The Secret History

Has it really been three months since I last updated? Yikes!

I am, once again, participating in NaNoWriMo this year. I haven't been doing the daily updates I did last November, and I'm not sure that I'll be posting my novel here either. It's not about zombies, for one thing, so I doubt there would be much reader interest locally. ;)

However, I have been plugging away steadily at the novel, although today I appear to have been felled by the Death Plague™ that afflicted both baronscartop and ai731 last week, which I fear will not help word count today. Also, I have cleaning to do in this apartment, and it ain't going to do itself.

In any event, I think it's time I resurrected Ye Olde Wordcounte Meter:

::Edit:::

Nope, wordcount meter is down for the count this NaNo, and while they helpfully provided the code for it, I am not internet-savvy enough to be able to use it. Oh well.

Current wordcount: 31,627

Well, august_writing is off to a good start. I was a little worried, because by last night I was already running two days late on my writing. However, a good afternoon's worth of writing today has me mostly back on track.

The really good news: Beyond the Pale has officially reached the 200,000 word mark today! To celebrate, here is a gold-coloured word meter:

200,075 / 400,000 (50.0%)

Today's wordcount on BTP: 3,844 words

Two instalments will be going up tonight (after I post this), and with any luck two more will go up tomorrow. After that, we shall see.


I also wrote a little under 1,000 words for forthright's prompt in my regular LJ a couple of weeks ago. It currently stands at 3,072 words, and I think I'm about halfway done. I'm having a lot of trouble with it, unfortunately (sorry for the delay, forthright!), because I'd like it to be self-contained, by which I mean I'd like anyone to be able to read it and derive enjoyment out of it without needing a giant infodump. Unfortunately, there's an entire campaign's worth of background information that needs to be explained (maybe even two campaigns) and encapsulated for anything to make sense. I'm also still struggling with my focal character, because he was an NPC and I don't really get what makes him tick. Gah. All very frustrating. I may end up starting over again, simply because I'm really not happy with how it's turning out.

It's not too late to provide me with a prompt, by the way! Just go to this entry and post your very own prompt! I will get to it eventually, I promise. Or you could even post the prompt here. I will receive it either way.

So nearly 5,000 words today. Reminds me of last year's NaNo. Good times all around.

Got writing done today. Go me!

New wordcount for A Lamentation of Swans: 31,389

31,389 / 100,000 (31.4%)

I mercilessly tossed out the 700 words I hated, and replaced them with nearly 2,000 words of text I liked much better.

I'm starting to get back into the story, which is a nice feeling. I missed this book. :)

I have officially whupped SarahJanet's narrow behind (don't worry, new readers, it's all in good fun and very metaphorical). I have given myself a new wordcount goal of 80,000 words by tomorrow night, and I'm doing pretty well, all-around:

76,906 / 80,000 (96.1%)

I managed to update my wordcount on the NaNoWriMo website, but now it won't let me so much as look at the forums. They must be having a server problem, because all the other websites I look at regularly seem to be working just fine, including LJ.


ANNOUNCEMENT FOR REGULAR READERS OF "BEYOND THE PALE" AND "CONFLATION"

The serials will NOT be publishing this week, in case you hadn't noticed. I can't guarantee that they will be online next week either. I will be posting three entire issues of Beyond the Pale and two issues of Conflation the first week of December to compensate my regular and faithful readers.

In the meantime, Afternoon Snack of the Living Dead will continue to be updated until such time as the story is finished. I have given some thought to whether or not it's a good idea to keep it here on this public forum, as a few friends kindly pointed out that this might be an impediment to future publication. Some publishers want the rights of first publication, and consider posting something for free on the internet a "first publication." At this point, I'm willing to take that risk, in the hopes of eventually building a small readership on my own. One of these days I plan to have a website that's independent of LiveJournal, but first I have to figure out how to do that. The intarweebs are not exactly my specialty, after all. I play with words, not code.

Anyway, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my readers, both old and new, for all your encouragement throughout NaNoWriMo, and in the case of a few, since I started publishing the serials. I really, really appreciate every comment, every minute you take to read what I have to say. Without you, this LJ would have very little meaning. Hat's off to you. :)

Observe:

50,002 / 50,000 (100.0%)

Current wordcount stands at 47,111 words. Go me!

I went to bed instead of pushing for that extra 2,889 words last night, for reasons of health and sanity. Today I shall be shopping for boots, so no wordcount will be forthcoming until this evening, when I also have Conflation to write.

I also have three other writing deadlines for tomorrow.

So, I have my work cut out for me, it would seem.

Onward and upward!

Took Day 5 off, for reasons of mental health. Decided it was NOT worth losing all my sanity for the sake of wordcount. Seriously: GAH!

Okay, with that articulate notion out of the way, I am pleased to report further progress today. Wordcount currently stands at 35,238 words and nearly 100 pages single-spaced.

I spent a good part of today simply brainstorming in my notebook with the nifty blue Pilot pen I bought expressly for this purpose. A flash of inspiration prompted me to go and dig out my copy of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land and Other Poems and give it another read-through. After sitting with the poems and my thoughts for the better part of the afternoon, I was able to re-think the way I'd been planning to structur the novel. Instead of simply switching back and forth between "now" and the recent past, I have decided to divide the novel into three parts, inspired partly by "The Waste Land." I decided in a tongue-in-cheek moment that a fairly strong case might be made for the notion that "The Waste Land" is (at least in part) about zombies.

So I restructured my novel, and managed to churn out slightly over 5,000 words today. I made myself stop at 35,000 even though the plot bunnies are hopping around, because I refuse to burn out over this. I am about 200 words ahead of SarahJanet, so my honour is intact for now. I do not need to keep writing.

The insane part of my brain that wants me to hit 50K by Wednesday evening has been told to shut up in no uncertain terms.

If I divide my novel into three parts, each being roughly 35,000 words (I'm nearly at the end of Part I, as far as I can tell), then in order to finish by the 30th of November I'd have to write 3,000 words (and change) per day. I don't know how I feel about that. This is also not including any and all other writing projects I have going on at the same time.

For the record, I'm not setting myself that goal. Even if I could do it (and maybe I can), I don't think it's a healthy one. So I'm going to plug away at the novel at whatever pace feels comfortable on any given day. I am going to stop writing at least every 2,000 words and re-evaluate how I'm feeling. If I'm tired, then I'll stop. Under no circumstances will I stay up past midnight to work on the novel (writing LJ posts doesn't count for that).

These are my new resolutions for NaNo.

There will be no posting of new material tonight, because there are some things I want to fix (ie, wordcount that I want to add) to some of the scenes before I post them. They will go up tomorrow.

Also, tomorrow I have to find some time for the new instalment of BTP. Conflation also needs some TLC this week. Ack! So much writing to do!

Good night, gentle readers! I will see you in the morning.

Day 3 is not going to be as productive as Days 1 and 2, not that that's a huge problem. My brain is still coming up with ideas, but the rest of me is really kind of tired now. Also, I have other stuff that had to get done today.

Still, I have written 2,112 words, which is well above the daily quota needed to make it to 50,000 by November 30th. Right now I need to write less than 1,000 words per day for the rest of the month to obtain the minimum number of required words. So I'm not worried. Clearly, I am suffering from some kind of twisted hubris, and I will get some kind of comeuppance the way I did last year when I overconfidently thought I'd be finishing well ahead of schedule (anyone else remember the dead logic board saga? Gah!).

I have switched soundtracks today. I am listening to Orff's Carmina Burana, which has always been one of my favourite pieces. I have it in two different recordings, but I vastly prefer the Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos version. Now there's a man who understands that a fortissimo can, in fact, be done in a subtle and effective fashion, and that one fortissimo is not necessarily exactly the same as another. Unlike, say, Charles Dutoit, who seems to think that having his chorus shouting is music. Not that I'm biased or anything.

I have to work on getting my characters to the nearest metro station. They've been trapped for nearly the entire time now, and I have to get them moving if I ever want this story to end.

The really ridiculously ambitious part of my mind is clamouring at me right now, saying that if I write 5,000 words a day, I'll have hit 50,000 words by Wednesday night, in time for the next meet-up. I know I can do it, but I don't know if I should. For one, I risk absolutely killing myself if I do that. I will permanently screw up my sleeping cycle, possibly injure my wrist more, and run the risk of burning out before my story is finished, which I don't want to do. One of the goals this November is not just hitting 50,000 words, but actually finishing the story, which didn't happen last year. Now that I know that I can reach the stated wordcount goal in 30 days, I want a slightly more challenging, umm, challenge.

So, yeah. Wordcount will likely be slowing down considerably after this. There's also the fact that I have other writing projects that mustn't get neglected, either. I don't know. I'll see how things progress, I guess.

The poor wordcount meter I have been using has died a sad death, presumably due to excessive bandwidth use.

ASotLD proceeds apace. It now stands at 18, 004 words. Ideally I would like to get another 2,000 words written before midnight, but that might not be possible, given that I have my Book Club meeting at 7:30 and I therefore have to get going. Still, I am well ahead of where I wanted to be by the end of Day 2 (by about, oh, 15,000 words) so I'm not complaining in the slightest. I'm just a sucker for round numbers, and somehow producing 10,000 words a day about zombies kind of has a nice ring to it, don't you think? ;)

I will very likely post the next sections that I wrote today when I get home from Book Club. My net connection has been wonky all day (Woe! How can I procrastinate with no web?), but I'm hoping it'll be all right by the time I get back. The NaNo website appears to be loading a bit more quickly than yesterday, too, which is nice.

I'M going to see if I can squeeze in a few more hundred words before I have to leave in half an hour. See you on the flip side!

Braaaaaaiiiiinnnnnnssss...

So far so good. ASotLD proceeds apace. Between having no job and having the zombies pretty much write themselves, I am much farther ahead than I thought I would be at this stage. The NaNo website is maddeningly slow, and has been trying to upload my latest wordcount for the past ten minutes. Argh! Hopefully this will resolve itself over the next few days. There are always problems with the website during the first week or so. Par for the course, really.

Death toll so far: 3

Wordcount is as follows:

8,063 / 50,000 (16.1%)

Ah. I see the website finally loaded. Good show. I am off to the NaNo meet!