14 posts tagged “nanowrimo”
My final count:
(80.2%)
While I couldn't hit 50k because of my cold, at least I managed to make my lowered target of 40k. It's still a greater rate of productivity than I've shown all year. And what I've written during November has been of surprisingly high quality - not perfect, for sure, but not dire either.
What have I written? I had a plan for what I would write. Naturally, I didn't entirely stick to it:
- Painted Angels = 6,078 words
- Our Green Fairies = no words
- D'sil short story = 7,498 words
And then...
- Bunia's Journal = 17,811 words
- Other short stories and edits = 8,613 words
I think my biggest regret is that I didn't write more PA, but I am glad I wrote what I did for it. The book is very close to the end now - I think there are only a handful of chapters until it's done - and I need more time to plot out exactly how the final fight is going to go down.
Bunia has been an... interesting... muse. I really enjoyed writing her journal, and now it's sort-of done (I haven't posted the final entry yet because I don't like it all, so sorting that out is one of the first things I'll do when I next write) I can start planning out her novel. I never do deep plans, but I want a little bit of planning on this one because it's a quest-of-sorts (she goes questing for an interesting piece of furniture, but the collapsing Serrian Empire gets in her way) so I need to make sure it doesn't get all rambly and long and crap. I need to know when and how she goes from A to B, and I need to keep my narration succint and interesting. Plus, I need to figure out what exactly D'sil is doing - okay, so I know he'll be working for conflicting people, as always, but I need to be a bit more specific than that. So I intend to do a sort-of outline - which, probably, will get hacked to pieces in the process of writing the book, but heh. At least I have a tentative title for the book: The Ephrebet Bed, which is the piece of furniture she goes questing for.
I do intend to work on Our Green Fairies, I just realised it's not suitable Nano-fodder after all. The descriptive narrative style demands time and thought, rather than blindly punching out words, as walking the fine line between descriptiveness and purple-ness is tough. I also think I need to leave it a while longer to let the characters crystallise a little more in my head.
My vague plan is to get PA done, and in the process of doing it maybe work on TEB's outline and perhaps a handful more short stories. Then I'll need to edit PA, and once it's all shiny and shipped away to publishers I can work on the book that comes five years after it, Renegade Star, and also TEB and OGF. I'm sure I'll start working on those while I'm editing PA, just for a change of pace, but heh.
However, I suspect I won't get much writing done til the end of term, in two weeks' time. That's because I have my floor manager exam next Friday, and I need to start hard-core revising for that today. I also have two essays to do, and I need to apply for a job. *shakes fist at reality* Also, to be honest, I want to give writing a brief respite after the pressures of Nano.
All in all, Nano has been a productive and good venture, and I'm glad I did it. And now, back to reality...
At Rhi's prompt I finally got around to uploading the backlog of Bunia's journal entries, including the one I finished off today which contains a sex scene. :S Because I usually fade to black pretty early on in such scenes, I'm always nervous about writing them out in full, and this is the longest one I've ever written. While I do know to avoid daft euphanisms, and my own sexual experience means that I won't make stupid mistakes about the basic mechanics of the act, I nonetheless don't know if my writing will be good enough. I want it to be a little hot, but don't want it to look like I was trying too much to make it hot - natural, then; a natural representation of what the viewpoint character (first-person narrator in this instance) was feeling.
In this case, it's one of the moments where I think I stretch the realism of this being someone's journal entries. Back when I wrote a journal of my own I never felt inclined to detail the sex I was having (instead I was angsting about my woeful life, along with a million other teenagers with equally woeful lives... as Bunia is 24, she doesn't angst all that much), but maybe some people do. I intend to slip a comment into one of the earlier entries, saying she has a very good memory that allows her to remember the details of conversations (again, another moment where I stretch the realism of the journal format), but would she remember the details of sex? I don't know.
This whole issue of the journal realism is one reason I'm considering self-publishing the entries when they're done. For one, they're likely to be too long for almost all magazines, but too short for novel publishers - currently 16k and counting. And this dubious realism of the journal entries means I think it'd be a tough sell. While I could convert it to basic first person, or even third person, I like the journal format as something different from everything else I write, and would have to rewrite some bits so they felt less like summaries of recent events. I'll see what I feel like when it's done, and I do think it will be done in the near future. There's another brief entry to upload, and then we get back to some non-sex plot. *snerk*
My Nano count is up to 37328, so it looks like I'll be able to push it
over 40k before the end of the month. I still don't think it will
make it up to 50k, if only due to time constraints. Still feeling
a bit ill today, but tomorrow I really need to start writing an essay
and start revising for my floor manager exam. Grr.
Earlier today I found a potential market for THE BEAUTIFUL COLLECTION - Crimson Highway - and submitted the story just now. They want dark romance-supernatural stuff, and considering TBC is about obsession with a flavour of magic I think/hope this mag will bite. They're a webzine and very new, but they've got a nice layout. Too many webzines look really shoddy, whereas these guys look really smart. While their publication of the crazy comma story was a bit of a turn-off, I otherwise quite like the look of them. What? You mean the story wasn't about the commas? Wow. That totally slipped by me. Could be something to do with the massive brain bleed caused by his comma-splicing-from-hell. "Using an impressionistic style of his own making" does not excuse it.
My Nano count has been totally killed by my cold, which turned out to be more vicious than I expected. Night before last I got about 2 hours' sleep, in 20 minute segments, and the whole of yesterday I felt like I'd just crawled out of my grave on a *really* bad day. I slept better last night, though not perfectly, and today I've been getting better though I've got a sore throat now and am otherwise not quite better. I severely doubt I will hit 50k, but if I can get over 40k I'll be happy because I'll still have been more productive than in previous months.
My floor manager test is scheduled for 8th Dec, which is another reason 50k won't happen. Tomorrow I need to start revising all that shitty knowledge I learnt back in August/September. I also need to write some essays, apply for a job, do more dissertation reading.... *hates the real world*
Also, House needs to be aired more than once a week.
And
the torrents need to be sorted out faster. *twitches*
What's he going to do? He's totally fucking up Wilson's life and
please, please let him finally realise he's being a complete shit to
his only friend, who is sticking by him despite being given no
thanks at all. Seriously, this most recent episode I barely
noticed the patient and the diagnosis and all that jazz. C'mon,
House, you wanker, do something! *angsts* This is why I
usually watch TV shows in box sets, not as they air. *angsts some
more*
(67.4%)
A few days ago I rewrote the rejected 99-word story, SNOWDROPS, expanding it into a 1,300-word story that I submitted to Electric Velocipede earlier this evening (after some crits from Rhi, Jon and the Lady of Glorious Buns, for which I am muchly appreciative). Looks like I won't hear back from that magazine for quite a while - could be up to half a year - but it's worth the wait because it's a fairly reputable little zine. The lady who rejected the 99-word version was definitely right to do so: it is *much* better as an expanded piece.
I'm just about on my Nano target, with Bunia almost exclusively providing me with the words. However, I reached about half past 11 and didn't feel like writing any more of her journal, so I decided to head on over to the 15minuteficlets community that Buneater has been enjoying and wrote a little piece in response to this week's prompt. It's.... it's a weird piece, with incest, gore, lesbians and magic. I will probably expand it some time, because I like the ideas I threw in there. You can find it - HERE!
I had hoped to be further ahead of my Nano target, but at least I'm not
behind. With any luck, I'll be reaching the target by the end of
the month. *hopes she hasn't jinxed herself by saying that*
(50.3%)
I'm back on target! *dances*
This is thanks to my wonderful muse Bunia, who has been spilling her story to me like floor-length hair falling free from a clasp. When I started her journal at the beginning of the month, I never intended to write so much so quickly. Now I have written 6 entries (one of which was 3 parts long) and I think there is still at least as much to go, in terms of word count, before I reach its end.
The other day I considered self-publishing the entries when they're done, simply because I felt they don't have a strong enough plot to get professionally published but I'd like to get them out there. Now, further in, I think maybe they will have a strong enough plot for me to at least attempt submitting them to the few magazines that take longer short-stories. Right now the entries total a bit over 6k, which already makes them too long for most mags. If they fail professionally, then I'll still consider self-publishing them. Could be fun.
In other news:
Went to see my friend Hajar sing at The Blag Club in Notting Hill this evening. She has a wonderful voice, in a very classical style (rather than a rock-voice, or punk-voice). Annoyingly a lot of people in the bar/club were talking through her set, but I loved her anyway.
Speaking of music, I'm hooked on this song at the moment:
Hell, speaking of awesome songs, here's another one:
Set the Fire to the Third Bar by Snow Patrol, featuring a lady with a wonderful voice whose name has temporarily slipped my mind. Anyway, listen and love.
And now, back to Bunia. The next entry will be a long 'un, because a lot of stuff happens between her more recent entry and when she could get her hands on some writing materials again. Dun dun DUN.
Sometimes muses can be a pain. They interrupt my thoughts in the midst of uni reading, essay writing, revision, exams, driving, work; name a time when I cannot write and they will demand that I write anyway.
But sometimes, sometimes they are a blessing, more beautiful than a kitten playing with a butterfly (assuming, that is, the kitten doesn't eat the butterfly. That's less beautiful).
In my last post I wrote about not being able to find words. And then what happens?
Bunia slides into my mind, slips her fingers into mine, and I write just over a thousand words of her journal (reaching the 14th's target) and am left with a reasonable sense of where it is going.
I have a sneaking suspicion that I will finish the journal entries during Nano, and that I will then begin Bunia's novel. But I don't mind. Writing about her is a joy.
It's nice to know that she's happy enough in my head to help me out like this. *smiles*
(45.4%)
That's 694 words behind today's necessary target to be on track.
Where are the words?
I don't know. I haven't yet figured out exactly what will happen in the next installment of Bunia's journal so I can't work on that; working on PAINTED ANGELS at the moment is like trudging through rapidly-solidifying tar (I am proud of the words I did manage today on that); none of my other short-stories-in-progress are flowing for me at this moment. And tomorrow night I'm going out, so I have no idea when I'll make up the difference - or on what. Beyond the end of the current PA chapter, I don't really know the details of what's going to happen and need more time than Nano allows to contemplate it. I know I said I was going to work on OGF as well over this month, but I'm really not feeling it.
This is very frustrating. I don't want to fail.
Some moments I'm happy with it. Quite a lot of the time I hate it.
I love the beginning of my book, the first two-thirds in fact. I think the world building and plot is strong, and the characters are interesting. But now, working on the final chunk of chapters, I don't like what I'm writing. I don't think it's as strong as the beginning. I'm better at writing the early stages, hinting at various elements of the mystery through different characters. When it's all in the air and has to be dealt with - in this case, with fighting - it just feels flat. Dull. But it's not like I can go "hey, mystery solved, why bother depicting the culmination of it all?" I have to. Otherwise the book wouldn't work. And the ending is the ending, it's the only thing I can see happening as a result of all that's happened in the book thus far. It would be a fairly unsatisfactory ending if the main characters weren't involved in the culmination of the war, I feel. What's happened in all the good stuff demands it. And hey, I do like it, and I think it could work quite well, but I only feel that some of the time.
This is probably symptomatic of approaching the end of the book. At least Nano is forcing me to write on it, even though it's mostly slow going. Hopefully I'll even get all the final chapters hammered out, and can begin the joyous process of hacking it up and trying to make it work for me all the time, or at least almost all of the time.
Fuck, some of the scenes I wrote today aren't that bad. I think I'm being overly negative. Hard bastard to shake, though, this negativity. Must just press on.
......
In other news, I posted A SHADE OF YELLOW off to Interzone today. Hopefully third time will prove the lucky one for this story.
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17,012 /
50,000 (34.0%) |
With the completion of a second journal entry for Bunia - available HERE - my Nano count has sneaked above today's target. Hooray!
(32.1%)
I lagged a little behind my Nano target, but made up for it by completing A FAY OF STEAM, my steampunk fairytale of 4,000 words. I even managed to include my poem - FOX IN THE FLOWERS
- in the story, with the last few lines altered, though of course the
poem's words didn't go into the Nano word count. I'm feeling
quite good about this story, and I'm quite hopeful that it will make it
into Cabinet des Fées. The four submissions to that magazine
logged on Duotrope's Digest are all sales, which both heartens me and
makes me worried I'll be the first to log a rejection. At any
rate, as soon as their next submission period opens on 1st December I
shall be winging A FAY OF STEAM in their direction.
