The Last of My NaNo Posts (in theory. For this year, at least)

It's a little amazing to me that I want to be writing anything right now, up to and including this blog post. It feels like I've been writing my whole life. Okay, I have been writing my whole life, but what I mean is, it feels like I've been writing without pause for my whole life. Today was especially brutal and I'm still a little spaced from it - as evidenced by the fact that half-way through reading the newsfeed on my Facebook, I was looking for the Save button, in case the computer crashed. But I finished - 50,057 words - and won NaNoWriMo for the first time ever.

As it did with Rhiannon, the word verification thing completely screwed me, deciding that my word count is somewhere in the low 48,000s. I'm more than a little freaked out about this, but in the end, even if I don't get my purple bar, I did what I set out to do: I wrote a novel in 30 days.

We all did, and as predicted, we Kicked November's Ass!

There's a good possibility I shouldn't be writing this right now, as there's a chance that none of it will make any sense, but I want to gloat and share in the gloating with my fellow DevCo NaNo winners.

A few things made this possible. The people who put NaNoWriMo together, for a start. Not that I couldn't have written a 50,000 word novel in 30 days, but more that it's not terribly likely that it would have occurred to me to try. Knowing people were struggling along with me (even if some of you finished impossibly early and were good enough not to rub it in) was another big thing that kept me going. And, of course, telling everyone at work what I was doing, so that I knew I would seem like a total failure if I didn't finish on time. Working the graveyard shift and having a boss that didn't mind that I kept my story saved on the desktop at work, as long as he could read it. Having an amazing guy, when I still had 14,000 words to go on the 28th simply tell me, "You'll do it." All of these things came together, and in the end, produced the rough draft that is eleven eleven wish.

And now I'm going to cut this short. I have seven hours of work left and no sleep to do them on, and am seriously considering ordering myself a hearty meal as a reward for finish NaNo, and I'm starting to think that the fact that I'm even mentioning my dinner plans means that I've lost sight of what is and isn't relevant on a site like this. Yeah, I should definitely go.

Congratulations, everyone :)

Additional 12.02.2010
I put a picture of our amazingness at the top. Hooray for purple bars!

Yay! Also, not yay.

I'm done! Woot!

Got me 50016 words in 29 days. Most of those are crap, and the story's not anywhere near done, but I still feel accomplished. Even if I basically just wrote a 50016 word outline for what will probably be two books, when I actually get through with it.

But, for the next few days, I'm going to put it aside and ignore it and then start the mammoth task of stripping it of it's awkward phrasing and filling in its plot holes. And then, I might just let people read it. >:D

Bit of a bollocks-y problem, though: Every time I try to get my story verified, so I can have WINNER! enscribed across the progress bar, it takes a moment to think and then tells me that I've only written 48517 words. I've most assuredly done 50016. I can do screencaps, if anyone really cares. The problem is, I can't get my goodies if the verification process isn't working, and if it doesn't start working by this time tomorrow, the past month of mental agony will have been for naught.

So I'm a little stressed. I don't understand why it's not working. It lets me update my word count just fine; it even tracks my stats without complaint. It's just not letting me verify and win.

I just don't get it.

Don't Get Me Wrong; I Love the NaNo Peptalks

I think they're fantastic (I was especially fond of the one today from Lemony Snicket). But with a only week to go until the end of November, I thought some of us (me) could use some motivation that's a little more... agressive. Rhiannon deserves the credit for finding this; I'm just passing along the joy of her discovery. It actually applies to all writers at all times, but I think it's especially apt right now. So, without further adieu, a snippet of the Writer's Prayer by Chuck Wendig:

I am a writer, and I will finish the shit that I started.

I will not whine. I will not blubber. I will not make mewling whimpering cryface pissypants boo-hoo noises. I will not sing lamentations to my weakness.

If you want to read the whole thing (and you should, because it is both motivational and incredibly hillarious), you can do so here, on Terrible Minds.

Now I'm off to actually start working at my day(night)-job

Wall

My NaNo word count is at 28882. This means two things. 1, I am way behind where I should be. 2, that I have a kick-ass word count, due to it being a crazy palindrome, and I don't want to write anymore right now.

But I'm gonna, 'cause I'm way behind.

Halfway There...

Or in my case, 5000 words shy of being half way there. But it's the 15th, and everyone should (technically) be at 25000 words now.

Since I'm not, I thought I'd put up the same excerpt that I put on the NaNo site, to keep you all entertained. And also to serve as a small distraction from the actual writing, which is mean of me, but sometimes necessary.

Enjoy!

(PS: I should mention that this hasn't been edited yet, so there are probably a couple of things that need fixed...)

Excerpt: The Hollow of White Hazel

And then he sang.

He sang the harmony, not the melody, but the notes seemed to reverberate in Ethelwyn’s chest. She could feel the emotion of the song better now, the agony of the woman, the desperation of the male back-up to get her to just turn around and see him. She felt tears pricking in the corner of her eyes, and a desperate desire deep within to sing along, to help, to add her voice to the notes that seemed now to fill the whole street. She opened her mouth, but a sweaty hand reached around and covered it, choking the sound.

She twisted in her seat. Arthur covered his own mouth with his other hand and shook his head. He pointed to his ears and mimed covering them. Confused, and still wanting to sing with a desire that shook her to the core, Ethelwyn plugged her ears with her fingers.

It helped, a little. She no longer wanted to sing, at any rate, and muffling some of the sound took some of the reverberation out of it. She could listen now. Arthur pulled his hand off of her mouth, and covered his own ears.

The pixies didn’t seem to have the same sense. They stopped what they were doing, dropped whomever they were eviscerating, and capered slowly towards Emrys, who was still standing in the middle of the road. The street became deserted of human beings; in the distance, sirens were wailing, coming closer. The song was nearing the second verse, the music swelling until, even with the fingers in her ears, Ethelwyn wanted to join in. The reverberation grew stronger in Ethelwyn’s chest, and she realized that the pixies were actually singing in harsh, piping voices that sounded more like a broken-bellowed organ than anything melodic. They wheezed and puffed and screeched along, adding their meagre voices to the harmony, until, with a gut-wrenching twist, the lead singer proclaimed that, every now and then, she just fell apart…

Emrys brought his arms down, and held the note.

The pixies exploded into a thousand splinters.

OH MY GOD

It's finally happened. They showed signs of rebellion, but nothing like this has ever occured. Yet. And now it has, and I can't stop grinning. I blame the fact that I created a character who was meant to be a bit mysterious and inscrutable.

Okay. I'm getting ahead of myself. Basically, the story goes like this: Today I sat down and wrote like a madwoman. I'm nearing the grand finale, I'm worrying about how I'm going to work certain elements into my story, I'm not sure I'll have enough plot left to fill 50k, and I haven't explained a lot of what seems like filler.

Then I come to the scene where my Mysterious Wise Woman character has to explain Peter's Very Important Backstory to Wendy. This is an important scene, even pivotal, and I've been looking forward to it for forever. I hit this scene with about two hundred words to go before I hit 20k, and I'm thinking, "I'll just start this, maybe with a bit of foreshadowing, get those two hundred words down without getting into the Very Important Backstory so I'm not tempted to stay up all night writing, and then I'll go to bed." Seemed like a sound and solid plan, right?

WRONG.

My Mysterious Wise Woman proceeded to dash off onto an eloquent and excellent tangent about my magical world, and, in doing so, managed to fill in a few of my plot holes, add some of my neglected elements, introduce a possibility for a WHOLE 'NOTHER GRAND FINALE past the one I already have planned out, provide reasons for the actions of pretty much everyone throughout the book, tie in the Very Important Backstory and Wendy's identity as a writer, add a darker, stranger, more Gaimanesque twist to the magical world and pretty much the whole book, and cast a sense of foreboding over what is shaping up to be the Final Battle (unless I run out of plot before I run out of words, in which case it will be the Penultimate Battle). And not one word of this did I plan. I don't think I even knew it was percolating in my subconscious until Erzebet laid it all out in black and white. I know where some elements of it came from (Coraline and Solemn Coyote's reviews on FP, to name two), but I had no idea that it would all tie together so nicely, and turn into such a lovely little piece of spine-tingling silliness.

So thanks, characters, for indulging in your rebellious urges. :D I'll be right back, though: busy sleeping. LIKE YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN AT FOUR IN THE MORNING, GUYS.

... and now, some motivational congratulations

I'm sitting at work, waiting for my nails to dry (hooray for getting paid to paint my nails ;) and I thought while I was doing that, it might be nice for us to congratulate ourselves on being way ahead of the curve. So here is is, the chart that proves we're kicking November's ass.

Now, let's hope the 2nd goes as well as the first did :)

This Is Going Better Than I'd Hoped

I'm actually surprised I managed 5000 words today. (Well, 5098, to be exact.) And two scenes just popped out of nowhere. Funny thing is, they work, and they advance the plot and characters where I didn't know they needed advancing, and WOW is this ever fun.

I didn't even write all of my free time today. I'm gonna try to get more writing done tomorrow.

And I even managed to finish my essay, too! This is going much better than I'd hoped.