Good Run of Bad Luck

So, my friends, I hate to say this... but I think I've been defeated.

At 22,000 words with 7 days left, you'd think I'd be full on forward. And I was...

... until I got a busted eardrum.

Apparently extreme sinus pressure, stress, and a love-tap to the back of the head with a football equals waking up at 2:00 in the morning with blood gushing from your ear, a trip to the ER, and an unknown number of days with vertigo, trips to various doctors, and bluebell creamsicles whilst lying on the couch.

Oh, and I have to keep cotton swabs in my ear to soak up the constant seeping of red ooze.

I tried. I really did. My main character overdid it this morning with magic, and she busted an eardrum. 1400 words worth of description pounded out with very real-life inspiration.

But it was no use. I couldn't write after that. I'm actually not supposed to be doing anything stressful, and worrying about a wordcount is definitely that. Especially when one is this far behind.

So I'm taking a step back, and I'll resume my writing after I'm fully healed.

It was a fun run, and thanks for bearing with me!  I still have my initial writing challenge of finishing my re-write before the end of the year. And there will be other crazy-town writing challenges; including, of course... next NaNoWriMo ;-)

Laterz.


Final Wordcount: 22,720


.

'And I would write 5,000 words....

and I would write 2,000 more

Just to be the one who wrote 7,000 words til I couldn't write anymore."

Yes, ladies and gents, I wrote 7,000 words in one day. 7,100 to be exact.

Guess what? That caught me up. I crossed the 18,000 word mark on the same day as the other participants of NaNo who are on time.

Of course, they are only writing one novel, but we won't get into that.

The material point is this: I wrote 7100 words in one day! That's amazing! What would happen if I did that every day? I could potentially write three books! ::starts doing math::

::ahem::

Not really. I'm not that insane. Yet.

But it does give me hope that I can at least come close to completing my 100k word goal for this November.

Speaking of, I need to get back to it. After I finish purposefully distracting myself by baking a fancy cake for my coworkers. Pictures to follow. Especially if it's an epic fail....


Laterz.

The best laid plans....

... sometimes go awry...

But NOT in this case!!

I tell you, my friends, I was worried there at the start. It got a wee bit rough.

First of all, I was supposed to be off on November 1. Can you say, Perfect? I was going to write ALL DAY.

Then the boss called, asking if I could work on Thursday instead of Wednesday.

After the wailing and gnashing of teeth subsided, I cheerily said "Of course!"

She responded, "Great! By the way, it involves a trip to Dallas. We leave at 7 AM and we won't be done until 5:00"

More wailing. More gnashing.

SO. For the first full day of NaNo, starting at 5:30 in the AM, I was stuck in traffic, in training, stuck in MORE traffic, and then collapsing into my bed in 9:00 PM, too tired to write a single word.

I worked the next day, too. I was so tired, I forgot my notebook. Then, my coworker, who is also doing NaNo, told me she was already at 10,000 words.

My confidence took a nosedive, and I started to give up. There was no WAY I was catching up at that point. How could I POSSIBLY write TWO books with such a rough start?

Then I realized something very, very important: the joy shouldn't lie in the completion, but the writing itself. If I allowed myself to get bogged down in the numbers, I wouldn't enjoy the writing. And if I didn't enjoy the writing... why was I doing this to myself?

So, Saturday morning, when I was called to work at 9 AM for a meeting, I decided to spend the time between then and my shift (I didn't clock in until 1:00 PM) writing.

Guess what? I enjoyed it.

I didn't write a lot. Only about 1300 words, and it was already day 3. But I didn't care. I simply enjoyed the creative flow.

I did the same thing the next few days - writing in my notebook when I could at work, and not sweating it the rest of the time.

Well, friends, today is my day off, and I've been a writing fool. I'm nowhere near caught up, even for ONE novel, but I'm on the write track... (I had to do it once :-P).

Win or lose, I'm still gonna give it my best shot!


Laterz.


Post Script: My current word count is 6300 words. Not bad for a latecomer ;-)

The Witch of November...

... thy name be NaNoWriMo! (Because National Novel Writing Month is a mouthful)

It's that time of year, folks. The undisputed, unrivaled, unparalleled, number one most anticipated literary event of the season.

For those unfamiliar with the task, it is an international challenge put forth to creative writers everywhere - write a complete rough draft of a creative novel.

Here's the catch - the entirety of the 50,000 word minimum has to be written within the month of November. That's right. An average of 1,667 words must be banged out per day in order for the writer to reach their goal in time.

If you win, you get tons of bragging rights. Obviously.

But here's the deal, chickadees... four years have I competed, yet never have I completed this voluntary descent into literary madness.

This year, it's way different.

See, I have already put one challenge forth to myself: complete the re-write of my manuscript before the end of the year. Why not use NaNo as motivation to write 50k words on this project? Brilliance!

But my genius was followed by the revelation that, even if I succeeded, it wouldn't count as an official NaNo win, because only new projects that have not had any prior writing can be eligible.

So I was faced with a choice... do I attempt for the fifth year to complete the challenge and sacrifice my initial goal, or do I push ahead with my first endeavour and forgo the victory for yet another year?

And that's when the ante doubled.

I know what you're thinking. "Surely she can't be THAT crazy"

Well, actually... I am.

My challenge, put forth to myself, is to match, word for word, my NaNo novel with my re-write. A grand total of 100,000 words within the month of November to scratch off two major creative milestones from my to-do list*.


Can I do it? Will I survive? There will be weekly updates, lots of coffee, and, hopefully, my avid fans and faithful readers to hold me accountable.

Who wants to take the journey with me? Any takers?

We'll see how this goes.





*Donations to the cause will be taken in the form of chocolate, coffee, or other licensed forms of therapy.

Shame on the Moon...

... or just shame on me.... either one works. Though I'd vastly prefer you blame the moon.

Yes, it's confession time.

The awful truth is... that my word count is STILL at 2978. I have not written a word since I sprained my wrist... a road block that has been a non-issue for about four days now.

::ahem::

But enough on that dreary subject. On to more pleasant things! Such as... well... I discovered a new name for a character in my book! ::nods:: Yes, it took a great deal of effort and forethought so that I'd have something to show in this update*

So, that's the scoop. I've not written anything, but I've been doing some SERIOUS creative planning, which is almost as good.

Later.


*or I simply mistyped a word in the title of this blog post and came up with it as I was about to confess... but we won't go into that....

Back in the Saddle

Or, rather, back on the keyboard again.

Good news, ladies and gents, my wrist is no longer sprained! Woke up this morning, and it was all fine and dandy.

I guess that means back to the writing!

Current Word Count: 2978

Let's see if I can pound out some more words tonight!! ONWARD!

Slight Hiccup...

So, I've sustained a mystery wrist injury (I like how that sounds... "mystery wrist injury".... but I really don't like how it feels :-/) that prevents me from writing very much. It huuuuuuuurts to type with my right hand (of course, I'm right-handed), typing is slow with my left,  so progress will be slow for the next couple of days/weeks... or however long it takes this to quit hurting.

But, it's the best timing I could have hoped for as I am going out of town for a few days - writing would have been at a virtual standstill anyway.

So, that's all for now.


Laterz.

Writin' After Midnight

So I stayed up waaaaaaaay late last night writing, because I was on a roll. I regretted it this morning, but last night, it was awesome.

So awesome, in fact, that I'm pretty sure I'll do it again tonight.

Why the madness? Because I discovered in my late-night scribblings that more of my original manuscript is salvageable than I first thought. My current word count is now nearing 3,000, with 1500 being completely new words. That's more than I've written on this project in over two years. Yeah, like a boss.

So anyway, that's the update.

Current Word Count: 2978 and still writing....

Laterz.

A Song of Vice and Ire

OK, so it's not the cleverest title; but my ire is up due to the painful revelation of one particularly nasty vice of mine: pride.

I am/was too prideful of this magnificent manuscript that I've been working on for the last six years. It blinded me to some extremely obvious (and serious) errors. The deeper I delve into this re-writing process, the more clear it becomes that what this work really needs is a match. Because it is pretty much just kindling. Seriously, it's awful.

Now, credit where it's due: I did manage to pound out 30k words at the tender age of sixteen and another 5k between then and now; for that, I am to be applauded. However, the sickening amount of lavish praise I applied to my own words should have been a red flag that something was up. Not that we shouldn't appreciate our own work, but we shouldn't view it as flawless, either. Because nothing is.

However, I am determined not to let it get me down. The story is good, and therefore salvageable. The execution is what needs work. And to that end, I have a bit of inspiration. On loop.

Oh yeah, I totally went there.

P.S. Current word count on re-write is 281 words. Hopefully posting this will shame me into getting a move on...

This Christmas

Just recently, a plothole in one of my stories was pointed out to me. A rather large one. One so large, in fact, that it calls for a complete and total re-write of my (currently) 35k word manuscript.

You know, the one I've been working on for six years? Yeah, that one...

I won't bore you with the dramatic details of my initial reaction. Suffice it to say... it was colorful. But, c'est la vie, no? I've moved on into the correction stage. And it's time to get crackin'. This time, I have a deadline.


A cousin (not the one who abandoned me on the project) and I have a running joke concerning this first novel. I say every year "It will be done by Christmas!", to which he always replies "You said that last year!". My oh-so-clever response to this is (per usual), "But I didn't say which Christmas!". We both laugh and resume our normal routine, both knowing full well that it won't be done by this or any Christmas.


However, as you may have guessed, my goal is to get a 50k word rough draft/re-write complete by December 25, 2012.

We'll see how this goes.

All Things Writerly

Hullo there, friends!

I am the Unlikely Author. Why unlikely, you ask? Well, because I am not made up of the usual stuff as I imagine authors to be. For instance, i don't mind a playing Fast and Loose with the rules of capitalization. Inverted word order matters not. Cliches are the best thing since sliced bread. You get the idea. But, more than that, I'm not too fond of scheduling and deadlines, which are kind of part and parcel to the writers lifestyle. (I also don't manage my time well, but you'll soon see evidence of that).

However, I am quite the creative sort, and I enjoy a good story. And I am dedicated to them. So much so, in fact, that I have one story (a fantasy novel) that I've been attempting to tell since May of 2006. It began as a small exercise to involve a younger cousin in creative writing. In one afternoon, it had grown into a ten-book series.

My younger cousin has long since abandoned the project, but I've been faithfully slogging away. This will be the first project dealt with in my small, humble corner of the interwebz.

I hope you enjoy!