrate when I’m doing certain tasks without music. TV just doesn’t cut it: I get too distracted, want to watch what’s going on.

With that in mind, here’s a playlist I put together a week or two ago to write my novel to. The songs have absolutely nothing to do with the actual novel or its themes or anything, just a loose collection of songs I’m enjoying at the moment.

1. The Cranberries, “Linger”: Who doesn’t love ’90s Lilith Fair fare?

2. Bob Dylan, “Paths of Victory”: This piano-based tune feels as much like a Woody Guthrie tune as anything Dylan ever wrote.

3. Paul McCartney, “Brown-Eyed Handsome Man”: I myself have brown eyes and am a man. Draw your own conclusions.

4. Willie Nelson, “City of New Orleans”: Who doesn’t love train songs, especially from the point of view of the train?

5. Andrew Bird, “Three White Horses”: One of the best songs off the recent Hands of Glory EP, this is just a fantastic tune in a style rather different from Bird’s usual sound.

6. Woody Guthrie, “Dust Pneumonia Blues”: I just watched Ken Burns’s Dust Bowl documentary last week, and the use of Woody Guthrie songs in that got me in a Woody mood.

7. Lodger, “The Good Old Days”: Classicist Brit-pop? Yes, please.

8. Mark Knopfler, “Don’t Crash the Ambulance”: Humorous song about the passing of the torch of the presidency to the next guy? With Mark Knopfler’s baritone drawl and beautiful Strat fills? What’s not to like here?

9. Allison Krauss & Union Station, “Restless”: I feel this way when I write sometimes, so it seemed appropriate.

10. The Temptations, “Papa was a Rolling Stone”: I think it’s that saxophone part that does it for me.

11. Panic! At the Disco, “Nine in the Afternoon”: Don’t you dare judge me.

12. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “It’ll All Work Out”: I love the mandolin in this one. It’s one of the prettier Heartbreakers tunes.

13. Calexico, “Ocean of Noise”: Calexico putting their indie-mariachi spin on one of the best songs from Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible. Brilliant.

14. Miles Davis, “It Never Entered My Mind”: My favorite Miles Davis song, from the criminally-underrated Workin’ album. Just absolutely amazing stuff.

NaNoWriMo Update #8

| xeyeti

Here we are, mere days away from the end of the month! I am currently sitting at 43,700 words or so, and have every confidence I’ll be sitting at well-over 50,000 by the end of the 30th.

Part 1 is humming along, though my big concern at the moment is making sure the two parts create a cohesive whole. I’ve got a half-dozen editors/proofreaders lined up for when I finally finish the behemoth, and then…

Well, I don’t honestly know what happens after that. Try to find a publisher? Get an agent? Self-publish on Amazon or something similar? I have no idea. I’m not thinking that far ahead right now.

NaNoWriMo Update #7

| xeyeti

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?

NaNoWriMo Update #6

| xeyeti

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…

NaNoWriMo Update #5

| xeyeti

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.

NaNoWriMo Update #4

| xeyeti

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.

NaNoWriMo Update #3

| xeyeti

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.