Tag: nanowrimo Page 1 of 2

Because I haven’t done laundry in a while, and was sweaty from biking, I changed into my NaNoWriMo shirt yesterday immediately before my East Bay for Democracy (DFA) meetup. Subsequent conversations make it likely that I might throw my hat into the ring again for NaNoWriMo 2004. [I didn’t.]

I like the format for this blog so much better than the one I use for my main blog. I should change the formatting of the main one. (Of course, I haven’t made time to update that blog in six weeks; what makes me think I’m going to reformat the whole thing?) I need an infinite number of hours and monkeys.

Despite what I said in my last NaNoWriMo entry, I think November is actually a good time to write a novel–especially if you don’t plan to travel anywhere over the long Thanksgiving weekend. I think I’ll start spurring my subconscious to come up with characters.

[Note: a form of this blog entry originally appeared in my November 2002 NaNoWriMo blog, “Notes on the Text,” which chronicled my poor, solitary attempt to write a novel. I’ve now moved all of those entries into the “Imagine a Novel Weblog” category of this blog.]

Unless I can write 44,968 words in the next 10 hours and 12 minutes, which I won’t, my NaNoWriMo experience will end in failure.

I haven’t entirely lost interest in finishing this novel. I think NaNoWriMo spurred me to actually start writing and to be excited about it. For many reasons, though, the main one being time (more accurately, my less-than-optimal use of it), I wasn’t able to write 50,000 words this month.

Maybe next year I’ll be in a stable enough situation that 50,000 words in a month is a realistic goal. It just wasn’t, this year.

[Note: this blog entry originally appeared in my November 2002 NaNoWriMo blog, “Notes on the Text,” which chronicled my poor, solitary attempt to write a novel. I’ve now moved all of those entries into the “Imagine a Novel Weblog” category of this blog.]

Well, hello. I have written 5,032 words so far. I should have written 18,333 by the end of the 11th. I am merely 8 days behind the projected pace, after 11 days, but am now making an attempt to catch up. That, plus freelance work, will keep these weblog entries brief.

I was pretty burned out after working so hard Saturday and Tuesday on election-related stuff (mostly calling people to get them to vote). I couldn’t really bring myself to open up the Appleworks file and write. Fear and sleep were equal culprits.

This is very typical of me. I’ll probably finish. I can already tell Thanksgiving will be a sprint.

[Note: this blog entry originally appeared in my November 2002 NaNoWriMo blog, “Notes on the Text,” which chronicled my poor, solitary attempt to write a novel. I’ve now moved all of those entries into the “Imagine a Novel Weblog” category of this blog.]

Again, I have failed to get to bed at any reasonable hour tonight. Unfortunately, I didn’t even quite keep up with the pace—I’m only at 4105 (out of 5000, where I should be after 3 days). I’ll catch up this week or over the weekend. Or over Thanksgiving weekend, perhaps. Procrastination has always worked well for me. I’m actually giving my subconscious time to stew over the characters and situations I’ve come up with so far, so that I can generate some stunningly original inspirations out of seemingly nowhere in a week or two. That’s it.

[Note: this blog entry originally appeared in my November 2002 NaNoWriMo blog, “Notes on the Text,” which chronicled my poor, solitary attempt to write a novel. I’ve now moved all of those entries into the “Imagine a Novel Weblog” category of this blog.]

Well, I sacrificed a couple hours of sleep to get back on pace after two days of writing, if only temporarily. I have no plans to write much else today, Sunday, however.

Writing some dialogue on the BART Saturday worked pretty well, in retrospect. I’ll continue to use those moments productively. (Hell, even that’s justification enough to do this.)

[Note: this blog entry originally appeared in my November 2002 NaNoWriMo blog, “Notes on the Text,” which chronicled my poor, solitary attempt to write a novel. I’ve now moved all of those entries into the “Imagine a Novel Weblog” category of this blog. Additionally, I said “the BART” — ha!]

I guess I’m a little behind the pace. Last night I attempted to get back to a normal sleep schedule. That way I’ll be able to spend the mornings working on freelance, and when I get caught up on that, I’ll work a bit on the novel. To be honest, with all the stuff I have scheduled this month, I don’t know if I’m going to want to keep up the 50,000 word pace. It’s not that I’m giving up, but I’m accepting that it might not be realistic. I’ll keep going and maybe do a weekend binge at some point.

[Note: this blog entry originally appeared in my November 2002 NaNoWriMo blog, “Notes on the Text,” which chronicled my poor, solitary attempt to write a novel. I’ve now moved all of those entries into the “Imagine a Novel Weblog” category of this blog.]

Slow going so far—in five hours, I wrote 1858 words. I’m definitely going to have to pick up the pace to get it all in this month. Several breaks for e-mail slowed me down, as did far too much re-reading and fixing.

On the other hand, I think it shows a reasonable amount of promise.

[Note: this blog entry originally appeared in my November 2002 NaNoWriMo blog, “Notes on the Text,” which chronicled my poor, solitary attempt to write a novel. I’ve now moved all of those entries into the “Imagine a Novel Weblog” category of this blog.]

It begins! (Damn BART.) I got some good ideas at Happy Donut on Market Street, though, so I’m pretty psyched to start.

[Note: this blog entry originally appeared in my November 2002 NaNoWriMo blog, “Notes on the Text.” I’ve now moved all of those entries into the “Imagine a Novel Weblog” category of this blog. Also, I assume I condemned BART to hell because I got home at 12:54 am rather than sometime around 12:00 am, and, half a decade pre-iPhone, I didn’t have a device with me on which I could write or post blog entries.]

Since I’ve all but finally decided on a title, I designed the book cover. I went through some of my photos and found a couple perfect candidates. After mocking up two covers, I settled on one. I’m amazed how quickly I designed it. (2021 addendum: In retrospect, maybe I enjoy designing book covers more than writing fiction.)

I’m starting to like the title more and more, by the way.

A quick inventory shows that, so far, I have one title, zero words written (as the rules dictate, of course), one vague outline, three ill-defined characters, and a slickly designed book cover. I’m ready to start writing in roughly 17 1/2 hours, sure.

The sun is up. D’oh! (I’ll make an effort to avoid the word “D’oh!” in my novel.)

[Note: this blog entry originally appeared in my November 2002 NaNoWriMo blog, “Notes on the Text.” I’ve now moved all of those entries into the “Imagine a Novel Weblog” category of this blog.]