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[personal profile] ladyseishou posting in [community profile] nano_writers
Day 5 - 25 days remaining


Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good.

— Voltaire



leaf_of_love2



Today's word count is 8,335 Nano Writer! And something to keep in mind: every word counts - even the ones that might seem too big or too small or just not quite right. Remember that you're writing a rough draft this month - it's not suppose to be perfect - but it needs to be written!

Questions? Comments? Funny or weird typos to share? It's all go odd ;-) So keep writing!

(no subject)

Date: 2012-11-05 08:36 am (UTC)
iosonochesono: NaNoWriMo icon. (NaNoWriMo: Generic 2012)
From: [personal profile] iosonochesono
I've only written 400 so far today, but my total word count is 15,100. The character that is going to be the antagonist has just appeared for the first time, but there has been no formal introduction yet. At the same time, I'm a bit nervous because I feel like it's rushing along too fast since I'm only at ~15k - I don't want to hit the story's climax so soon! But I also know that there are lots of places right now I have to add backstory to or rewrite, so chances are there's a good 20k or so hidden in places before this part of the story that need to work themselves out, plus I need a bit more character development going on with someone else, so clearly the main point will not yet be occurring.

ETA: Now at 16,400, so I've now met my writing goal for today, too. It's not even 9am yet. *proud sniffles.*
Edited Date: 2012-11-05 04:49 pm (UTC)

(no subject)

Date: 2012-11-05 03:49 pm (UTC)
lexicalcrow: (Default)
From: [personal profile] lexicalcrow
Just got to 11k! I am getting much better at getting 2k in an hour. Which is very helpful!

Wrote a scene I wasn't expecting to be as sad as it was. Three of my characters have ended up watching their hometown burn to the ground. The whole city is on fire, burnt by the soldiers to 'cleanse' it of disease. The whole place is being destroyed before their very eyes. They realise in that moment that they can't go back because there'll be nothing to go back to.

Also, I now have another character! The city was being guarded by a bull spirit, and it decided to flee and help my guys out. I thought he'd speak more, though.

I'm also getting a better idea of how to structure this fic, which is great. I've been waiting for it to settle so I can get a better idea of how to progress the plot.

(no subject)

Date: 2012-11-05 04:38 pm (UTC)
paceisthetrick: (I'd had an awful time)
From: [personal profile] paceisthetrick
I'm laughing reading the quote because of course the first thing I did yesterday was to go back and rewrite the first chapter so that it made sense to me.

Which means I am now behind on my word count. :(

(no subject)

Date: 2012-11-05 04:51 pm (UTC)
iosonochesono: (Default)
From: [personal profile] iosonochesono
Oh god, I really need to edit back around chapter three and four of my story. I can make it work by adding words and changing some details, but knowing that inconsistency needs to be fixed is killing me inside even as I go on pretending it never happened.

(no subject)

Date: 2012-11-05 05:11 pm (UTC)
paceisthetrick: (Default)
From: [personal profile] paceisthetrick
Exactly! Mine is historical and yesterday I was on a site that informed me that Lowell Home was actually a nurses' dormitory and NOT a violent ward (where oh where was this man when I was asking everyone on the face of the earth why Lowell was separated from the rest of the asylum????????????????????).

So out goes Lowell, in goes Quimby (this involved trying to find pics of Quimby as well as a blueprint for the floors), and the whole geographical scape of Chapter One is changed as he is no longer running down the wooded hill side behind Lowell but in the crux of the wards looking up at Quimby.

*wrenching hair from head in frustration*

(no subject)

Date: 2012-11-05 05:18 pm (UTC)
iosonochesono: (Animorphs: Marco Ditch School)
From: [personal profile] iosonochesono
Haha, my main characters are in the foster care system and I've been very vague so I can go in afterward and edit with research. I'll be adding details of CASA (if applicable to where they live), Big Brother/Big Sister or other help as applicable after the story is complete for NaNoWriMo. I'm hoping to have the 50k word count by Friday, the story itself hopefully won't take THAT much longer, and then I'll start editing.

I may be getting overly hopeful; I think this experience is helping me a lot, though. I feel like churning stories and going about research after this will get a lot easier.

(no subject)

Date: 2012-11-05 05:45 pm (UTC)
paceisthetrick: (I'd had an awful time)
From: [personal profile] paceisthetrick
I can't be vague because it is a very specific structure (one that no longer exists) and clearly some people out there know what went on! Like this guy yesterday casually interjects that the experiments took place in the basement under Gage. This blew me out of the water because I had always assumed with Washburn or Lowell was used for lobotomies and experimental surgeries.

Yours sounds wonderful and I am jealous as hell that you are already at your mark. I still need to write 1000 words today just to be on target! And so much of the plot has to be reworked with the new information coming out. *heavy sigh*

(no subject)

Date: 2012-11-05 06:23 pm (UTC)
iosonochesono: A NaNoWriMo icon. (NaNoWriMo: Eclectic)
From: [personal profile] iosonochesono
I'm really lucky I can be vague right now though and go back and change details as necessary during a rewrite. I'm sure I'll be doing a lot of reworking, especially if I give them a specific state. I'm just hoping if I push through the first draft to 50k+ that the research afterward won't make me get rid of details nearly as much as adding them. But to be honest, I'd like to get at least 5k in a day, 10k in most of the time, and I haven't hit 10k even once lol.

(no subject)

Date: 2012-11-05 07:14 pm (UTC)
paceisthetrick: (Default)
From: [personal profile] paceisthetrick
My character grew up on the grounds and the entire story is his reflecting on his childhood so I have to know this place inside and out. *sigh* I had him living on Belmont Street and then learned that the superintendants were housed on the fourth floor of the clocktower.

What sucks is that I spent nearly a year researching it and have put out so many calls to everyone from the UMass Med School to Harvard to Worcester Preservation Society for info on Lowell, which is where the action in my story was to take place. (Basically it is the mystery of a little boy who lived there, based on a comment I once read in the archives by a person who said she "grew up in Lowell Home".)

My friend Kate Anderson has published two books on WSH and photographed the grounds extensively prior to the demolition and she had no idea what went on in Lowell. It turns out she knows the guy from this blog

http://kingstonlounge.blogspot.com/

He helped her on her last novel. So I was like "WHY DID NO ONE EVER TELL ME ABOUT HIM??????????????????????????????????????"

And now I am working with him to get some solid info to make story hold up under scrutiny.

His off the cuff remarks about Gage and Lowell blew me out of the water.

Hun, if I get 1000 readable words a day, I am thrilled. THRILLED.

(no subject)

Date: 2012-11-05 07:16 pm (UTC)
iosonochesono: (Default)
From: [personal profile] iosonochesono
I want to do it that way so I can try to make it readable someday ;) But I'm averaging around 3k of my original word smoothie instead.

Anyway, good luck! You're making me glad I'm not committing to a specific region beyond 'it has deciduous trees' lol.

(no subject)

Date: 2012-11-05 07:21 pm (UTC)
paceisthetrick: (Default)
From: [personal profile] paceisthetrick
*dead*

I was trained as an historian and published academically prior to giving fanfiction a shot. This is my first attempt at original fiction.

It's killing me. Clearly academia had ruined me for life. I need to just enjoy Caleb Carr and Alex Grecian and throw in the towel while I am ahead...

*mopemopemope*

(no subject)

Date: 2012-11-05 07:25 pm (UTC)
iosonochesono: (Default)
From: [personal profile] iosonochesono
I feel like anthro's helped because I'm really focused on the characters. At least you've been published - shows you got talent!

(no subject)

Date: 2012-11-05 07:33 pm (UTC)
paceisthetrick: (Default)
From: [personal profile] paceisthetrick
No, I had a slave driver for a dissertation director. It was more like, "Oh, we've just put your name in to give a paper at the conference on Comparative Slavery in Florida! Be sure to get started early so you have time for revisions!"

(no subject)

Date: 2012-11-05 07:34 pm (UTC)
paceisthetrick: (Default)
From: [personal profile] paceisthetrick
Academic publishing is very very different. It's all solid research. If you are even slightly emotional or colorful, they can you as "a novelist".

(no subject)

Date: 2012-11-05 11:03 pm (UTC)
iosonochesono: NaNoWriMo icon. (NaNoWriMo: Generic 2012)
From: [personal profile] iosonochesono
Makes me so glad I'm not trying to get anything beyond a BA :X Though it feels like anthro, ethnic studies and gender studies must be a bit different.

(no subject)

Date: 2012-11-06 01:36 am (UTC)
paceisthetrick: (Default)
From: [personal profile] paceisthetrick
It's grad school that kills you. I did gender in the NEP economy and the corresponding legal changes.

Grad school makes everything unfun. :(

(no subject)

Date: 2012-11-06 03:28 am (UTC)
iosonochesono: (Default)
From: [personal profile] iosonochesono
Yeah... I should do grad school but pffft forget that.

(no subject)

Date: 2012-11-06 03:35 am (UTC)
paceisthetrick: (Default)
From: [personal profile] paceisthetrick
If I had to do it all over again --

I'd kill myself first.

(no subject)

Date: 2012-11-06 02:28 pm (UTC)
paceisthetrick: (Default)
From: [personal profile] paceisthetrick
The story centers on the protagonist's coming to terms with his life. It's a bit of a mid-life crisis, if you will. He recalls a little boy with whom he had a "friendship" in his childhood (the boy was a patient in the violent ward, now Quimby). The dismantling of the asylum following the fire (real event, 1991) triggers the incident (moving the files to the state archive) that enables the protagonist to learn the truth -- that the boy was sane and subjected to experiments. It's essentially an indictment of the psychiatric profession.

Here's an excerpt of why the grounds matter so much:

He climbed Hospital Drive, glancing but not seeing the sights left and right. He drove past the cottages and massive trees, past Hale and the remnants of the archway that had once been the entrance to the great asylum. Cars lined the road from Belmont to the Clocktower and he wondered why troublemakers were accommodated in this manner. The next thing you knew the city would be supplying busses to bring them in en masse. He really had to wonder about the goals of democratic society at times like these. He sighed. But his thoughts were interrupted by the presence of orange and white barriers on Clocktower Drive, blocking his entrance.

and

On a whim he turned to travel northeast towards the lake. He skirted the commotion on the other side, taking the overgrown path past the maintenance buildings that were tucked behind Sargent Hall, connected to the greater structure only by a series of tunnels used for heating and transport. He meant to travel across to Innovation Drive, down to where the old cottages stood. From there it was an easy skip to Belmont. Then he would be home again, safe and sound on that terrible terrible day.
Again his thoughts flickered between past and present. Even the names of the streets would change in the new order.
Innovation Drive. How very novel it must all have seemed back then. How excited they must have been to be on the brink of discovery. They were like gods, standing in judgment over the lesser members of society. Too well did he understand the importance of that position, had known it from his earliest childhood years. He had felt it in the way he was addressed as a child, as if he were a little lord, had seen it in the creases on his father’s brow, deepening with strain over the decades as the asylums came under fire for their practices.

and

The room was exactly as he remembered – wood paneled walls with pencil marks still visible. They used to laugh about it, shining their flashlights up onto the arcane numbers – marks the carpenters had forgotten to erase before they applied the varnish. Honestly the workers were so hopeless. But no one expected much of the laboring class. They had no education back then. His father’s predecessor had spoken of educating the attendants to improve the quality of care but once again economic reality buried that ideal. Willie’s was the first generation that attended school alongside “proper folks” and actually stood a chance of bettering itself. That was innovative – the concept of bringing the poor up to a better standard. Everything done then was done for the greater good. Noblesse oblige in America. He wondered fleetingly when those ideals had perished. Sometime around Viet Nam probably. The leveling of America.

In short, for him to walk the grounds being demolished and have it trigger memories of childhood, I need to know the grounds COLD.
Edited Date: 2012-11-06 02:29 pm (UTC)

(no subject)

Date: 2012-11-06 05:02 pm (UTC)
paceisthetrick: (Default)
From: [personal profile] paceisthetrick
I've wondered about that very thing. (Today I have ploughed through 1500 words with HUGE gaping holes that will require additional research).

I am most influenced by historical fiction and I would be lying through my teeth if I said I didn't want to be the next Caleb Carr. :) When I read The Alienist (or Findley's Pilgrim or Grecian's The Yard) what I loved most was the historical accuracy. I think that is just from my training as an historian.

I originally started the story as fanfiction -- I was going to have a vampire coming out of the horrors of Ellis Island in 1911 discover the work of Jung and Freud and become a professor at Clark University. The asylum was chosen simply because of its proximity to Clark.

And then I saw the building.

Is it possible to fall in love with an inanimate object? :D I took one look at the building and was smitten. Then I fell in with a group of urban explorers who had been breaking into the buildings for decades. They had worked on Shutter Island (as experts as well as extras -- they KNEW the layout and how to get the cameramen where they needed to be for shots) and a whole new adventure began. I amassed a large collection of photos and videos from when the structure still stood and was put in touch with a number of psychiatrists who actually worked there.

So, I think it is my love for the physical structure that comes across in my character. I've put the awe and passion in him -- albeit supressed by years of being part of the establishment. The story is him recovering that sense of wonder -- the years of childhood when Worcester was a world unto itself. Witnessing its demolition unleashes those feelings.

Does that make any sense??????

PS I cried when they the wrecking ball hit the clocktower. :(((
Edited Date: 2012-11-06 05:04 pm (UTC)

(no subject)

Date: 2012-11-06 05:33 pm (UTC)
paceisthetrick: (Default)
From: [personal profile] paceisthetrick
Thanks for the advice! I am working now. :)

(no subject)

Date: 2012-11-06 05:44 pm (UTC)
iosonochesono: (Default)
From: [personal profile] iosonochesono
OT: I like the note idea. I was thinking about getting those page markers so I can mark places where I know I need to go back in and edit details, along with post-it pages to stick on print-outs that I've been reading away from the computer to try and catch errors I don't tend to notice on the computer.

(no subject)

Date: 2012-11-06 02:28 pm (UTC)
paceisthetrick: (Default)
From: [personal profile] paceisthetrick
I feel like giving up already! :(((

(no subject)

Date: 2012-11-06 02:36 pm (UTC)
paceisthetrick: (Default)
From: [personal profile] paceisthetrick
I was going to ask you about that. For instance I have this comment on one page:

He rounded the corner past Hale and the great structure came into full view. It had been planned that way, every angle considered by the architects so that it would be a presentation of magnificence from every side, causing the observer to stop and admire its beauty. Had people once criticized the addition of the red brick when they ran out of stone? What fools. It was perfection, the symmetry and elegance unlike anything else. The kirkbride structures were unique in many aspects but of them all only Worcester was u-shaped, its wings spiraling back on itself, reaching inward as they went outward. The detail allocated even the steps to the ____________

Description of buildings here

He thought that he could close his eyes and now exactly how many steps were between each ward. He had run the corridors and paths, skipped across them, strolled down them, crept over them in the dead of night. He knew where some of the walkways had been dug up to allow for an expansion of the road and the creation of parking lots. He knew why the triangular patch existed.


Now obviously that's no way to get a word count, but is it allowed? I did that in several places when I felt I didn't have the info necessary to write a part.

????

(no subject)

Date: 2012-11-05 08:38 pm (UTC)
eien_herrison: Mars and Jane, half-siblings from my Prosperity challenge in superhero/supervillain outfits (Mars and Jane Superhero/Supervillain)
From: [personal profile] eien_herrison
I've been doing my best to move on, and while my backspace key has been used a few times, I've become less and less worried about making everything perfect: if I'm going to use this story, I'm going to need to edit formatting anyway, so SPaG is just going to be an addition. Current best typos are shopu;d (could) and oipportunigyt (opportunity).

I did find a very useful site yesterday: because I've only really played up to DPPt, I have no idea what moves introduced in BW/BW2 look like, plus I can't recall some other moves either. However, someone on Youtube has done attack showcases for all moves, grouped by type \ ^_^ /

Total wordcount: 14,887, of which 2,682 written today.

(no subject)

Date: 2012-11-06 08:51 am (UTC)
eien_herrison: An infinity loop in all the colours of the rainbow to signify Autistic Pride (Autism)
From: [personal profile] eien_herrison
I was trying to get to 15k, but I hit the end of a scene with the next one not quite planned out, so I'm going to plan some more before work/during my lunch break and do some more writing this evening.

It has been a good inspiration so far: a lot of resource sites have the moves described but I need to see them in action to get an idea of how to adapt them.

(no subject)

Date: 2012-11-05 11:36 pm (UTC)
dragonjournal: (Default)
From: [personal profile] dragonjournal
Word count: 13,473.

I have to beef it up tonight, during football because tomorrow is election day and since I didn't go out today, I have to go tomorrow.

And ohai mental health, I didn't miss you. Sigh.

Anyway. Yeah, back to the grind.

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