NaNoWriMo 2009 Day 18

[ladyseishou]

Day 18 - 12 days remaining

I do not like to write - I like to have written.

~ Gloria Steinem



Enough said, am I right?

Today's quotation was submitted by Nano Writer mbeancntr (thanks!)

Of course, one may say that to have written, one must write! And today's word count is another milestone: 30K! How is everyone doing? Excerpts? Questions? Comments?

My last sentence today (which is about midway through the chapter): Most had heard or seen the battle from the day before although the official story was that the fireball had come from Ierne forces across the border.

...which carried me across the 50K mark (and some change) though my protags still have one or two more battles to win before I can really say "I have written." And then it will be time to... (see photo above).

Comments

[geminianeyes]

You've finished 50k? Wonderful news! :D Now you really deserve a rest.

I'm planning to hit another milestone tonight, which is 40k. Judging from the way my muses are headed, I might end up with 75k this month. :D Who knows, maybe it's time to get it published?

[ladyseishou]

Thank you! :D I suspect that I have another 10-15K before my story is done as well... but I'm celebrating tonight by going to bed a little earlier!

Good luck hitting the big 4-0! I'm cheering for you!

[geminianeyes]

Woohoo! Sleep well. :)

[otter_nanowrimo]

I wrote 2448 words today, which isn't bad but it's not gonna get me to 50,000 by the 30th. I'm almost caught up to where I should be: 12,333/15,000 by the end of day 9/day 17. I need 2897 words a day to finish by the 30th and 1883 to finish by Dec. 9th.

Today was the day I broke 10k! This is not actually an accomplishment; I was only about 55 words away when I shut it down for the night last night.

Congrats on passing 50k! :D

My first: "You look like shit," Michael commented easily as he entered the room, leaning over the back of the couch and kissing the side of Ben's head.
(Yeah, I skipped a BUNCH of in-between stuff)
My last: She reached for Ben's shirt, torn and ragged from his second bout with the disease, and pulled it off over his head.

Which, sadly, will probably be cut, because "Let me wallow in a pit of my self-hate and misery in order to save your lives from an imagined danger!" adds MUCH more to the plot then "I survived, let's screw now!"

[ladyseishou]

Your progress is good! 2897 a day can be tough but it's not that much off from what you've done! Congrats on your 10K! It is most definitely an accomplishment for your story!

I don't know. "I survived, let's screw now!" is very human. But then again so is a good wallow. I guess I would leave it all in and see what happens tomorrow ;-)

[juliet]

50k already? Wow! Go you :) That's seriously impressive.

My count today: 30,252. I'm hoping to do a bit more than the daily 1,667 tomorrow, because Friday is going to be busy. OTOH I have a long train journey Saturday & again on Sunday, so time to catch up a bit then!

Excerpt:


"Hitching sounds kind of interesting," Lin said a little wistfully.
I shrugged. "Can be, but it can be a pain in the arse as well. Took me ages on the way up."
Which, helpfully, meant less time in Scotland.
"Oh, that's a shame that it dug into your time up there," Lin said.
"Yeah," I said after a pause. "Hey, here we are."

[ladyseishou]

Thanks! Your word count is right on target! I bet that you'll really pull ahead this weekend! Good luck! Lovely excerpt with interesting undercurrents.

[tachycardiac]

Congratulations on 50k! I'll admit I'm more than a little jealous, but I'm siting at 32k myself and feel like I'm doing pretty well. Also it's only 5:30 AM, here (don't ask me what I'm doing up at this ungodly hour. I don't know, either >.x), which means I've still got a full day to write more. I'd really like it if I could break 35k, today, but I'll just have to see how it goes. I, too, believe that my novel's going to take me well past 50k, being the beast that it apparently is.

I was going to try and go back and find a funnier excerpt or something, but I honestly don't have the awakeittude to do that now, and that kind of felt like cheating, anyways, so here's the last thing I wrote:

Terasu looked particularly grim which Chiela didn’t know how to feel about, Surely things couldn’t be that bad, could they? They’d found the place where Ixchel rested, supposedly, and while Chiela wouldn’t have wanted to be left alone out there, amid the savage jungle, she could imagine a worse place for someone who lived by communing with the earth. Although how they were going to take the communer away from the earth without stirring up some kind of trouble, Chiela didn’t know. Maybe that’s what had Terasu was looking so unhappy. After all, she and this Voice seemed to live in some kind of fucked up codependent relationship. A codependent relationship that involved speaking for the planet and ensuring its survival which just made it that much more fucked up, if you asked Chiela.

The best part of this story is, I made up none of these names. They are 100% real. The other main characters are Pipra, Venka, and Nikolao, which are also all real names. The way I go about naming characters, it's probably a good thing my chances of having a child are slim to none. They'd get endlessly teased for their names, alone.

[ladyseishou]

Thanks! And your word count is great! You're doing very well indeed! And I don't know, I like your characters' names! They're very unique without being weird or awkward... I named a minor character Telas without thinking too much about it. Now ever time I write the possessive... let's just say that it's a bit awkward ;-)

[lexicalcrow]

Firstly, congrats on the 50. :D

Secondly, well, I don't think I'm getting anything more written tonight. Current word count is 36,626. Managed about 1300 today.

First sentence I wrote: Supper came and went with relative disinterest.

Last sentence I wrote: He decided against thinking about it further and let her hand touch his.

Both from the same scene. That was as much of a sex scene as I was allowed to have. I had also had to tweak it slightly because I had forgotten Andrew had practically given himself to Charles back in chapter five, so now Andrew's all torn between Charles who he adores, and Craig/the princess due to the secrets they're keeping for each other. I'm secretly rooting for a threesome, but we'll see how it turns out. XD

[ladyseishou]

Thank you very much! Your word count is gorgeous and your sex scene is all the more exquisite for its restraint. The reader's imagination can be a powerful ally.

[lexicalcrow]

Yeah, I'm really enjoying the style of writing, it's lending itself far more to sensual detail rather than the graphic style of my usual smut, so it's a nice change. The writing feels a lot richer, a lot more beautiful. Though perhaps that's just me being nostalgic. :P

[mushroom_of_doom]

I love your quote for today :)
I like to have written...it's lovely.

[ladyseishou]

It's a great quote!

[eien_herrison]

Congrats on reaching 50k :)

Set today aside as another day for planning: last night I worked out that, if I were to keep to the plan I've done, I'll have rewritten the first series and have 260k words written -- I'm planning on at least four 'series'. If I write full-out like I have been doing (~25k a week), it'll take me ten and a half months to write everything. A more conservative effort (8k/one chapter a week) puts me at finishing this in thirty-two and a half months' time.

Suddenly my 37.5k looks very paltry.

[ladyseishou]

Thank you very much :-) You're taking on a very large project! If it were me, I would keep an eye on my short term goals to keep from feeling overwhelmed and establish a history of little victories. From that POV, your 37.5K looks great!

[twistingthetale]

Well done on breaking through the 50k! :)

I'm at 35557, having made a later start than intended today. However I managed just over 1800 between 3 o'clock this afternoon and about twenty minutes ago (it's now 11.53 pm) with a break for dinner, so it's not bad. Hopefully I can get a bit extra done tomorrow to make up for it.

[ladyseishou]

Thank you! ^__^ You've made some good progress today and your word count is still beautiful! Good luck tomorrow!

[wyrdkat]

Wow! Congrats on hitting 50k! I wrote 4776 words today and hit the 40k mark, so I'm pretty happy about that :)

[ladyseishou]

Thanks! I'm very happy for you too! That's great progress and congrats on the 40K!

[dragonscrawl]

I'm slipping further offtrack, being as I only managed 600 words today. I think the headlong dash through school since the end of August has gotten to me, though, as I'm unproductive in general and not just in my writing. Fortunately, I've got a nice week long break to recuperate and catch up on the word count. I'm still just adding in details at this point, although I'm starting to ponder how I can keep Tamid's personal storyline threading throughout without actually resolving anything in it since that's dealt with in a different story.

[ladyseishou]

600 words is a good place to come back to tomorrow! Details are good! Could Tamid's storyline be seen as carrying the theme maybe? It does sound like you need a break - a week sound lovely!

[dragonscrawl]

Tamid's story has a lot to do with his backstory and why he's in Linnondale and not his home country in the first place. In fact, both Eloise and Tamid are hiding parts of their pasts (both of which come up in the next story). I'm really trying to put the groundwork for these backstories to get revealed into this one, as I don't want them to just come out of nowhere. The tricky thing, I'm finding, is to put them in without it seeming too out of place.

I don't know if this story has a particular theme (although a good deal of it hinges on character growth by Samuel). I think it's largely an adventure story within the fantasy genre, although I haven't written the action bits to my satisfaction yet.

[ladyseishou]

Don't worry about the theme. Many writers let the theme evolve naturally out of the story. Write the first draft, tell the story, and move everything where it needs to be later.

[insomniac_tales]

I don't know how you do it! 50k and you comment to everyone (which thank you, it's wonderful having a nano cheerleader who's in the trenches with us).

I hit 37k today. Things are moving in my story finally, though I'm not really sure where we're moving too. It's nice just to write.

[ladyseishou]

You're looking pretty good there yourself! A fantastic word count! Just go with the flow I say and have fun!

[lassarina]

Yesterday (11-18) I got over 30K (I have about 400 to spare) and my character realized that going home again is painful, and I got to meet a new character, and The Wheels Of the Proper Endgame have been set in motion. Now I just have to get there. :D :D

[lei]

Late, but — managed to get up to 31,391 words yesterday. I didn't write on Tuesday and wanted to go over if I wouldn't have time today, and I succeeded!

... but in the process my characters ran away from me and wrote a scene I'd never planned or even knew I needed. It then proceeded to fix half of my plot problems, so it was all good!

Now if only I knew what to write for the rest of this part...