Yeah, it’s an element of my story… almost a short story-within-the-story featuring characters I originally intended to leave in the background. There’s one way to keep the ideas going.
And I only got a head start in the sense that I wrote less than 300 words on 10/31. I’ll try to make up for that by going at least 300 over the ultimate goal, to appease the NaNoWriMo dictators.
(Heh. “Aimhirghin”. I get a name that is both relevant and potentially-embarassing-sounding [to the close-minded]. Huzzah!)
Okay, so I finally concluded Chapter 6, “False Cheers” about 20 minutes ago. Ugh. That took way too long to get somewhere I needed to get. Still, I got to **23,265 words **just doing that, even if I’m still behind. I can easily speed up, though, now that I’m sure where things are going until Chapter 9 now. I just need to get there in time.
Well, I guess typing here isn’t going to help that. Onward to Chapter 7, “Insanity is Contagious”.
Yes, you must appease the dictatorship of One because 300 words is still “cheating”.
…But, really, I don’t much care, especially since it was such a small amount. I’d probably be genuinely annoyed if it was like 10,000+ (maybe as low as 5,000+), but, meh, I’m sure a bunch of other people have actually cheated. Good for them. I hope they enjoy (and choke on) their No-Prizes.
I just found it amusing that I’m the only person who didn’t start ahead of time that’s still doing this between you, Valaris and myself. I’d like to blame that on why I’m only one behind (who hasn’t just given up), but that’s mostly due to me being a lazy bastard and having crappy health.
Anyway, 5 more days (not counting today, "Thanks"giving still) until the end of this. Hurray for forcing myself to have to type 5,000+ words a day just to finish on time!
23,000+ words is pretty impressive considering the time crunch.
I have to type about 3,300 to make par for today. I could blame the holiday, but I slacked off the night before vacation, so there’s garden variety laziness/not-knowing-what-to-write-ness in there as well.
Still hanging in here, folks. Not very much motivation, but I am still writing, just at a diminished pace. 8k words. Mah.
At least this story is going somewhere. It’s as far as I’ve gotten into a novel so far, so that’s saying enough for now. I’m LOVING it. It’s become the novel I’ve always wanted to write, but just didn’t. It’s half a fantasy game world I designed and half an actual dream I had once and have never forgotten. Dreams are awesome that way. :tup:
(4 more days. And now my lazy ass has to do 6,250 words per day. That’s still manageable, though.)
Ah, I do so like writing villains, even though this is technically the first, well, second villain I’ve ever written. That’s probably a large part of the reason why my other book has been stalled forever; my character in book is/has to be such a goody-two-shoes, at least initially, that wouldn’t able to ever do things like this with him.
Threatening Irishman
[details=Spoiler]“Hold on just a minute,” he began in low tone, though he didn’t bother to bar Maxwell’s way completely. “Don’t get me wrong. I want you out of here, but if you think you can just bribe your way out of her–.”
Padrick was cut off by the air around him chilling as Maxwell stepped closer, hissing in a low tone of annoyance so that the others wouldn’t hear.
“The only ‘bribery’ I’m doing here is letting everyone besides the boy keep their lives. You have my word that he will remain unharmed, but I can’t say the same for you if ask any more questions.”[/details]
Funny how the Chapter 7 has begun so far in the completely opposite direction of where I intended it go solely because of the barkeeper character I spontaneously made up in Chapter 6 since I’m trying to follow “logic” in my spontaneity and said barkeeper ended up being “the boy”'s godson. So my protagonist just ends up leaving rather than that character having to escape even though my protagonist could easily kill everyone there if he really wanted to.
Anyway, I’ve finally broken the half way point at **25,107 words **by getting to the half way point of “Insanity is Contagious”. Onward, to Deustchland!
But it’s not enough~! [/whine]
Slacker! [/hypocrisy]
Good to hear that. At least you’re getting somewhere. I kinda felt that way about my second attempt. I liked it a lot more than first one, but I didn’t come nearly as close to finishing. Let’s “hope” yours ended up not getting scrapped completely as well like my second attempt will likely have to be at this point.
Lucky you. All I ever have is nightmares if I ever “dream” at all.
Almost 2,400 words to make up for today. When I was in the 4,000 word deficit pickle, the key combination was strong whisky and a 6AM deadline. I may try to repeat that success shortly.
EDIT:
Holy fuck, I drank that quickly. Not cool.
In any case, I reached a point where I ended the little sub-story I was working on, and, in a bid to continue working for the night, am in the process of conjuring a story out of my ass.
Time to combine different random elements and shit them out as a new idea. The real world story of Charles Harrelson + Action Comics #1. GO!
Since early this morning, I’ve written 5,809 words.
5,818 words to go before I hit 50,000.
Kinda trippy.
(Cool beans. [/not entirely sarcasm])
First and foremost, I’m an idiot for saying four days yesterday. Including today it’s five obviously. I guess I was just not counting Wednesday even though it still counts until midnight simply because I’m probably going to be gone most of that day.
I’ve made a little progress to about **25,725 **words three hours or ago before I had to finish up some Youtube distractions and some errands. I should be able to spend at least the rest of the night writing, so maybe I’ll make it to the **31,250 **“mark”.
We’ll see, but I don’t have anymore foreseeable distractions given that I finished up another phase of my other project a couple of days ago and the next phase can wait four or five days.
This reminds me. Is there such a thing as “sweet” whiskey? (Notice the “e”.) I brought it up in my story without knowing since I don’t drink alcohol.
British-English spelling is “whisky”, which I go by, considering that Crown Royal is made in Canada and is the only whisky that matters.
I wouldn’t call it sweet, but it’s definitely smooth.
On a tangentially related note, Crown Royal Reserve (the spicier, more potent sibling of Crown Royal) has gotten me through several difficult NaNoWriMo nights.
(No, I was spelling with an “e” because the Irish and Americans apparently do. Whisky without the an e is apparently Scottish thing instead. And since Scotland isn’t Ireland…
Good to know, though.)
We’re at **26,515 **words now and I’m just now getting to the mid-way point of Chapter 7, which is where I wanted to be like…500 words ago. Funny how that works out.
Damn dialogue.
Oh well. Now I can finally move on to punching children in the face. Hurray!
This morning/today’s exercise: a self-contained side story featuring a character who isn’t even in the rest of the story, just passing through while the events of the story proper occur in the background. Because I really am writing just about anything I can get away with at this point.
Goddamnit. I’m at 48,177 and I’m completely out of inspiration. I’m done with the storyline so I need to go back and add a few subchapters.
Impressive.
Just do what I’m doing. Keep on tacking little side-stories onto the end. You’ll figure out where they go when you return to edit the thing.
(Yeah, as much as I’m again it, “bullshitting” side-stories is in perfectly valid, especially if it’s not undercutting your main story. However, doing too much of that, even towards the end, is rather unsatisfying. It’s part of the reason I “scrapped” my first and only win completely.)
Meanwhile, the only other person doing this (besides Manx, technically) is now past the 30,000 word limit at 30,514 words with the end of Chapter 8. I would have gotten more done, I think, had I not had such a severe stomach pain literally all afternoon/since I’ve been awake.
Gonna try to go to bed soon or around midnight today just because I feel like so much more crap than usual. I would rather like this to be gone by tomorrow so I can get to 40,000 words at least.
Anyway, enjoy another crappy excerpt since I’m forcing it on you:
Gaze Into the Abyss
[details=Spoiler]He then remembered to ask one question while she was still here. So, he turned to make sure she was indeed still there. She hadn’t moved from her place at the shore.
‘Tell me. Did you also make sure that Amichai was strong enough to kill her if you speak so highly of him?’
‘I told him not to kill her,’ she confessed without moving.
‘This doesn’t surprise me,’ Maxwell also confessed. ‘Still, that doesn’t answer my question about him.’
‘You needn’t worry about Amichai’s strength. He’s stronger than even you.’
At this, Maxwell bristled silently, which caused her to turn around as he pointed at her accusingly, real or not, visible to others or not.
“*No one *is stronger than me. No one,” he declared to the world firmly.[/details]
Man, having villain protagonists is fun. I kinda don’t want to write Harold anymore, but I’m sure he can be done well…
Interesting. Sounds like a shonen manga, in a good way.
On the subject of bullshit side-stories, my novel started with a criminal cleaner and is currently dealing with the life of a pin-up girl who has spontaneously ended her modeling career.
I guarantee this is all going to fit together. Somehow.
EDIT:
Currently at 46,480. Today’s par is 46,666. I’ll probably have some time to write later today, but I think I can still squeeze off a few more before I shut down for now.
Maybe I’m out of line, but I’m considering this last 5,000 to be the home stretch. At the very least, it sounds encouraging.
(My last post reminds me: How are people dealing with emphatic dialogue? I’ve been playing around with all caps, bold and now italics–all caps has more been for volume, though.)
A moderate bump to say that I’m at **31,300 words **now after wasting so much time asleep and trying to get to sleep this morning and then having to deal with my computer being slow, probably because Word kept auto-saving since I was trying to not have my document saved as an actual done at present; I’ve been re-piecing the story together from another document every time I needed to for a couple of reason.
I would like to at least get to **35,000 **words at this point, but we’ll see how that goes. I don’t plan to go bed and I plan to start writing again at around 8:00 P.M. now that my stupid hair has been cut off.
Thanks. Even if I’m not quite sure what that means.
I’m sure you can make it fit if you really want it to. It just depends on if making it fits bogs down the story. You may have to ultimately excise it or at least lessen it, but it can definitely fit if you want it to.
It’s more a question of “should it” and “does it”.
I don’t do a whole lot in the way of dialogue. I guess I find it tedious. If I bother to specify what the characters are saying, I guess that in itself is pretty emphatic.
I guess caps could work, but the word choice itself might just do the job.
1,645 words to go. Time to skim the thing, find a character who hasn’t appeared in a while, and find a new idea to get me the rest of the way through.
I attempted this, partly in the hopes that writing something novel-esque would help me smooth out a script. I didn’t come close to the 50,000 word goal, but I did get what I needed out of it.
Good luck to participants on this home stretch!
EDIT: grats @ goodm0urning!
(I never understood why people use the term “baby” in positive and/or endearing way beyond a literal one.)
While not finished myself or managing to get exactly 35,000, I got close with **34,486 words **before ending Chapter 9 around midnight. That chapter ended up being far more talking interrogation style than a fight like I intended, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing since I fleshed out Amichai even more and fixed up a couple of not-quite plot holes by making them more cohesive. I’ll probably have a “proper” fight with someone soon since we’re approaching character introduction territory soon and both the Wind and Flame persons entrances are close at hand.
Let’s see how much I get done in the next 20 hours while I try, perhaps futilely, to fight off exhaustion (after a certain point) and, worse, a potential lack of ideas. Thankfully, the latter shouldn’t be too likely. I think even using 50,000 as an end goal, I’m barely done with like 20% of my “actual” novel at this point.
Heh, I kinda wish it was that way. I’m only comfortable with dialogue since, as I think I said earlier, I hate fashion and architecture and I’m pretty bad at face & physical descriptions. So it’s less than I can’t visualize things and more that I can put them in (printed) words.
So noted, though.
My sincere, non-jealous congratulations. Good to know that before this is over after tomorrow that at least one of us will have not failed.
Still, I feel I must ask, being the perpetual “downer” I am: Are you going to get those 256 words you still owe for “cheating” in before Wednesday is over?