Summing Up

Nanowrimo went rather well, all told. Had four 10K+ days (the last almost 11K), average pace ended up at 6,000 words per day, which is decent. Had two 2K days and six 3K days on the low end. Nano #3 is also the first time I've ever gone: "Okay, I need X words by this day, Y by this day ..." and so on. I'm pretty pleased I managed to finish it with a few days to spare and didn't stress myself over it.

For next year, I'd like to do two 70-80K novel drafts, I think. I have no idea what yet, of course, and probably won't until, say, October.

And done

151515 words, by nanowrimo's count. Brain is dead.

On the plus side, I have now written a lot for nano.

2003, Waking Dreams: 52,214
2004. Higher Ground: 105,857
2005, Guardian Monsters: 54,347
2006, My Cat Used To Be A Buddhist: 50,074
2006, New Fires: 50,857
2007, The Coroner's Tale: at 62,857
2007, Roadside Attractions at the End of the World: 50,314
2008, Necessity and Power: 74,988
2009, Roadside Attractions (new version): 50,269
2009, The Adventures of the Miskatonic Elementary School Kids #1: 50,277
2009, Shadows of Never: 50,002

For a grand total of: 652,056. Damn.

And the 24th

33K total. Tonight could be 5K, but just feeling bleh and need to work earlier than usual so shall end it here (also at the end of a section). Next up is the Emily and Indians scenes, which should be fun. Tiger Lily will have someone to confide in and she'll realize how little power mother's have here and prepare to make a deal with the mermaids to break Marooners Rock and bring Captain Hook back from the dead. With luck.

And an update...

Managed to hit the 25K by Sunday night goal with an hour to spare. Kept going enough to pull off 10,400 words and beat my dad one record of 10,200 and change. Right hand is pretty sore this morning, but I did do almost 19K in 2 days so that's to be expected. (It's frustrating, since before the incident at work involving glass, a window, tendons and so forth I had never had any problems whatsoever with typing.) Now, I think that doing more than 3 nanos (Or, say, 150K itself) in a month isn't physically possible for this hand, even if I could pull it off.

Interestingly, I probably could manage it with the right story if I really wanted to. I wrote barely 100 words and change one day (didn't even bother to update word count) and had a couple of 2K and some weak 3K days. I think next years goal will be a 100k+ single novel, rather than the smaller nanoes and 70K stuff I normally do. Not sure what I'll write, yet, but some of us have been bandying about the idea of a group taking the same basic premise and seeing where everyone goes with it.

22 days in....

And 19K into nano #3. So far the entire family is in Neverland, or on their way to it. (Emily is in Everafter, the girls version of Neverland.) So far I'm doing 5K sections with each of the characters, so shall see how that goes. The story has been pretty fun so far, and it shall be interesting to see how it goes.

So far, plotting includes Peter Pan getting his shadow back when Emily gives him a good spanking, Kirby having to deal with the ramifications of his actions in Neverland and Dan remembering that he was in it years ago, and maybe even learning to fly again. I'm pretty much writing this one seat-of-pants style, so it's coming slower than I'd like.

And end of nano #2!

Clocking in at 50,227. As with many nanoes when I set out fro 50K I tend to hit the last couple of scenes close to the mark, sometimes stretching them a little. It was fun, and some day I may seriously do a sequel in the world. However, my pre-nano project partially involves a high school so I didn't want to throw a school setting into the next nano.

Shadows of Never can be summed up succinctly: "Psychotic child tries to convince man to hack off own hand and become a pirate. In essence." It's going to be more of a thrilleresque story and not at all humourous.

Nano, day 14.

brain dead, quick post: made it to 35K for nano #2. The plot is gathering steam towards the end, various factions marshalling their pawns and the MC is about to find some clues to his own destiny and, possibly, chat to Some Terrible Dread and emerge halfway sane.

And nano for friday the 13th ...

Passed 26K on Miskatonic. I'm hoping to hit ~40K by Sunday, 50 by Tues and if all goes well try for a third nano as a sequel to this one. Currently Clay is trying to deal with finding out his mother is a witch, a difficulty about to be interrupted by a vampire needing his aid and eventually by a pharaoh's daughter. Plot wise, things are coming together quite well: Clay shall realize what he's capable of (and deny it), get involved in a minor school war between the chess club and the cheerleaders and then rescue a substitute teacher from being sacrificed to the Great Old Ones.

Which may cause him to fail math.

And day 11, in summary

Just, just managed to hit 5K at midnight. Given that the day was spent getting up late as well as buying things and making three batches of cookies I'm pleased with that. The 2K/day slump of the past two days is over. Currently at 20.5K, would like to be ~40K by Sunday or so. Depending on how and when this story ends, I might even work on its sequel and go for 150K in a month for the first time.

And then my brain will explode :)

Plot wise, the substitute teacher is getting his chapter, the main character has been hunted by werewolves who turned out to be far nastier than I'd planned, so that will prove interesting. When a kid in grade six pulls out a pistol and empties six shots into an eight year old vampire, one has pretty much shelved all hopes of a story being YA. I have this tendency to do that.

nanowrimo day 10..

4K in about 2 days. The 1K in the morning before work goes easy, evenings haven't even if I'm heading into great and fun scenes. Some of it has been the rewriting of those scenes, but it's still slow going. Taking the rest of the night off, getting to sleep early, and planning to see how tomorrow goes.

Nanowrmo, day 8

We are running low on food. Bickens has begun to look quite appetizing and we may have to begin to eat each other to survive and not just because we figured it would make the story of our plight into a better movie.

Wait, wrong kind of "day 8". Having said that, the eighth day of nanowrimo went pretty slowly. I barely got over 5,000 words, making it my second-slowest day thus far. A lot of that was one or two scenes I kept reworking and adding, and one planned scence I cut for reasons of space and timing. On the other hand, I'm quite liking this story thus far and odd details and surrealisms have creeped into it that were never intended.

Plus an adorable 8 year old vampire with baby teeth issues. Depending on how this goes, I may do a sequel story or two (I have the high school named for a HS story as well). I suspect it may be necessary and it will be fun to explore Clay's relationship with his mother as he realizes who she is and begins to question her tales of his missing father.

And progress, which is fun.

The first nano was finished on the 6th, at just over 50K (I had to stretch and alter the last scene to make it fit; I could have researched some information I needed on cars instead, and probably should have, but the second draft will fix it).

Work is beginning (1K of writing, 2K of notes) on The Adventures of the Miskatonic Elementary School Kids

"A story about Argleton, Arkham County and the kids at the elementary school as they deal with evil monsters (the older girls), snarling demons (the bullies) and even vampires, werewolves and a host of creepy and crawly things as magical wars rage about them, unspeakable names are written in the boy's bathroom and Clayton Rags and his friends try to find a way to survive Elementary School with both their grades and sanity intact."

It should be some nice, cute fun and weirdness. Currently a substitute teacher is about to discover just how weird this town is but he's so full of Proper Teaching I think I'll keep him around as the voice of sanity in an insane world, convinced that there are no monsters in storm drains and the like in spite of all evidence that there are.

Nano day 5

Passed 40.5K two minutes before midnight. About to crash, but things are going well.

Jesse is about to make the choice to heal people (with reservations), Sara is going to confront Winter and find out what Winter wants from her, Cody is going to go nuts against the Secret Government that rules the world, and Winter is going to eat popsicles. Probably. With luck.

Oddly, it should end at ~50K this time around, barring any surprises.


After this, it a currently untitled story involving vampires, heroes, witches, werewolf packs, cheerleaders and ... elementary school.

Day 4 of nano...

Taking most of the day off, since my right hand is getting sore. Having never had this problem before, it's pretty annoying but there isn't all that much I can really do about it save deal.

Plot wise, some characters are a little different than the 2007 version (only to be expected: this novel shares the title and not much else). Jesse is reaching a state of neurotic confusion, however, and Cody is slowly reaching the "I want revenge" stage of things.

However, only 3 people have died in it (and 6 prior to the novel's start, plus Cody's parents earlier). Technically, one person who had yet to show up has also died as well, but it is a far less crazy body count than version 1.0 and the 2.0 edit had. It's also a far darker story, though Winter keeps injecting humour into it, and has been called on his reasons for that at least once by Cody.

Currently, Cody is about to learn about his parents and what they did for a living and Jesse has been kidnapped by Saunders to be used to heal some very wealthy and powerful older men (at least, as far as Saunders knows). Which leaves Jesse's cousin to, somehow, try and find and save him, quite likely with the aid of Winter, if she can forgive him for trying to break her mind.

The things we never plot often end up turning out to be the most fun :)

Nano 2009, day 3

Day 3 of nano. So far, right hand is sore but doing mostly OK. I'm taking a lot of breaks with it and writing hopefully 5K/day as my eventual average over several hours to cut down on any soreness.

Plus wise, things proceed rather well. I have a couple more chapters for Cody and Jesse before I run out of actual written down plot. (This isn't all that much, one chapter note was, in its entirety, "Chapter 7: Saunders/Burke chapter here, presumably in New Dysonville.") So far this version of the story has very little in common with the previous 2007 draft. Characters are somewhat the same, but Jesse has a little more spine and Cody hasn't yet gone over to the dark side, as it were. Soonish, but not yet.

A few additions have managed to surprise me, and the dynamic between Saunders and his boss is quite entertaining to work with. The downside to the plot as it stands now is that, going into the second day of the novel, the characters are liable to be captured by the authorities pretty soon. Shall see how that goes :)

Nano so far..

10K, 1 day into it. So far the plot is working as planned, though it's hard to get into the Jesse sections as easily as the Cody ones. A few subplots have surprised me, and I'm almost at the end of the actual written plot; after this it's build on what came before, seat of pants writing and know what the ending is so I cam move towards it.

Should be great fun. So far the best unplanned bit was the time traveller who is currently having a pouty fit because the FBI have him on the most wanted list for crimes he hasn't committed yet. Which, as far as he is concerned, is a) rude of his future self and b) discrimination.