Word Count: 15060 (!!)
I think the above says it all.
15k by Sunday, and I made it with 10 minutes to spare. Yay!
And now, I am off to bed before I collapse.
Did everyone else make their goals for the weekend? Big or small, they all count! Good luck writing, everyone!
~Katherine
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Nov. 6: 15k by Sunday or Bust part 1
Word Count: 13265
There are, thanks to Daylight Savings Time, one and a half hours left in Sunday, November 6.
I have 1735 words left to write to reach 15k by Sunday.
Can it be done? We'll soon find out.
~Katherine
There are, thanks to Daylight Savings Time, one and a half hours left in Sunday, November 6.
I have 1735 words left to write to reach 15k by Sunday.
Can it be done? We'll soon find out.
~Katherine
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Nov. 5: Explaining Nano to Non-Writers (Or: Yes, I AM Crazy, Thanks for Asking!)
Word Count: 11076. 15k, I WILL meet you by Sunday night!
All through high school and undergrad, when people would ask me what I "did" or what I "wanted to be", I would find myself tongue-tied, tripping over words as I tried to come up with a way to say "I'm a writer" or "I want to be an author" in a way that would not elicit a patronizing smile or, worse, wide-eyed confusion.
I imagine anyone who loves an art form runs into this problem at some point in life. We live in a society that favors the Protestant ideal of hard work all the time and reaping the rewards of that hard work. Writing a story, composing music, drawing a beautiful landscape...those things aren't seen as "hard" or "work", and people simply can't get their heads around the fact that someone would want to make a career out of it.
Which is why the next question, when I inevitably manage to spit out, "I am/want to be a writer", is "okay, well what do you plan to do to pay the bills?"
Fair question, particularly in this economy. There are plenty of majors in university that segue directly into an easily identifiable career with job security: teacher, doctor, nurse, lawyer, accountant, you name it. And with job pickings as slim as they are, I can easily see why someone would want to go into a career that at least gives them a level of expertise in a particular field. The more arts-related programs--English, Creative Writing (the majors with which I graduated), Music and so on--don't carry quite the same level of oomph in the big world of money-making.
As one of my coworkers at Starbucks once put it: "you could throw a rock in the air, and when it comes down it would hit twelve English majors."
So it's even harder to explain to someone not just that I want to make what most consider a hobby (writing) into a career, but that for the entire month of November, I am devoted to writing--and completing--a novel-length work of prose.
"Do you plan to get it published?" Is usually the first question, usually followed by dismay when I tell them likely not. "But then what's the POINT?"
Again with the Protestant work-hard-reap-benefits model. The idea that the exercise itself, though it garners no actual profit financial or otherwise, is "profitable" in other ways tends to elude a lot of people. But the simple fact is that most of the things we write will never see an editor's desk. Does that mean we shouldn't write them? No. The only time we shouldn't write a story, paint a picture, or create a song is when that story/picture/song doesn't bring the maker any happiness. Then its time to move onto a different project.
I still get stuck sometimes when people ask me what I'm "doing now". There's the unconscious desire to be validated: "I'm getting my Master's degree in Journalism" I often say.
But other times, I just say the most basic truth: "I'm a writer."
How do you respond when people ask you what you "do" for a living? And how do you explain Nanowrimo to non-Nanowrimos?
As always, good luck to everyone!
All through high school and undergrad, when people would ask me what I "did" or what I "wanted to be", I would find myself tongue-tied, tripping over words as I tried to come up with a way to say "I'm a writer" or "I want to be an author" in a way that would not elicit a patronizing smile or, worse, wide-eyed confusion.
I imagine anyone who loves an art form runs into this problem at some point in life. We live in a society that favors the Protestant ideal of hard work all the time and reaping the rewards of that hard work. Writing a story, composing music, drawing a beautiful landscape...those things aren't seen as "hard" or "work", and people simply can't get their heads around the fact that someone would want to make a career out of it.
Which is why the next question, when I inevitably manage to spit out, "I am/want to be a writer", is "okay, well what do you plan to do to pay the bills?"
Fair question, particularly in this economy. There are plenty of majors in university that segue directly into an easily identifiable career with job security: teacher, doctor, nurse, lawyer, accountant, you name it. And with job pickings as slim as they are, I can easily see why someone would want to go into a career that at least gives them a level of expertise in a particular field. The more arts-related programs--English, Creative Writing (the majors with which I graduated), Music and so on--don't carry quite the same level of oomph in the big world of money-making.
As one of my coworkers at Starbucks once put it: "you could throw a rock in the air, and when it comes down it would hit twelve English majors."
So it's even harder to explain to someone not just that I want to make what most consider a hobby (writing) into a career, but that for the entire month of November, I am devoted to writing--and completing--a novel-length work of prose.
"Do you plan to get it published?" Is usually the first question, usually followed by dismay when I tell them likely not. "But then what's the POINT?"
Again with the Protestant work-hard-reap-benefits model. The idea that the exercise itself, though it garners no actual profit financial or otherwise, is "profitable" in other ways tends to elude a lot of people. But the simple fact is that most of the things we write will never see an editor's desk. Does that mean we shouldn't write them? No. The only time we shouldn't write a story, paint a picture, or create a song is when that story/picture/song doesn't bring the maker any happiness. Then its time to move onto a different project.
I still get stuck sometimes when people ask me what I'm "doing now". There's the unconscious desire to be validated: "I'm getting my Master's degree in Journalism" I often say.
But other times, I just say the most basic truth: "I'm a writer."
How do you respond when people ask you what you "do" for a living? And how do you explain Nanowrimo to non-Nanowrimos?
As always, good luck to everyone!
Friday, November 4, 2011
Nov. 4: Making Up Ground and 15k By Sunday
Word Count: 6912 words and counting, goal is to clear 7200
Good news, everyone: I don't work tomorrow AND we turn our clocks back one hour. This means several uninterrupted hours of writing!
Because of yesterday's poor output, today I really wanted to push to get ahead of the day's required 1667. I've left it behind, mercifully, and am gunning for 7200 tonight to give me an edge on tomorrow. However, for the weekend I've set a slightly (very slightly) more ambitious goal for myself: 15000 by Sunday evening.
Generally by day 6 if you have 10k you're right on target to finish on time. However, I know from experience that "on target" quickly becomes "grossly behind" in Week Two. At least for me, it always does. I think this is because Week Two almost always and without fail was the week prior to some big project or exam for school....aaaand this time is no different. My final project for one of my journalism classes is due two Mondays from now, which means I'll be spending all of next week trying to get it finished and in working order.
Hence, the desire to be 5k ahead of schedule. So that when Week 2 inevitably kicks my rear, I at least have some words between myself and utter failure.
Today was another poster day for the notebook, however! I brought it to work, wrote during my 15 minute break, my lunch hour and the train ride home. Now I'm adding to what's been transcribed, in between writing the article for that final project and another paper (3 down, 3 to go!) for a different class.
So what are everyone's goals for the weekend? 15k by Sunday? More? Less? Good luck, whatever they are, and happy writing!
~Katherine
Good news, everyone: I don't work tomorrow AND we turn our clocks back one hour. This means several uninterrupted hours of writing!
Because of yesterday's poor output, today I really wanted to push to get ahead of the day's required 1667. I've left it behind, mercifully, and am gunning for 7200 tonight to give me an edge on tomorrow. However, for the weekend I've set a slightly (very slightly) more ambitious goal for myself: 15000 by Sunday evening.
Generally by day 6 if you have 10k you're right on target to finish on time. However, I know from experience that "on target" quickly becomes "grossly behind" in Week Two. At least for me, it always does. I think this is because Week Two almost always and without fail was the week prior to some big project or exam for school....aaaand this time is no different. My final project for one of my journalism classes is due two Mondays from now, which means I'll be spending all of next week trying to get it finished and in working order.
Hence, the desire to be 5k ahead of schedule. So that when Week 2 inevitably kicks my rear, I at least have some words between myself and utter failure.
Today was another poster day for the notebook, however! I brought it to work, wrote during my 15 minute break, my lunch hour and the train ride home. Now I'm adding to what's been transcribed, in between writing the article for that final project and another paper (3 down, 3 to go!) for a different class.
So what are everyone's goals for the weekend? 15k by Sunday? More? Less? Good luck, whatever they are, and happy writing!
~Katherine
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Nov. 3: Life Intervening in the Novel-Writing Process (or: Why Everyone Should Get a Notebook. Stat.)
Word Count: not sure, words not transcribed
This doesn't bode well, y'all. I'm 3 days in and already I've had a day where I could barely write a thing.
This is to be expected, obviously. Very few people can devote endless hours of their days to writing (in fact, I think I talked about that in an earlier post, didn't I? Yes, yes I did) and as a result time management becomes both the bane and salvation of our existences.
For me, most of the time it goes well. Today, however, it did not go so well.
I usually work mornings at my store--opening shifts from 6.45 in the AM until 3 or 4 pm. Today was a 4pm day. Only today, unlike most days when I would go home, park my butt in front of the computer and get to homework and/or writing, I instead hopped in my car with my classmate and we went to do some photography and interviewing for our final project.
While that was a great deal of enjoyment (and quite educational too, actually!) I did not end up home until almost 9.30 pm. I showered, ate, and am now sitting here, at just after 10.30pm.
I have to be at work again at 6.45 tomorrow.
Did I mention that my commute to work is about 20 minutes? 30 these days because the road is under construction?
Which means I really need to try to be in bed by, uh, now if I want to have any sort of capacity for work or even simpler things like, I don't know, thought.
But that leaves me with a conundrum. I wrote probably a few hundred words during my lunch break at work today. I couldn't write on the train ride home because I had my classmate with me, and that would have been rude. I reached 5735 words yesterday, which means I am past today's minimum 5001 to still be on target, but it means my lead has already taken a huge hit.
But here's the good part: I still wrote. It was only a couple hundred words--if that--in my $4 notebook, but they were words.Which I wrote for my WIP. Today. No computers, electricity, outlets or other technological witchcraft required. Just paper, pen, and a brain.
This is why longhand should never go far from any writer's repertoire, no matter how much we love our computers. Our computers can't always be with us and sometimes we don't have time to boot them up, sit down, plug in, and type. But we almost always have time to scribble a few words here and there. And eventually, those words here and there will add up to 50,000 or a full novel.
And that is pretty awesome.
Keep at it, everyone! Happy writing!
~Katherine
This doesn't bode well, y'all. I'm 3 days in and already I've had a day where I could barely write a thing.
This is to be expected, obviously. Very few people can devote endless hours of their days to writing (in fact, I think I talked about that in an earlier post, didn't I? Yes, yes I did) and as a result time management becomes both the bane and salvation of our existences.
For me, most of the time it goes well. Today, however, it did not go so well.
I usually work mornings at my store--opening shifts from 6.45 in the AM until 3 or 4 pm. Today was a 4pm day. Only today, unlike most days when I would go home, park my butt in front of the computer and get to homework and/or writing, I instead hopped in my car with my classmate and we went to do some photography and interviewing for our final project.
While that was a great deal of enjoyment (and quite educational too, actually!) I did not end up home until almost 9.30 pm. I showered, ate, and am now sitting here, at just after 10.30pm.
I have to be at work again at 6.45 tomorrow.
Did I mention that my commute to work is about 20 minutes? 30 these days because the road is under construction?
Which means I really need to try to be in bed by, uh, now if I want to have any sort of capacity for work or even simpler things like, I don't know, thought.
But that leaves me with a conundrum. I wrote probably a few hundred words during my lunch break at work today. I couldn't write on the train ride home because I had my classmate with me, and that would have been rude. I reached 5735 words yesterday, which means I am past today's minimum 5001 to still be on target, but it means my lead has already taken a huge hit.
But here's the good part: I still wrote. It was only a couple hundred words--if that--in my $4 notebook, but they were words.Which I wrote for my WIP. Today. No computers, electricity, outlets or other technological witchcraft required. Just paper, pen, and a brain.
This is why longhand should never go far from any writer's repertoire, no matter how much we love our computers. Our computers can't always be with us and sometimes we don't have time to boot them up, sit down, plug in, and type. But we almost always have time to scribble a few words here and there. And eventually, those words here and there will add up to 50,000 or a full novel.
And that is pretty awesome.
Keep at it, everyone! Happy writing!
~Katherine
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Nov. 2: Pacing a Story (or: Help! I'm 4k in and STILL in Chapter ONE!)
Word Count: 4093
One of the things I've always struggled most with in writing fiction is pacing my chapters appropriately. When I was younger, I was a big fan of the abrupt, cliff-hanger chapter ending--it was clean, a sharp and decisive cut that compelled you to go to the next chapter and absolved me of having to tie up any loose ends that may have been hanging because that's the POINT of cliffhangers, right?
RIGHT?
I've tried to break that habit in my last few projects. I had moderate success with my draft that I wrote over the summer. As I delve into Nano 2011, though, I'm finding I'm encountering the opposite problem of the Cliffhanger Chapter: the Chapter That Never Bloody Well Ends.
I'm sure we've all been there: in trying to set up the characters, the setting, the very plot foundations, we just drag on and on and ON with what feels like meaningless descriptions and filler. And while the word count keeps ticking up, I can't help but feel like I'm cheating--these are meaningless words I will have to strike out later because they are just THAT BAD. You just want the story to move on already, to get to those exciting scenes and witty dialogue you have playing in your head.
In his book "No Plot? No Problem", author and Nanowrimo founder Chris Baty advises writers not to worry too much about unwieldy chapters, as they will eventually pace themselves out as we find our rhythm and our stories find their voices. This is true, to an extent: pacing gets easier as we gather momentum and we're not trying to get the fledgling story off the ground. I know some people who don't even attempt to break their story into chapters until they've written the whole manuscript and can find the natural "breaks" in the story. Others write until they get bored, then "end" the chapter so they can start in another spot for the next chapter.
In fact, I think I just did that. Hmm.
How do you end chapters that seem to be dragging on too long?
Until tomorrow, keep at it everyone! Good luck!
~Katherine
One of the things I've always struggled most with in writing fiction is pacing my chapters appropriately. When I was younger, I was a big fan of the abrupt, cliff-hanger chapter ending--it was clean, a sharp and decisive cut that compelled you to go to the next chapter and absolved me of having to tie up any loose ends that may have been hanging because that's the POINT of cliffhangers, right?
RIGHT?
I've tried to break that habit in my last few projects. I had moderate success with my draft that I wrote over the summer. As I delve into Nano 2011, though, I'm finding I'm encountering the opposite problem of the Cliffhanger Chapter: the Chapter That Never Bloody Well Ends.
I'm sure we've all been there: in trying to set up the characters, the setting, the very plot foundations, we just drag on and on and ON with what feels like meaningless descriptions and filler. And while the word count keeps ticking up, I can't help but feel like I'm cheating--these are meaningless words I will have to strike out later because they are just THAT BAD. You just want the story to move on already, to get to those exciting scenes and witty dialogue you have playing in your head.
In his book "No Plot? No Problem", author and Nanowrimo founder Chris Baty advises writers not to worry too much about unwieldy chapters, as they will eventually pace themselves out as we find our rhythm and our stories find their voices. This is true, to an extent: pacing gets easier as we gather momentum and we're not trying to get the fledgling story off the ground. I know some people who don't even attempt to break their story into chapters until they've written the whole manuscript and can find the natural "breaks" in the story. Others write until they get bored, then "end" the chapter so they can start in another spot for the next chapter.
In fact, I think I just did that. Hmm.
How do you end chapters that seem to be dragging on too long?
Until tomorrow, keep at it everyone! Good luck!
~Katherine
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Nov. 1: And We're Off (Our Rockers)!!
First, a disclaimer: I can't be held responsible for any typos in today's post. For one thing, I'm violently sleep deprived (see below). For another, I have 11 pounds of cat sitting on my arm right now, which makes typing unbelievably hard.
So. November 1. D-Day. Go time. Zero Hour. Etc.
I spent the day stacking and then re-stacking Christmas cards on tables at work. This somewhat tedious task was nicely broken up by the occasional bodily injury courtesy of our supply dumbwaiter, the door of which I kept whacking my head against when I went to fetch more Christmas cards to stack.
Then I went to class, where I panicked about the state of my final project (due in TWO WEEKS) and made plans with my partner to go out and do some field reporting the next day (today).
Then--THEN!--at almost 10.30pm, I came home, and my day got good and started. Because NaNoWriMo 2011 was starting in around an hour and a half. I was STOKED. And freaking out. I got on gchat to share motivational speeches with Gia, but we spent most of the time leading up to 12am alternately going "WHAT THE HELL AM I GOING TO WRITE?!" and "Oh my god I'm too old to be up this late."
Nevertheless, 12am rolled in and the words began rolling out. They weren't pretty words--I misspelled a billion of them, if the red squiggles all over my document are any indication--but they were words that started the existence of characters and the vague outlines of a plot. For now, that will do.
It's my hope to blog at least once each day for the month of November. I attempted this last year, with less than spectacular results, but hopefully I'll have more success this year. I will even include proper author-y posts, like discussions over ideal writing music! And word processing programs! And snacks!
For now, though, I need to find a new sleeping place for my cat, because I need to get back to my novel.
Happy Nano 2011 everyone! Good luck and happy writing!
So. November 1. D-Day. Go time. Zero Hour. Etc.
I spent the day stacking and then re-stacking Christmas cards on tables at work. This somewhat tedious task was nicely broken up by the occasional bodily injury courtesy of our supply dumbwaiter, the door of which I kept whacking my head against when I went to fetch more Christmas cards to stack.
Then I went to class, where I panicked about the state of my final project (due in TWO WEEKS) and made plans with my partner to go out and do some field reporting the next day (today).
Then--THEN!--at almost 10.30pm, I came home, and my day got good and started. Because NaNoWriMo 2011 was starting in around an hour and a half. I was STOKED. And freaking out. I got on gchat to share motivational speeches with Gia, but we spent most of the time leading up to 12am alternately going "WHAT THE HELL AM I GOING TO WRITE?!" and "Oh my god I'm too old to be up this late."
Nevertheless, 12am rolled in and the words began rolling out. They weren't pretty words--I misspelled a billion of them, if the red squiggles all over my document are any indication--but they were words that started the existence of characters and the vague outlines of a plot. For now, that will do.
It's my hope to blog at least once each day for the month of November. I attempted this last year, with less than spectacular results, but hopefully I'll have more success this year. I will even include proper author-y posts, like discussions over ideal writing music! And word processing programs! And snacks!
For now, though, I need to find a new sleeping place for my cat, because I need to get back to my novel.
Happy Nano 2011 everyone! Good luck and happy writing!
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