Slacked yesterday and got about 10 words down. Actually I didn’t slack, I knew I had stuff to do so I got some sleep after work. But I also put forth 0 effort to get anything done, so I’m going to be writing a lot today to make up for it. I hate playing catchup. So far I’ve been slowly but steadily progressing.
I didn’t get much done yesterday, either… or rather this morning. It’s still technically the same day, so I might (not) try to get some work done later today.
(It would seem that people are getting infected by my sloth.)
I went to bed early last night because I didn’t want to try to right/start the fight until I had a “perfect” direction, but I decided to finally force myself to write something about an ago. It’s a bit meandering (though it’s not fluff or anything) and the fight still hasn’t “started” per se since they’re still talking, but I got at least 700 words in addition to the protagonist finally giving the read a name to go off and a display of what he can actually do; I’ll probably have him give readers a name on the first page rather than the fourth when I edit this.
It’s funny how what he’s just been shown to do still won’t be enough to actually let him win even with another character in the background.
Anyway, I’m going to try to type the entire fight by the end of the night because I want to be done with Chapter 1 and I figure that the fight will conclude that. So I’ll probably be at least 3,000 by the time that’s done with if not more. Woot. Slow, lazy progress.
As per my prediction, nothing done since I left the office Friday at 5:00pm. I have barely had 2 hours cumulatively to sit down in front of a computer.
Going to start taking names again tomorrow at work. About time for bed honestly.
(Note to everyone: hyphenated words count as one-word. That’s seems pretty obvious and I’m sure not everyone is as stupid as me when it comes to forgetting, but, yeah…)
Ugh, at least you had an excuse for not getting anything done. I’ve just mostly had laziness, poor health aside. I still can’t believe I freaking slept for 12 hours (taking into account the time change) and still haven’t heard back from some people; it’s starting to seriously annoy me, even though I knew this weekend was going to be shitty since this Friday.
That said, about 20 minutes ago, I finally forced myself to sit down and type up some more of Chapter 1. I got a satisfactory amount of work done in about an hour considering my ire to the point where I’m at 2,487 words…and still like only 50% of the way through Chapter 1. Oh well. The fight’s started at least finally and I have a clear plan of what I want to do.
I’m going to try to finish Chapter 1 (even though I expect it to have 4,000+ words at this point) before I leave to go to an art jail in what will now be a couple of hours.
We’ll see how that goes, though.
Hah. I am now without my computer until Tuesday while the computer doctor figures out what’s wrong with my shit. In the meantime, I’ll be using a complex system of emailing shit to myself from other computers until I get mine back.
On a slightly related note, I was a bad boy today and only got a little over 400 words done. My total count is about 11,000, which is where I wanted to be days ago.
I hate typing on other keyboards. Alas, such is the life of the beleaguered novelist.
I’m running into a stretch when I’m having more trouble coming up with what happens next. Not that I’m drawing a blank, but the answers aren’t coming as easily and it’s slowing me down. I need a way to freshen it up and get the rush of ideas going again. If only I were Alan Moore, I could do a story arc based on different American horror genres, then have my character attack Gotham City, then have him go on a space odyssey…
I hear you man.
Need to fix mine, but at least it’s working here.
I’m way behind. 8800, right now. Going to try to work on it before I go to bed tonight, but HOPEFULLY my wife will not have a honey do list tomorrow night when I am usually supposed to have some free time.
Nice to know who you’re channeling, G’M0urning. Share a bit about who you write like when you can’t write like yourself.
Personally, if I learned nothing else from this whole thing already, It’s a whole lot about how my psyche works, as without even know it, I’ve managed to full-circle rip off a major character from a major and very well known series and unconsciously lead back to this via my choice of character name, something I thought to have been random. It wasn’t. Not going to name the author.
Also, Neal Stephenson has been raped with a keyboard a bit. Trying to write 5k words today. Wish me luck. :tup:
School and worked screwed me over so hard.
I’m at like 6000 and in the next two days only have 5 hours combined free time. -_-
After that I’m off 'til next monday though, which will pretty much become grind time.
Wow. I didn’t even know anyone else was doing this. G’luck, Losha. :tup:
(Heh. No like anyone needs to worry. No one here is as behind or lazy as I am.)
So, about an hour ago I finally did was I said I was going to do yesterday before I got bummed out and then spent like two hours talking to someone online about something else entirely. In trying to finish Chapter 1, I think I just stretched out by 400 more words by adding 800 more words. I’ve definitely made the antagonist even more powerful than I was originally going to in the beginning in getting to 3,274 words, largely because I can’t have her being permanently injured at this point and being almost impaled by a spear of ice will do that.
I have to admit it’s kinda fun writing her as pissed off, though. Hurray!
I’m going to try to get to at least 5,000 tonight after I come back from the errand I’ve set for myself, though just leaving here will still probably take another hour.
i need to get in this today
(Hunh. I actually managed to hit a goal I set for myself for once.)
While I didn’t finish Chapter 1 just yet (which is kinda of ridiculous, now that I think about it), I’ve more importantly managed to get past 4,000 words just in the typing the last hour or so. My current word count stands at **4,384 words **and Chapter 1 should be ending within the 5,500 word range now most definitely; I know who it’s going to end anyway considering I’ve been thinking about it for the past two days.
I didn’t get as many words as I had wanted during that type because, as I said, my typing speed has kinda fallen off lately on top of the fact that I was writing both a chase and fighting scene while having to keep track of the terrain, tactics and dialogue. It’s certainly interesting and something that I’ll have to go address from the beginning from consistency sake. But, hey, I got already to use the Caps Lock function legitimately (if only for a sentence) and have had the greater villain break into a cliche monologue/vague explanation of “Why You’re Going to Die”.
So I think I’m finally in this.
I’m just going to have a pick shorter story premise–which I am absolutely horrible at doing–for next year since there’s no way in hell this book is ending at 50,000 words. I’ll be lucky if I’m at the half-way point by that time; I think that may be where I failed at the first two attempts–even though I technically finished first–and that I was trying to fit them into the 50,000 word limit (or around there) when they were obviously going to be greater than that.
P.S. It’s also nice to have come up with a tentative title for this today even if it’s still kinda basic, though not as basic as the original title or my other (series of) book(s).
I don’t think mine is either 1) Ending at 50,000 words or 2) Ending at one book. But, I’m content with that. Like I said in the OP, I’ve been wanting to, and looking for an excuse to write a book for a long time, so regardless of how far the content goes, I’m seeing this through.
I’ve shown my prologue (I’m assuming it’s going to be the prologue, but I haven’t divided anything out into chapters yet), to one of my best friends, who is also the one that nudged me into joining NaNoWriMo this year (he’s doing it too), and is also a pretty strong critic of creative work, and usually who I bounce feedback off of whenever I do anything creative, and he gave me some pretty strong praise. So I feel like I’d be an idiot if I didn’t finish this, whether or not I make it for the deadline or it ends with the word quota or not.
Back on the subject of word counts, I’m closing in on 10,000 now. Want to hit that before I go home at least, then reach close to 14,000 at home, so long as my wife is in a good mood and doesn’t need my help with something today. (she should be in a good mood, she finally found a good bookstore in Qingdao today, and was hitting it up while I’m at work)
EDIT:
Wasn’t as productive as I hoped this morning, but more than I thought. I wasn’t feeling it at all and was prepared to accept defeat and turn in early. Instead, I went off and did other stuff for a while, until I’d had enough time to think up an angle that would get me writing again–a new direction that was different enough to get me interested again, but still relevant enough to be included in the story.
The way I’m seeing it: if it isn’t interesting enough to keep writing it, think of something that would be interesting to write and find a way to get into it as quickly as possible. That’s the procedure that I’ve had to follow, even if coming up with the idea did chew up some of my writing session.
On that note, if this month is NaNoWriMo, next month is going to have to be NaNoEdMo. I wouldn’t be surprised if this first draft ends up as nothing more than the skeleton of the next one. The prose should be the thing that maximizes the effect of the content. Right now, it’s just a blunt instrument that I’m using to bash my ideas into crude form. The majority of the text is begging to be rewritten.
I’m somewhere between 14,000 and 15,000 words, at last check. At my original planned daily rate, I’d be at around 20,000 today, but fuck it. I’m still on schedule to finish on time. Just won’t have as much wiggle room (or as many fuck-off days) left over at the end.
shift key doesn’t work on my wife’s laptop. that murphy guy is fighting me tooth and nail over this book. can’t even type basic punctuation…
Gowdamn, Suparman. You’re beasting on us. Poor Missing Person and his PC woes.
My kids > me. Don’t think I’ll be getting much done today, but I’ll see if nap time can be turned into a writing session today.
(Yeah, that Murphy guy gets around.)
flails sporadically
Ugh! Why couldn’t I be aiming to write a shittier fiction story like TV’s Heroes where characters are complete idiots in both mundane and super situations? I couldn’t do the standard comic book thing of having a super-powered character forget about their power or do something stupid like rush in suicidally despite power. No. I just had to create a villain that can basically fly and attack vertically without becoming easily tired from that and being competent enough to maintain that distance even when pissed off.
Sigh.
Okay, so just as of 20 minutes ago, despite getting horrible distracted and having a doctor’s appointment earlier today, I’ve finally gotten past 5,000+ words; I’m currently at **5,174 words. **The thing is, though, Chapter 1 is **still **not concluded yet. It will probably take and 6,000 words at this point and that only because I’m going to have “rush” the conclusion of this fight and have the protagonist become even more injured than initially in the process.
Meh. He’ll live. Now I just to figure out a plausible way to ground said person and non-fatally trap them (and resist the urge to invoke Eye Scream). Hurray…
Also, going to try to do all of this before midnight, which is 4 hours from now for me. Wish me unluck.
Just give your characters psychological hang-ups about using their powers. Like, “I would punch your head clean off your neck, but that would be too easy.”
(There is a reason I’m not working in that genre.)
(I thought it was because you can’t use Superman without getting sued and you didn’t want to make yet another expy of him.)
Oh, I know that. I mean, I’ve done that for my other series books planning-wise. My main character there would be able to straight murder most people if he really wanted to/wasn’t so terribly nice; there’s a reason he’s a goody-two shoes and he’s not the only one with such limitations.
That doesn’t really work for this character unfortunately since she’s doesn’t really give a damn about human life, though she’s not going to outright massacre people (for almost entirely different reasons) despite that. She’s not stronger than my protagonist physically anyway and not just because she’s a woman. It’s more her mobility issue, being able to fly when he can’t, in addition to able to attack from that distance, which I can’t just have suddenly fail (in good taste) due to how both are powered and the terrain.
Yeah… I think I’ve thought of a way to get around it anyway. It’s just annoying that it’s taking so long even if it’s progressing “naturally” and in an interesting way that’s caused me make her more than twice as strong (though to be fair, she was twice as strong to begin with, I just forgot) as I originally intended yet still believably “beatable”.
Although, at this point, I can’t say I’m really looking forward to how to introduce most of the other characters yet since I’ve only introduced two–well, technically three–and I’ll only have introduced four at most before this chapter is over. That’s going to be where the real fun starts.