| Every Monday
in November, I'm going to post an update to my progress in
NaNoWriMo 2006. The goal, of course, is to write a 50,000 word
novel by the end of the month. The harsh reality will be
documented here.
quick links:
Intro
Nov 6
Nov 13
Nov 20
Nov 27
Final
Introduction
Technically, it's against the rules of
NaNoWriMo to continue work on something you've already started.
You are supposed to start from scratch on November 1st, with
only an idea and maybe a rough outline. Not me. I'm continuing
work on something I started last year. I guess that makes me a
cheater. Actually, the work I started last year was very short,
even maybe to the point of being shorter than most people's
outlines. I've convinced myself that my plan is ok, so don't
ruin it for me. My story is a young
adult novel about four young friends who have come to realize
that just about every adult they know is a nut. I figure that's
pretty much what most kids think anyway. It's part comic, part
mystery and nowhere near finished. It doesn't have a title yet.
I don't even know when or if it will ever be ready for public
consumption, but I may post some excerpts here in my NaNoBlog.
Here we go. November 6
My, oh my, where has the time gone? The first
week of NaNoWriMo just flew right by. It didn't help that it was
a short week - November 1st was Wednesday. So, I'm not getting
too worked up about not having much time to write and I'm not
going to start talking about word counts (it would be
depressing). This is supposed to be fun, right? The main thing
to remember about NaNoWriMo is that it's quantity that counts,
not quality. You can edit from December to October, but November
is for pumping out the words. This is especially hard for a
notorious self-editor like me. I'm still making changes to
things I wrote in 2004. Oh well. I
actually did get some work done this week. I added a character
named Butch who owns the local movie theater, is a dwarf and may
or may not be dead. I'm starting to have some fun with this one.
There's a lot of work to be done yet, but I'll try to post a
small piece of it for you all to read next week.
November 13 My, oh
my, where does the time continue to go? Here we are at the end
of week two and I only have about 3500 words actually written.
Many, many more words are still in my head and this will someday
be a fantastic, great or possibly decent little story. In my
sad, little 3500 words I already have 8 characters introduced
and 4 active scenes. There is a lot of stuff still to happen to
my characters and lots of opportunities to include lots of funny
stuff. I hope I can come up with some.
In the meantime, you can click the link below to see my author
profile page at NaNoWriMo.org and read an excerpt of my story
(as promised). Let me know what you think.
Profile and excerpt
November
20 Progress! You know a story is
good when you can completely change one of your major plotlines
(the one that was the springboard for the whole project) and
actually make the story BETTER. I was having some trouble with
said plotline in that I didn't think I could make it funny
instead of cruel. The tightrope strung between funny and cruel
is one I walk all the time in my writing and this time it seemed
that I was tilting toward the cruel side, so I had to change
things up a bit. That is the beauty of fiction - you can do
that. I did have some distractions this
week, such as a birthday party to throw and there was lots of
procrastinating also. I should be much further ahead than I am,
but I'm already well above where I was at this time last year,
both in word-count and in story development.
Oh, one more thing. My NaNoWriMo region
(Maryland) is currently running in 4th place in total word count
with around 8 million words so far. Can you imagine? 8 million
words and statistically, almost none of them are mine.
November 27
Yes! 5000 words! As far as I'm concerned, 5000
words is only one zero away from 50,000 words. And what is zero
worth? Nothing!
Well, sort of. I know I'm not going to hit that
magical number of 50,000 this year, but I am happy with my
progress, especially in the area of story development. I have a
lot of things still to write and I'm still not exactly sure
where the story is going to go. It's actually kind of exciting.
So, one of the things I did this week to help me avoid any
further progress in my writing is to do some research. Check
this out: "Charlotte's Web" 32,000
+ words "James and the Giant Peach"
25,000 + words The Magic Treehouse books
average 11,000 + words "The Hoboken
Chicken Emergency" by Daniel Pinkwater is one of my favorite
books for the age range I'm targeting and it's only 13,000 +
words. So I don't need 50,000
words. I only need to finish my book the way I want it to be.
I'm guessing it will come in around 12 or 13 thousand words,
depending on how complicated the story line gets. But the
figures I just quoted are inspiring to me. Every book does not
need to be as big as the last Harry Potter. Two of the books I
listed have been made into movies, even. So, it seems to be all
about the story and how well it's told. That's good news for me.
Now, if I can just figure out how to do THAT ...
Final recap
Well, it's over. November is gone. December
brings the harsh winter winds signaling the end of another
National Novel Writing Month. My goal was 50,000 words, but
honestly, only crazy people reach that goal. I finished with
about 5100 words, which is more in line with the goal that lazy,
distracted people reach. Hoo
ray Like I said before,
I'm still very pleased with the novel I'm (still) working on. I
hope to have it finished BEFORE next year's NaNoWriMo. If I do,
I'm sure to let you all know. It would make a good short story. |
