Day 9 -- the day after yesterday, better known as the last day of this adventure

This is it. The last day. Today I write until the story ends. Admittedly, I have some things to do today, but apart from those -- write like the wind!

It all comes down to it today. I'm going to get things all set up and write as much as possible and we'll see where I am when the day ends. Either way -- this has produced a working draft of this story in 9 days. How freaking cool is that?

Around 10 pm


More chapter titles:

Chapter Fifteen: Penny goes around in the walls?
Chapter Sixteen: I have to do another chapter title? DAMNIT.
Chapter Seventeen: Humdedadumdeda A title
Chapter Eighteen: More titles? Crap.
Chapter Nineteen: DOOM
Chapter Twenty: More DOOM
Chapter Twenty-One: Down in the Deep; or the Decent of Orpheus (?)

I got a but poetical there. I'm having some problems with coming up with names for chapters. I suppose I could go without chapter titles, but there is something enjoyable about chapter titles and if I can just figure out a theme I'm sure I'll make it work.

Anyways, this is procrastination, so I can avoid getting into the last(? possibly second to last) chapter. CRAZY. Let's get this done!

Around 11pm


Holy crap. I finished.

Final word count 59,394.

WOOOOOO!!!

Wrap up post tomorrow and the beginning of Camp NaNoWriMo. :D

Thanks for watching.

Groundhog Day 8 -- or Day Eight 2: Electric Boogaloo

Due to the complete failure of yesterday in terms of word count (I think I wrote something like 5 words), I decided to do Day 8 over again. The advantage of this is that 1, I get to make a lot of jokes about the movie Groundhog Day (this will probably be the last one though, I'll get distracted and forget) and 2, I will finish on the last day of June and not awkwardly on the 29th. I'm not sure how I missed this, but if I hadn't missed day 8, I would have ended today on the 29th, which isn't as good as ending on the 30th.

So yes, forget yesterday as Day 8, TODAY is day 8. :D

Now before I got too far, I just wanted to plug this article that Diane Duane, one of my all time favorite authors (she writes the Young Wizards series), retweeted this morning: A Home Before the End of the World. It was fabulous, and poignant, and just a great way to start the morning. I hope it starts your morning as well (or evening, afternoon or lunchtime even).

ANYWAYS, onwards. The keyboard awaits my first 1000 of the day.

Around 11am

I have figured out that if I can get to 50,000 with whatever has happened here, I could jump start the end of the novel and get it done by tomorrow. How strange is that?

My current word count is above. I was just thinking that even if I fail to finish the novel, at least I got this far into it in 9 days. It makes everything worth it. 

Around 10:30 pm

Wheeeeeeeee! I just wrote a very dramatic scene which will haunt Penny, my lead, for ages to come. I also managed to put in a character who might be The Doctor. MIGHT BE, is the key. I would never say he is. He does wear a pinstripe suit and a brown coat though. 

Anyways. I am about to hit 53,000 words, which is good, because my goal for today would have been 56,000 had I been on track. I'm heading into a dramatic ending which may or may not take me to 63,000. Either way, I'm happy with what's happening. I feel the draw of the end, pulling me along. 

Anyways, so in my spare time, whist I am procastinating, I've been thinking about ebook formatting of this book. And chapter titles. But the point being, is I made a cover for this book. I've decided that the book will probably be called Cut Throat in part, due to the true story that some of the characters are only barely based off of (the Scott family is the Medici family). Anyways, I wanted there to be blood dripping down from the cut, but I couldn't figure out how to make it look quite right, so I just left as is. 

Its not the most beautiful or captivating cover, but I was procrastinating, what do you want from me? I will actually make a cover for it properly later. I was pleased with the torn paper effect though, hence me sharing it. The tutorial I used was really good. 

Oh, and other noveling news -- CampNaNoWriMo has opened up!!! I already have an idea for it, but its super vague. Well, after doing almost 7,000 word days, 1,667 is an easy concept. I can knock that out (be)for(e) breakfast. 

I'm excited about everything! Let's get going on the end of this novel -- I know where things are going now. :D

Day 8 -- the day before tomorrow

Today promises to be wicked busy so taking a few minutes to drink tea and compose myself.

Yes in the background of this image you can see the names of the thirteen mechanics of Carys. I mean, if you squint and peer at it closely enough. :D

Anyways. So my mother is at the Cape, being all "I need a break!" and she took the car with her. Meanwhile, I have to take Kipper home to his family, take Tillie to the vet and have a doctor's appointment myself. We figured out a way to make it work -- I would drive my dad to work and then I'd have his car to drive to all these things.

This morning my dad informs me he has an eye doctor appointment. Me: o.o

Anyways, so there's lot's of running about and trying to make things fit. I am going to probably not be able to write much until 2:30 or so. I'm somewhat upset...

More later.

Around 8:30


So, as I predicted I wasn't able to get any words in. Though I didn't foresee it lasting this long. Ow. Well, I'm just going to have to go with what I've got now and try to get to a point where I can get things moving for the plot. Maybe going into the end, which is broad and dramatic, will allow for me to be pulled along on the last day? We'll see.

Good news though! Tillie, who was diagnosed with stage 4 carcinoma in September, has not developed any new growths, and according to the vet, she will probably get to live another 5 to 6 years despite having been given about four months to live nine months ago.

Tillie was annoyed with me because I was taking a picture of her in the care, and not taking her for her walk.

Day Seven -- a Day to Remember?

The deck is the bane of my existence.

There are tons of little nails in it which require removal and guess who is at home and "not doing anything". Oh yes, so I will have to remove these nails today. LUCKILY I can do it at my own pace and I think that will help me in terms of not wanting to rip my hair out.

So today. Today I am supposed to hit 49,000. I'm currently at 38,322. You never know, I could surprise myself. I don't know if I've ever done an 11,000 word day before though, so it may not happen.

My mother is going to the Cape today, so I will have the house to my self and only the dogs to care for until my dad gets back. I'm going to try and hit 7,000 words before six so I can at least be done with my word count before my dad wants me to do things.

Tillie is very worried mum is going to leave her behind -- for good reason as Tillie is not going to the Cape.

Oh, and as a small PS as I've been adding pictures recently to my posts: I've downloaded this app called Instagram which adds filters to your photos and really helps with the color and the way things look. So that is why you've got all these pictures on here, looking kind of cool. I will try and take pictures that aren't Tillie related some time, but unfortunately, she's terribly photogenic, so its hard. :D

Back to writing. More later perhaps.

Around Midday

I got distracted again. Need to work on that. Anyways, I thought I'd share the chapter titles I have currently. You can kind of tell where the story went sideways by the fact that the titles change. I'm probably going to rework the titles later, but I was amused by things that happened, so here are the titles:

Chapter One: An Opportunity
Chapter Two: An Unexpected Visitor
Chapter Three: A Wake Up Call
Chapter Four: A Surprise
Chapter Five: A Death in the Family
Chapter Six: An Early Meeting
Chapter Seven: Revelations
Chapter Eight: Something
Chapter Nine: Another Thing
Chapter Ten: Some Title I Have Yet to Come Up With Thank You Very Much
Chapter Eleven: Some New Title I Have to Come Up With
Chapter Twelve: Lee Arrives
Chapter Thirteen: In Which Something Happens, But I Don't Know What Yet, So Don't Ask Me
Chapter Fourteen: Oh Good Another Headache For Later

Right, I'm heading back. I leave you with these two songs which I've got on repeat as a soundtrack for this novel:
New Medium - Faded Paper Figures (discovered the other day while out with Halley)
Cosmic Love - Florence and the Machine (honestly, probably my favorite song of all time. I've listened to it so many times. When I first downloaded it I actually lay around for four hours listening to it on repeat... I think I got high off of music)

Around 10

Having seen the trailer for Brave (see above) I got really excited and distracted for a bit. Then I fell asleep -- I was so exhausted suddenly I just needed to lie down. I didn't wake up until my dad came back and woke me up. So yes, that was not an accomplishment.

I did however, turn on different music and now have Obliviate from the Harry Potter soundtrack on repeat. LOVE IT.

Anyways, I'm at 45,000 words. Only 4,000 more words to go and I'm not yet tired :D! Maybe 49,000 is in reach due to napping. We'll see.

Around 11:30


Well, my eyes are all dry and something strange just happened in my novel so I'm going to bed in order to figure out what happened. I am now only 3,000 words behind!!! I think that makes today an 8,000 word day WAHOO! Perhaps today is a day to remember. Or perhaps not. Tomorrow shall be busy but I will try hard to get words in. Goodnight everyone.

Day Six Dawns

Yesterday was rough on my word count. As I said, we are redoing the deck at my house, and I offered to help my dad (with a push to get it done as soon as possible). However, I was thinking it wouldn't happen this weekend, due to it being wet, also my dad's birthday. Once again I underestimated the destruction my family can have on my word count. Add on to that, last night was one of the only free nights Kat will have for ages due to her show, and I wanted to write... it was a mess.

Being a writer is hard -- the distractions are enough to get you doing other things for weeks. Sometimes you have to set up time for yourself to get things done. And I have never done this before because I can do 1000 words in half an hour (a little less, but I like giving myself a mental break before heading back in). Yesterday was the first time I attempted to set a time for myself to write, and told people about it, and it blew up in my face.

People are always so supportive of my writing, until I actually want to put words to the page. Then I'm taking time that I should be devoting to other things. Its like people feel like my writing is a hobby -- not something that should cut into time I could otherwise be spending doing something else -- and to me, its not a hobby, its a solace and way of life.

I know my mother deals with this all the time because she's self employed and works from home, and people are always assuming she has time for something, when in fact she's quite busy (of course it gets confusing because my mother also complains about not having enough work to me, so I tell someone else that she's looking for work, and then my mother is like "No I'm too busy!" ... I don't understand that but sure).

Anyways, angst of an artist, blah blah blah. I wonder how much time I waste writing these entries instead of getting in my words. ;)

In NaNoWriMo they talk about the effect of getting to 20,000 words, and how this is the point where the writing slows down because you know the characters and have to slog to get through. I've never really experienced this with my NaNos, unless of course, I get stuck on a novel that's just not going to work because it hasn't marinated long enough. I do get a sense of the twenties though, and know I'm in it now (despite being at 31,000 words). So push ahead.

Word count doesn't matter so much, I must remind myself. Its all a matter of getting as much as I can on the page. Still, I'd rather like to get to 40,000 by tonight... I hope I can. :D

I leave you with a picture of Tillie, for motivational purposes:

Almost 9

Okay, so no, I am not at 42,000 yet. I'm not even at 40,000, but I'm at a tidy 34,000. I feel pretty good at the moment and fully intend to keep the night going on and on until I get somewhere good. And this is mostly due to the fact that.... I love Lance and Penny interacting. I forgot how fun they are because in my NaNo they had one scene of fun and then Penny got all depressing. Its mostly that Lance brings out a different side of Penny that we mostly don't get to see when she's not around him, and it makes her so entertaining. Plus Lance is silly.

Anyways, more stuff has happened, and I am pleased. :D

I agree Tia, I agree. I am so entangled in this city. <3

Trials and tribulations of Day Five

So, if you've been following me, you know that yesterday did not go well. I got 5,000 words in and hit a major road block. I tried to do what is advised at this point and went to see a movie (Beginners) and then tried not to think about it too much and just wrote for a while, free style to see if the characters would come up with it by themselves. Well, then didn't, so I went to bed in the hopes that if I slept I would have dreams that would help, or at least I would wake up with a solution.

Unfortunately cat drama happened. Let me explain the cat drama.

This is Gus:

He's my cat (the other one is Daisy). I love him dearly, but he's a very outdoorsy cat and likes to be outside. Anyways, a few years ago, we had a golden retriever staying with us (by the name of Churchill), and the dog freaked Gus out so much that he ran out of our yard and ripped open his leg. After several days of not knowing where he was, he returned, limping painfully, and had to have surgery. He did, however make a full recovery. Its times like these that I think that Gus would have made a very good Wizard Cat. 

The point being, Gus now can't deal with stranger dogs. We currently have a dog called Kipper staying with us. Kipper is a sweet dog:

But of course his presence means that Gus refused to come inside. Instead he would stand in our neighbors yard while we called for him, calling back that he was hungry and we better get his dinner out to him there. So, since my mother doesn't understand how to catch cats, I was the one outside, throwing cat food at Gus and trying to grab him. Didn't work. 

Well last night I wake up because Gus is yowling up a storm outside. So I go downstairs at about 4:45am and let him in. I think this interruption got into the collating of ideas in my brain and now I'm still stuck. 

Well, stuck - ish. I think I have a solution for the whole story, and its that Tia is protecting Penny, and the Shadow Collection is much closer on hand, making the danger pressing, so that Tia would feel awful for giving up Penny. We'll see. I'm going to have to wriggle it a bit. 

Today I have to get 9,000 words in, to make up for yesterday, the problem being that my dad wants me to do things with him. Well, let's get going. Do 1000 quick. See how it goes.

At 11
I have managed to write... 4,000 words today x.x I owe another 3,000 for today and 2,000 from yesterday. That's an extra 5,000 words tomorrow. And I'm so tired now.

Okay, so today, I had to start destroying the deck we have in our backyard. It was rotting and needed doing, but it of course, had to happen in the middle of this project.

Plus, tomorrow is my dad's birthday, so we went out tonight. And then Kat called me and was like "I am free!" and I was like "I NEED TO WRITE 5,000 WORDS" and she got mad at me. :(

I'm too tired to continue. Tomorrow I'll just have to figure it out.

Goodnight.

From the chronicles of Day Four

I have found a new app called instagram (you all probably know about it already, shush, sometimes I'm super behind) and I keep adding photos to it and tweeting them -- because yes, I'm becoming better at tweeting. ANYWAYS. Since this is happening, I'm thinking about copying all of my tweets from the day related to #9daynovel and put them here. Well, thinking about it.

Anyways, as day four dawns, I am feeling pretty good. I'm going to start out light and as the day progresses push further. I don't have any specific plans, but I will have to go outside at some point today. I'm thinking of going to the library for a change of pace. Or the gym. I'd rather the library because its so nice there for writing. Anyways, so start out slow, speed up, slow down for an exercise break, slow start again and make it happen.

Yesterday I did not manage to get to my goal of 9,000 words, but I did get to 7,000 words. The way this is going, I sense the end result of these 9 days will be 63,000 words. I would like to get it up a bit more, and try for 65,000, if not the 70,000. I do know the novel won't be done, but the vast majority of it will be. I might be just about to hit the climax at 70,000 words, so here's to trucking on and seeing what happens.

Keep following me on twitter -- being able to pretend that people are paying attention to me makes the writing happen. If I fail, everyone will know about it ;)

I leave you at 9 am with this picture of Tillie, my dog:

More later.

2 pm


So a new character arrived today -- K98M3 (yes, the pun is, canine ate me. There will be a clever joke about this later in the book, unfortunately I still don't know exactly what it is. Puns anyone?). I think I shall like him a lot because, well, he's a repair sphere who's going to have character. :D

Anyways, I've managed to get, what, 4,000 words done thus far. I've decided to reinvent my chapters, so I could stop being in chapter two, which would have been about 15,000 words long x.x SO instead, I've just gotten to chapter 9. Makes me feel more productive, even if I'm still kind of wriggling around in the dust going, 'ahfwighrge my outline, my poor outline.'

Onwards and upwards. Maybe I'll get to 7,000 before 8? Then I can attempt to get on and write more then 7,000 words a day. :D

Another picture, this time of my computer screen:

Around 11

Ouch. I've hit a road block. I've got a good set up for a powerful force behind quite a bit of the novel, but have stalled when it comes to motivations. I need a reason for why Tia is going along with the plan her parents have cooked up -- I mean, apart from familial love, because Tia's not big on her family. Argh. I think I may loose out on today as a great writing day. I tried pushing ahead and all I got was this round about conversation of what's going on in my head. *grumble*

Well, I'm going to bed. Maybe sleep will offer something up to me.

Update from Day Three

So this nine day novel stuff has gotten me going rather fast. I find 7,000 words a day to be something of a challenge usually. I mean, I can sit down and bang out 5,000 words every now and then, but the idea of doing more is sometimes taxing. Now I'm doing 7,000 words a day for nine days. A but more if I can manage it. Maybe my goal for today should be 8,000 words?

Anyways. I'm chugging along. I think that there is a definite plus to sharing that you're writing at high speeds like this. For one thing, people might not care, but you can pretend they do. I've gained followers from this project. Its interesting.

I was thinking about the fact that NaNoWriMo tells you to tell everyone you know what you're doing -- a novel in a month -- and how it really does work, the sense that if you don't get it, then many people will know about your failure. Eh, I might keep doing this 9 day novel stuff in the future, get it set into a sort of contest for myself. We'll see.

Originally this was in the last entry about the idea but I'm starting a new entry:

Going to take a break from twitter for a moment so I can have more then 160 words to outline my plan for today. I'm going to a video blogger's filming today with Halley starting around 11 so I got up early-ish to do some writing. Now I have my tea, I can sit down and think about a plan for the day.

So, if I start at 8:30 (so 15 minutes until then), I should write about a 1000 words by 9. Then quick break and another 1500 by ten (I don't like giving myself longer then half an hour to do timed work, I always get kind of stressed as the time runs down, and half an hour : 1000 words works for me even if it really takes me 20 minutes). Another 1500 by 11, as I'll need to change. So the idea is to get 4000 in before I head out. Pretty good plan.

Let's see how it works out. I'd like to be 3000 in at least before I need to leave.

Keep following me on twitter. I find it wonderfully liberating to pretend people care. :)

Just before 8:30
Me: I think maybe I should think about making it a 9,000 word day. Just to make up for the fact that I haven't written 10,000 every day, and I do want to get to 70,000....

Famous last words?

9:30am
The time I threw my outline out the window.

10:45pm
So, the 9,000 word day did not happen. I got another 7,000 words in though, so feeling pretty good. Let's see.
Total words: 21329
Total words today: 7,293
Number of tweets: 13

#9daynovel

9 Day Novel

So I had this plan. It went like this:

June 7th, start my novel. July 1st, finish my novel.

Sure, that seems like not long enough to finish a novel, but I usually get to 50,000 words by November 23rd, when it comes to NaNo (actually more then that lately, but we're getting to that).

So far I have 1,000 words. Oh yes, I am pushing it a little. And by a little, I mean A LOT. I'm not planning on a 50,000 word novel, I'm planning on an 100,000 word novel. That means, if I want to get to my goal, I have to be putting out 10,000 word days.

Still, I have ways of doing this. Including the sprint exercises I picked up in NaNo. For example -- writing 1,000 words is not hard for me, so I break the 10,000 words down into 1,000 word chunks. Ready set go.

So yes, I'm attempting a 9 day novel. Plus a short story for The Time of the Firebird, a new project me and Josh are working on.

Follow me on Twitter as I attempt this crazy idea: TWEET.

Edit: Looking at my schedule, and how much I wrote on the first day, I'm amending the above. I'm still trying for 10,000 word days, but the goal of the nine days is to get to about 90,000 words, not 100,000. That being said, I would consider a 70,000 word novel worth the craziness.

Update from Day One:
Words: 7011 words
Number of Characters: 6
Number of Deaths: 0

Update from Day Two:
Total Words: 14036
Words Written Today: 7025
Number of Characters: 12 with names, 3 without names but who may come back
Number of Deaths: 2
Number of chapters complete: 1

End of night sentence (too long for twitter): She knew the ships like the back of her hand, but the machinery that kept the state working – she had no idea how that worked.

Yeah, my first chapter is almost 12,000 words long. x.x

I'm enjoying this tweeting my way through word sprints for myself. Its kind of fun.

Temper Tantrum

ARGH.

I have a problem. I may have written seven novels, and some of them had engaging characters, and interesting plots, but I can't seem to make the endings works. This was the problem with Evolution of a Wolf, where the ending was big and dramatic but it did grow organically from the beginning and middle of the story. I may have gotten too committed to what happened with Alice and Ian to really comprehend how it was not right and now, they seem stuck in that space. I can't get my brain to work.

Anyways, so I decided to just scrap the whole thing and start something new, because I was getting itchy. I plotted something out -- and it was cool. It was heading towards clockwork punk, with a bit of space western thrown in, but I have had the hardest time STARTING it, because I know the ending doesn't work.

I thought it was first draft fatigue -- thought it was the rush to get through the end, but I can't even plot an end that makes sense. WHAT THE HELL SELF.

Well FINE I AM JUST GOING TO WORK ON IT.

*stomps off to do so*