One Minute Before the Explosion

It’s been so long since I posted a first line it almost feels out of character. But, as soon as I finished the NaNo I immediately downloaded a new book. This is the third of fourth Ken Follett book I’ve read. It starts off well.

One minute before the explosion, the square at Sainte-Cécile was at peace. The evening was warm, and a layer of still air covered the town like a blanket. The church bell tolled a lazy beat, calling worshipers to the service with little enthusiasm. To Felicity Clairet it sounded like a countdown.

Follett, Ken - Jackdaws

Really I could have left out the second half of the passage and it would have been just as good a first line “One minute before the explosion, the square at Sainte- Cécile was at peace.” That’s pretty good first line stuff right there.

NaNoWriMo Version 7.0 - A Review

So success has been achieved. Once again, another NaNo done. I was right too, I had the least amount of time to work on it this year than in years past. I was also right that since this is my sixth (?) maybe seventh one that it was the easiest.

As I was coming across the winner's tape I wondered to myself if NaNo is really worth it anymore. The 50K number is so arbitrary and is painfully less than I need for a full novel. Toe the Line is about 75K and it's shorter than the second one due out in June, On the Edge, which is 92K.

Secondly, working on editing and re-writing last years entry, Vapor Trail, has shown me that the amount of revising and rewriting is a gargantuan undertaking where whole chapters are sometimes thrown out and completely redone.

All that being said, NaNo does do one thing positive and that is that it gives me a goal and a time limit. The last time I undertook writing a novel without NaNo I came away with a story that might have had more polished writing but had far far less substance. Additionally it petered out and I lost interest after about 25K words. NaNo doesn't let the author peter out and quit as easily.

There were several instances in this NaNo go round when I thought that the story was such a mess that I should stop altogether  I didn't. I'm glad I didn't. The writing might be rough and many of the sub-plots and avenues I'd hoped to explore didn't get fleshed out properly, but the main storyline actually came through okay. It wasn't what I expected it to be when I started but I feel confident that with some massaging I could have something good.

Also, I found that the last 500 words or so were just notes to myself about sub-plots I wanted to include but didn't get the time to, and notes on characters where I thought of ways to make them more engaging or intriguing. There was a lot more that came up over the course of writing that I hadn't expected and didn't have time to include. All positive I think.

It's a good exercise, NaNoWriMo in that now I have five or so (extremely) rough drafts in my novel library that with some hard work can (hopefully) become much better.

Set for Success

Four thousand measly words is all that separates me from total and complete NaNoWriMo success!

Can I bang out another four thousand words today? I think so. But, now that I think about it . . . all I really get if I complete it is a "winner button" on my NaNoWriMo webpage and an email that says good job. Hardly seems worth it.

On a positive note I'll have one more rough draft novel to add to the other six I have stored somewhere on my computer. Still, it does seem to get easier each year.

Almost There

I'm worried that with the dead line looming, Friday, that it's going to take a marathon session to reach 50K before the weekend. I've made some fairly decent moves in the past couple of days and am now a little over 10K away from the finish line.

However when I look at the graph, I can only think of this snippet from my sons new favorite movie, Star Wars, where the rebel pilot keeps up the mantra "Almost there . . ." over and over.

Savvy Star Wars fans will note that Jon "Dutch" Vander  was unsuccessful in his mission. Let's hope that I don't follow suit.

Snowman to Bandit, You Got Your Ears On?

Gotta long way to go and short time to get there based on the graph below. I'd like to say that I've been eschewing updating this blog to work on my novel, sadly the evidence doesn't support that.

Will I make it? I think so. I have a week left and 20K words to go. I'm going to power through these next few days and make a big dent in this sucker. The problem? I'm not sure how the mystery ends yet. That's never a good thing. The good news? The characters seem intriguing  I'd rather have compelling characters and a weak idea of the plot than the alternative.

Hanging On By a Thread

Well, I reached my goal but I don't think I was aggressive enough when I made it. I actually hit the goal during the plane ride Monday. The rest was done on today's plane ride and over the course of the last two days.

I should be at 25K (halfway) by the end of the week and be ahead of schedule.

This Has the Potential to Get Out of Hand

The past few NaNo's I've kept up by working on a daily basis and grinding out 1600 or so words a day. This is the first NaNo where I've been working in fits and starts. Could be due to the family, could be due to my travel schedule, could be lots of things, but looking at the chart on my dashboard it looks grim for our hero.

But, I'm off to San Jose again. I have some prime writing time starting right now and ending on Wednesday. The goal is 20K by Wednesday.

Keeping Up?

I'm barely keeping up if I look at that little line that supposed to show the pace I should be meeting and the little bars that show my writing.

Still what's really important are the words not the numbers. The words are . . . I'm happy to say . . . are not too bad. They're coming together to form plots I hadn't thought of, characters that are somewhat intriguing  and a story that was somewhat planned but still spontaneous. I have to go to California again next week, I'm hoping that that helps me break this novels back and get past 25K.

Still Behind But Made My Goal

Hard going in novel writing land so I was depressed until about two minutes ago. The other day I wrote that my goal by the end of this trip was to get to 10K. I looked down at my word count just moments ago and saw that yep, I was over 10K.

So eventhough I'm still behind the pace I'm hanging in there. Maybe with a few solid days of writing and a couple more trips I can get in front of the pack.

Behind the Power Curve

There are a few "widgets" out there that I could potentially put on this blog, in the margins or at the bottom, that will automatically show how I am doing in my quest for 50K words, but not only do I not like the look of them (a tad clunky and 1970's looking) but I've always had trouble adding them. Ergo, I'll do the same thing I did last year, and Just add pictures of my progress.

I'm a tad behind the pace, but I'm still tracking. My story has already gone through several iterations, and I'm   on basically my third main character. It's fun to see how things change so quickly in the rough draft phase. Even more interesting how much it changes from this draft to the end.

More updates will follow as events merit.