Bored out of my skull today. I don't know why. I've been idly pressing "refresh" on the NaNo forums and Facebook since around 10am. 11 hours ago. I'm feeling weirdly social, but there's no one to talk to. Called Melanie and talked her ear off. She seemed distracted -- maybe upset? But she didn't offer any details, so I guess she didn't want to talk about it. So instead, I blathered for over an hour about ME ME ME. Dreadful habit. A dreadful habit that I'm indulging right now. Someday I'll learn.
Someday I'll also learn to stop making promises I can't keep. So scratch that: No, I'll probably never learn how to share conversations properly. Sorry. You're reading the blog of a selfish, competitive-talker. But I do generally try to be good.
I cleaned the upstairs bathroom today. It's spotless and beautiful and all sorts of other happy words. I removed a whopping total of 17 books from my 9x3 ft bathroom. That's a book every ~2 sqft, or a single stack that comes up to about waist height on me. Bathtub reading is (obviously) a hobby of mine.
I'm all excited about Camp NaNoWriMo. In honor of the silly spirit of NaNo, I'm going to be doing something that is both extreme and ridiculous. For at least the first weekend of NaNo (and probably longer), I'm going to be living in my bathroom.
Yes. You read that properly.
I'm going to try to simulate the camp experience by cramming myself and both puppies into the bathroom during the writing hours. This serves several purposes.
1) My computer cannot connect to the WiFi at home. If I'm at the desk/vanity/whatever by the bathroom sink, I will not have the internet to distract me.
2) No one barges in and pesters you when the bathroom door is closed.
3) I hate to be called "silly" or any variation on that word, but I do enjoy ridiculous endeavors just to lighten up sometimes. I've been in super-serious mode basically since I moved in -- no sense of humor, no sense of adventure. ("And living in a bathroom will change that?" you ask. Hush now. Don't ask questions. You'll break the magic).
4) I like to have a distinctive "this is writing" place, separate from my "this is internet time" places.
5) If I'm not living in my bedroom, I could feasibly get it completely cleaned before the dogs had a chance to make it filthy again. Keeping it clean isn't hard. Getting it clean in the first place is a minor miracle.
6) My parents will be out of town for most of that time = no judgment.
So I'm going to turn my bathroom into a small office, silly as that sounds. If it brings in words, I don't care what I have to do -- I'll do it.
I've been meaning to read The Artist's Way for a while, and I haven't. Can't now -- no money. But I've decided to start doing Morning Pages each morning and Artist Dates once a week. My problem with Artist Dates is that they're supposed to be done alone.
I'm bad at "alone."
I ought to be good at it, really. I've been alone in North Carolina (barring my parents) since last August. But the idea of going somewhere public on my own makes me inexplicably nervous. Can my Artist Dates be "pizza-booze-telly" style, except substituting "popcorn-water-Netflix?" But I guess that's not the point. And I do need to work on confidence in public places.... maybe this will be my excuse?
I sound so decisive, don't I?
Morning pages, though, I think I can do. It's funny. "Write 750 words each morning as soon as you wake up" sounds ridiculously easy. "Then write another 750 words immediately before going to bed" is equally trifling. If both of those were novel writing, I'd be almost at NaNo quota. Sometimes I forget how easy it is to keep up with that. 1,667 sounds so big until you remember it's roughly 30-45 minutes of writing out of a whole 24 hours.
I cleaned the bathroom today. I know I already said that, but it bears repeating. Also, I changed a lightbulb. I'm basically a domestic goddess of broom-wielding prowess.
Still sitting at 30 phases of 300. If I can just get to 75 before I start writing, I'll be okay. (And future-me rereading this post, that's 75 chronological phases, not 75 cumulative. The point is to get past the Act-2 slump, you ninny. Back to your keyboard!)
Two more days to get this beast outlined.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Heading Into July
Sorry. I know it's been a few weeks since I updated. I'm awful at actually staying consistent with things. Be prepared for awkward two-week gaps between posts on a fairly regular basis.
We're standing on the cusp of July, and I can't seem to get my ass into gear. My working title for The Empty People has changed to Forget Me Not, which fits much better. I was incredibly pleased with myself for that. Although I hate quippy, cliched titles like that. Usually if a title hearkens back to a cliche, I drop the book. But it works so well! We'll call it a working title for now. I'm not 100% sold on it right now, but it's better than The Empty People. So TEP is now FMN.
I'm 29 phases into a Phase Outline, and I can't decide if it's looking fantastic or grim. That's odd -- the two are so different that it's usually a very clear-cut line. I'm expecting the outline to run about 300 phases, which means 29/300 puts me at about 10% of the novel. I'm just finishing the setup, so for a novel of this size and "flavor," that's about where I want to be. So around phase 75, Ineroh needs to show up on Yosseval's doorstep at Periwythen Estates. That means that Y needs to move to Periwythen around phase 60-65, which is comfortably close to where I am right now. Yes. This will work. So I need one more major scene, then the engagement scene, then a magic issue, then Y can creep off to Periwythen. Golden. This will work.
Anyhow. Back on topic. I'm not sure how much of this I need to get plotted before Friday. I'm hoping I can get at least the first 50k (150 phases) written before the month starts, but that's looking questionable. At the very least, I need to get to the point where Ineroh shows up at Yosseval's door. That's the disconnect. There's always one. In my stories, in the 20k-25k range, there's always an awkward "bump" in the writing process where I suddenly realize that everything I've written is shit and I have no idea what I'm doing anymore. Theoretically, I'm hoping the phase outline will eliminate that. The stories usually unravel at the connecting point between the first and second act. I know WHAT happens next, but I stumble over HOW and WHY. The phase outline is forcing me to worry about that now rather than in the middle of writing. I'm hoping I'll be able to skip that step and actually get this damn thing finished.
Part of me wants to try for 100k in July with TEP/FMN and then work on Blood Debt in August. Silly. More than silly: stupid. I need a win. My confidence is at rock-bottom right now, where it has been languishing for several years. I need to prove to myself that Harvest, my first novel, wasn't some monstrous fluke. I haven't written anything substantial since then. A short story. Some flash fiction. Roleplaying posts. Essays. But nothing solid. I don't need a big, flashy finish. I just need to be able to say, "I can do this."
The house is filthy. I want to clean it before Camp starts. Part of my reluctance is the bit-off-more-than-I-could-chew paralysis, which is normal. Part of it is just me being obstinate. Mom has been particularly pushy about me cleaning lately, which is making me resist. I don't want to feel bullied. I think that's a very rational, normal response, but she makes it sound like I'm being a petty child. I don't see it that way. If I give in, if I allow myself to be shouted at, I set precedent that "a firm hand" is what it takes to control me. I do not intend to be bullied into doing things. Therefore, I will not respond positively to bullying. Period.
But it's frustrating, because I want to clean right now, and if she would stop pushing and pulling and shouting and pleading and making a huge deal out of it, I could actually get something done.
I need to move out.
I need to move out.
I wish PetSmart would call me back. I need that job, too.
And this is where I start wallowing in self-pity. No, wait, that happened a few paragraphs ago. I'll spare you the whining for the rest of it. Maybe I can clean the bathroom. That's both necessary and easy, and Mom wouldn't be watching over my shoulder the whole time...
We're standing on the cusp of July, and I can't seem to get my ass into gear. My working title for The Empty People has changed to Forget Me Not, which fits much better. I was incredibly pleased with myself for that. Although I hate quippy, cliched titles like that. Usually if a title hearkens back to a cliche, I drop the book. But it works so well! We'll call it a working title for now. I'm not 100% sold on it right now, but it's better than The Empty People. So TEP is now FMN.
I'm 29 phases into a Phase Outline, and I can't decide if it's looking fantastic or grim. That's odd -- the two are so different that it's usually a very clear-cut line. I'm expecting the outline to run about 300 phases, which means 29/300 puts me at about 10% of the novel. I'm just finishing the setup, so for a novel of this size and "flavor," that's about where I want to be. So around phase 75, Ineroh needs to show up on Yosseval's doorstep at Periwythen Estates. That means that Y needs to move to Periwythen around phase 60-65, which is comfortably close to where I am right now. Yes. This will work. So I need one more major scene, then the engagement scene, then a magic issue, then Y can creep off to Periwythen. Golden. This will work.
Anyhow. Back on topic. I'm not sure how much of this I need to get plotted before Friday. I'm hoping I can get at least the first 50k (150 phases) written before the month starts, but that's looking questionable. At the very least, I need to get to the point where Ineroh shows up at Yosseval's door. That's the disconnect. There's always one. In my stories, in the 20k-25k range, there's always an awkward "bump" in the writing process where I suddenly realize that everything I've written is shit and I have no idea what I'm doing anymore. Theoretically, I'm hoping the phase outline will eliminate that. The stories usually unravel at the connecting point between the first and second act. I know WHAT happens next, but I stumble over HOW and WHY. The phase outline is forcing me to worry about that now rather than in the middle of writing. I'm hoping I'll be able to skip that step and actually get this damn thing finished.
Part of me wants to try for 100k in July with TEP/FMN and then work on Blood Debt in August. Silly. More than silly: stupid. I need a win. My confidence is at rock-bottom right now, where it has been languishing for several years. I need to prove to myself that Harvest, my first novel, wasn't some monstrous fluke. I haven't written anything substantial since then. A short story. Some flash fiction. Roleplaying posts. Essays. But nothing solid. I don't need a big, flashy finish. I just need to be able to say, "I can do this."
The house is filthy. I want to clean it before Camp starts. Part of my reluctance is the bit-off-more-than-I-could-chew paralysis, which is normal. Part of it is just me being obstinate. Mom has been particularly pushy about me cleaning lately, which is making me resist. I don't want to feel bullied. I think that's a very rational, normal response, but she makes it sound like I'm being a petty child. I don't see it that way. If I give in, if I allow myself to be shouted at, I set precedent that "a firm hand" is what it takes to control me. I do not intend to be bullied into doing things. Therefore, I will not respond positively to bullying. Period.
But it's frustrating, because I want to clean right now, and if she would stop pushing and pulling and shouting and pleading and making a huge deal out of it, I could actually get something done.
I need to move out.
I need to move out.
I wish PetSmart would call me back. I need that job, too.
And this is where I start wallowing in self-pity. No, wait, that happened a few paragraphs ago. I'll spare you the whining for the rest of it. Maybe I can clean the bathroom. That's both necessary and easy, and Mom wouldn't be watching over my shoulder the whole time...
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Not As Impressive As Yesterday, But~~ (JuNo Day 2)
Day two: 13,525 / 50,000
Progress today: 3,303 words
Today was a little slower than yesterday. I didn't get started until about 10:45pm, but I still got a really respectable amount done. I'm done with the first 7 days of material in The 90 Day Novel. I wonder if I could cram the 90 day novel into the 30 day novel? At this pace, it certainly seems possible. I don't know if the writing will get slower once I get into the bulk of the process, though, so I'm keeping my goals open-ended. The current best-guess is that I'll be aiming for 50k each in June and July, hoping to finish the 90-day process in 60.
I did the math, and 13,525 words is basically the equivalent of Day 8 of NaNo 0_o It's also about as much as I managed in the whole month of November, and significantly more than I've written in the whole intervening time since NaNo ended. And if I were able to maintain this speed (I won't be, but IF I could), I'd be at 202k by the end of the month.
I reiterate:
Mind = blown.
I'm not going to have much time to write tomorrow. I promised Katie that I would help her clean her whole house, which means I'm going to be spending most of the day with her, which means I have absolutely no idea how much time I'll manage to hoard away for the words. Hopefully we'll be able to finish cleaning the house at a decent hour tomorrow and I'll be able to get home and get some writing done.
^--- This is the attitude I wish I always had. Writing has felt like a chore for so long. I'm almost afraid to talk about how much fun I've had in the past two days, for fear that I'll break it and go back to the tedium.
Progress today: 3,303 words
Today was a little slower than yesterday. I didn't get started until about 10:45pm, but I still got a really respectable amount done. I'm done with the first 7 days of material in The 90 Day Novel. I wonder if I could cram the 90 day novel into the 30 day novel? At this pace, it certainly seems possible. I don't know if the writing will get slower once I get into the bulk of the process, though, so I'm keeping my goals open-ended. The current best-guess is that I'll be aiming for 50k each in June and July, hoping to finish the 90-day process in 60.
I did the math, and 13,525 words is basically the equivalent of Day 8 of NaNo 0_o It's also about as much as I managed in the whole month of November, and significantly more than I've written in the whole intervening time since NaNo ended. And if I were able to maintain this speed (I won't be, but IF I could), I'd be at 202k by the end of the month.
I reiterate:
Mind = blown.
I'm not going to have much time to write tomorrow. I promised Katie that I would help her clean her whole house, which means I'm going to be spending most of the day with her, which means I have absolutely no idea how much time I'll manage to hoard away for the words. Hopefully we'll be able to finish cleaning the house at a decent hour tomorrow and I'll be able to get home and get some writing done.
^--- This is the attitude I wish I always had. Writing has felt like a chore for so long. I'm almost afraid to talk about how much fun I've had in the past two days, for fear that I'll break it and go back to the tedium.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
10k Day
It's 2:25am on June 1, and I'm currently at 6,468 words. I'll go ahead and announce that I started JuNo one hour early, so I've had 3.5 hours of writing time. I'll be stopping an hour early as well, to keep everything fair. No harm, no foul as far as I'm concerned -- the length of the challenge is the same, but staying up until the wee hours of the night is harder for me than it used to be.
I wanted to stay up later to write more (10k in one night would have been such a fantastic thing to brag about, wouldn't it?), but my caffeine is failing me and my eyes are slipping closed. I'm going to try to wake up relatively early tomorrow morning. I'm trying not to let my mother know that I'm writing, because she invariably pokes holes in my ego as soon as she finds out that I'm starting a new project. She's taking summer courses at the local community college from 8am-10am Monday through Thursday. I'm going to try to wake up in time to write during that block, when I KNOW that she'll be consistently out of the house and therefore unable to make commentary on what I'm doing. That will give me a scheduled, established time set aside as "writing time" with built-in privacy. That's the plan, anyway.
If the writing stays at this pace (it won't; I'm not that much of an idealist), I may have to change my goal from 50k to something closer to an actual full draft. I didn't expect to make NEARLY this much progress tonight. I was going to be grateful if I managed to scrape by with just making quota at 1,667. My shoutouts from here on out will probably be much less impressive than this one, but I just couldn't go to bed without telling someone about it.
June 01, 2011, at 11:54pm:
10k. TEN THOUSAND WORDS in 24 hours (and with 6 minutes to spare, too).
Mind = blown.
This is officially the second-most-productive writing day I've ever had. Most productive was the final day of NaNo in '06, when I wrote 12k between 4pm and midnight. Then there was today -- 10k in 24 hours, and totally not burnt out. I'm thinking about doing more, but I promised myself that I could (a) call my writer friend and brag, (b) watch an episode of Doctor Who and (c) read a few more chapters in Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn if I finished on time, and I did.
I was originally aiming for 50k in the month of June, but if it continues anywhere close to this pace, I'm going to have to raise my goal. The stuff I'm writing right now is mostly character work and background information. It's in-character, and a lot of it will be going into the actual draft (which works, since I write very-introspective first person), but it isn't traditional narrative. I'm doing Alan Watt's 90 Day Novel program, and I've just finished Day 5's material. I'm going to try to do all the background work (30 days of the 90 day process) in the first half of June, write a long synopsis/really short first draft of the plot (sans introspection and background work) in the second half of June, then combine the two into a genuine full draft during July when CampNaNo opens. Part of my problem when writing the introspective first person narratives in most of my stories is that I can't get the balance right. I kind of wobble all over the place. I figure, if I write them completely separately and then combine them logically, carefully and AFTER I've drafted each part, I'll be able to control the proportions much better. And I'm surprised at the things my characters are telling me in the backstory work that I wouldn't have predicted at all. The story was supposed to be all about Yosseval's magical condition (he's a magic nullifier in a world that functions entirely on magic). Instead, it's mostly about his relationship problems right now (which is totally fine by me, because that ties in VERY heavily with his magic problems, and it's critical to the tragedy at the climax of the story). So Ineroh, the love interest, is getting a lot more attention than I expected her to get. Not complaining. The situation with Ineroh is a good summary for Yosseval's life as a whole, so I'm completely okay with him angsting about her, since (a) it fits with the character, (b) it's not gratuitous (yet), and (c) it's a really comfortable way to sprinkle in exposition while the focus is on another part of the story.
I wanted to stay up later to write more (10k in one night would have been such a fantastic thing to brag about, wouldn't it?), but my caffeine is failing me and my eyes are slipping closed. I'm going to try to wake up relatively early tomorrow morning. I'm trying not to let my mother know that I'm writing, because she invariably pokes holes in my ego as soon as she finds out that I'm starting a new project. She's taking summer courses at the local community college from 8am-10am Monday through Thursday. I'm going to try to wake up in time to write during that block, when I KNOW that she'll be consistently out of the house and therefore unable to make commentary on what I'm doing. That will give me a scheduled, established time set aside as "writing time" with built-in privacy. That's the plan, anyway.
If the writing stays at this pace (it won't; I'm not that much of an idealist), I may have to change my goal from 50k to something closer to an actual full draft. I didn't expect to make NEARLY this much progress tonight. I was going to be grateful if I managed to scrape by with just making quota at 1,667. My shoutouts from here on out will probably be much less impressive than this one, but I just couldn't go to bed without telling someone about it.
June 01, 2011, at 11:54pm:
10k. TEN THOUSAND WORDS in 24 hours (and with 6 minutes to spare, too).
Mind = blown.
This is officially the second-most-productive writing day I've ever had. Most productive was the final day of NaNo in '06, when I wrote 12k between 4pm and midnight. Then there was today -- 10k in 24 hours, and totally not burnt out. I'm thinking about doing more, but I promised myself that I could (a) call my writer friend and brag, (b) watch an episode of Doctor Who and (c) read a few more chapters in Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn if I finished on time, and I did.
I was originally aiming for 50k in the month of June, but if it continues anywhere close to this pace, I'm going to have to raise my goal. The stuff I'm writing right now is mostly character work and background information. It's in-character, and a lot of it will be going into the actual draft (which works, since I write very-introspective first person), but it isn't traditional narrative. I'm doing Alan Watt's 90 Day Novel program, and I've just finished Day 5's material. I'm going to try to do all the background work (30 days of the 90 day process) in the first half of June, write a long synopsis/really short first draft of the plot (sans introspection and background work) in the second half of June, then combine the two into a genuine full draft during July when CampNaNo opens. Part of my problem when writing the introspective first person narratives in most of my stories is that I can't get the balance right. I kind of wobble all over the place. I figure, if I write them completely separately and then combine them logically, carefully and AFTER I've drafted each part, I'll be able to control the proportions much better. And I'm surprised at the things my characters are telling me in the backstory work that I wouldn't have predicted at all. The story was supposed to be all about Yosseval's magical condition (he's a magic nullifier in a world that functions entirely on magic). Instead, it's mostly about his relationship problems right now (which is totally fine by me, because that ties in VERY heavily with his magic problems, and it's critical to the tragedy at the climax of the story). So Ineroh, the love interest, is getting a lot more attention than I expected her to get. Not complaining. The situation with Ineroh is a good summary for Yosseval's life as a whole, so I'm completely okay with him angsting about her, since (a) it fits with the character, (b) it's not gratuitous (yet), and (c) it's a really comfortable way to sprinkle in exposition while the focus is on another part of the story.
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