Days 29 & 30: Nanowrimo

Nanowrimo

Words written so far: 51,617

Impressions: Well, I am happy to say that I am done! Hooray! I passed the magical 50K number. The silly thing is...the book isn't over. I am not going to write anymore today and I may not even write anything tomorrow but I would like to spend a little more time writing before I put it away and let it ferment.

I like this story. I like the characters (and hate others, which is the way it should be). It doesn't make a whole lot of sense taken as a whole. It is disjointed in places but I still love it.

I have absolutely no idea what to do next. Well that is not exactly true. Here is my list of what I am going to do in the immediate future:

• Clean out mail closet
• Set up a new home page
• Figure out a new theme for this blog (if needed)
• Finish any Christmas shopping
• Mail gifts.

But as for the book, other than finishing it and letting it ferment, I don't know what to do after that. What do I do next with 50,000 plus words? I suspect I will be (along with every other Nanowrimo winner) going to the library to search for books on editing. I believe I have a long road ahead of me but the journey looks interesting. Thanks for hanging in here with me.

Likelihood of Finishing Nanowrimo: 100%. I am done! Yay!

Recycling in Portland

Shauna, looking at clear plastic tray from Newman-O's Organic chocolate sandwich cookies, "Do they take #8 here?"

Court: "Yeah, yeah."

Bob: "Just let God sort it out."

This conversation was followed by caroling at Paul's house but sadly, he was not home. We did, however, make a video which I am sure will soon be on You Tube. It is good to spend time with old friends.

p.s. A shout out to Jean MacDonald who is getting an RSS feed from this blog on her sweet iPhone.

p.p.s. W - you should read Jean's post.

Day 27: Nanowrimo

Nanowrimo

Words written so far: 45,136

Impressions: I told a friend that I had written more dialogue than description and she asked what I liked to read. I thought about it and realized I like to read dialogue. A little description is nice but too much of it bores me. There are exceptions, of course, but generally I like things to happen and equate dialogue with action.

With less than 5K words to go, I am feeling a little bit like I am running out of things to say. I have grown out of the outline I wrote at the beginning of Nanowrimo and I am struggling to tie up all the loose ends. I am still not sure what I am going to do with all the bad guys. I already ruined their company. What else is left? :)

Likelihood of Finishing Nanowrimo: 100%. Only 4,864 words to go.

Happy Birthday Creation Halt!

Year One

Today is my blog's birthday. Creation Halt is O-N-E. How do you celebrate the birthday of a blog? I created this blog around the holidays last year in order to come to terms with all the stuff in my life and stuff that was likely going to come into my life (and my kid's lives). During this past year, I have worked hard to get my "stuff" into some sort of reasonable order. I have given lots away to friends, given some away to Goodwill, recycled a lot of paper, and the list goes on. This blog has provided me with a "non-stuff creating" creative outlet, a place to bounce ideas off my readers and a way to keep me honest. It has also been a vehicle for me to learn a new skill (blogging) and to participate in NaBloPoMo.


A big thank you goes out to all my readers (all 3 or 4 of you). :)
A special thanks goes out to anyone who has ever posted a comment or linked to me. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Year Two
As I move into year two of this blog, I need to think about what my focus will be. I know I enjoy reading blogs that have a focus. Here is a question for all of you readers...what do you want to read about? I know that M has requested more "dooce-esque" type stories and I will try to capture those when they happen (but they don't happen every day). More sustainability? More novel writing? How about the novel editing process? What else? I'd love to hear from all of you. You can help guide this second year.

Thanks again!

Saving Grandma Kate's Needlepoint

Well, I am finally giving up...in a sense and replacing Grandma Kate's needlepoint on our dining room chairs with something much easier to clean. It feels like in the past 2 months there have been several near catastrophic spills by my children. It seems crazy to put these pieces of history at such risk. I have been resistant to doing this and I don't know why. I do know that it makes me smile when I see the needlepoint and I will miss it. But the replacement is just temporary. In a few years, the kids will be at a place where we can bring them back.

Day 26: Nanowrimo

Nanowrimo

Words written so far: 43,669

Impressions: According to Wikipedia, a novel is between 50,000 and 75,000 words so if I can make it past 50,000, I should be fine. I am nearing the end but am already starting to think about what I will do with my time after Nanowrimo is finished. There are things I have been procrastinating that will need to get done in early December. I am ready for a change of pace.

Tonight's writing was a little bland but told an interesting story. The problem is, I don't feel like the entire story is related - I feel like I have snippets of small stories. I realized today that even though I said I was writing a cyberpunk novel, the main character doesn't support that. I would need to change her or fit it into a different genre. Weird!

Likelihood of Finishing Nanowrimo: 100%. Only 6,331 words to go.

Days 24 and 25: Nanowrimo

Nanowrimo

Words written so far: 41,822

Impressions: I swear, after Nanowrimo is finished (only 5 more writing days) I will only mention my novel in passing! (At least until Nanoedmo - National Novel Editing Month).

Yesterday, thanks to John and Babs, I took a well deserved day off of writing. We had a lovely dinner (see previous post about green beans) and I just didn't feel like writing when they left. I caught up during my kid's nap time today and then busted out more words tonight. I feel that I am getting closer to the end of my story. I am starting to tie up loose ends. I worry that it doesn't all fit togther but I am ok with that for now.

I realized today that there is virtually no description - of people or characters, in my novel. It is just about what is happening in the story. Is that ok? I have no idea. I guess we shall have to see if editing this unweildy thing bears more description.

I have heard that 50,000 words is not "technically" a novel, that it is more like a novella. Hmmm...I need to understand more about that.

Likelihood of Finishing Nanowrimo: 100%. Only 8,178 words to go.

NaPoBloMo update: Even though I missed on day, (see previos post about getting locked out of the house), I have blogged every other day in the month of November - some days even more than once. I still consider myself a winner on the blogging front. And I am coming up on my 1 year blog anniversary!

Too many green beans?

We had a huge bag of green beans which didn't get used for Thanksgiving. I wanted to make something different to serve with the Chicken and Dumplings I was making. I searched on "roasted green beans" and came up with this recipe. I made it tonight and it was delicious! And that huge bag of green beans was not too many. We only had a few left over at the end of the night. Yum.

Days 22 and 23: Nanowrimo

Nanowrimo

Words written so far: 39,225

Impressions: I did write very much yesterday and I did not want to write tonight. I wasn't feeling particularly inspired. But I sat down and decided to try to write something fun or exciting. I ended up writing a scene where a good gal and a bad guy break a woman in a coma, a little girl and a spirit out of confinement. It ended up being a really cool writing session. In total I wrote 3,173 words today which is my personal record for Nanowrimo. (I did have to catch up from not finishing my writing yesterday but today's word count still puts me ahead of my daily goal.)

Likelihood of Finishing Nanowrimo: 100%. Only 10,775 words to go! Wahoo!

Why I am Thankful...

Put simply, I have a great life. To enumerate, I have a wonderful guy, super cute kids who are very much their own little beings, a loving family, awesome friends, a cool job, super-nice co-workers, and I could go on and on. I am thankful for all of you.

Day 21: Nanowrimo

Nanowrimo

Words written so far: 35,032

Impressions: I think I am starting to get "Nanowrimo wrists". This is something like "tennis elbow" or "Wii shoulder". Both wrists are really hurting. I am hoping that I am just having a bad random day today and that it is not something that will trouble me for the next 9 days. If I feel this bad tomorrow, I may have to take a day off.

I feel like the Main Character of the book has bounced around a bit. In the beginning it was one person and then it changed to be that person's mother. In a way, I feel like I have abandoned my other characters to follow the path of the mother. I am not sure if this is good or bad. I am looking forward to December 1, 2007 when I can read the entire thing in one sitting. I have not done this. The only thing I read is when I sit down to write I read the last paragraph of the previous day's writing.

Interesting writing tonight. Some surprising things happened. For me, writing is like reading a book, I never know what will happen!

Likelihood of Finishing Nanowrimo: 100%. I added a counter to the top of this page to count down to 0 more words to go to get to 50,000.

Day 20: Nanowrimo

Nanowrimo

Words written so far: 33.466 total.

Impressions: I am sorry if I am boring everyone by focusing on Nanowrimo. I thought that Nanowrimo would be a good excuse to get me blogging more. I am trying to mix it up a little though. And hey, November is almost done so I won't have Nanowrimo to keep writing about. Thank you for bearing with me. (That last line sounds really strange and I have no idea what it means or if I have even spelled it right. I mean, is it like we are bearing children together? If anyone out there knows, tell me!)

Story tonight was tempered by an excellent Margarita at a local Mexican restaurant called Autentica. Yummy.

Likelihood of finishing NaNoWriMo: 100%. Only 16,534 words to go...

Day 19: Nanowrimo

Nanowrimo

Words written so far: 31,747 total.

Impressions: One thing I don't like about Nanowrimo is there is no incubation time. When you are writing to a deadline every single day, there is no time to let ideas take root, grow or even ferment. But that isn't really the point of Nanowrimo is it? I think the points are to a) set an awesome goal and do it and b) get into the habit of writing every day. Now, I don't think that I can keep this pace up indefinitely. In fact, I may only be able to keep this up for say another 10 days or so. I am writing 1.5 - 2 hours a day (this includes working on the novel, writing these posts plus posting on the Nanowrimo website). This is precious, precious time. I do like my novel and I am thinking it may even be something worth publishing. But when this challenge is over, I am going to add some incubation time into my writing schedule. And when I am done with writing, it will be time for editing. I think I will wait till after the holidays for that!

Oh, and last night was terrible! I was so tired that I am not even sure I made sense. I am not letting myself re-read anything because I don't want to go down an editing hole. I can only hope it is worth keeping.

Likelihood of finishing NaNoWriMo: 100%. Only 18,353 words to go...

Movie Star --- Pass

Today I was the focus of a video shoot from 9:30 am to 4:15 pm. It was really fun in that I got to talk about all the parts of my job that I love. The only problem? It was incredibly exhausting. I am not sure I can write my Nanowrimo words tonight. I will have to see how I feel after I put R to bed. And this whole movie star business (not that they are asking...)? I think I will pass.

Days 17 & 18: Nanowrimo

Nanowrimo

Words written so far: 30,508 total. You know that silly dance that may or may not be called "churning butter"? I am doing that one in my head right now!

Impressions: The interesting ideas of the 16th have paid off. I had a really fun day of writing today. Actually, truth be told, I was on FIRE. I read two different Nanowrimo pep talks today and they did help. They helped me realize that if I could just get to 30K, everything would fall into place. They reminded me to keep writing and more importantly, as I have written here before, to write things I am interested in. Today I wrote about all sorts of crazy stuff some of which you can read here.

Likelihood of finishing NaNoWriMo: 100%. They say after 35K, it is a downhill slide (in a good way). I feel good about this and where the story is going. It is not dead ending like I keep thinking it will and is keeping my interest.

Hippie Tie Dye Boy

One of the twins, G, only wants to wear tie dye shirts. He is very opinionated (at almost 2 years old) and is very clear about what shirt he wants to wear each day. It is a tragedy if his shirt gets wet or dirty during the day because he is loath to give it up.

Yesterday he wanted to try on his sister's skirt (yikes). There he was in his tie dye shirt, wearing a skirt and so I said to him, "when you get older are you going to be a hippie?"

He shook his head yes and said, "Ya."

Oregon Country Fair here we come!

Day 16: Nanowrimo

Nanowrimo

Words written so far: 26,848 total.

Impressions: I wrote the words tonight that I needed to stay on track but I don't think they were particularly good ones. I did come up with some interesting ideas for the story. Hopefully I can make something good come of them.

Likelihood of finishing NaNoWriMo: I am very tired. It is hard to say today.

Why, oh why?

Am I having an allergy attack today? I feel terrible! I hope the nettles / nettle tea kicks in quick! It will be hard to write feeling this way...

Day 15: Nanowrimo

Nanowrimo

Words written so far: 25,238 total.

Impressions: Hooray! I passed the 25K mark. Only 25K more to go. Gulp. I am still enjoying my story. I have definitely been using the tips of other writers. One that I am using is the idea that if you are not enjoying what you are writing, start writing about something else. Instead of trying to write my way out of a corner, I go to a new room. It is keeping things fresh for me. I have slowed down my creation of new characters which is good (less people and spirits to keep track of). A big rescue is in the planning stages by my characters but I don't think they will get to it for a couple of days (meaning I won't write about it for a couple of days).

I told W about one of the scenes in the book and he was horrified. He was all like, "The bad guys are doing that to the good guys? You know I only like books with happy endings." Don't worry, I don't think I could write something that didn't have a happy ending (or at least a satisfying conclusion).

Stumbled across a short story by Charles de Lint that I had never read before. He is extremely inspiring.

Likelihood of finishing NaNoWriMo: I am only halfway done which is both amazing and sobering. I have had a good run of writing and my plan is to keep it up.

25K

Yahoo! I just passed the 25,000 word mark (25,019 to be exact at this particular moment). And right on schedule because it is November 15th. I am happy and I just wanted to share. More to come.

Days 12, 13, 14: Nanowrimo

I haven't charted my progress in a few days but I am still in the Nanowrimo game. Sadly, I am no longer in the NaBloPoMo game but that is another story.

Nanowrimo

Words written so far: 23,506 total. OK - I am color coding this orange because I am ahead of my goal but behind on my super goal.

Impressions: On Tuesday, I took the day off and didn't write at all. Because I was ahead, missing a day didn't impact my progress. I had my best ever session of writing last night. I wrote 2,802 words and they weren't all crap! In fact, I posted a new excerpt on my profile on Nanowrimo. You can see it here. The writing is not great. Basically, I am just trying to get my story on paper and then after I finish, I will go back and make it great. That is the plan, anyway.

Likelihood of finishing NaNoWriMo: Before last night I was feeling unsure about my ability to finish. After my session last night, I am feeling optimistic. I will finish. I want to know what happens in the story!

Likelihood of finishing NaBloPoMo: I already lost. See above. I will no longer be including this statistic.

LOST NaBloPoMo

Well, it is over. I lost NaBloPoMo. Last night I went out to a fun event (Velvet, Votes & Vino) and afterward to a fun dinner. I got home around 11:20 with plenty of time to post (and I was thinking of posting). I walked up to the door and...it was locked. I am always trying to minimize what I carry with me when I go out and I have a bad habit of not taking the house keys. I knocked on the door but there was no answer. I threw shoes at our windows but there was no answer. I called our phone and W's cell phone repeatedly but there was no answer. I banged on the door (risking waking up our children) but there was no answer.

After about a half hour of trying to wake W (or my children) I went to a nearby lodge to see if there was room but there wasn't. It was REALLY cold last night and I was not looking forward to sleeping in the car. I went back to the house and tried calling and banging on the door again. At that point I was pretty much panicking (both at the prospect of sleeping in my car and losing NaBloPoMo) and randomly calling friends (none of whom answered). I tried to make myself comfortable in the car and called the house one last time. W finally answer and let me in but it was too late - it was after midnight.

I know, it is totally my fault. I take responsibility for not taking my keys and for not putting some random post up yesterday. But I am also really disappointed, too. Darn.

Clutter Battles - Part 9 - The coat closet

The bad news is, we didn't take "before" photos. It would have made a much better story! But alas, you will just have to take my word for it that our coat closet was a terrible mess. It was filled with things that shouldn't have been in there (like a window fan, an entire bag of outgrown outerwear, ski bib, etc). Today was my lucky day. Today was the day when Beth Meridith of Living Spaces Design came to my house to help me organize the coat closet. Thanks again to Brooke and Bob for getting me this time with her for my birthday!

Below are after photos. They are different shots of our teeny, tiny coat closet. One of the most important differences from how it looked before is that we took the door off. That alone gives us more room which we desperately needed.

Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4

Figure 5

Figure 1 = Looking into the teeny, tiny closet.

Figure 2 = Bottom of our coats plus our shoes. You can see a shoe sorter on ther right hand side which is where we keep hats, gloves, scarves.

Figure 3 = Top of our coats plus a little storage up above. We have some rain boots, summer hats and some tarps for the park.

Figure 4 = Left hand side of closet on bottom - just hooks for kids jackets. Basket on bottom holds twin's hats, gloves and rain pants.

Figure 5 = Left hand side of closet on top - hooks for cloth bags, diaper bag and W's backpack.

I really like the end result. But the real test is will be be able to keep it neat? I should take another set of photos in a week to compare. Fun stuff. After one day it is still looking good. Yay!

Social Networking Explosion

W: Dave just got a new job. It is more secure and just got Class A funding.

Me: WTF - I just got an invitation from a guy named "David" inviting me to join something called "Plaxo" (what a horrible name). It turns out it is Dave and he wants me to join and then yesterday I got an invitation from Eric to join "Plaxo" as well. Is that all they do - join social networking sites? Who has time for that?

W: Yes. And if you are having trouble managing your subscriptions, I have a social network management tool and I can send you an invitation.

Me: That is funny. I should blog about this.

W: It could be your blog post for the day.

And it is...

Day 11: Nanowrimo (and NaBloPoMo)

Nanowrimo

Words written so far: 19,198 total. Ok - I am color coding this orange because I am ahead of my goal but not quite at my super goal. But I am tired and am going to sleep.

Impressions: I really liked the writing advice in the Nanowrimo pep talk of the week by Naomi Novik. Here is my favorite part of the pep talk and the one I have been using the past two days, "If you're finding a scene boring to write, cut it and skip to the good part. Set something on fire. Have zombies attack." Now I haven't set anything on fire or had zombies attach but I have definitely been skipping to the good parts.

I may be thinking far too much about my story (or perhaps not enough) because I keep trying to find ways to bring it back around. What I suspect is that I have created far too many non-essential characters that I now have to a) deal with and b) figure out something for them all to do. I remember doing this the last time I did Nanowrimo in 2004. At the end of my 50K words, I had like 40 characters which is far too many to keep track of (by me or the readers). I need to be very intentional about adding characters.

My story is very "good guys vs. bad guys". The problem is, the bad guys are generally faceless and nameless (big corporations). This is a problem because you want to get to know your bad guy for them to be realistic. However, this, of course, goes against my point above about creating too many characters. Another quandary to work my way out of.

Likelihood of finishing NaNoWriMo: I am still going strong but I am finding it harder and harder to stay with my story. I need to let my characters take me where they want to go and not worry so much (for this draft anyway) about tying things together. 100%.

Likelihood of finishing NaBloPoMo: I am still in the game.

Day 10: Nanowrimo (and NaBloPoMo)

NaNoWriMo - Progress report for yesterday, November 10, 2007

My words written so far: 17,901 total.

Impressions: I don't like doing the progress report for yesterday, today. It is disconcerting and I can't really remember what my impressions are! I think I am going back to the old way of doing it. It really doesn't save me any time either way. Yesterday's writing was ok. It was mostly done in a coffee shop but a little was also done while trying to direct a gluing project for two 4 year olds. Needless to say, I couldn't concentrate very well!

Likelihood of finishing NaNoWriMo: 100%. But I have to say drinking two beers before trying to write is probably not a good thing to do all the time.

Likelihood of finishing NaBloPoMo: 100%.

Day 9: Nanowrimo (and NaBloPoMo)

NaNoWriMo - Progress report for yesterday, November 9, 2007

My words written so far: 16,378 total. I am back on track with my Super Goal of finishing two days early.

Impressions: Dogs barking at each other freak me out. I say this because I am in a "dog-friendly" coffee shop right now and there are a lot of dogs here. They keep having little tiffs and it is freaking me out. I don't have a dog so I think they are going to hurt each other. It is a little unsettling.

Back to my impressions of NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo...I got back on track writing last night. I was so tired I didn't think it was going to happen but it did. I actually got into a really nice groove and felt good enough about the story to post an excerpt on my NaNoWriMo page. Check it out and tell me if you don't just hate the characters! (You are supposed to!)

So I feel good; even in this dog heavy coffee shop. And I am just getting ready to start Chapter 6. Last night I was able to weave the story back around and now I am going to do more of that. I am going to visit back with some of my original characters. The question is, if an Augmentor dies, does the part that split off from him or her, the spirit part, die, too? If you have a thought, let me know. I think it is one of those crucial pivots to the story that I just don't have an instinct for.

Likelihood of finishing NaNoWriMo: 100%. Can you tell I got a decent night's sleep?

Likelihood of finishing NaBloPoMo: 100%.

Now, back to writing. If you are reading this, let me know!!!

Day 8: Nanowrimo (and NaBloPoMo)

You may be wondering why I am writing about Day 8 on what is technically Day 9. Well, last night I was thinking that I would get to bed a little earlier and post this today. But the day has gone by and now I am needed to actually work on my book and I have this hanging over my head. Hmmm...not sure what is a better way to do things. I guess I will have to wait to see how I feel tonight.

Day 8 words written: 13,767 total. This is above my normal day's goal but below my super goal. I am leaving it black.

Impressions: I figured a way out of my dilemma of characters who couldn't speak to each other. That was fun. Now I need to work on pulling all the parts of the story together. Because I created an outline before I started writing, and I have been writing to the outline, I have more like a series of short stories right now. They are all vaguely related but I need to tie them all together.

Writing is hard work and at the same time it is easy. I want to go back and edit but I know now is not the time for that. As I read over what I have written, I see so much room for improvement. And yet, I like what I am writing. I guess my question is...how bad does a story need to be to abandon it? Or how good does a story need to be to pursue it?

It is easy because once you turn it on, it just flows out (on a good day). I never know what is going to happen!

Likelihood of finishing NaNoWriMo: 0% unless I can get healthy. Otherwise I may not have the energy.

Likelihood of finishing NaBloPoMo: ditto.

Taking Challenges Seriously

While I realize that NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo are voluntary challenges, I still had to make a commitment to fulfilling the challenges. I take these challenges very seriously. NaNoWriMo is more forgiving than NaBloPoMo. If I miss a day, I just have to make it up another day as long as at the end of 30 days, I have written 50,000 words. NaBloPoMo is a different sort of challenge. It challenges you to write a blog post every day. I fear that I won't be able to meet this challenge. I fear I will fall asleep with my sick son and miss posting. I fear I will fall prey to Blogger's silly pre-post dating. I fear that I won't fulfill the challenge.

What I don't understand, is why I can't take other challenges as seriously. For example, I have an excellent reason to lose some weight right now. I am going to be filmed in 10 days. Why am I not pulling out all the stops to a) not eat and b) exercise more? I don't know. That challenge is much harder than NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo combined. How weird is that?

My throat is hurting and I am tired. I am not sure I will write for NaNoWriMo tonight. But that is OK because I am still ahead. I will definitely not post my progress tonight. I will give myself a break and do that tomorrow.

Day 7: Nanowrimo (and NaBloPoMo)

Nanowrimo

Total words written: 12,691 total words

Impressions: Another day of strange writing. Today I was writing a scene in which the two main characters couldn't hear each other. They had to make lots of gestures and try to read each other's lips. How do I write myself into these crazy corners? The story is still flowing but I am less optimistic about it than I was the first few days. I keep trying to convince myself that it will get better with editing (which I don't have time to do). Having never written a published book before, I am curious about the process. I mean, how good does your first draft have to be? My novel from Nanowrimo 2004 was crap with a few interesting ideas in it. It was not worth any editing (even though I did attempt it). This story seems to be worthy. I guess we shall see if I can tie everything up in the end. I am introducing characters like crazy which is making me nervous. I had to create a "character descriptions" file to keep track of everyone! I am happy that I just popped over the 12,500 word bar. Yay!

Likelihood of finishing Nanowrimo: 100%. I am still motivated.

Likelihood of finishing NaBloPoMo: 100%. Although I may change the way I post about Nanowrimo and leave those posts till mornings (thus allowing me to go to sleep earlier).

Super goal: End up with a decent first draft that is worth all the work of editing.

Kids Yoga Game

Today I thought up a game to play with my man and kids. Our kids already know a few yoga poses. Wouldn't it be fun to teach them so more and then when someone shouted out the name of a pose, everyone would have to do it? It would help me do more yoga and it probably be good for the kids to be "in control" some of the time. I am sure there would be limits like "no yoga during meals". I am looking forward to trying it.

p.s. You could also do this using yoga cards. Each person could just pull a card and then everyone would have to do the pose on the card.

Day 6: Nanowrimo (and NaBloPoMo)

NaNoWriMo

Today's goal / alternative "finish early" goal: 10,000 / 10,714
My total words written: 10, 847 words total.

Impressions: Yahoo! I made it past the 10K mark. I am over 1/5 done! Yahoo! I am so tired today that I wasn't sure I even had the energy to write. When I looked to see how much I needed to write to stay on track, I realized it wasn't that much. I decided to just go for it. I am glad I did as I got some pretty cool concepts on paper, er, I mean into the computer.

Because I have a day job, a cool man and 3 small kids, the only time I can work on this is when the kids are all asleep at night. The problem with that that I am always leaving the writing until late at night. I remember reading an interview with Charles de Lint and he was talking about writing and said he had a page goal every day and couldn't go to sleep until he finished it. He talked about if he wrote in the morning, he would be done! I'd like to do that but so far it hasn't happened yet.

Last night on the website I saw that Chris Baty had done a writing exercize which looked cool. Here is what he wrote: "Borrowing a question from one of Tavia's Young Writers Program exercises. Namely: What do each of my characters want more than anything else in the world?" I thought about this question during the day and couldn't come up with a single thing my main character wanted. I realized I didn't know her very well!

Likelihood of finishing NaNoWriMo: 100% because I am still on track.
Likelihood of finishing NaBloPoMo: and going...

Is anyone out there reading this??? Please let me know. I have never blogged this much in my life and I feel like I am blogging into a black hole!

Day 5: Nanowrimo (and NaBloPoMo)

Nanowrimo

Daily goal / alternative "finish early" goal: 1,667 / 1,786 words
Today's goal / alternate "finish early" goal: 8,333 / 8,929 words total

My total words written: 9,812 words total (I so wanted to get to 10K tonight but I am just too dang tired.)

Impressions: What a difficult writing day! I was on fire yesterday. Today, not so much. I didn't like where the story headed today. I am hoping that I will be able to pull it out of it's current direction tomorrow.
You may have noticed that I have an "alternative "finish early" goal". This is how many words I have to write if I want to finish in 28 days instead of 30. I figure it is a little bit of insurance against a day when I might want to skip writing.
I also have a spreadsheet that I have created to chart my progress. What can I say? I have an engineering degree!

Likelihood of finishing NaNoWriMo: 100% only because I am still on track but honestly

I am too tired to think about it right now.
Likelihood of finishing NaBloPoMo: Still going...

Super Goal: Same as yesterday...help our whole family get healthy.

Day 4: Nanowrimo (and NaBloPoMo)

Nanowrimo


Daily goal / alternate "finish early" goal: 1,667 / 1,786 words


Today's goal / alternate "finish early" goal: 6,666 / 7,143 words total


My total words written: 7,753 words total (What do you think of the color coding?)


Impressions: I like this story. It isn't particularly a new story...but what story is? I think I have figured out a plot although I am not sure how the prologue I wrote fits in to the current storyline. Either I am going to have to come up with a link or I am going to have to write it off (pun intended) as a warm up exercise.

I am having serious issues which I am not addressing right now. They are in the areas of consistency of voice and dialogue. I am not a regular writer so to some extent, I don't know how to a) choose a voice and b) do non sucky dialogue. Will writing a lot help? Or do I need to focus on learning how to do these things? Since I have no time to learn (only time to write and blog) I will have to hope it is the former and not the latter. I will leave these problems until NaNoEdMo (or perhaps sooner) unless anyone has any great ideas they want to share.

Is there anything anyone out there would like to know about this experience? Just post a comment and I will reply to your post.

Likelihood of finishing Nanowrimo: 100%.


Likelihood of finishing NaBloPomo: I am still going strong (can you say that if you are just on day 4 of 30 days?).


Super Goal: Help our whole family get healthy!!!

Day 3: Nanowrimo (and NaBloPoMo)

Nanowrimo

Daily Goal: 1,667 words

Today's goal: 5,000 words total

My total words written: 5,651 words total

Impressions: Carving out time to write on a weekend when I knew I was going out was difficult. I managed to get 1,400 words written before we went out. I was definitely getting stuck with my plot today. There was a big show down in my story and I am stuck on the explanation. Is it all because of greed? Is it because someone wants to save the world? (Save the world, save the cheerleader). I have to make some decisions in the next few paragraphs as to where this book is going. How trippy is that?

Likelihood of finishing Nanowrimo: 100%. Still going strong and I am interested in my words. I think that is a good sign.

Likelihood of finishing NaBloPomo: I figure it is either 0% or 100%. If I miss just one day, I automatically go to 0%. I had a scare tonight because I thought I would be out too late to make a post. (No J&D - that is not why we left earlier than you - we really were tired!) I think I have to plan better.

Super Goal: No super goals to report today.

Day 2: Nanowrimo

Nanowrimo

Daily Goal: 1,667 words

Today's goal: 3,333 words total

My total words written: 3,923 words total

Impressions: W and I are both on target today. I wrote a little this afternoon and finished up this evening. I am hoping that I won't experience "Nanowrimo insomnia" again today. I realize that I have a lot of energy and feel very creative. I am loving it. I'd like to get the small Nanowrimo logo for these posts but I haven't found the time yet. Imagine that!

Likelihood of finishing: 100%. I am on target and still optimistic. I am sure there will be a dark night(s) of the soul but that won't be for a few weeks.

Super Goal: I have surpassed my super goal of 3,571 words today. I want to bank enough words so that I can take a day off here or there.

Super secret admission: I am a glutton for punishment. I joined NaBloPoMo today. Hey - I was going to do it anyway to track my progress!

Nanowrimo Insomnia

I forgot about one danger of writing just before bed; nanowrimo induced insomnia. Instead of falling into an effortless sleep, I am thinking about how my story is unfolding. Thinking things like this, "taser / sword combo" and "observers can "chat" mind to mind offline". I may have to write earlier in the day to give my brain a chance to calm down.

Day 1: Nanowrimo

Nanowrimo

Goal: 1,667 words (per day)

Progress: 1,774 words.

Impressions: As usual, my writing has taken off in a direction I wasn't expecting. I said I was going to write a cyberpunk novel but now I don't know what it is...cyberpunk? Sci-fi? Fantasy? A combination of all three with spirituality mixed in? I have to remind myself to write a book that I want to read, to write about characters I want to know. It is hard to rein in the writing beast sometimes. I also have to remind myself to just write, write, write! Editing comes later. W wrote over 2,000 words today! Yahoo! Go W!

Likelihood of finishing: 100%. OK, just kidding! Who can say on the first day? I met my goal today which puts me in an optimistic mood. We shall see how the coming days go...I remember Thanksgiving being a pain to work around when I did Nanowrimo the first time and had only one kid. Now I have 3. Gulp.

Super Goal: Bank enough words that I don't need to write on Thanksgiving or the day after Thanksgiving (so I can shop - JUST KIDDING). This would move my goal to 1,785 words per day.

Just wait - soon I will break out the graphing tools. Yeah!

Are you doing Nanowrimo this year? How are you doing?

Super secret admission: I just decided to do this yesterday. What was I thinking???