Changing my technique

Yesterday, I wasted so much time. I spent all day saying "I'm going to write tonight, and catch up."

I didn't. Come 10:00? I was -worn out-, completely. No energy to lift my hands to the keyboard, much less think. So I wound up writing only around 1200 words.

Today? I've decided I'm going to handwrite during the day, and type it up at night. It got me my 6 and 5k days the first couple of days... I'm going to do it again. And it's working. Fewer distractions (hard to ignore that new email icon)

I've got five handwritten pages, college ruled, front and back. And it just feels so right to get ink on my hands, just like I used to. This has another added advantage... when it's cold? The living room is much warmer than the kitchen, where the computer is... so my fingers aren't as stiff.

I don't know what my word count for the day will be, but it will be substantially better than yesterday's.

The good thing is, I've just gotten to the scene where the antagonist captures my MC... and keeps her captive for a while. It's going to mess with her head, and maybe crack her psyche a bit, as well as serve for the impetus to seek out the final confrontation.

Helloooo turning point.

IN official NaNoWriMo news? Official word count widgets have been released, so now you can see my progress!

That really crappy day you see on the third was when the site crashed, and almost no one got to input their word counts. You see the impressive day four? Yeah, that's day 3 and 4 combined.



Click on the image to see my profile, excerpt, progress graph, etc. :)

Picking up the pace again

After hitting a sluggish spot, I had to do a little reworking to get things moving again. After renaming the character, I did a major shift in the action in that dragging, boring scene, and then terminated it, and jumped to the next chapter and scene mercilessly.

It seems to be working. I want my curve back to pointing at the sky, dagnabit! Not to mention, one of my fellow local wrimos has caught up to me not once, but twice! That is just not going to fly. So tomorrow, I'm devoted to getting a much more comfortable margin between us than the paltry thousand or few hundred we've been having. I would have had more tonight, but OpenOffice crashed on me for no apparent reason and I lost around 1,500 words. I did manage to get a screencap of some of it before the program terminated, so it was just retyping, but I'd have a much higher count if not for that. Ah well. I'm a compulsive saver and backer-upper.

Just moved up the plot a bit, have introduced a major villain and set Auriel on his path.

Let's get this party rolling!

Renaming a major character

I'm 17,500 words in, and suddenly realized that I hated one of my main character's names. I mean, really hated it. Not that it was a bad name, I just didn't like it for this character.

So, even though it's being read as I type (I post the day's progress in a locked journal post for a limited audience), I changed his name. And I like the one I chose.

I also did a nice jerking redirection of the scene's action, because I was BORED.

This is one of the greatest things I have learned from NaNoWRiMo. When things aren't working? CHANGE THEM. So what if it's a complete 360 from the previous paragraph. You can fix it when the first draft is done.

So, my story just got a wrenching change. And I feel motivated all of a sudden.

NOw, I've got less than three hours before Heroes, so I'd better get writing.

NaNoWriMo - Heaven's Bounty

Hola, dear readers!

Yes, of course I'm doing NaNo this year... duh. My word count for day two ended at 11,296... I'd say I'm off to a good start.

I have been doing a little handwriting... I must admit it feels good to have ink on my hands again. The end result is better, too. I positive edit (adding, not taking away) while transcribing, and I have more time to think about what I'm writing, since I write much slower than I type.

This year's nano started out as a fantasy, but decided it was a science fiction story. Gengineered animal-people, a winged bounty hunter, and shapeshifting mutants which threaten the world... it's fun already, and I adore my main character. Here's the blurb I wrote in my planning notebook:

Auriel Shiftal must use every resource at her disposal to find the source of the power that one held her captive in torture. With the aid of her half-tiger partner and a man she wants to love but cannot trust, she will uncover the secrets that once felled the most powerful nation on earth... and may do so again!

It's set in the far future, in a post-governmental collapse New Atlanta... a sprawling urban center that really did devour the countryside and suburbs around it to make a massive megacity that stretches from horizon to horizon.

It's got a few standard sci-fi elements, but I'm really enjoying the characters so far.

If you care to track my progress, here's my profile... web site widgets haven't been released yet, since the site has been dealing with significant traffic slowdowns since October.