It's December and we have no snow

Despite my comments to the contrary, I ended up doing NaNoWriMo.

I started my novel on November 18, and in fact made the 50,000 mark. On the 30th, in fact, writing 8600 words that day.

It's a draft I'm so far happy with. Space science fiction,  near-ish future. Per my usual NaNoWriMo habits, it's currently "trunked", pending finishing at a later date. It doesn't have a title. It has a lot of plot kinks to work out. But the bones are there, and that's pretty cool.

 

NaNoWriMo: 10 Days Left!

Well, friends, I'm at 42,000 words and feeling pretty good.

Of course, I could be writing now, instead of blogging or screwing around on the Internet. But we know how that goes.

My outline has truly contributed to my lovely word count, I feel. However, there are times I've....diverged from it. I refer back to said outline pretty frequently, but there are times I think of something better. Or that makes more sense. So at least two of my chapters weren't outlined because I'd veered in a slightly different direction from the initial plan. Is it a better one? Yeah, maybe. Nothing's set in stone when it's only a Word document on your computer.

There are times I feel like my "writing" folder is the Island of Misfit toys, where things once loved have gone, that nobody will recover. But, things don't need to stay that way, and once I've polished book 1 of this maybe trilogy (because duology is just so awkward to say), hopefully I'll be regaling you folks with the trials and tribulations of agent submissions.

Camp NaNoWriMo 2012: Maybe August Will be Better?

So, I failed June's Camp NaNo, as one might have guessed. I should've updated before now but, there it is.

The problem I had with NaNo this time around was that I already had a body of work I was writing on. So, to interrupt those projects, to do a NaNo, just wasn't happening. I tried, I did, but only got a little ways in and stopped. I didn't outline or really prepare in any way because 1. I'm typically a pantser and 2. I was writing a different novel, and short stories. So it got to a point where I was guilty if I worked on my original works in progress, and I was guilty if I got involved with the NaNo, so I said screw it and wrote part of my dog training book instead.

Will I try again in August? If the mood takes me, yeah. National Novel Writing Month, whatever the month, is a fun exercise and can really get things going. But, since things were already going, I just kind of messed with the mojo.

Hope everybody's having a happy summer! Keep writing, but it's okay to take breaks too!

Someday never comes

Sometimes I read a lot. Sometimes it takes me a long time to get through a book.

Sometimes I don't write for months. Others, I have a project going that I really focus on and really make headway with. Sometimes it's multiple projects.

Right now in the rubrick, I'm in the "not really reading, writing a lot" portion. I started a werewolf novel in April that's coming to its climax. I started a new writing project involving horror short stories. With June coming up, I'm trying to get myself to actually outline my CampNaNoWriMo novel.

I know I'm doing a space scifi thing. I know that the main characters are two sisters, and that there's at least one dude (no, this is not going to be a love triangle). I know some aesthetics of the space world that I'm operating with, and even though it's in space, it'll be on a smaller, character driven scale. But story? Eh, I've got an idea of the conflict. I think.

So, I need an outline, or else I'll be dead in the water at 10k words.

In NaNo lingo, I'm typically what's known as a "pantser", i.e. I write by the seat of my pants. I also typically have a story arc in mind, though, a culminating event, how I want things to shake out, that kind of thing. I wish I knew that already, this time. I'd really like for this to work out, and I'm always up for a NaNo!

The Devil's in the Details

Remember in school, when they taught you to write a first draft, and then a second one, and so on? Maybe they had you do an outline first?

Yeah, I hated that.

It's a Matter of Style

I don't make plans.

This isn't to say that I'm incapable of planning a chain of events in day to day life (meal plan for the week, how to organize tasks at work, how to teach Elka a new trick). But when I'm writing? I sit down and write the first words first, and the last words last. Sometimes I write down the middle words out of order, so I don't forget. But, outlines? Character maps? You're kidding, right?