NaNo, and NaNo Some More

So National Novel Writing month did not result in my churning out 50,000 words of my novel, Oubliette 7. However, I did manage to put nearly 20,000 words on virtual paper before the wheels came off the cart -- a confluence of the good (sudden work from a few new clients) and bad (a cold that took me out of the running for a few days).

But in doing what work I did, I made significant progress on learning about: How the prison planet works; the aliens that populate the cell block I focus on; some galactic history, and how it can turn on at the whims of a booking agent for a Canadian morning news show; the underpinnings of one of the cases my detective is investigating; a number of other characters in the prison. 

I also questioned my decision to spell guardbot as one word; had it been two, I'd probably be another thousand words closer to my goal. 

Regardless, I know a lot more about this book than I did at the beginning of November, and have been writing notes to myself about new characters to introduce and directions to go.

One other thing: On Thanksgiving morning, I got an email from an editor I'd pitched the book to (sending him an overview and a first chapter) back in May. While he won't be publishing it, he called it "a strong SF/noir pitch with a great protagonist." So that's a little extra fuel to propel me to finish this sucker and get it out into the world.

Rob

More Nano

In the past few days, I wrote 660, then 913, then 1197 words... bringing my total words so far to 6871. It's a few thousand below where I'd like to be, but there's no denying that the book is moving forward much faster than it had been. Only 43,129 words to go by November 30th!

I should probably mention that, unlike Nano, I might not end the book when I reach that magic number. But by that point, I'll probably be careening headlong into an ending, whether I intend to or not.

Rob

Nano Update

Another good day for Nano yesterday: another 2056 words. That puts me at 4101 overall, and even better, I figured out how to make an affect possible in prose that I could only think of in comic-book form. It was a nut I wasn't sure I could crack, and now that I have I'm happier than a pig in Pig Disneyland.

Now to do some work today before my brother arrives and we start watching the game. Go Phils!

Rob

Write It All, Let God Sort It Out

So I've been writing a novel for a little while. I've told some people, and not mentioned it to others. But I'm about 25,000 words in, and it had been going pretty well. I was doing about a thousand words a day.

Then two things happened. One: I went to Las Vegas and broke my stride. For about a week, the book was lonely and untouched.

Second: on the journey from point A to point Z, I found myself at point F or G with no idea where to go. I know what has to happen at J or K, and I know where I need to be at point N or O, but I'm in the creamy center of the twinkie with no real idea how to get back to the spongy outer layer, or even a decent analogy.

So I've decided to be an unofficial* participant in NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month. The deal is (and I've done Nano before, and prevailed), you set down 50,000 words of new fiction in a month. It's a tough goal, but it's not impossible. It's an exercise in Quantity over Quality, and intentionally so. Writers -- especially first-time ones, who haven't been through the whole process yet -- can be too precious about their words, and more concerned with the trees than the forest. And right now, my job is to get that forest planted, and I can come back and sculpt the topiary in another draft. And if I can get 50,000 words written in November, that means I'll have 75K of fiction ready to edit and work with in December and beyond. I'll have a solid, solid start, even if much of the text is clumsy and obvious. No one gets to be Ross MacDonald right out of the gate.

Naturally, yesterday I didn't write a word.

Today, however, I continued Chapter 13, allowing the scant words I'd already written of it into my Nano count. And so, my Nano tally stands at:

2045 words; 47,955 to go.

Expect updates.

Rob
*Unofficial because Nano rules say you have to start from scratch.