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#211 |
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Social Worker
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Vancouver
Posts: 4,216
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I think the easiest way to finish is to just think in terms of quantity and ignore the quality -- you know, like well-established authors do. ;) If what you're writing now doesn't match up with what you wrote last week, don't worry about it, just keep going.
For me, the impulse to go back and fix things is sometimes too strong to ignore. I can't proceed until I at least hammer out some of the problems I see. I've done this about three times in the past week and it's cost me most of the progress of each day I've done it. Today I went back and removed a major new element I'd introduced nearly 4/5ths into the story. With just a little reflection I could see it didn't fit the story at all. I could have just ignored it and changed it later but it became a big block in my mind and I *had* to deal with it. I still ended up ahead of where I was yesterday, though. If I put in three consecutive strong writing sessions I could be done the first draft by Friday. I will say at this point the story is not at all like the way I imagined it at the start. |
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#212 |
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Social Worker
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Overland Park, KS XBL & PSN: Kid Socrates
Posts: 3,582
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Oh, I'm going to finish. I'm going to kick this story's ass. There's really no other way I can do this -- if I'm serious about being a writer, which I am, 50K words isn't going to be too many in a month. I'm going to try and keep at this pace even after November. I've got a lot more than 50K to write. Hitting 2500 words yesterday and not feeling like I pushed myself hard at all was encouraging, and makes up for the occasional slow days I've fought through. My concern now is Thanksgiving weekend -- with two tabletop gaming sessions and one day of turkey and football planned, I'm hoping I don't get behind. Maybe I'll lock myself in the computer room Saturday and not come out until I've written 20,000 words.
I have two documents I'm doing right now. The first is my Nano document, which has everything I've written. The other is the Edits document, where I jot down all the crap I know I need to fix later. This seems to satiate my inner editor. A friend of mine who's doing this emailed me today to mention that he has more writing to do after this month if he wants to finish. "I'm halfway through my word count, but not halfway through my plot." My reply: "I've written three and a half chapters of 24. I'll be doing this FOREVER." Oh, and while I don't have a demon mages living in an active volcano, I do have a church built out of a colossal harp, where instead of bells chiming the hour, beautiful music is played that reverberates throughout the city. That's not as cool, though -- I dig the volcano mages. I find that I love writing fantasy novels. It's much easier to come up with something and just work it in. I don't have to figure out the science about it. I make sure it makes sense in the fiction I've created here, and there's an internal ruleset to make sense of first, but if I really want to use something and I can't figure out how it works -- it's magic! I'll probably figure out why it works and what the magic's deal is later. I need to also keep track of random plot threads I've devised since I started. |
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#213 |
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6th Grade Spelling Bee Loser
World's End Supernova
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Xbox Gamertag: Rimbosity
Posts: 20,260
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A church built out of a harp? That's pretty fucking awesome, actually.
Yeah, I'm finding that I have a lot of trouble not thinking about how things work. I probably have more of a hard SF nature than a true fantasy nature. There's a big ol' massive "That's just not possible" element to my story, and I know it's there, and I'm not going to be able to let it rest. So the answer I come up with that is gonna be reaaaaaaaaaaaaal tricky. Although honestly, if I were to end my day job, I suspect I'd have the most success with horror. |
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#214 |
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Social Worker
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Farmington, CT ps3:russellmz
Posts: 3,479
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#215 |
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6th Grade Spelling Bee Loser
World's End Supernova
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Xbox Gamertag: Rimbosity
Posts: 20,260
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Odd. Went from 42,400 to 44,200. I swear, I didn't plan that or anything.
Slowing down somewhat because I need to think through the next bit a little. |
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#216 |
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Social Worker
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Vancouver
Posts: 4,216
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42,175. A pretty good day, in all. I am very close to writing the final scene.
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#217 |
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6th Grade Spelling Bee Loser
World's End Supernova
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Xbox Gamertag: Rimbosity
Posts: 20,260
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sooooooo close. I'm actually worried that I might end the novel before I hit 50k. Well, I can always go back and expand on things, I guess!
Probably going to need to, anyway. |
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#218 |
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Social Worker
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Asia, with the giant robots, big eyed girls and magical swords
Posts: 4,017
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I'm not participating in NanoWrimo this year, but any chance you folks are going to post all your stories online to read?
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#219 |
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6th Grade Spelling Bee Loser
World's End Supernova
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Xbox Gamertag: Rimbosity
Posts: 20,260
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Yep! Although I already know I need to edit what I wrote tonight.
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#220 |
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6th Grade Spelling Bee Loser
World's End Supernova
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Xbox Gamertag: Rimbosity
Posts: 20,260
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eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
50,670 BITCHES!!! And totally confirmed. And, even better, I got to the end of the story. Although I could probably write a bit more. In fact, I could probably write a whole book more. Whew! Wow. Good luck everyone else! I hope you all finish, too! Well, all of you who are able to. Which at this point is basically Jeff Green, KidSocrates and Creole Ned. I'm cheering for all of you! |
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#221 |
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Social Worker
Join Date: Jun 2002
Posts: 2,341
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Grats, Rimbo!
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#222 |
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Social Worker
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Vancouver
Posts: 4,216
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I'll finish. I am 45,000+ right now and am working on the final "big" scene, which will be followed by a smaller one to wrap it all up. I should come out to 50,000 at least and once I take care of some of the issues with consistency earlier in the story I'm sure I'll pass 50,000 easily.
If it wasn't already late I'd push to finish it tonight. Congrats, Rimbo! EDIT: 45,133 before packing it in tonight. Last night I only put a 1,000 or so in as I ironed out the details (re: went back and edited yet again) for the final stretch. Last edited by Creole Ned; 11-21-2009 at 01:43 AM.. |
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#223 | |
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Social Worker
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Overland Park, KS XBL & PSN: Kid Socrates
Posts: 3,582
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Quote:
I am way behind in the count, but taking this weekend and Thanksgiving break to finish. I think these two chapters will flow easily, it's stuff I've been wanting to write for a year. |
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#224 |
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6th Grade Spelling Bee Loser
World's End Supernova
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Xbox Gamertag: Rimbosity
Posts: 20,260
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I've never been one to actually read what I've written before I hit the "post" button, so here it be
Edit: warning... it may be a bit awful. |
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#225 |
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Social Worker
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Vancouver
Posts: 4,216
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With R.E.M.'s "The Flowers of Guatemala" playing in the background, I finished The Ferry tonight, coming in at 50,810 words.
And now, sleep! |
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#226 |
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6th Grade Spelling Bee Loser
World's End Supernova
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Xbox Gamertag: Rimbosity
Posts: 20,260
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yaaaaaay Ned!
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#227 |
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Social Worker
Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 2,059
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Just crossed over the 30,000 word mark.
I might still make it! |
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#228 |
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6th Grade Spelling Bee Loser
World's End Supernova
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Xbox Gamertag: Rimbosity
Posts: 20,260
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I think you can! The Thanksgiving holiday hopefully will give you a lot of time to catch up.
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#229 |
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Spinning Toe
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: The Slough of Despond Gamertag:SpielerDrei
Posts: 542
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Congrats, guys. Good to see someone reached the finish line with the same wagon I fell off of.
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#230 |
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Social Worker
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Vancouver
Posts: 4,216
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It feels strange now to have it done. I'm forcing myself to not look at it for a week before I start reading it over in preparation for a second draft.
Good luck to those still in the running! I'll try to organize some thoughts on the exercise as a whole soonish. |
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#231 |
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Social Worker
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Farmington, CT ps3:russellmz
Posts: 3,479
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#232 |
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6th Grade Spelling Bee Loser
World's End Supernova
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Xbox Gamertag: Rimbosity
Posts: 20,260
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#233 |
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New Romantic
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Madison, WI Gamertag: Dr JonDanger Steam: Jon_Danger
Posts: 7,438
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#234 |
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6th Grade Spelling Bee Loser
World's End Supernova
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Xbox Gamertag: Rimbosity
Posts: 20,260
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#235 |
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Social Worker
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Vancouver
Posts: 4,216
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#236 |
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Social Worker
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Vancouver
Posts: 4,216
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KS is past 40,000 words and Jeff is still kickin' it at 36,000. Go guys!
Today the word count verifier on the NaNoWriMo site went live, meaning if you submit your novel and it's 50,000+ words you're declared a "winner" and your progress bar changes to purple, the international color of winning! The validator also seemed to pad my novel by an extra 58 words -- handy if you come up a tiny bit short and are utterly devoid of last minute inspiration. |
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#237 |
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New Romantic
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Wellington
Posts: 5,840
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Great work those going strong! I had a cool idea but in the end I couldn't play it out in a way that made a story happen. Scene after scene were there, but going nowhere. I'm kinda bummed about it. I think part of the problem is I've had a core concept in my head a while, but no story to hang it off, and for NaNoWriMo you probably should just go in pretty clean. Or I can't make stories. I dunno. If anyone gets bored I'll toss them my few thousand words for at least writing criticism! :D
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#238 |
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Social Worker
Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 2,059
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Gonna be totally down to the wire for me. Getting in the car now for a fuggin' 6-hour drive to LA, then fuggin' Thanksgiving dinner with the fuggin' family, which is all time I could be using to finish. DAMN RELATIVES.
Should be free and clear Fri/Sat for a couple marathon sessions though. 14,000 words--no big deal, right? :( On the plus side, I randomly got an email to my NaNoWriMo account from some folks at an independent book publisher saying they were interested in the Xanthor novel. !?!? Who knows, they may do a 180 once they read how bad it is, but it was a nice shot-in-the-arm for my motivation! |
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#239 |
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Social Worker
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Vancouver
Posts: 4,216
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This will no doubt herald the beginning of a 12 volume Xanthor series. This is your new life! Xanthor in the morning, Xanthor in the evening, Xanthor all the time!
Seriously, getting interest in an unfinished novel is both weird and cool. Congrats. :) Calistas, if you want feedback on what you've written, by all means link away. P.S. The latest pep talk e-mail suggests changing your time zone on the site to buy yourself a few more hours if necessary. Every bit helps! |
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#240 |
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Social Worker
Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 2,059
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Oh shit! I have all day Monday too, don't I??
I was thinking I only had until 11:59:59 SUNDAY night. But that's when it turns Nov 30. I just gained a whole extra day IN MY MIND! YAY! Right? I'm not misreading this? *delirious from nonstop writing* |
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Nanowrimo 2009: or 50,000 words is more than I thought.
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