Trying To Get My Various Plans In Order
November fourth is a special day in my NaNoWriMo career. It was the day that last year after getting home from Los Angeles and then feeling depressed about the election results (giving 36 hours to mourn for my country), I actually started "Why Sleep When I'll Only Dream?"
The LiveJournal story of my triumphant re-entry into the NaNoWriMo world (my first entry in 2003 went absolutely nowhere) is in the entry "Now That I've Actually Finally Started NANOWRIMO, I Don't Want To Stop" (November 5, 2004).
So as of today I can actually compare last year's word count to this one. Sheesh, I'm so competitive this year, I'm even competitive with myself. :)
NaNoWriMo 2004: 1,041 words
NaNoWriMo 2005: 5,641 words
Oh nice. Another numeric oddity! Exactly 4,600 more words at this point than last year! 46 is double 23. And 23 is the mystical number of the Illuminati. Alright, I'm going to stop that before they slap a tin foil hat on my head.
Anyhow, I feel a little as though my word count is deceiving me (if Microsoft Word is malfunctioning today it would make some sense considering the day I've been having). Although I've written almost 6,000 words, I feel like nothing has happened. Today was National Back Up Your Novel Day (NaBaUpYoNoDa) and I seriously felt like backing up my novel - back to the beginning.
There's been a lot established in the first 6k to be certain and I think the plot is moving along better than last years in a lot of ways (the first 5k or so of that felt like travel anecdotes) but it feels like there's a lot of fluff in this one that doesn't need to be there. It's not as taught as last year's. The problem is, I have no idea where the plot is going. Last year, I knew it had to eventually have MCs Scott and Emily end up in Berlin so I moved them a little closer to when and where they were ready to meet up (basically when they had been through things that switched their personalities).
This year, everything feels so stationary. No one is leaving Detroit (well at one point Liam will visit his father in Birmingham, United Kingdom and the assassination plot culminates in Victoria, Maryland) any time soon in the story. So all of the characterization is having to take place in basically the same locations. I have no settings to play off of.
To use today's writing as an example, of the 1,050 words that I wrote, 765 are a soliloquy by Liam on why throwing a brick through a window is an act of vandalism and spraypainting slogans on the same window isn't.
765 words was an entire train ride last year! Everything moved along so quick, there was no time to get boring! It's going to take a serious political science and history junkie to enjoy my final output. I feel like I've reverted to my ill-fated 127,000 word non-NaNo character development study and metaphyical claptrap bin (I seriously spent 3,000 words explaining horoscopes and why they may or may not be accurate) from 2002, "The Innocence Of Bliss." The only difference is that this time it's NaNoWriMo.
This time the goal is actually to advance the plot. I could probably have written the whole 50,000 words on the first two chapters by just writing out the entire speeches the main character gives. :) I'm back to competing with Ayn Rand (though that's not really fair because I'm still alive) for novels that are more political tretises than actual stories!
I'm not trying to pad my word count, honestly. There's a great essay on Word Count Show-Offs on the blog NaNoWriMo Works. Related to this entry, I heard a great quote, maybe on the forums, I've lost track:
"If you concentrate on the word count you forget the page, if you concentrate on the page, you forget the story."
And I admit, I'm guilty of concentrating on the word count as of late. I think once I get ahead of 50,000 pace instead of behind, it won't mean as much. I hope that's the case.
That being said, to close, I just wanted to mention that Chicago has its 50 entry combatants for the St. Louis Word War! St. Louis is still in the high 30s so some people are not going to make the head-to-head portion (where the number of people are exactly even and selected by the teams on merit). If all else fails, I just want to be one of the writers still left mid-month to compete in that.
And, of course, my daily update on the battle with. It's still not looking good. Maybe she'll run out of story while I'm solliquing away. :)
reliantfc3: 16,526 words
incendiarymind: 5,641 words
The LiveJournal story of my triumphant re-entry into the NaNoWriMo world (my first entry in 2003 went absolutely nowhere) is in the entry "Now That I've Actually Finally Started NANOWRIMO, I Don't Want To Stop" (November 5, 2004).
So as of today I can actually compare last year's word count to this one. Sheesh, I'm so competitive this year, I'm even competitive with myself. :)
NaNoWriMo 2004: 1,041 words
NaNoWriMo 2005: 5,641 words
Oh nice. Another numeric oddity! Exactly 4,600 more words at this point than last year! 46 is double 23. And 23 is the mystical number of the Illuminati. Alright, I'm going to stop that before they slap a tin foil hat on my head.
Anyhow, I feel a little as though my word count is deceiving me (if Microsoft Word is malfunctioning today it would make some sense considering the day I've been having). Although I've written almost 6,000 words, I feel like nothing has happened. Today was National Back Up Your Novel Day (NaBaUpYoNoDa) and I seriously felt like backing up my novel - back to the beginning.
|
There's been a lot established in the first 6k to be certain and I think the plot is moving along better than last years in a lot of ways (the first 5k or so of that felt like travel anecdotes) but it feels like there's a lot of fluff in this one that doesn't need to be there. It's not as taught as last year's. The problem is, I have no idea where the plot is going. Last year, I knew it had to eventually have MCs Scott and Emily end up in Berlin so I moved them a little closer to when and where they were ready to meet up (basically when they had been through things that switched their personalities).
This year, everything feels so stationary. No one is leaving Detroit (well at one point Liam will visit his father in Birmingham, United Kingdom and the assassination plot culminates in Victoria, Maryland) any time soon in the story. So all of the characterization is having to take place in basically the same locations. I have no settings to play off of.
To use today's writing as an example, of the 1,050 words that I wrote, 765 are a soliloquy by Liam on why throwing a brick through a window is an act of vandalism and spraypainting slogans on the same window isn't.
765 words was an entire train ride last year! Everything moved along so quick, there was no time to get boring! It's going to take a serious political science and history junkie to enjoy my final output. I feel like I've reverted to my ill-fated 127,000 word non-NaNo character development study and metaphyical claptrap bin (I seriously spent 3,000 words explaining horoscopes and why they may or may not be accurate) from 2002, "The Innocence Of Bliss." The only difference is that this time it's NaNoWriMo.
This time the goal is actually to advance the plot. I could probably have written the whole 50,000 words on the first two chapters by just writing out the entire speeches the main character gives. :) I'm back to competing with Ayn Rand (though that's not really fair because I'm still alive) for novels that are more political tretises than actual stories!
I'm not trying to pad my word count, honestly. There's a great essay on Word Count Show-Offs on the blog NaNoWriMo Works. Related to this entry, I heard a great quote, maybe on the forums, I've lost track:
"If you concentrate on the word count you forget the page, if you concentrate on the page, you forget the story."
And I admit, I'm guilty of concentrating on the word count as of late. I think once I get ahead of 50,000 pace instead of behind, it won't mean as much. I hope that's the case.
That being said, to close, I just wanted to mention that Chicago has its 50 entry combatants for the St. Louis Word War! St. Louis is still in the high 30s so some people are not going to make the head-to-head portion (where the number of people are exactly even and selected by the teams on merit). If all else fails, I just want to be one of the writers still left mid-month to compete in that.
And, of course, my daily update on the battle with
reliantfc3: 16,526 words
incendiarymind: 5,641 words
posted by incendiarymind at 8:29 PM
1 Comments:
Concentrate on the page and forget the story, eh? I usually write until one scene is over and then see how many pages it is--I can usually make a quick mental estimate of how much I've been writing. I guess that's sort of weird for me because unlike a lot of people I've talked to who typically check the actual word count about every minute or two, I wait until the end of the writing session.
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