I've Moved!

Yep, my blog has moved. Reality now doesn't live here.

Which Science Fiction Writer Are You?

I am: Ursula K. LeGuin Perhaps the most admired writing talent in the science fiction field.

Which science fiction writer are you?

It's Done

The first draft of Lessons is done. I finished it late Sunday night. Final wordcount: 194,880.

I miss it.

This story has been a driving obsession since it appeared in my head in late July. Now it's over. I'll need to revise it, but that will come later. For now, it's done. And I'm feeling aimless.

I still have Nothing So Pure to finish, but I'd like to get a few days of distance from Lessons before I dive into it again. So what do I do? Maybe I should take a break from writing for a couple of days. That would be the sane thing to do. But who ever said I was sane?

I've got a plotbunny dancing around in my head. Maybe I'll try doing a little worldbuilding for it. Take it nice and slow, and see if I can come up with something I'd like to work on after Nothing So Pure is done.

Lessons is done, and it's time to move on. Part of me is glad it's finished... but part of me wants it back.

The End... Almost

NaNoWriMo is almost over. I'm going to miss it. Right now my wordcount is at just over 160,000 - much more than I had expected I would write this month. My goal was 100,000 words, but I didn't know whether I'd be able to get that far. I don't know if it's something about this story, or whether I've just discovered that I can write more than I thought I could in a day; I'm hoping it's the latter.

I don't want NaNo to end, but at the same time, I'm about ready for this novel to be over. It was supposed to be about 120,000 words long; now it's probably going to end up at just under 200,000. As much as I love the story, I'd like for it to end sometime soon. I'm still having fun with it though, and I'll miss it when it's gone.

Luckily I've got another plotbunny waiting in the wings... The downside to that, of course, is that this plotbunny sees no reason why I should be working on Lessons; it wants all my attention for itself.

More Lessons

Still working on Lessons. I hit 100,000 words on the 14th. That means I've reached my goal for the month. But I'm not stopping; I'm still only halfway trhough the outline. This book is going to be massive, apparently. I don't know what happened.

Today wasn't such a good writing day. The weather was yucky and rainy all day, and I was writing a scene that was sandwiched in between two exciting scenes but wasn't as interesting as either of them. I had to write it, so I could introduce two new characters, but I'm glad it's over. Tomorrow I get to write a scene that will hopefully be more interesting. Though to be honest, I think the main reason I had a problem with what I wrote today was just that I wasn't in a very good mood to begin with.

And I figured out something about my character; I got an answer to a question that I hadn't been able to resolve. I'm happy with that, even though it wasn't a very good writing day.

Six Days

Until now, my best record for hitting 50k was 18 days. I hit it in 19 days my first year, 29 days my second year, and 18 days my third year.

This year I hit it in six.

I don't know what happened this year. I think it's a combination of the phase outline and the fact that I've been enthralled with this idea since late July, but the story has been flowing wonderfully. Now that we're in the middle of the second week - always the hardest - of NaNoWriMo, I've slowed down a bit, but for this novel, "slowed down a bit" means I'm writing 4000-5000 words a day instead of 6000-10000. I seem to have turned prolific. I just hope it lasts.

Now that week two is here, the story isn't flowing quite as well as it did. But it's still going very well.

A couple of my fellow WriMos have gotten hit with plotbunnies that they're trying to fend off while finishing the current novel; I'm having the same problem. Lessons is still my top priority, but I've got another story knocking at the door, asking if there's room for it too. I keep telling it to wait, but characters are appearing in my head, and intriguing hints of a plot, and I find myself going online after I'm done NaNo-ing for the day and researching things I'll need to know for this project.

It's still an ephemeral idea at this point. I don't know if it will even last. But it's definitely caught my interest.

But for now, Lessons is more important. My goal for the month is 100k; I decided to double the usual NaNoWriMo goal this year, and I had wondered whether I'd be able to make it. Now I think I'll hit it by the end of next week.

And if you're doing NaNoWriMo, and are struggling with your wordcount, try dropping in an insane character or two, and let them babble. I've got one, and not only is she good for the wordcount, she's a lot of fun to write.

Lessons

Yesterday was the first day of NaNoWriMo. I woke up before my alarm, at the ungodly hour of 5:45 a.m. I tried to go back to sleep, but somehow my brain interpreted "Go back to sleep" as "Try to come up with a good first line for the novel." So I didn't get back to sleep; instead I got up and started writing. (And came up with a first line that I like quite a lot.)

Lessons is going very well. In fact, I think it's going better than any story I've ever written thus far. I haven't hit any points yet where I get stuck (knock on wood). It's all flowing so easily. I told a friend a couple of months ago that I didn't understand how people could write as much as 10,000 words in a single day. Well, yesterday I wrote 10,000. 10,889, to be exact. And today I reached the 20k mark in the novel. I'm stunned. I expected it to go well, but not this well. Not that I'm complaining, of course.

I'm having a blast with it. I've discovered a huge glaring flaw in my main character, one that she'll overcome over the course of the story. Always a good thing. And my villain is a lot of fun to write.

The difference between this novel and the others I've written? With this one, I decided to write about things that fascinate me, but that embarrass me to write about. I thought I'd have to fight my way through awkwardness and embarrassment because of it. Instead, it's going amazingly well.

There may be a lesson here.