My first couple days were a bit of a bust. As of yesterday, I'd had less than half of what I'd written by then the year before. Although day 3, 2008, I didn't write anything, and today was my most productive day so far, and as of right now, I have last years word count beaten by almost five hundred words, so I guess I'm doing OK.
I am going to take a picture of myself at the end of the day, every day, this month to track what this work is doing to me. Honestly, I expect to gain a little weight this month as I'll be drinking caffeinated beverages and sitting on my ass, although how different that is from my daily routine, well... we'll see.
So, today went well. I didn't do much during the time when i'd normally be working, but I did hang out with my mom and Sophie, get my car registered (squee! although it cost almost $150.) and talk to Ashleigh at PTC about which hat she wants me to make for her and her boyfrieng (which, if you care: her original request and the pattern we decided on). So I did get some stuff done, just not the noveling I had planned.
When I picked Shawn up from work, he and I went to Weeksies pizza and met up with some other WriMos. They're a fun group... Calli and her husband Alex (I think), A dude named John (again, I think), another woman whose name I can't remember, and Calli's friend Sue who just moved here from Arizona. I really like the Write Ins, and although I didn't get much work done at tonights or the one on the first, I still find them beneficial. Even if I never really get work done at them, I think I'll feel the same way. Just being surrounded by people who have the same goal as you makes you feel good. Plus, we all have a similar sense of humor, which is awesome. In fact, on the 10th or 11th, we are going to have a Write Out (as in Five is right out!) at Calli's house where we will get together to (hopefully) drink a little and watch Eddie Izzard on Netflix Instant Watch. I was very excited that everyone at the table I was sitting at on Sunday knew and could reference Eddie Izzard and Monty Python, and then today it was The Princess Bride. We're all a little weird and nerdy, but we seem to fit together well enough.
After we got home, and I put Sophie to bed, I screwed around on my computer for a little while (and definitely longer than I should have) but then I [mostly] cracked down and got to work and ended up 1,999 words in just under two hours, in addition to my 597 words of outline and my 803 words written at the write in. It (meaning YWriter) says I wrote 488 words already today but I didn't work that long after midnight... maybe 6 minutes... so I don't really know how that is possible. And now that I'm thinking about it, I'm wondering if it has some internal clock which wasn't set to 'fall back.' Either way, I write a good amount and I'm totally caught up. In order to finish on time I need to write a little under 1700 words per day, which really isn't that hard... as long as I stay focused.
So, to my story, I am finally working on Joshua Farthing. After about five years of this little egg incubating, it's finally time to make an omelet. Or a chicken. Either way, we're getting started. I am through the prologue and almost done with chapter one. I have the next two chapters outlined, and from there... well, hopefully Josh & co. know where they're going because I sure as hell don't. Yikes. I'm sure it'll work out though. I mean... I can't just type "help" over and over again until I get to 50K. (or can I?)
Provided that I make a couple hours for myself every night, I should be able to finish with words to spare. And even if I miss a night, or only get a few hundred a few times throughout the month, I should be able to make up for it. I mean, some people write 50K in one weekend, so... I can totally do it in 30 days.
Right now I have characters that need more personality and physical descriptions, places that need mapping, and the whole middle of a story that is mostly blank. So far the Big Bad's motivation is that she is just a douche. Awesome. (No, it's not.) So that definitely needs some work... I'm sure she'll reveal the why at some point, but hopefully it's sooner rather than later.
The big difference I'm finding though, between myself and other WriMos, is that I am not just trying to write words. I'm trying to write a worthwhile, publishable story. Ever since I can remember, the only thing I really wanted to be was a writer. I vaguely remember other child hood dreams, like teacher (because I could have summers and weekends off), ballet dancer (despite never having taken lessons), scientist (specific, non?), singer or actress. OH, you know, that's not totally true. I also have always wanted to travel the world. I remember my cousin and I sat with a globe on the kitchen table at her house and we wrote a big list of all the countries we were going to visit together someday. (and an idea like that is laughable now, for many reasons.) But back to my point, before I even liked reading books, I liked writing, and always found making up stories pretty easy. My imagination was always running wild while I was supposed to be doing actual work, and I loved when we got to do creative writing for class. I think my skill at making things up has faded a bit now, and I'm always worrying that I'm accidentally copying something I've read and forgotten about, and that's not something that concerns you when you're a kid. Mostly, you copy things you like because you already know they're cool. (Gah! I keep getting off track... anyway, big difference) The others seem like they're in it just to do it. They have no shame about word count padding, and even go as far as not deleting things if they don't like the way they were written. They just do a strike-through and consider them 'words written' and count it toward the goal.
Right now I have my outline counting toward my total word count, but I just need that to get my numbers higher so I can boost my morale, but as soon as I've got some padding, I'll switch them back so they don't.
Another fun thing about this month is that I get to use a program called yWriter, which seems to be created with organizationally anal people like me. It's awesome. I can divide the story into chapters and the chapters into scenes and can create little profiles for the characters, including spots for physical description, notes, a picture, their goals, a bio, and it has a spot for their full name, short name, other things they are called, and it allows you to tag your characters. It does the same type of thing for items and places and lets you add which of each is in a scene. It lets you classify scenes as action or reaction, has a spot for the goal, conflict and outcome or reaction, dilemma and choice, depending on which its classified as. It gives you a spot for notes on each scene, lets you title scenes and chapters, say whos POV its from, give it a rating in relevance, tension, humor and quality, classify it as an outline, draft, edit or finished piece, say whether its part of the plot or a sublot, and even lets you put a picture in for each scene. You can view a story board of the entire story, listed from each characters POV, and it has other features I haven't even discovered yet. It is SO incredibly useful. Oh and you can also drag and drop things to reorder them. The only annoying thing is that it dings when you hit the down arrow to move to the end of the row you're in, which is super annoying.
Well, I have a headache sitting just behind my right eye (which may be from the stink of fabric softener from something of Sophie's because Shawn hasn't bothered to tell his mom that I'm allergic to that shit and she came home reeking of it today. Dick. Oh and heres the ridiculous part, the thing that smells like it was laying in the kitchen ((eyeroll)) about 6 feet away and I could smell it like it was on me. That shit is so gross.) so I am going to stop writing (finally, y'all are thinking) but before I go I want to share some pictures from NaNoWriMo so far.
Day 1:
ready and happy and looking all 'smart' with my glasses:
The badge I earned-NaNo Socializing, for going to a meet-up or write in:
Day 2:
ridiculously exhausted and showing it
Trying to look less tired, and actually looking worse.
My Office Area (which thanks to Shawn, is cleaned off)...
The top of the bureau:
The top of my 1337 book shelf:
Joss Corner FTW:
Middle (focus is for wimps):
Nerd Corner:
Lastly, the badges I'd earned so far, the new one being the procrastination badge. I cleaned the room the rest of the way, reorganized my action figures and desk stuff just for pictures, as well as all the screwing around I did online:
And finally Day 3:
Sort of fake smiling:
I'm happy, see?
And TWO new badges today, although not the Rally Badge (for 5K) which is what I wanted. Instead I got word count padding (for adding the outline as words and writing out contractions and numbers) and Creative Non-Fiction (for loosely, or not, basing characters after people I know. I probably should have awarded this one on the first day, as it all started because Josh is full of crap 99% of the time but it's also been awarded because I couldn't figure out a name for Josh's friend, I named him William White. That'll probably change at some point, but for now, I get the badge.)
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