Writing
I went back and had a look at The Plan!
Shit.
Then I looked at the date.
Shit.
Then I decided to at least get one bullet point done, which is what I am gonna start on now. Which one you may ask? No time to explain, ask me again next year.
Seriously.
*typing intensifies*
Writing
Remember back a few months ago when I told you that on December 12th, I was going to hand the second draft of The Afterlife Occurence over to Catrine for some feedback? And that I’d be getting the second draft to one of her stories in return?
Guess what. We did it!
By it I mean I handed it over to her, on a spiffy USB-drive. I didn’t have a chance to get through the entire thing, so she is actually getting some first draft Nano-written crazy-times story. I have already warned her there might be some repetitive action going on, but hopefully it won’t be too bad a read. I may also have apologised. I’ll be doing that again later.
My neck has been acting up on the this past week, which prevented me from getting though more than about 60 pages (of about 300). Physical therapy seems to have worked somewhat, and am going back later in the week as well, so I should be able to continue editing this during the holiday.
What I learned this week was that I may not hate editing as much as I thought I did. So long as I stop messing with the first chapter and move on to the rest. Which may seem obvious, but I have been struggling getting past the first chapter to be honest. I also learned that sometimes, Nano-written madness is evil and needs to be deleted. Other times, it’s freaking gold!
With 2015 almost over, I may not have finished the second draft as I wanted (the year isn’t over yet though), but we made a plan to exchange second drafts, and we stuck to it, and that in itself is a major victory!
Go us!
Writing
I won National Novel Writing Month for the sixth time in a row!
If you’re wondering how close I am to finishing the story, the answer is not even a little! Seriously, stuff just happened that probably added another ten thousand words to it. At this point I’ll be happy if I manage to get it under 100,000 words when it’s all said and done.
I know I said that this was going to be a little side project, a writing exersice, nothing more. But the story didn’t want to end, and it got really good, and now it keeps growing, and damnit, this is not going to turn into a series!
Writing
I had a plan, to write a lot of words today. What can I say, words were written!
7,004 words to be exact!
It may not be a full 10k, but you know what, it’s my second best day this November, and it’s freaking awesome!
I’ve only got 2,650 words to go in order to reach 50,000 this November, and I’m pretty sure that’s not going to be a problem. I’m hoping to finish tomorrow. By finish I mean the NaNoWriMo challenge of course, because Remnants is not even close to being finished yet. At this point it’s looking like it’ll end up being 75k long, but considering once upon a time I thought that about Memories as well, I’m taking my own estimate with a grain of salt.
Like always with a Nano-novel, there will be mistakes. My favorite from today was “The cipher core is lace“. There are neither ciphers nor lace in the scene.
I haven’t been sharing as much from the novel this month as I intended, but here is another little snippet that may or may not end up in the finished story.
The goal was never to kill the modified, heck, many of the members were modified back then, in one way or another. It was about stopping the creation of weapons capable of taking out solar systems. Of stopping the growth of weapons mimicking human life in a lab, that were both sentient and capable of emotion, even if present company seems to indicate they don’t use them very often. It was about stopping the course of our own artificial evolution. It was about evening out the divide between the modified and the unmodified, not eradicating it all together.
Writing
It was a good plan too. I was going to write every day, at least 500 words, and more importantly, I was going to finish Remnants during Nano.
Should have known that wasn’t going to happen.
It was impossible for me to write every day, but to be honest I expected it wouldn’t be possible long before November came along. Because I knew I had the written exam for my certification I need for my new job in the middle of the month, wrapped into a four-day seminar in Oslo. While I may have had time to write a little at the hotel, a few of the days I just needed to lean back and watch The Blacklist on Netflix.
My other goal, to finish Remnants, seemed possible for the first few days of November. And then the story decided it was going to be a quite a bit longer than I had originally planned. And by quite a bit I mean like twice as long, at least. I should have expected that to happen though. Last year I was going to finish Memories in November, and instead I ended up finishing a small part of Memories, and it still took me 60, 000 words. So to think that I was going to finish Remnants in only 50,000 words was probably more crazy talk than actually possible.
Of course, I was also going to 75k words this year, but realized early on that probably wasn’t going to happen. As I type this I sit at 40k, and with three days to go I just can’t see how that’s going to happen. Getting to 50k should be entirely possible though. Catrine is coming over to write tomorrow, so I’m gonna go for a 10k day and see what happens.
I’m probably not going to get a 10k day, but it would be awesome. At the very least, I’m going for 5k.
So I guess this means I’ll be back tomorrow to let you know how that went. I may just bring with me a little snippet from Remnants as well.
Writing
During November, it can be hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel, when you are neck-deep in characters that aren’t listening, a plot that won’t cooperate, and you just feel like throwing in the towel cause there is just no way you are going to make it to 50,000 this year. You tell yourself that you can do it next year, you just need to be more prepared.
And maybe you can’t make it, maybe you should give up now and spare yourself the disappointment. But that doesn’t mean you quit This is Nanowrimo, and quitting isn’t an option!
I just hit 26,000 today, having had a week where I haven’t really gotten that much written. I wrote a little over 4000 of those words today, and during that time my plot went and changed a little on me, which means I’ve had to change how we go from here as well. And that’s ok, because I like this way better.
That’ll happen a lot during Nanowrimo, things changing, characters acting up on you, and random events suddenly taking center stage. When it does, don’t worry about it. Just go with it. Let it happen, you brain will be happier for it. Or, change it back, just don’t delete anything. Not yet, not as long as the calendar sill says November.
A lot of people struggle to get past the second week. I’ve been there before. Given up there before, back in 2007. I was at 18,000 words and counting, and I ran out of plot, and I ran out of steam. It would be another three years until I won for the first time, and since then, I’ve never lost. I know I’ll make it to 50,000 this year, the question for me is when do I make it, and how much of my story remains when I do.
My goal this year is to not only hit 50,000 words, but also to finish the story. I’ve never done that before, most of them don’t end until they are closer to 100,000 words. This time, I want to finish it in November, no matter how long it ends up to be. My current estimate is at around 60,000, but we’ll see where the story takes me.
So if you want to give up, don’t. Instead, write 500 words. And if you still have more words in you when you get to 500, write another 500, and then another, and another. And if December comes, and you’re at 45,000 words, feeling like shit because you didn’t win, remember this. You just wrote 45,000 words in 30 days. That’s a lot! Maybe you didn’t make it to 50,000, but you still accomplished something amazing.
So keep writing, and see where you story takes you. And if your story is done, boring, or just so horrible you hate it to bits, write the following, and go from there: At the same time, somewhere else…
Writing
Day four of Nanowrimo is here, and I’ve written over 12,000 words so far. Which might just be my best start ever! I’m done with writing for today, giving my back and neck a bit of a rest, as I am starting to feel it a little.
I wanted to share a little bit from my Nano-novel with you though. This is from one of the first chapters of Remnants:
I was left a shivering mess on the floor, with the intense feeling that something very important was about to be lost forever at Okama Drift. I knew what I was looking for, and which hallways to walk down to get to it. I even knew the combination to the safe that held the data storage. How I knew, I had no idea. But I did know that if we didn’t go and get it right now, the whole universe would suffer for it.
Feedback is welcome, as always, but remember, Nano is not about editing, so it ain’t perfect. Should be free from grammatical mistakes though, I hope.
Writing
And we’re off!!
It’s November 1st, and National Novel Writing Month has officially begun. I got started right after midnight last night, and went to bed with a little over 1700 words already written. Which means I had a perfect starting point this morning. As I was planning of meeting Catrine to write together, I set a high goal of 5000 words for the day, just so I could get off to a flying start. I have to say, I’m pretty happy about the result!
Total words written: 7231
Words written today: 7231
Words remaining: 42 769
Writing
I’m almost November. In fact, November will be here in less than 10 hours. In some parts of the world, it’s already November.
Time to get that last minute plotting done (or in my case, try to finish that book I really wanna read so I have no distractions in November). Stock up on whatever helps you write, make plans with your writing buddy, or sit down and create the mother of all writing playlists.
Or, you know, update the iPad 2 with the latest iOS, hope it can handle it, and that it will let you play Jurassic World without crashing. Cause the game is already crashing ten times a day on the Note 4, and it really starting to annoy you.
In other news, I’m now going to do some last minute plotting on Remnants, try to forget that I have an entire book (minus two chapters) to edit by December 12th, and try to finish reading Evna before I have to ban reading for a month!
Writing
November is almost upon us again, and once more I find myself drawn to it. Drawn to writing 50,000 words, quality be damned. Nano is about getting the story written, and then the other eleven months of the year is when you edit it into something that is actually good. Or, you know, that’s when you should be editing the novel (hear that brain, editing, it’s a thing you should be on board for!).
Anyhow, this year, I am going to do something different. I am going to write a standalone book, that has absolutely nothing to do with my other two series. And under no circumstances will that book turn into two books, or three. Remnants, as I’ve already told you will be my Nano novel for the year, will not have sequels. Which is new for me, and I’m not entirely sure my brain will agree with once I actually stat writing.
I’ve been doing some slight worldbuilding for Remnants this weekend, like figuring out the actual plot (cause I didn’t actually have one before), as well as my characters names and such! Got a cover made a few weeks ago as well, which you can se en the right.
The hero of our story will be Tryg Morgan. He will be joined by the mysterious Ashes, and the rebellious Ren. They will be travelling on the fantastic, if somewhat flawed (read: rust bucket) spaceship The Vanguard. And of course, they will be on the run, mostly because Tryg did something stupid, and now they have to run for their lives.
That’s all I’m going to tell you for now, though I do plan on sharing bits and pieces as I write it in November. And, if all goes according to plan, I’ll be posting the entire story on Wattpad next year. That will require editing though, so by next year I might actually mean in 2025 or something..