NaNoWriWeekFour

Time for one last progress report...

Day Twenty Two

Tired, I have cheated the word count a bit – there is no room for the apostrophe in NaNoLand. Also went back to a secondary character for a different perspective on things.

Day Twenty Three 

Managed to drag myself up to 38k by 2am. Most of it was decent story, although I am a bit concerned now that Matthew Smith, my eponymous hero, is the most completely two dimensional of all my characters.

Day Twenty Four 

The Travelling Shovel of Death turned up today, which was nice. So did Yosemite Sam, which was odd. Still, somehow managed to power through and get back on track by about 1.30am.

Day Twenty Five 

Powered through 2000 words today, getting myself ahead of the curve for the first time. Still lots of ideas coming, and still just as many things that are going to have to be taken out in the edit…

Day Twenty Six 

Another 2000 word day, creeping ahead now in the hope of finishing a bit early. The home stretch is always easiest, although I still have no idea how to get to the climax, and there’s a whole bunch of good stuff that hasn’t been used properly!

Day Twenty Seven 

Almost a day ahead at the close of today; did a good bit a Shovel of Death carnage during today’s write, and brought the heroes together in preparation for the final battle…

Day Twenty Eight 

Deliberately a short day today, because I knew if I started the final approach to the climax I would just want to finish it…. Wrote about 1100 words and left the rest for a final charge tomorrow night.

Day Twenty Nine

So far 2200 words written tonight, the big final showdown is about to commence…. Aiming to get past the 50,000 words mark tonight, whether that means ending the story or not remains to be seen…

Tuesday Tunes - The Ballad of Matthew Smith: First Draft Soundtrack

The soundtrack to the book has been slowly developing as I’ve been writing; some of the tracks are things I've listened to while writing, others tracks that just sprung into mind at particular points.

The tracklist is more or less in the order events happen in the current draft, which is to say not even close to the final order. It’s a fairly electic mix too: there’s some Blur, Blondie, the Beastie Boys and the B-52s, and a bunch of artists who don’t begin with a B, as well as several versions of the Blue Danube Waltz, Moonlight Sonata and If I Were A Rich Man.

And by this point, you’ve either got the idea, or you never will.

Either way, here's the Official Soundtrack in all its first draft glory:

NaNoWriWeekThree

Time for a progress report:

Day Fifteen
Terribly slow day today, really was not in the zone.  

Day Sixteen

Managed somehow to get back into the swing of things and almost got back up to target. Decided to adopt a character (Grandfather Adamantly Normal) from the NaNo boards because he was not doing anything else at the time, so working my way towards meeting him.  

Day Seventeen
Powered through some serious wordage today, starting to make up for lost time.  

Day Eighteen
Put some time into reordering some chapters (yes, I know that probably counts as editing, but the whole thing was such a mess before!) in order to get a proper feel for where the story had been so far, where the main characters were, and what they should do next. It obviously worked too, as I had another power day.

Day Nineteen
The introduction of Grandfather Adamantly Normal today led to a very strange – but fortuitous – occurrence: Matthew Smith turned out to be his own grandfather. How this has come about, and what philosophical meanderings the story can go on as they figure it out, I have no idea. But it was one of those things that came out of the blue, and knocked the story off onto a whole new direction.  

Day Twenty
Not quite in the mood still… got the daily words down, but not feeling most of them. Quite a bit was cheating quoting from external sources, if I am honest.  

Day Twenty One
Got to a good bit today, a bit that I have been playing with in my mind for a while, and finally reached the right point in the story to share it. Wrote 1940 words – still behind target, but gaining ground again now.

NaNoWriWeekTwo

Time for a progress report:

Day Eight

Think I'm out of the slump; some good story bits today but I did cheat a little and paste a recipe for rabbit stew into the text.

Day Nine

Hard going again, partly because I was half asleep writing.... another 1667 day, by sheer fluke.

Day Ten

Did not get the chance to make good use of Saturday (unless you count catching up on ten days of washing up). Really need to get a good amount of time to put the various scenes I have written into a sensible order, and those I've subsequently retconned out of the timline need end with 'And then he woke up to find it was all a dream and he was still back where we left him at the end of Chapter Two'.

Day Eleven

A quick visit to the adoptables thread and discovering the NaNoWriMo tradition of including a Mr Ian Woon in the story made this evening's session a breeze - I actually wrote some good stuff that probably won't be deleted in the re-writes.

Day Twelve

I have resigned myself to the fact that this story is determined to be a Jet Set Willy fanfic. I had originally planned something a little more in the way of a subtle homage, but the story has lent itself better to being more full-on. So today I embraced that, and gave Willy some more back story, because that was easy word count and I was under the weather.

Day Thirteen

After a little light plundering of the adoptables threads on the NaNo forums, I got inspired again today, and got some good writing and some solid story down. Word count still not quite as epic as it could be, but keeping in line with the curve.

Day Fourteen

Mostly continuing on from yesterday, and some notes for a good scene with a boat and lots of cookers that came out of a real life conversation... I may be writing that next :)

NaNoWriWeekOne

In case anyone's interested, this is how the progress has been so far:

Day One

Had no idea where to start. I knew I had to get Matthew Smith into the world of my story, but I didn't even know whether that world was real, virtual, a dream, or something else, so how to do that? I picked a good openeing line and went from there... I'll figure the opening out one I know what the story is about. Got to exactly 1667, but straddled midnight so my tracker showed yellow.

Day Two

Struggling on, still no idea where the story is going, and really wishing I hadn't decided to wing it like this! Pantsing is not for me. Squeaked over the 1667 in the early hours again.

Day Three

A bad wordcount day, the first day I didn't make the magic number (unless you count the end of day two's writing). Horrible day all round.

Day Four

A few mini word wars helped get the word count up again, and somewhere along the line I started to figure out who my characters were, what the story was... and felt good about it again! Put some serious retcon in, but that can be fixed later.

Day Five

Wrote from the bad guy's point of view today, to give the muse something new to play with. Seemed to work, got some good back story and some funny bits, and more pieces falling into place.

Day Six

Bit of a slump, didn't do much beyond some elaborated character profile and back story. Slave to the word count at the moment.

Day Seven

Would like to be able to slow down and write some of these bits better, but if I slip behind on the word count I'll get disheartened and give up entirely. Todays wordcount was mainly describing the setting a little more, stuff I can work into a context later.

It's almost upon us....

So, NaNoWriMo is just a couple of hours away now... and I still have only a vague idea what's going to start appearing on my screen tomorrow.

It was nice to see a late surge of support for the Old Testament Space Opera in my little poll the other week, but The Ballad of Matthew Smith was the more popular choice wherever I asked the question. And although I never promised to be bound by the result, I like the idea too, so I'm going to roll with it.

Which leaves me with the dilemma of what happens to Matthew Smith anyway?

I originally envisaged the story as a sort of comic cyber-fantasy, about a computer programmer who is abducted and taken to the world he created for his best-selling game, for reasons as yet unknown....

The trouble is, I don't even know those reasons yet, and I think the reasons dictate whether the world he finds himself in is real, cyberspace, or some kind of dream... or indeed another part of the DragonQuest universe from a couple of years ago.

And until I figure out what kind of world Matthew Smith finds himself in, I don't know how to get him there... which is going to make Chapter One interesting in the morning!

No, I won't be starting at midnight - I need some sleep, and if I'm not asleep by 12 I will be compelled to start! - and I'm hoping to dream up the opening to the story overnight.

NaNoWriMo 2012 Auditions

Don't ask me how this happened, but somehow it's the middle of October already. It was proper coat weather yesterday and everything. But more importantly: NaNoWriMo approaches!

And I still have no idea what to write...

Thankfully, that's not because I have no ideas. I have lots. I just haven't picked one to plummet head first into come November 1st. So, just for fun and with the disclaimer that none of this is in any way binding on my part, here are the possible contenders, and your chance to influence my decision.

• An Old Testament Space Opera. Think 'Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Spacesuit'. Has the advantage of a ready outlined plot; but by the same token it's a plot that has already been reworked a few times.
• A DragonQuest prequel. DragonQuest being NaNo 2009's comic fantasy retro-cyberpunk road trip. No plot ideas, but being silly always comes easier during NaNo than being sensible.
• The Ballad of Matthew Smith. Another comic cyber-fantasy which may or may not be related to DragonQuest, but relates the story of a computer programmer who is abducted and taken to the world he created for his best-selling game, for reasons as yet unknown...
• The Nazarene Sect. Not sure if this is a time travel story or an alternate history, but it's something timey-wimey and Christ's life on Earth forms a critical point.
• A collection of short stories which may or may not be connected to each other or any of the ideas above. This would give me the chance to start any or all of these ideas, and more, and see which have the legs for a novel and give me plenty of raw material to work on over the next year.
• The wild card option. Just pluck some characters, a plot and maybe a few other things at random from the adoptables threads, mix them all together and create something entirely new... 

That's the shortlist, go ahead and have your say :)

NaNoWrAntMo

Yes, it's September, or to give it its proper name, National Novel Writing Anticipation Month, those thirty days in which writers and crazy people the world over start to get all twitchy at the thought of starting another 30 day novelathon (in about seven weeks time).

And more often than not, start to panic when they realise they haven't got a clue where they are going to start on November 1st.

As for me, apart from a couple of vague attempts at short stories, I have hardly written anything this year, and as a result have my spare ideas from last NaNo plus one or two others rattling around inside my head, competing for my attention over the next couple of months. So, mainly for my own easy reference, here's my current WIPlist (or rather, ideas list, as most of these are insufficently developed to qualify as 'in progress'):

• An Old Testament Space Opera. I think I can put an original enough slant on the story of Joseph and his brothers for it to work. 
• A comic fantasy. I think DragonQuest (NaNo 2009) needs a prequel.
• A paranormal/slipstream/ weird novel which sort of exists in my head but whose plot I haven't been able to distill into a sentence or two yet.
• A collection of short stories which may or may not be interconnected. This would give me the chance to start any or all of these ideas, and more, and see which have the legs for a novel and give me plenty of raw material to work on over the next year.
• A memoir. Also not strictly within the rules of NaNoWriMo, but if NaNo isn't about breaking the rules, what is it about?
  
• Some sort of timey-wimey story, either time travel or alternate history, in which Christ's life on Earth forms a critical point. 
• The wild card option. Just pluck some characters, a plot and maybe a few other things at random from the adoptables threads, mix them all together and create something entirely rubbish...

And left over from NaNo 2011:

• An alternate history of WW2. I have sort of an idea for this, but I’m not sure I can make it stand out from the squillions of alternate WW2 scenarios already played out in fiction. Unless….
• An alternate version of Left Behind – in which the rapture occurred during WW2, the Cold War, or the 1990s...Has the minor drawback that everything I know about the rapture and what comes thereafter I learnt from reading the Left Behind series years ago - and I've no wish to revisit them now.

I may put a poll up in the near future, just out of interest, to see what my reader would like to see. Unless I can make up my own mind, I may even go with the result...

NaNoWriWeekFive

Yes, it's that time of year when thousands of word weary novelists emerge blinking into the cold harsh light of reality, sleep deprived but with another first draft under their belts.

And, yes, as you will have gathered, I made it to the required 50,000 words (50,591 in 29 days, for the record), but I'm not sure the novel is finished. I write the final chapter - sort of - but most of the preceding chapters need a lot of doctoring to properly lead up to that point and tell the story I want to tell.

It is, it has to be said, a mess at the moment. The original concept got a little bent out of shape in the process of being written, and a lot of the earlier chapters need to be completely re-written or just dumped entirely; and there are a lot of editorial notes and so on that need to be extracted and turned into fiction somehow, so the whole thing is still a very long way from finished.

This has been, I think, the first time I have attempted to write something of this length without more than a vague idea where it was going, hence the quantity of about turns and footnotes, but despite all that, it shaped up, over the course of the month, to be something I actually like. It changed a little from the original urban fantasy feel when my protagonist finally revealed his back story to me during a 1000 word sprint on my penultimate night of novelling, but starting out with that element of weirdness in it allowed me to get the story down, and I'm fairly confident that with a little work this can be something worthwhile.

Now all that remains is to unlock my inner editor, and set about the second draft...

NaNoWriWeekFour

As of the now, I am officially ahead of target. By 8 words, but this month, every word counts. And it's the first time since Day Five that I have been ahead of the game, so all in all the last few days have gone well. Sort of.

The plot is starting to come together. It's got exciting action, some interesting plot twists, a completely unnecessary zombie apocalypse, psychic vampires, and two female characters I keep interchanging with each other at random. Ok, I admit it, it's a mess. I had to retcon most of the plot yesterday when I started to work out what was going on, and since then chapters have been springing up in the middle of the manuscript with only a vague idea of where they belong. And there are two action-y sub-plots, and the one that ends at the end of the novel has far less climactic potential than the one that ends on the way to the first one...

Oh yes, and one of my characters has served no real purpose in the story yet. That's a whole mess of sub-plot to be woven in once I've extracted two of the prologues and got the main story timeline sorted (I'm fairly sure someone was wearing a bikini in October). But that's all part of the fun. All I have to do now is stay above the line for a few more days....

NaNoWriWeekThree

By some miracle, I managed to start week three on exactly 20,000 words - that's just a day behind - and having written at least something every day of the month. This is good. My pace has slowed a little over the last few days, but things are starting to fall into place. Setting off with only a nebulous concept of what I was hoping to do and say with the story has certainly presented its problems, but just charging onwards and letting the characters - and any momentary whim that takes the author - dictate what happens has, in a round about way, brought many weird and wacky plot threads into the story and forced them to play nicely.

As a result, my NaNoWriMo project is currently 23,493 words of jumbled plot threads, editorial notes and redundant scenes, interspersed with the occasional spark of potential.

Now, and only now, I am starting to get some idea of what this story looks like. My inner editor is craving to go back and re-write some of the earlier sections so that they fit the 'big picture' that I can see now. Most of my characters don't have names yet; many don't even exist, it's as if my world has a population of about 6 people at the moment. More bit-part characters are needed!

Most worryingly, however, is that at the current pace the story will be reaching its climax somewhere around half way to the magic 50,000. But thus far I've concentrated on the story of one of my main characters; I know there is at least one more side of the story to tell - and then the various side plots and tangents that may bring up to be followed, so success is still in sight.

Why I do NaNo

It is, I imagine, a popular and important question at around this time of the year. It certainly is here; I've already found myself sleep-typing on two separate occasions already this month, and now I'm compounding the problem by trying to blog at the same time.
(Actually it's just an excuse to point out the shiny new widget that should now be adorning the sidebar.)
Anyway... Yes, it's insane. Yes, 90% of what I've written is rubbish. Yes, I'm sleep deprived, and the house is cleaning deprived. So why do I do it?

• Well it's fun. The camaraderie. The fact that you can ask 10,000 other NaNites how to spell camaraderie. (I've written 3,007 words today, I've lost the will to spell.) The fact that, somewhere on the NaNoWriMo website, all of human life is represented. The fact that some questions get answered in the forums and then the asker refuses to believe the answer on the basis that it does not tally with their experience. The fact that said question did, ultimately, restore my faith in the moral sensibleness of at least some young people in this country. Hurrah!
• I'm a deadline junky. The only way I will ever finish a first draft of something approaching novel length is to do it in November.
• In a very practical, writerly way, I do find that plunging straight into a novel NaNo-style is a quick and easy way to see if the idea has legs. For instance, I tried a novel for Camp NaNoWriMo earlier in the year, quickly found it wasn't going to go anywhere as I had envisaged it, and gave up. November I take more seriously and try not to give up like that; but this month I got to about 8,500 words of crap before working out vaguely where the story should be going, and it seems to be picking up now.
• Peer pressure. It does seem to work: this evening an hour of word wars boosted my word count by the required 1667 (and then some) and left me with a messy jumble of plot twists and potential new directions to let my characters (most of whom don't have proper names yet) explore in later chapters.

NaNoWriMo is certainly not for everyone, and it is completely insane, but I've found a way to make it work for me. I think it's going to be an annual event for some time yet...

Bring on November...

So it's almost November... time to think about a plot, right?

The public vote was inconclusive, and left me to ponder four options:

1. An Old Testament Space Opera. Nice to see my very own sub-sub-genre make a last minute surge through the field, but ultimately, although it's the most ready-to-roll of the four outlines, I'm not finished with the last one yet, so I'll hold off for another year before starting another.
2. A Comic Fantasy. A sequel to DragonQuest is very much ready to tumble out of my mind, but I decided to leave this for outside NaNo, when fun writing projects like this can help keep my writing muscles going without the crazed NaNo momentum.
3. A Timey-wimey story with Jesus in it. Another last minute attacker, but unfortunately it needed too much planning, so this is also left on the back-burner.
4. An Urban Fantasy (with shades of Angel). Yep, I'm going to write a fantasy novel! Well, more a supernatural thriller, I suspect. It's going to be almost 100% winging it this time - here's what I have to go on so far:

Dark Empathy

Mordikai Stone is a man with an unusual talent. Able to experience complete empathy with anyone he touches, and more than that, take the pain and suffering of others on himself. Armed only with his constantly shifting perception of the world, he sets about a self-appointed mission to cure anguish and suffering wherever he finds it. But a chance meeting with a woman he once helped brings Mordikai to a shocking realisation: his attempts to help may be causing more harm than good.

Some NaNoWriMo prep thoughts

It is an important and popular fact that the author of this blog does not do fantasy. I have no frame of reference for orcs and hobbits like I do for spaceships and time travel.

Which of course is why the most popular choices on the 'What the public wants me to write for NaNo' poll are labelled 'urban fantasy' and 'comic fantasy'. Admittedly the comic fantasy option - a sequel to 2009's DragonQuest - owes more to cyberpunk than it does to Lord of the Rings, but still, I think the world is out to get me. As it happens though, those are currently my two favoured options as far as having the story planned out go; none of the shortlist are much more than ideas, but those two are more fully-formed ideas, ready to be built on in the last few days of October.

At the same time, I'm keeping a wary eye on the wildcard option - the 'grab stuff other NaNites didn't want and run with it' option. That could be a lot of fun, especially if I can find a plot I like and mash it up with fairies and aliens, but on the other hand, do I want to spend 30 days writing somebody else's idea at the expense of eight of my own? Well, maybe I do. The reason I do NaNo is to recharge my writing batteries, get back in the mood for novelling, remind myself what great ideas I have on my WIPlist still wanting to be written. Maybe, having got the bug back, knowing I have at least two ideas ready to be worked on and at least half a dozen more to keep thinking about, I'll keep writing more consistently over the next eleven months.

Plus, I just read about the Egyptian mummies buried under our McDonalds.... surely that has to be a story!?

The NaNoWriMo auditions

The middle of October is, without a doubt, the stupidest time to reboot a blog after two months, especially for someone planning to put some pretty intense novel-writing time in in the not too distant future. (Yes, I could say I'll blog about my NaNo expolits, but that's never really washed before, has it?)

So, yes, I'm back for now, but I will be NaNo-ing next month, so in the meantime, why not cast a vote, X-Factor style, for one of the final nine novel ideas all hoping for a place in next months big write-off...

• Another Old Testament Space Opera. I don’t have another in the works as yet, but it has the clear advantage of having the basic plot pre-packed.
• Some sort of timey-wimey story, either time travel or alternate history, in which Christ's life on Earth forms a critical point.
• An alternate history of WW2. I have sort of an idea for this, but I’m not sure I can make it stand out from the squillions of alternate WW2 scenarios already played out in fiction. Unless….
• An alternate version of Left Behind – in which the rapture occurred during WW2, or the Crimean, or the Cold War, or what the heck, all three….
• A comic fantasy, probably using some of the characters from the seminal DragonQuest (NaNo 2009). Being silly is always easier at NaNo pace than tackling a weighty subject.
• A weighty subject novel. Did that last year, still trying to summon up the courage to trawl those 50,000 words for the worthwhile story at its heart.
• An urban fantasy with just the merest hint of Angel somewhere in its DNA, and possibly some spiritual message in there too.
• The obligatory sci-fi contender: I fancy something with clones in it this time.
• Or as a completely off the wall experimental NaNo: just pluck some stuff at random from the adoptables threads, mix them all together and bring them to the boil…

Voting lines are open, and it won't cost you a thing to vote... and who knows, maybe you'll even get to see a snippet from your favourite on these pages during November...

It's like the bad old days again....

Yeah, just when it seemed we had some sort of rhythm going on here, I go and make a stupid rash decision...

So we're back to erratic posting for a few weeks while I'm at Camp NaNoWriMo. It seemed a good idea at the time, as I was spending time writing anyway, why not channel that into one big project....

It's only when I start something like this, usually in November, that I realise how big a number 50,000 actually is, at least when you're trying to write that many words in a finite time.

Currently I'm at almost 4,000 words... yes, behind already! Yay!

So blogging is a little way down the writing priority list this month. I'll wake you up when September comes.

NaNoWriMo finishing post

Yes, it's finally all over, and I (sort of) have a first draft for Project Seven. I also have a broken laptop, but I guess I should be thankful it lasted the month.

In fact I reached 50,000 words on Sunday night, and I'm taking a couple of days off writing (mainly to purge the bad word count raising habits I've picked up during November). I do intend to keep the writing momentum going, albeit at a less frantic pace for the next 11 months, with a couple of short stories and maybe an initial edit of a previous NaNo next on my to-do list, before I dive back into Project Seven in the new year, hopefully to salvage something from NaNoWriMo.

NaNoWriMo progress report

Well blogging on this subject has been even scarcer than actual NaNo words hasn't it?

Needless to say, progress has slowed somewhat this week. And last week. However, in an unexpected development last night (during a late night Write or Die session) an entirely new character shuffled onto the screen. I expected to just include him in the scene I was writing and move on, he was, after all, merely background material for the protagonist.

But then I realised he had not merely shuffled into the story - he had been chased there, pursued by a herd of rabid plot bunnies. I managed to beat off most of the bunnies but two stuck; I faced the stark realisation that actually I was telling the wrong story - something I had suspected for a while, but only now, 20,000 words in, realised whose story it was I should be telling. In the course of an hour, I had gone from having 19,000 words, most of which made some sort of sense together, to having a shade over 20,000 words, 18,000 or so of which were now completely redundant. And from having absolutely no sense of plot, to having two actually quite good and completely different directions in which I could take the story.

So, while I figure that out, at the moment my NaNo has a ridiculously long and convoluted Prologue, which will almost certainly never see the light of day, at least not in its current form.

Will I be blogging again this month? Well, I guess we'll see how the plot bunnies go on. Today, I think, will be another yellow day, but from tomorrow I'm going into overdrive in an attempt to get this thing written.

See you on the other side...

NaNoWriMo progress report

Terrible!

I have got to 12,000 words now, but at least 5,000 are already surplus to requirements, and honestly, at this stage I'm doubting if there will be anything salvagable at the end of the month.... I am starting to think that actually I can't write a normal story, I need some element of weirdness for it to work. And at the moment I have no clue what kind of weirdness will serve the story, so I'm struggling onwards until I figure that out...

Plus the day job is starting to slip and the house is totally feral already, but that's another story.

NaNoWriMo starting post

Hooray, it's finally November! And, almost 11 hours in, am I writing? Have I, in fact, written word one? No of course not, I'm procrastinating already by joining the NaNo blogchain. Fifty thousand words in a month just isn't challenging enough any more, so I have to make myself blog about the experience at the same time....

But seriously, I will be kicking off tonight, and although I still have no real idea of where the plot of my NaNo is going, I have my main protag in mind, and a few of the supporting characters ready to chip in when the story is ready, so I guess I'll just be following their lead for a while...

My plan for this evening, and indeed the next couple of days, is basically to get off to a flying start. I have a whole week at the end of the month to catch up and hopefully finish off, but I know that if I don't reach the daily target on the first couple of days I will get horribly demoralised and it will be tough to keep going. So, today I'm going for the protag's introductory chapter, which absolutely has to be at least 1,667 words long.