Category: NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo Day 12 and Strong-Minded Characters

On By cherylmahoneyIn NaNoWriMo3 Comments

Somehow, it’s almost halfway through November.  How does that happen?

I’ve had a very inconsistent week.  As I had hoped, I managed to build up a cushion on Wednesday.  Then on Thursday I wrote exactly ZERO words.  I knew that was going to happen though–I was out all evening for a party with friends.  So as Friday dawned, I was 600 words behind.  I closed the gap a bit Friday, and then today…today has been lovely.

I think today has been what my life might look like if I didn’t have a job and could write all the time.  I’m not usually one for sitting down and writing for hours at a time.  By necessity I’ve been writing for a couple hours every evening (when I can) this month, but usually I’d rather work in maybe half-hour stretches (barring those rare moments of ultimate inspiration).  I had a fairly clear day today, so I spent it alternating writing and everything else.  Eat breakfast; write for a while; go grocery shopping; write for a while; run an errand; write for a while; and so on.

And the grand total–which you already know if you’re looking at my sidebar–was 20,744 words.  That was almost 2,600 today, and it puts me about 750 up on the goal.  One of those good days.

I think I’m foreseeing some good word count days in the future.  My long-awaited second major character who finally turned up earlier this week likes to talk.  I don’t know why I haven’t mentioned his name–it’s Dastan, and he’s one of the princes in the story.

It tends to go that my plan is, say, to drop my narrating princess, Lyra, into any of the boats, just to get her over to the castle and move things along.  Instead, Dastan jumps in to say, “hey, she can ride in my boat, and we’ll have funny and/or character revealing conversations along the way!”  And then they do.  I’ve been a little worried about some future developments in their characters and their relationship, but I don’t think I need to be.  They’ll figure it out.

I have a feeling the above-paragraph may sound insane to non-writers.  Those of you who are writers, you know.  Characters do things like this!

Anyway.  It’s encouraging.  I like talkative characters.  Sometimes I have to go back and rein the in during revision, but it’s still helpful for a first draft.

Excerpt time.  Slight context here: Lyra and Dastan are in his boat en route to the enchanted castle where all that dancing is going on.  It’s just come out that there would be a way for the princesses to escape if they choose to.  And it may help you to know the princes are from a fairly small island country.

“What would you do?” I asked.  “If we decided to run?”

“I can’t speak for my brothers…”

“I didn’t ask about them.”  People always assumed that my sisters and I were of one mind all the time; we encouraged it, but it still frustrated me.  “What would you do?”

He shrugged one shoulder.  “I’d be sorry.  And I’d say Godspeed and good luck.”

“You wouldn’t try to stop us?”

He looked away, across the water.  “How do I put this…  I love my country.  It’s a good place.  And I’ve been trapped there my entire life.  Since the spell, sure, but before that too.  I’m not really a believer in trapping other people.”

“Try being trapped in just a castle.”

“I’d rather not.  How do you stand it?”

Do you know, no one had ever asked before.  My sisters had known me forever, and they were all in the same situation besides.  No one else at home would have that kind of conversation with us.  They wouldn’t ask—and even if they did, we wouldn’t answer.  Our anonymity held us together, but it kept us separate too.

So there was a definite thrill to answering, “I read stories.  In one way I’ve never been out of the castle—until now—but in another way…I’ve been so many places.”

NaNoWriMo Day 8

On By cherylmahoneyIn NaNoWriMo1 Comment

It’s been a few days since my last NaNo update, but there isn’t too much to report.  I’ve been hovering right around the word count goal for the last few days.  Yesterday was higher–today was lower.  In the end it evens out to put me at 13,681, about 350 up on the total goal.  Not bad, except that I’ve been trying and failing to build up a cushion against another Thursday when I won’t have time to write…we’ll see how that goes later this week.

On the plus side, I finally got to introduce a delayed major character today, and thanks to his entrance I think I see a lot more dialogue in my future.  I like dialogue.  I also have a clearer picture of my next several scenes than I usually have at the end of the evening, so I may be able to get that cushion written up tomorrow after all.  Crossing fingers!

Excerpt!

The library is my favorite place.  It had limited competition, since I had never been outside of our castle, but I think it would have been anyway.  It seemed in a way a wondrous thing.  Every room in the castle had some purpose—rooms for sleeping, for eating, for sewing, for dancing.  They were practical and tangible.  And I loved that there was a room simply to store information, ideas, thoughts…and stories.

NaNoWriMo Day 5 – Also Guy Fawkes Day

On By cherylmahoneyIn NaNoWriMo2 Comments

First, Happy Guy Fawkes Day!  It doesn’t get much press in this country, but it’s one of my favorite holidays.  I mean, really–a holiday where you light a bonfire, commemorate an obscure bit of British history and, in recent days, celebrate fighting for individual freedom.  It’s a great holiday.

On to the main topic.  By objective measurements, a perfectly acceptable day.  Today’s word count was 1,718, for a total of 8,550, putting me about 200 words up on the overall goal.  By subjective measurements, it was inexplicably a more satisfying day than yesterday.  I wrote about 60 words less, but I think they were more important words for moving the story forward.  I wrote most of that pivotal scene I was up to, settled up my second big chunk of backstory, and introduced a whole slew of characters.  With any luck, tomorrow we’ll get to know my second main character, who has dodged an appearance for nearly the first fifth of my 50,000 words.  Or it might be Monday.  But either way, we’re getting there!

Excerpt time…how about those new characters?

I learned all their names later, so I’ll give them to you now, though at the time I could perhaps have hazarded a few at best.  In order from eldest, the princes were Daemyn, Danton, Dacien, Dathan, Daylin, Dagan, Dastan, Darshan, Darnell, Darius, Dallon and Damek.  You see why we didn’t learn any names.  Just to add to the difficulty, they were twelve brothers and they looked it.  They were similar in height and build, with dark hair and dark eyes.  And, of course, they were all handsome.

But on the other hand, we were all used to looking for the details in a face—the tilt of a nose, the setting of eyes, a dimple or a cleft chin, the thickness of eyebrows or the slope of a jaw.  It was how we told each other apart, and it didn’t take long before we could tell them apart too.

That, however, came later.  That evening, we had a swarm of names and faces and even more questions.

Don’t worry, there isn’t a quiz, and no expectation that the reader will ever learn more than two or three names.  🙂  And that’s all for now–I’m off to a party to watch V for Vendetta and possibly burn things!

Blargh

On By cherylmahoneyIn NaNoWriMo, Ruminations1 Comment

As expected, yesterday was a complete flop for writing.  Circumstances were against me.  I had to travel for work, which ate up most of the day, besides being draining.  I knew I’d have about an hour between finishing work and getting on the road, during which I could eat dinner, hang out at a mall near the office (with nice chairs!) and wait for the rush hour traffic to abate before I got into it.  I figured, I could haul my laptop along and do some writing then.

And I did–a grand 174 words!  See above regarding “draining.”  Those 174 only got written because I could tell myself, “It’s NaNo–WRITE!”  And it really, really helps knowing that a lot of other people are doing it too.  But nevertheless, it was not a terribly productive day.

Today was better…ish.  Writers out there, do you ever have a day when you know you got a lot done, but you just don’t feel it?  1,774 words today, which puts me just ahead of the goal, but it was a draggy day for writing.  I love those days when the story pulls me forward and I can’t type fast enough to keep up with it.  Off the top of my head, I can think of two specific evenings that were probably my best ever for that kind of writing.  And there are plenty of satisfying days.  And there are plenty of blargh days, where it’s a matter of me dragging the story instead of the other way around.

Oh well.  The good (and bad) thing is that the feeling can turn on a dime.  The words got written, and tomorrow is another day…and I think I got myself right up to the edge of a pivotal scene that I don’t have the energy to handle right now.  Tomorrow.

In the meantime, have an excerpt.

I closed the book I hadn’t been reading anyway.  I had been talking to Mina.  They say, in the terribly practical books that Mina reads, that if you’re ever so unfortunate as to have a very large and potentially hostile predator staring at you in the woods, don’t move.  Movement attracts them.

My book closed and my father’s eyes swept to me, piercing, hard, cold.  It’s not the sort of comment a girl ought to make about her father, but he has creepy eyes.

NaNoWriMo Day Two, and the Kitten of Distraction

On By cherylmahoneyIn NaNoWriMo4 Comments

Tired tonight.  But total word count is at 4,884!

I really wanted to get ahead tonight, because I’m going to be out tomorrow evening.  I may find myself with some time to write on the fly…and I might not get anything done!  So a good solid cushion is a welcome thing right now.

To get there, though, meant fighting the “Kitten of Distraction,” as I saw it called on the NaNo forums.  Yesterday, I was pretty focused.  Today, for the first hour of writing I kept thinking of all the other things I could do.  Things that were totally relevant–like setting up a chart in Excel to track word count (spent twenty minutes on that) or visiting the NaNo forums (at least fifteen there).  But those aren‘t things that make actual writing progress…

The good thing is, the Kitten of Distraction got distracted itself eventually, and I got into a better rhythm in hour two.  I can already tell that how frequently I check word count is a pretty good barometer of how it’s going.  The slower it’s rising, the more frequently I check.

But tonight I got enough words written to get my dancing princesses in and out of their magical forest, and to go back in time for some background.  Tonight’s excerpt:

We turned back towards the glittering diamond forest.  I glanced over my shoulder as I walked towards the first trees.  I wouldn’t have minded exploring, at least a bit.  As I looked back, I thought I saw movement, just on the edge of the light.  It was a shadow among shadows, possibly a silhouette.  But I blinked, and when I looked again, I couldn’t be sure that I’d seen anything.  Even if I had, I didn’t know if that was a reason to stay, or an even better reason to go.

They might get to meet the silhouette tomorrow.  Or the next day.  But not if I don’t get off the computer tonight…