Validated

I tell you what, I saw that finish line and I took off.  Two days ago (we're pretending it's still the 27th, so on the 25th I had 8,751 words remaining.  Even though that's pretty close to 9,000 which is pretty close to 10,000 if you divide it in half it doesn't look so bad.  I decided that I would LOVE to push for the over 4,000 a day and finish today (the 27th).  Distractions come and hot water heaters break, but my resolve never faltered.  I pushed through and passed the 50,000 mark just before midnight.  Unfortunately, it took me longer than those ten minutes to figure out where the validation button was hiding, so NaNoWriMo thinks I finished on the 28th.

But we know the truth!!!

I wrote 50,021 words in 27 days.  Really it took me right around 42 hours of actual writing time (let's not talk about procrastinating, I mean, contemplating time).  For the final day, my stats:

Your Average Per Day: 1,853
Words Written Today: 4681
Target Word Count: 50,000
Target Average Words Per Day: 1,667
Total Words Written: 50,021*
Words Remaining: 0
Current Day: 27
Days Remaining: 4
At This Rate You Will Finish On: November 27, 2011
Words Per Day To Finish On Time: 0

*I feel I must mention that even though I "won" NaNoWriMo, I haven't actually finished the story.  I do have a few more scenes left to go, even though I can feel it winding down.  If I'm really good, I will push myself to finish the actual story by the end of the month.  If not, I know I need to finish it soon.  Even so, I am fully celebrating crossing the hurdle of 50,000 words, especially since this is my first year attempt.

Sighting the Finish Line

I know I updated yesterday, but I have to comment about today's success.  Today, I needed 38,333 in order to be on par.  At one of my stopping places, I was at 38,333 precisely.  Yes, I wanted to add "he said" to the end of the sentence, but I left it 38,333 for a couple of hours just for fun.  Tomorrow's par is 40,000, but I planned to take Thanksgiving off, so I preferred to pull ahead rather than behind.  Happily, my stats tonight are these:

Your Average Per Day: 1,754
Target Average Words Per Day: 1,667
Words Written Today: 3,529
Target Word Count: 50,000
Total Words Written: 40,356  
Words Remaining: 9,644 
Current Day: 23
Days Remaining: 8
At This Rate You Will Finish On: November 28, 2011


That's right.  I now have less than 10,000 words to finish NaNoWriMo.  Now I think I am going pass 50,000 words before I run out of novel, but that's okay.  I would rather have that problem than try to write 10,000 words of fluff.


I would love to validate my novel early, and I have a pretty packed work schedule until into December, so here's hoping I stay ahead of the curve.

Happy Thanksgiving to all & to all a good night!

The Myth of Writer's Block

Okay, this is the Week 3 update for NaNoWriMo, but I cheated and waited until I had good news before posting this.  To explain the title, I don't believe in Writer's Block -- it's just a mythical creation to excuse a day off.  Still, I do believe in Writer's Boredom which is what struck this week.  I reached a surprisingly muddy part of the story and found that I hated the story, the characters, the very concept.  The beginning of the week I piddled around, and produced a lousy amount of material.  Last Tuesday, I had set the goal of 3,000 words since I didn't have work -- I ended up with 276.  Pathetic.  Finally, I threw in a completely random and inappropriate flashback, just to write something out of context.  By the end of the flashback I had figured out how to continue and suddenly, it was like the faucet had been turned back on.

I think the hardest thing to do is to remember to think ahead.  I'm no good with outlines, so most of this is on the fly, but once I come to the end of the scene I want to know where to go next.  I think that's what got me in trouble early last week and I needed the time outside the main story to decide how to continue.  The benefit of this experience is it helps me learn what kind of writer I am and what I need to do for lengthy projects.  Hopefully, at the end I can say that this particular project was a success.

Here are my stats from the end of today (as I said, not actually representative of the week):
Your Average Per Day: 1,673
Target Average Words Per Day: 1,667
Words Written Today: 3,560
Target Word Count: 50,000
Total Words Written: 36,827  
Words Remaining: 13,173 (looks pretty good, I'd say!)
Current Day: 22
Days Remaining: 9
At This Rate You Will Finish On: November 29, 2011 (how I hope this is true)

Meet Algernon

Btw... I realized in writing the post below that I never introduced my new car.  Meet Algernon:

Algernon is a nautical blue Toyota Matrix (pre-owned) with everything I could have wanted and more.  Poor Richard the Lionheart fell in a terrible accident, but he died nobly, protecting his family and even strangers.  Algernon and I took to each other right away and he has graciously stepped in to fill the void Richard left behind.  Oh, and did I mention he has a sunroof?

20,000 Words Onto the Page

This update pertains to yesterday, so take a moment to pretend it is Sunday, November 13 and the end of the week.  This was an interesting week now that the show has closed and it was my first pure American Greetings week since I started in September.  Monday was a very important day.  Algernon went on his first road trip with Mom and I to College Station and carried home his first load -- my desk and three boxes of books.  Oh, and while in CS I had to go to Hastings.  And buy two more books.

The rest of the week I pretty much devoted to writing a book and getting caught up from performance week.  Friday, I met trouble when I got sick.  I managed to write for a full 5 minutes, churning out a prolific 130 words before succumbing to a medicine-induced sleep (I slept the entire day.)  When I read the thing in December, I'll see if those 130 words stick out horribly.  Fortunately, I had the rest of the weekend to make up for lost time.

What I found this week is that it does start to come more naturally.  Last week I sometimes struggled to get 450 words out of a half hour, this week I'm consistently getting 650.  However, my concern for the weeks ahead is that I'm going to run out of story.  I may need to do something drastic!  For this week however, I am proud to report that I have caught up!  Here are the stats from last night:

Your Average Per Day: 1,646
Target Average Words Per Day: 1,667
Words Written Today: 3,325
Target Word Count: 50,000
Total Words Written: 21,402
Words Remaining: 28,598
Current Day: 13
Days Remaining: 18
At This Rate You Will Finish On: November 30, 2011


This is the first time it has told me I will finish in November!  Woohoo!

Silence Will Fall

When you see me next ask, me what happens when a show that has 168 (called) sound cues needs to perform without a working sound program.  SPOILER:  It's an experience.  The story is much better in person with wild hand motions and a myriad of sound effects, or I would post it now.

That's the teaser; the meat of this update is a status report with NaNoWriMo, now that November has started and I've been through a week.  Write or Die is the only way to do it.  As the catch phrase says, it puts the "prod" in "productivity" (I saw that a few days ago and I still find it hilarious).  I always set it to 500 words in 30 mins and sometimes I struggle to make it through and end up with around 400 and sometimes the words just fly from my fingers and I end up with 600.  Interestingly, I usually have more trouble with the first chunk of the day and just fly through the second portion.  This is nice because while I may not have 500 every 30 mins, I consistently have 1000 every hour.

Which is to say in plainer terms, I have been making good progress despite my busy week thanks to the useful tools at my disposal.

I did fall behind my personal goals for the week and certainly fell behind what's "par" for the course, but I still feel good about what I squeezed in and am hopeful for the month as a whole.  What I've written so far is absolute rubbish, but that's the whole point of this thing.  Keep going, no matter what.  I've made a lot more progress in six days than I would have in six weeks if I kept trying to make it unrubbish.  (Please forgive me as I modify an extremely British term for my purposes).  I'm already a winner.  So here are my stats so far copied from the very helpful chart on the NaNoWriMo site.

My Average Per Day: 1,004
Target Average Words Per Day: 1,667
Words Written Today: 2,023 (it was a pretty good day)
Target Word Count: 50,000
Total Words Written: 6,026  
Words Remaining: 43,974
Current Day: 6
Days Remaining: 25
At This Rate You Will Finish On: December 19, 2011 (yes, I know I have some catching up to do, but I think this morning I was poised to finish sometime in January)