NaNoWriMo- Day Ten

I wrote nearly the amount I was supposed to yesterday (for that day alone), short by about four hundred words, and did not get to catch up on the total amount I was behind before that which was a little over eight-hundred words, so I lagged behind by about twelve-hundred words at the start of today, and added up to the day's usual required count, I had about three thousand words to write total in order to be all caught up and on schedule with the minimum daily word requirement. So I had to write nearly double the usual in order to catch up which I did, thanks to my decision to go to a "write-in." With the write-ins, individuals plan to go to a coffee shop or something and invite others to join them so I went to one today with the intention of giving myself about three hours to write. And it worked! I wrote most that I needed to write (still currently short by two-hundred words), but in addition, I worked out the ending of novel one! Like I said, I had written it down to just about the end but hadn't written out a clear final two or so chapters- just had pieces of what I thought I wanted to be in them. And there were pieces that referenced things that hadn't been written yet. But thankfully, today I finally wrote it straight to the end. About two or so days ago I had written in an important link, and now, it's finally pretty much complete- just have to copy and paste what I've written into the actual draft and clean it up a bit which I suspect I will do soon and voila- I've finally actually fully completed the work (wow, that was a lot of adverbs). It feels great.
It's funny- I thought I'd be writing a section for one book then another in a single day which I think I started to do, but now they've been making me work on them alone at my writing sessions. For example, yesterday, I added only to book four (PN) and today, C grabbed and monopolized me. But I'm still lacking those two-hundred words so I think I'll be writing in a different story to get those in since I can't add anything else to C right now- it shut me down once I reached the end. Or not, because I think I will try to put things together for C once and for all, so there actually is a pretty good chance the last bit of the quota will be met by it- I have to transition the new stuff in.
All in all, I'm proud of today's work.

ETA- Ended the day with 16741 words total, a tiny bit ahead of the minimum. I ended up adding the extra words through scene transitions for C after all.

NaNoWriMo- Day Six

Okay, I ended up reading in most of my spare time today, finishing off a book I've been reading for a while. Finally, at 10:20 p.m., I said to myself- "Oh crap- I have forty minutes to write about two thousand words." See, I was short about five hundred words yesterday, so really, to catch up, I had to write about twenty-two hundred words. I did try- made a noble effort. I could have done it had I more time, but I have to get up very early in the morning. The job I'm going to has a lot of down time though, and it will allow for me to do some writing. And I pledge to do it. Because now I'm eight-hundred and twenty-three words behind. But the good news is, what I wrote today was for book one (C), and I've finally written in the missing link between the last completed chapter and the final chapter(s), finally put in some vital pieces, so that now I can see myself officially finishing it! It's pretty exciting. I just have to go and tie the new pieces in, round out some of the old pieces and I have finally completed book one. Of course the bad news is that I'm 823 words behind the minimal count for Nano. Gah!

NaNoWriMo- Day Four

I seriously don't plan to write a blog post this often for the whole month. It's just that I have to document for myself what's going on right now until things settle.
I am currently two-hundred and fifty-seven words behind where I should be at the end of today as a result of falling behind yesterday (Saturday) which was my travel day. That's no excuse of course, because I had more than enough time in the airport, on the airplane itself, after unpacking etc. to get in the minimum word count but I didn't take advantage of the time. Instead I did other things, and only bothered to write about a thousand words.
In addition, I gained three hours in changing time zones, plus another hour today as a result of daylight savings. So I really have no excuse. Plus, I didn't have a single thing to do this entire day but shower and eat so really, I had more than ample time; I should be at at least ten thousand words right now for all the time I had over this weekend.

Still, what I ended up doing today was editing book one (C) straight to the end (chapter thirty). So now I have to write another chapter, and fix the final chapter. Once I write that second-to last chapter or two- not sure how much it will take- the final chapter should be easier to put together. So I actually did get a lot accomplished today, having spent so much time on this particular work.
I tried to get back down to NNWM business after finally getting spent at the end of book one, but my creative energies were directed to book five. Actually I kind of went back and forth, writing a bit of book three (ES) which is how I got most of my word count in for today, and brainstorming for book five, writing down thoughts and ideas as to the direction I would go with each story. I also did a lot of research for the latter, browsing the most popular (I believe) forum for people from my country, picking out important topics and beliefs I wanted to touch on. That part was tons of fun and also took lots of time.

What I think I'm about to do now, even though it's after midnight and therefore supposedly nearing my bedtime, is jump to book four (PN) because I think I'm spent with the cultural stuff too. So it looks like four out of five of my books are getting some action today (the second one, The PA, is done as far as I'm concerned- only the last chapter needs to be completed and I doubt I will touch it this month- but what do I know, eh? It might surprise me).

In any case, I can write a measly two-hundred and fifty words before going to bed.

ETA- Made it! And then some. I ended up still writing in ES though; didn't touch PN after all.

NaNoWriMo- Day Two

I certainly don't plan to write a blog entry for each day of NaNoWriMo, but I just had to take note of what happened today: again, I worked on book one (C), and spent the entire day procrastinating, waiting once again until about an hour or so before midnight to start putting in words for NNWM, but a strange thing happened- I started getting ideas for book five! I think what happened is that ES (book three) is based in my home country, and so is BC, book five. So when I started brainstorming and thinking about incidents etc. for ES, naturally, I got ideas for BC as well since they're both firmly based in my culture. Still, it was quite unexpected for me, as I didn't know anything about book five beyond its cultural base, and that it would be a collection of short stories. And now I've got ideas, and the tentative short story titles, and I can barely contain myself because I want to work on them and brainstorm and plan for it more.
What the heck is going on? It's like some porthole has opened up in my brain!
I'm loving it, that's for sure. I'm feeling like the writer I always thought I was.

So that's the deal- that's how NNWM is going- I'm all over the place.

NaNoWriMo- Day One

I worked on my first work, C, straight into the wee hours of day one of NaNoWriMo. I figured I had all day to work on books three and four. But what happened was that I spent the entire day (currently 45 mins to midnight- the blog time settings are currently incorrect) continuing to work on book one. This time, from the beginning almost up to the point I read from yesterday (prologue to chapter eleven). Four more chapters in between them to go through though, as well as some heavy editing on the large section I read yesterday.
I did some mildly aggressive editing with the first group, cutting out nearly five thousand words, and I realized the story was probably better without the prologue, and that I should cut that out too, or maybe find some way to weave some of it into the bulk of the story. In any case, the story is now so much better, I would no longer be as embarrassed if someone were to find it in its current condition.
The problem of course is that it has distracted me from my NaNoWriMo mission. I started to write a new scene for it and I'm currently 264 words into that. And I still have to complete the final chapter. But this is book one- I'm not supposed to be working on it! But I figured I better strike while the iron's hot, right? I suppose I'll count whatever I write for it today for NaNoWriMo which is currently not even close to enough.
It is now forty minutes to midnight so I technically have that time to get about 1400 more words in to successfully meet the 1667 word quota for the day. So what am I doing here right? Okay, I'm about to leave, but I don't plan to go to bed for at least another two hours in which time I think I can make the quota and still be on track for the next day.
So adios! Thirty-five minutes...

ETA- Made it to a little over a thousand words by midnight! I'm doing just fine, although a little behind. Like I said, I'll be up for a while.

ETA2- Ok it's 3 AM on 11/02 and I've written a total of 1747 words. They were all for C though- I managed to go through chapters twelve to fifteen, editing, adding. Boy, these novels like to surprise me and take their own course sometimes...

On your mark...

So the big day is tomorrow (NaNoWriMo begins) and what it seems is going to happen is this: I will end up writing books three and four simultaneously. Although I was on a roll with PN, I slowed things down when I stopped paying attention to it so I'm not being bombarded by words anymore. Perhaps that will change once I start working on it again, I don't know, but what I do know is this: ES is still nudging me, i.e., I'm still getting material for it.
I think what I'm about to do might be against the official rules, as I believe we are to work on a single work over the month of November, but I don't mind changing things up a bit; in fact, this adds to the challenge for me because I have to be open to so many different voices while keeping the main voice of each book separate. They're both in first person too (although one is first person, multiple POV and the other is first person, single POV). This is the first time I'm writing a book in first person, as my first two were third person, multiple POV (although I've considered changing the very first one to first person).

Oh, I read some of my first novel last night and I realized that it's really not as bad as I thought it was- at least, not the parts I read (chapters mid-fifteen to thirty). I also realized that I need to cut at least two of the early chapters- maybe three- because there's an unnecessary melodramatic event that occurs and I believe it is the major reason I felt the whole thing sucked. In addition, I need to adjust a major aspect of the story (one of the crimes that took place). Basically, in re-reading some of the story, I realized that it's not hopeless- I can work with it and no longer dread doing so. However, one aspect of it does tremendously resemble PN (book four) but I think I can make a conscious effort to differentiate them further. In any case, I don't think it will matter in the end because what happens around the familiar aspect is so different, the stories maintain distinct identities. Wow, I'm excited about the first one all over again.

The funny thing is, with books one and two, the main problem is that they have incomplete final chapters- I have trouble ending them. I wonder what will happen with the next two?

PN

The title of this blog is the initials of the title of the book I'm currently writing. In the last entry, I mentioned working on an idea that recently popped into my head that had come to me a while ago but had disappeared from my memory for a bit in order to see how much potential it had in comparison to the book I thought I would write in November (let's just call that one ES). As I mentioned, ES has some dialogue and narrative written, some notes, things to include, some basics etc., all written down in its own little composition book; it was in the lead. Until about two days ago. In the days since I mentioned I would start brainstorming and plotting for PN, I have been working and working on it, and not just plotting it- actually writing it. Just yesterday on my way home from my job, as I was in traffic on a highway, the husband character in the story kept talking and talking, and I was very excited about what came to mind, yet severely disappointed because a rare magical flow was happening while I was driving. Those are the times I wish I had a tape recorder that I can talk into because that was one of those moments- you know, where it seems the stars align and a porthole opens up just for you to bestow upon you gifts. Like one time I was on a bus and a fantastic (yes, if I do say so myself) monologue came to mind, a one-act play, and it just flowed to a brilliant end. I tried to recreate it when I had access to paper and writing utensils when I got home, but although I managed to get the gist of it, it did not come back to me in the natural, effortless, beautiful way it did before. It's kind of like eating a juicy steak- in your mouth, it is great. But then it goes through the alimentary canal and then travels through the digestive system, and although it's still travelling through the same person, it just does not end up the same as when you first tasted that juicy meat. Yeah, maybe that wasn't the best analogy. Anyway, still, the husband had a lot to say the following day as well. He might even still try to grab my attention today- I don't know; I won't know until I pick up the book I started to write it in. Actually that's not true because at any time- driving, showering, eating- words could come to me. It's just amazing to me how this book has grabbed on to me and is currently refusing to let go. It is definitely currently in the lead.

Progress

I've been thinking about the story idea that popped up recently (the one competing with the story I was almost certain I would write this November) and today at work, while we were on a long break, I managed to write a couple of pages of the story. More than that, what began as a rather empty storyline with me wondering where on earth I could take it to beef it up and make it interesting, ended up rather convoluted and a bit twisted. As usual, ideas 'came out of nowhere' once the ball started rolling. I don't even know why I ever fear beginning a story when I don't have a solid idea as to where it's going or many ideas at all about it because my experience has consistently been that once I start, the rest follows. The story and the characters end up surprising me, and I find myself marveling at how quickly nothing turns into something. And boy did this one turn out to be something.
However, I always get excited about my ideas and stories initially and think they're great and manage to maintain that excitement throughout writing it and straight to the near-end, but I also usually get bored with them by the time they wind down to the last chapter, and at some point, I no longer think they're 'all that.' I fear that this will happen again and that once written, this story won't mean much to me beyond the fact that it would be my third (or fourth) book written.

Speaking of third or fourth, what I wrote today cannot be included in the NaNoWriMo word count since November 1st hasn't arrived yet, so I would still have to do 50,000 new words over the course of November. What all this means is that there is actually a high chance this story has taken over the supposed 'sure thing' I had planned after all. Major plot points came to me today and I can see where it's going- almost to the end in fact.
I'm on a roll.

Book 3

As aforementioned, I plan to write most of my third book over the course of November for National Novel Writing Month. Since last year I had a story pinching me and telling me to write it, and eventually started writing down bits and pieces of what I want to include in it, brainstorming. So it was clear to me a few weeks ago when I thought about it what I would write for NaNoWriMo.
However, yesterday I believe it was- perhaps the day before- I remembered another story idea I had even before that one, one that came up while I was writing my first book. It actually resembles the most basic premise of the first, but I think it will be more saleable, more palatable. I have no notes on it besides its premise, yet I wonder if this is the one I should write instead.
What I think I will end up doing is the same thing I did last year when I had two ideas and wanted to see which one I should go with: start brainstorming and plotting both. The one I thought was a shoe-in for this year came up short last year when compared to the notes on the one I ended up writing. And now, it's way ahead of this other one that resurfaced in my memory.
Now that it's mid-October, it's definitely time to start the plotting process. I'll give this old new idea a chance and see what happens when I start to think it out.

NaNoWriMo 2007

I had planned to participate this year, having first participated- and succeeded- last year. I have an idea and everything. But at this point, I'm not sure I will be able to follow through with the commitment. Last year, I was working part-time and was done by 1 p.m. every day and my significant other wasn't around much, weekdays or weekends, so I really had only my computer and the television both as company and distractions. I therefore had a lot of time to fulfill challenges I had set for myself- watching movies, reading books, and writing. This time around I, once again, do not have a full-time job, however, my schedule is more erratic. In fact, for the first week of November, I plan to be in my home country although hopefully I will be back in LA by the 5th. In that case, I might be able to continue the challenge after all; in fact, if I remember correctly, the daily requirement of nearly 1700 words can easily be done in two hours- I remember doing it in less in fact. So that's all I would need every day to dedicate to it. Okay, maybe I will still sign on to do this. There is still hope and I have to at least try, right? In any case, fail or succeed by November 30th, I would have succeeded in writing more than I would have otherwise, and there is no losing in that. All right then- it's on!