2017 NaNo Notes: Week 3

You might note that there was no ‘Week 2’ update last Wednesday. Yes, this is a pretty accurate gauge of how I’m doing with this Short-Fic NaNo project. I currently stand at 2,063 words, out of the 10,500 I ought to have at this point. (15,000 is the goal for the full month)

So, that’s some serious failing. Those numbers don’t feel good. In fact, I’m pretty sure they’re mocking me.

When I look past the numbers though, and remember what I was hoping this year’s bout of “writer’s therapy” would help me with, it doesn’t feel so bad. It’s been something like three months since the last time I did any real writing… as in, actual writing for a story. Three months might as well be an eternity of not writing.

And now I’m writing. Now, I have 2,063 words that I didn’t have written at the beginning of this month, or even at the end of the first week. In terms of scenes, I’m about a fourth of the way through the story. That’s most of the slow-build setup stuff that always takes forever. At work, instead of pondering new plot points for the stories in my idea hatchery, I’m thinking about awkward scene transitions and what sort of emotional state my character will be in from scene to scene. I’m starting to pull myself out of the pit I’ve been in. This is a huge win!

Okay, it’s more like a small win. ^-^ It’s progress, and that’s something I can be happy about. Oh, also I read four books off my TBR list! Progress all around, haha.

There’s one more week left in the month. Can I grind out 13,000 more by then? It seems preeeeetty unlikely. Nevertheless, I shall try.

Happy Thanksgiving to all. Do your best out there! ^-^

Editing, Research, Further Plans

Yesterday I finished my editing for draft 3 of ‘Take Me On’. Whoop! I’m sending it out to my beta readers today, and hoping that I got all the issues fixed without creating more, haha. ^-^ I have a good feeling though, pretty sure this is the last draft.

And what do you do with a fully finished and polished story? Well you send it out into the world to get rejected of course! Before I do that though, I will have to do some research. Firstly, I’ve got to find some places to send it. I think I’ll probably go pick up the latest copy of Writer’s Market, because the one I have is several years old. Seriously, this is one of the best resource books that you can have if you want to go the traditional way with your freelance writing. It lists magazines, both physical and online, anthologies, publishing companies, and agents. It also tells you what kinds of genres they publish and how they prefer to receive submissions. Very good stuff!

A Quick Romaine Shout-Out!

TRIUMPH!!

Yes it does really require bold and all caps. ^-^ In fact, only two exclamation points is pretty danged conservative because ROMAINE IS FINISHED! Final sentence, final period, story complete! At least, the first draft of it. That’s really all I care about right now, honestly.

Including some prep work, this project has been about nine months in the making.  It comes in at 37,787 words, almost 50 pages (12 font, single spaced). To be perfectly truthful, I still kind of hate it right now. I will be very happy to dump it in a dark folder on my computer and not think about it for a good long while.

Of course, my Scholar gets to read it before that happens since it was supposed to be his anniversary present. Better late than never, right? XD

Now I am off to find some delicious celebratory foods!

 

How Roleplaying Could Help Your Writing

Let me start out by specifying what kind of role playing I mean, since there are several different kinds. According to Wikipedia it is called Play-By-Post, which is actually the first time I’ve ever heard the term. Around the communities I used to frequent it was referred to as Text-Style Roleplaying. Yes, with roleplaying as one word, in case you thought that was a typo. ^-^

[Not to be confused with Text BASED role playing, which involves MUD and is a completely different animal.]

Of course neither of these terms are very helpful to those who are not already involved with a roleplaying community. So, to explain, Text-Style Roleplaying is basically writing a story with other people. However unlike tandems, or other forms of collaborative writing, you are only allowed to write your own character. Also, the story is usually led by one person, who makes all final calls with regard to story direction and character conflict. Other rules apply based on the community or story leader. (Also called a game leader or thread leader)

Although it’s been on and off these last couple of them, I’ve been participating in this form of roleplaying for somewhere around ten years now. In that time, I’ve discovered that not only is it fun, it’s a great way to work on your writing. Here are a few of the reasons why.

Fair warning, this will probably be another long post. ^-^

NaNo Notes: Wrap Up

Happy December! ^-^

Well, NaNoWriMo is officially over. That last week is always the hardest, especially when you have to work Black Friday. I actually managed to write 1,100 words on Thanksgiving, in between two family gatherings and working till midnight. That felt pretty cool. ^-^

Alright so let’s get down to the final stats then, shall we?

NaNo Notes: Week 3

I can’t believe it’s already week three of November. Only one more week, and a couple days, left on my NaNoWriMo challenge! I also can’t believe how well I’m doing right now. I am meeting my goals, and pushing right on through tough scenes with at least  a fraction of the devil-may-care, “I’ll edit that later!” attitude which I have long envied many of my peers.

Here are the relevant stats:

NaNo Notes: Week 2

I feel so good about this week! ^-^

I did miss a day, but pretty easily caught up again. My current word count is 6,159, out of the 7,000 I should have by now. So not only did I do all the writing I was supposed to this week, I even managed to edge a little into catching up with the days I missed last week. Huzzah!

NaNo Notes: Week 1

Yes, I will be counting this blog post towards my total words for the day. 😉

 

Currently sitting at 2,783 words. (3,500 was what I needed for the first week.)

I am definitely a bit embarrassed to report that I find myself two days behind already. Two whole days where I just didn’t have it in me to write 500 words? Pretty sad.

But I’m going to do better this week! I will write everyday if it kills me! Shouldn’t be too bad really, since I’ve finally gotten into the part of ‘Romaine’ where the lich appears. In fact the heroine is spying on him from inside a box as we speak! Poor Elena, she is soooo far out of her comfort zone right now. XD

A Very Jenn NaNoWriMo

Every year around this time I see a lot of articles pop up about National Novel Writing Month. If you don’t know what that is… well, I mean really I have no words because it’s pretty self explanatory actually. Since this year I have a shiny new blog, I thought it would be appropriate to get in on the fun. This won’t be a post about NaNoWriMo tips and tricks, but rather a quick note about my own plans and goals for this year.

Another Quick Romaine Update

Well I have been plugging away at Romaine, and I’m making some good progress. However, it seems like the story is turning out to be much longer than I originally thought it would be. Perhaps it’s because I’m not really writing it in a traditional fairy-tale style, or perhaps it’s because I am over explaining things? ^-^ Regardless of the reasons, I recently did a quick estimate of my probable final word count, and it is well into the novella range!

For those who don’t know, a good general word count reference is:

Under 20,000 words = short story

20,000 to 50,000 words = novella

50,000 words or more = novel