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 | NaNoWriMo results
2008 Nov 24 - Monday
( About: writing )
| | I got to 20,000 words in my novel. I realized I was heading towards the end, and I was only going to get about half way to the 50,000 word goal. It was pretty hard to write enough words per night, let alone figure out how to go back and insert enough extra in the middle to double the word count.
But it was not a failure in my eyes, because I learned a lot about what it's going to take if I want to finish my novels:
| | A novel is not one single happening. I only had one main conflict in my story, and that is not enough. You have to have a stream of conflicts in a novel. |
| | I had characters designed in my head, but they were too shallow. I need to really do an in-depth character analysis to make sure my characters are deep and have their own desires, struggles, and goals. |
| | I need to study pacing. Sometimes it's OK to go fast and tell, but sometimes it's OK to go slow and show a lot. You can take multiple pages to detail one scene, or one conversation. |
| | I don't yet fully have my world designed. What kind of houses do they live in? What organization are their governments? Etc. |
So I now have some more information I would have never had if I just thought about my book instead of sitting down to write 20,000 words. I consider this a success.
What's next for me? Well, I have two projects I'm going to start at the beginning of the year. One is that I'm going to start writing and releasing (in a MIT/BSD style license) some great code that will be the foundation of some software projects I am going to do. Second is that I'm going to start a beginning-to-end Bible Study, where we go through and try and find answers to some basic questions like: Who is God? What has God done? What has God said? Why did he do things, say things? What does He expect from me? What must I do to have eternal life? So I'm pretty excited about both projects. Stay tuned!
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| | More NaNo Progress
2008 Nov 10 - Monday
( About: writing )
| | 16327 words and 8 chapters. I'm only 300 words behind where I should be, which is great. I'll fill that gap easily tomorrow night. I'm starting to get a feel for how to write 2,000 words a night easily. Which means my writing craft is improving. And that's a good sign that this month of NaNo is actually helping.
About 12,000 words into my story I realized things were not going well with the plot. So after thinking and praying it turns out I'm actually writing the second book in my fantasy trilogy. Who knew?
Yes, I'm writing a fantasy trilogy. That sounds cliche but it's true. I'm not writing about dragons or elves though, so that should be refreshing. Not that Tolkien's world is lame, it's wonderful, but it's been done so much that I just had to create my own myths, creatures, world, etc. And I'm very happy with what I've come up with. Don't tell my wife that. She thinks I get all my good ideas from her. It's simply not true. Honest.
Yesterday I was actually quite frustrated. I felt like I wasn't sure how I was going to write the middle of my story. I had the setup, and I knew the ending, but what was going to fill the bulk of the middle? Which is only, what, 20,000 words? But yet again prayer succeeded. Talking to God helps. It's amazing really. Which you wouldn't be able to tell by how often I pray. It seems I have a brain with a 3 second memory. One day I'll learn. But hopefully I'm not writing the same paragraph over and over in my book. That would be disappointing.
Here's to success! With prayer and a determined soul, who knows what might happen. You just might see my name in your local bookstore one day. :-)
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| | NaNoWriMo Progress
2008 Nov 5 - Wednesday
( About: writing )
| | NaNoWriMo is going well. I've written 7532 words so far. I'm only 800 words behind where I should be, which isn't very bad at all. I think I can be caught up by the weekend.
The story is coming along nicely. A lot better than I had hoped actually. I've had this story idea for over a year. I have all the major plot points figured out, so the over-arching story idea is solid. What I don't have is all the details for the characters and all the minor story points. But writing the minor things by the seat of my pants is going well. Characters have changed chapter to chapter, sometimes drastically, but I am figuring everything out far faster than if I was still thinking and planning without actually doing any writing. It seems writing really helps me get into my world and figure things out faster.
I've only been writing 4 days but man it is tough. I have a lot more respect for all novelists out there now. I struggle with coming up with 3 pages a night. Which will still need to be pretty much doubled before I ever even think about publishing. And polished. Oh there is a LOT of polishing that will need to be done. I think I'm a pretty good plotter, and my characters are good, but I do not have the craft at all. This will take time. And much more writing.
Anyway, to all you fellow NaNoWriMo-ers out there. Good luck! It's nice knowing there are other people suffering through just like you. I'm still determined to reach 50,000 words by the end of the month! :-)
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