NaNoWriMo 2009 Day 13

[ladyseishou]

Day 13 - 17 days remaining

Conflict makes a great story. No conflict - no story.
Don't take it easy on your characters. Make them suffer and bleed.

- Cinda Williams Chima



It's Friday the 13th! How was your character's luck today?

My protagonist has just escaped from prison and thinks that he has some time to catch his breath. Hehehehehe. Right. Little does he know that dark forces are closing in on him...

And how goes your pursuit, Nano Writer? The word count today is 21,667! Was this a lucky day? Excerpts to share? Questions? Comments? Need a four-leaf clover for a little extra luck?

Good day or bad, try to keep writing!


Image credit: constantin jurcut

Comments

[tuulia]

I'm just about to start writing today's entry. My first protagonist has sailed into a moment of peace in a secure location (or so she thinks). My second protagonist is being menaced by a psycho doctor. We'll see!

[ladyseishou]

Sounds very suspenseful! Good luck with the writing!

[geminianeyes]

My characters are taking a break by sleeping, leaving the youngest protagonist to muse on the events that have happened so far. I'm having a bit of trouble juggling everything I've written over the past three years; there's a lot of threads I have to clip.

It's fun though. While they are taking a breather, their "enemy" is moving ahead. Now, if I can only prod him a bit to tell me a little bit about himself, I'll be well ahead of the game.

PS: I have a nice buffer which makes up for missing writing due to my friend's mom passing. 27254 words. XD

[ladyseishou]

I'm very sorry to hear the news about your friend's mother.

Yes, having a nice buffer helps us handle all the ups and downs of our lives outside of NaNoWriMo. Good luck with poking your villain a bit! It's always nice to know something about the "enemy."

[geminianeyes]

Well, it turns out that instead of introducing himself, the villain decided to reintroduce his henchmen to me (whom I met last Nano). This is amusing to say the least.

They've already attempted to kill my MC once. :D I like them.

[withorwithoutyou]

*grin* Dark forces? I think I love your novel already...
I haven't started writing yet, I'm still at work, brainstorming ideas for some little conflicts. I already have the big one, and I know that one's not really going to reach a resolution, now I just need to shake things up a little more for them.

[ladyseishou]

*grins* "dark forces" is just my short hand for all the various parties that want or need to stop my protagonist from discovering the truth - none are really evil really, they all just have different agendas *grins evilly* ;-)

[withorwithoutyou]

Still sounds awesome. Besides, if you can get away with saying dark forces and meaning shadowy parties with differing agendas, more power to ya xD

[dragonjournal]

I am behind. And today we start moving. But I've been hit by really bad vertigo, and am not worth much, save watching movies, and trying not to fall off the world.

I am slowly catching up, though.

I'm at 18503 and my goal for today is to get to 19k. My daughter gets home in 20 minutes from camp though, and I have to go pick her up. Maybe I'll drag my laptop along.

[angryoldhag]

You can do it, and even if you can't just know that you rock for trying. You will be awesome no matter what wordcount you do reach. Good luck and I will be mentally cheering you on.

[ladyseishou]

Vertigo is a terrible thing I know (I had a bout with it about five years ago). About all you can do is wait it out while it feels like your world is spinning out from under you. It would be better if you didn't have to drive and moving now?! I guess we do what we have to do.

I hope that you will feel better soon! And then you can catch up! We'll be cheering for you!

[dragonjournal]

Yep, moving. Luckily, it's almost literally across the street. Which is nice. No really long bouts of driving, if at all. Plus, I have a room mate, so it's not all by myself.

Just a matter of getting it done. (Which... may be a problem, heh.)

[lexicalcrow]

A much better writing day today. Managed a little over 2.5k, bringing me past the halfway point. :D

My bratty thief has almost reached a crisis point. He's not sure he should keep his spy mission going and betray two of the people who have, for some reason, some sort of faith in him and trust him, or give it up and be honest with them. I am not sure he wants to decide at all. He isn't good at trusting people, nor telling them his secrets. So we'll see if he does eventually crack or not.

[ladyseishou]

Congrats on passing the halfway point! Fantastic! Sounds like it was a good writing day! And things are heating up for your thief... trust is such a fragile thing yet it builds bridges between nations of people... I wish your thief luck in his decision!

[lassarina]

Yesterday, they went crazy.

Today the crazy has ebbed. But the Big Plot Problems start now.

[ladyseishou]

Perfect thing to carry you into week 3!

[juliet]

21,996. Which is good, as I was working all day & then out at climbing & then out walking the dog... and was beginning to think that I wouldn't manage to sit down with the novel at all.

My characters are just past one of the turning points / miserablenesses, and today they were having a good time. But another of the major plot-driving things just happened. I'm thinking about what sort of conflict to set up now...

[ladyseishou]

Your word count is great! Right on target! And the best part is that you found the time to write today!

Ah the eye-of-the-storm, a respite and a little fun! Little do they know what lies in wait for them around the corner... Good luck with the next part!

[angryoldhag]

34038 as of now, hopefully will write a bit more and reach my aim of 35k for today. As for their luck? It's lousy. One of them got dragged back into being nobility (he wasn't nobility when I started the story, but the plot wanted him to be like this runaway noble person). The king and the main character are in another world that's seeking to erase them. That world has flying cows with pink bat wings and butterflies with peacock tails.

As for my luck... egh. I just got roped into translating a tutorial on how to bind your own hardcover books from English in Dutch so my father can understand it. It might actually be interesting for people here (hardcover, one of a kind, luxury edition of your NaNoWriMo-novel!) So I'll just add the link: http://www.csparks.com/Bookbinding/index.xhtml He also has a tutorial of adding a gold title to the cloth hardcover here: http://www.csparks.com/Bookbinding/GoldTitles/index.xhtml

I did manage to add in all the dares I picked up so yay for that.

ETA: 35,014! And that's all she wrote today.

[ladyseishou]

What a wonderful word count! Fantastic! And cheers for flying cows and peacocktail butterflies (so pretty)!

And thank you for the link! It looks like a fun project to try!

[twistingthetale]

I've just passed 25k so I'm in a pretty good mood at the moment, especially as I took a couple of hours extra non-writing time to watch a tennis match on TV :D 300 of the words were written after I updated last night though, but I'm still pretty chuffed. It's not the end of this particular chapter, which is already the longest so far, and my female protagonist isn't having the best of days (still suffering from amnesia, and a bout of insomnia now that she's back at home), and she's soon going to find out just how bad a bad day can be .... That's the general idea anyway!

[ladyseishou]

Fantastic word count - you've blown by the halfway mark (cheers!) and it sounds like you have a terrible day planned for your protagonist! Way to go!

[twistingthetale]

Thanks! Poor Kate; her day went downhill pretty quickly :(

[sonjadenise]

I'm alive! I wrote almost 6,000 words today, bringing up my word count to 27,072. (Palindrome!) It's weird being more than halfway through the NaNoWriMo goal, but still a few thousand away from being 1/3 done the story.

My characters have revealed some interesting information about themselves, and the story has officially picked up some kind of theme about race (main character's nephew is mixed-race, the high priestess is having a ~secret love affair~ with a man of another race, The Father's Eyes is one race but raised in the culture of another...and that's just the beginning of it). Hey, I won't argue with it. Guess I shouldn't be surprised since Deghal has so much casual, institutionalized racism.

I had fun with a little clash of cultures. Kabu (The Father's Eyes) was raised in a culture more uptight about sex, and Adja found his shyness oddly hot. LOL. Didn't even plan that.

[withorwithoutyou]

Hee, your word count is awesome, and way to go on the daily count ^^

[ladyseishou]

Some writers start with a theme and some trust/know that if you write the story, the theme will come (borrowing from Field of Dreams). It sounds like your story is really coming together!

50K is really a good estimate for a YA novel. Other genres (especially fantasy and sci-fi) might need twice that to properly finish. But I say a story is as long as it needs to be.

What a great writing day you've had! 6K! Way to go! And a beautiful word count!

[withorwithoutyou]

Today was really good, another good day that included embracing the cliche that was me, sitting in an empty hotel room blasting 90s music and eating lukewarm Chinese food while I did my writing. xD
And it was a lot of fun. I didn't realize it was possible to have even more fun than I did last year, but I am. I'm feeling this novel more than I did last year's, and I'm enjoying writing it. I think I'm doing a little more. Finally made 30k today *glee*

[ladyseishou]

Fantastic word count! Sounds like a great day! ^___^

[dragonscrawl]

I've started to rebuild my buffer after knocking it out the past few days, although I still barely crossed 26k today. Not quite to the halfway point of my personal goal, but I should get there this weekend.

Half my characters are about to go into the most dangerous situation, while the other half get to sit and worry for them. I don't know if either side is particularly lucky.

I think I'm hitting the writing bad luck, though, because while I know the vague details of what they need to do I don't know what definite dangers are in their way. And I do so hate to skip writing the whole chapter just because I can't think of what happens.

[ladyseishou]

Time for the "what if" game or perhaps a generator to help spark your own ideas? Or can you ask yourself about what it is that your characters need to know by the time they make it to the next chapter. How will their adventures get them there? I know that you'll be able to work it out!

Great word count! Good luck with the writing this weekend!

[dragonscrawl]

I'm thinking that if I stay stuck, I'll go back and add in the setting details I've left out thus far, maybe make sure I kept character threads in order. I know there's words in previous chapters that need adding, just because of the tendencies I have when writing. I might just get an idea from that.

[tachycardiac]

I broke out the multi-colored note cards today and decided to really hammer out the rest of my plot. There's now three story lines crisscrossing, paralleling, and spiraling around each other on my bedroom walls with little branches for character details and motivations. It's just about taken over my room. Aside from that I wrote their first Conflict with the Big Baddy. They were lucky enough to come out of it alive plus one more for their motley crew, so I'd say they did well over all. Personally, I slacked off a bit but still made the goal. 21744 words, presently. I'd hoped to build up more of a buffer, but that will have to wait for tomorrow.

[ladyseishou]

Lovely word count! And your room decor sounds fabulously plotted! And congrats on your first Big Conflict scene! Sounds as if it went very well!