I won! I won!

Hooray!

I am finished at 50,405 words. I had to write those extra few hundred because of how many em dashes I used. It felt like cheating to alter them when I'm already getting undeserved credit for my ellipses and chapter dividers.

But yeah! I won!

Is my novel finished? No. Is it ever going to be? I don't know about that. One thing I completely didn't think about when I came up with the idea was how much of it is told from a young guy's perspective. Well, I kind of suck at writing from a guy's perspective, so I'm not feeling too motivated to finish at this point.

Still, I'm so glad to have written something! And I plan to reward myself tonight with vapid videogame playing and old episodes of Loveline, and this weekend with shopping and Guitar Hero III.

I'm going to post more thoughts about the NaNo experience in the next few days. For now, I'm just excited as hell!

49,528

OMG! Almost there!

48,401

It's the final countdown! (Arrested Development reference totally intentional there!)

47,338

:-D

46,523

That's 93% done! I'm hoping for another writing session in the afternoon, or maybe I'll stay up late tonight and finish!

45,372

Less than 5,000 to go!

44,289

Maybe I can just relax tonight and think about what scenes I want to write tomorrow!

43,125

I'll be pushing on tonight while my SO does work.

42,557!

I can't believe I wrote this much today. More than 5,000 words! Off to rest my aching fingers! And maybe plan to work a bit harder at my actual job tomorrow . . .

39,067!

There's nothing like a good, thinly veiled autobiographical rant to speed things up!

37,369

Yikes! Time to really push toward the end!

Past 35,000...

...but just barely. I didn't write at all on Wednesday or Thursday, and I didn't write enough yesterday. I'm going to stop the progress reports for now because I get freaked out when I think about maintaining the necessary pace for the next few days (necessary if I want to finish, I mean). Instead, I'm going to shift away from that and just try to write as much as I can. Otherwise I think I will get too panicky and not be able to finish.

But maybe without the more detailed records, I'll be tempted to slack off even more. Hmm, I don't know. I'm going to try it this way for now, and we'll see how it goes. Who knows, maybe I'll end up switching back.

Ahhh let's hope I can finish!

Progress report #17

Word count for today: 1,727

Time: 45 minutes

Excerpt: too tired

Total word count: 32,412

Comments: too tired

time to sleep

Progress report #16

Note: Although I did write yesterday, I didn't have time to update this blog and the NaNo site after I finished. So I'm backdating this entry!

Word count for today: 2,012

Time: 75 minutes

Excerpt:

“Hi,” Ambrose said.

“I’m sorry for not showing up last night,” Audrey said.

“OK,” Ambrose said, not quite accepting her apology.

“I just don’t think we can keep doing this,” Audrey said.

“Why?” Ambrose said. “What happened?” He really hoped she was going to say something about getting caught. That could be reasoned out and solved—it didn’t meant the end of anything.

“Nothing happened,” Audrey said. “I just don’t want to see you anymore.”

Total word count: 30,685

Comments: Well, I took yet another Sunday off. Luckily though, it doesn't seem to have hurt me too much. Things are still going well, although work has continued to be busy, so I've had to stop writing in the mornings and at lunch because otherwise my wrists, fingers, and brain are all exhausted by 4 p.m. So I write in the afternoons and evenings instead, and that's working out well.

Progress report #15

Word count for today: 2,178

Time: 60 minutes

Excerpt:

“Zach,” Lily said then, getting a little more serious, “I don’t know what your schedule here is like. But I was wondering—you know that café down the road?”

“Oh yeah. The only one in town?”

Lily grinned. “Yeah. Well . . . do you want to have dinner there sometime? Maybe this weekend?”

Zach had to stop his mouth from dropping open. Was she asking him out on a date? Zach looked at her and saw that she looked a little nervous, and a little shy too. Yes, she was. Zach had dated a couple of girls in the past, but he certainly had never been asked out by a girl. He had also never dated a girl of a different religion, he reminded himself, and wondered whether going out with her might be a bad idea. But the thing was, Zach really liked her. He liked listening to her play music, and he liked talking to her and listening to her opinions. They were different from his in an exhilarating way, rather than a threatening one (as he had always been taught different opinions were). So Zach smiled back at Lily and said, “Yeah. When do you want to go?”

Lily was clearly happy he’d said yes. Her face flushed a little, and she smiled widely. “How about tomorrow night at seven?” she said.

“OK,” said Zach.

“OK,” said Lily.

Total word count: 28,673

Comments: Wow! Writing went great today! I always get a little burst of momentum when I'm writing a romantic scene I really like. In this scene, two characters who are different are kind of sharing their viewpoints (and, at some points, arguing about them) with one another, and that results in this growing attraction between them. Well, I just breezed right through this scene -- and the past couple days, I've really had to push to get through my requisite 1,700 words or so. So I feel really good right now. It really is important to just push yourself and make yourself produce sometimes. Yeah!

Progress report #14

Very tired again. Maybe I should go back to writing in the mornings. Come on, job! Slow down next week so I can have some extra writing time during the day!

Word count for today: 1,720

Time: 60 minutes

Excerpt:

“You’re really good,” he said, nodding toward her cello.

Lily smiled widely at Zach again. “Thank you,” she said.

Ambrose burst through their moment. “How is your aunt?” he asked.

“Oh, she’s fine,” Lily said. “She’s expecting you, so I think she’s in the kitchen making a snack.”

“We brought Scrabble,” Ambrose said.

“Great.” There it was—Lily didn’t seem to like Ambrose, and that was finally overshadowing her good mood. Zach wondered why she didn’t like him.

Total word count: 26,495 (50 pages in MS Word! Yowza!)

Comments: I'm just kind of blinking at the screen right now. Yeah. My main concern is writing both days this weekend, since I've taken both Sundays off so far. My family will be in town for Thanksgiving next week, so it's important that I stay on track of things till then.

Time for some rest . . . oh yes . . . must remember to have some caffeine with dinner next time I try to do this.

Progress report #13 (in miniature)

I'm so tired I'm having trouble staying awake to type this. Just a long day that hit me all of a sudden. So no excerpt or other comments tonight. I may post some more interesting thoughts in the morning.

Word count for today: 1,771

Time: 50 minutes

Total word count: 24,775 -- damn it, not quite 25K, but close enough that my spreadsheet thingy rounds it up to 50%.

Bedtime now!

Progress report #12

Word count for today: 2,128

Time: 60 minutes

Excerpt:

“No,” Ambrose said. “No, no, no.” He put his arms around Audrey and kissed her cheeks. He kissed her mouth, almost aggressively, and squeezed her waist. “No,” he said again, and realized that Audrey was crying.

Total word count: 23,004

Comments: I can't believe I've written 43 pages! Crazy!

Writing in the evening worked well. I think I'll continue to do that when I can, at least until things calm down a little bit at work (soon, please!).

I have noticed another funny thing about my writing. I am always stating why people are doing things not because the reader necessarily needs to know, but because I myself want to record it and remember it! LOL. I'm not sure I'm going to be up to ever editing this thing, because I know it would be a Herculean, if not Sisyphean, task. But I think this will be useful for pointing out my bad habits. Although some of them I do know to avoid when I'm writing something polished -- using too many adverbs is the most obvious task that comes to mind; with NaNo, I'm using them because they're fast and easy, but I know they're bad. But other less obvious things might come to light. All right, the SO will be home in a moment, so I'm off to think about dinner!

Yuck

Oh my goodness, work for the past few days has been crazy in the worst possible way. And I have to wonder if my writing schedule (30-50 minutes before work and 30 minutes at lunch) is making things worse for me. Yesterday, I hit a wall around 3:30 or 4:00 and had a lot of trouble pressing on with my work. And unfortunately, my job has to come first, even if it sucks.

So today and maybe tomorrow, I'm going to try writing in the evening and see if that's better. I have trouble writing when I'm not alone in my apartment, and I live with my SO, so the time when I can get good work done is a bit restricted. Still, it might be worth it if it makes things a bit more relaxed during the day. And I know I'll have time alone today and probably tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I'm still happy to have broken 20,000 words yesterday. And I'm just about on track to have 25,000 done by tomorrow, the 15th. Hooray!

Progress report #11

I figured out why the official site is coming up with a lower word count -- it's all the em dashes I use! The em dash is this thing here (—) and when I use it on a normal word processor, I would just write the two words right next to each other—like that. So I will have to remedy that when I do my final word count -- I'll just do a Find/Replace and add an extra space after every em dash -- but for now I'm not going to mess with it. My word count in my profile will just be a bit off.

Word count for today: 2,082

Time: 70 minutes

Excerpt:

“Um, can you tell me anything else about what was wrong with her?”

“Unfortunately, that is confidential, even though you are her family member. She did not permit me to speak with anyone else about her condition.”

“Her condition?” Zach said blankly.

The doctor took a deep breath. “You are kind to worry about her,” he told Zach, “but remember, she is an adult now—independent. There is no need to be this worried.”

“All right.” Zach didn’t agree, but he wanted to get out of there now. There was only one option left to him, and that was to tell Philip and Jane. Of course, maybe Resa would be at the church—no, that was unlikely. If she was feeling well enough to do that, why would she have gone there early rather than coming down to breakfast as usual?

The doctor seemed to understand that Zach wasn’t really going to listen to him. He sighed and said, “All right. Good morning.”

“Thanks,” Zach said, and left the building.

Total word count: 20,876

Comments: I was hoping for another speedy morning, but oh well. I finished my book last night, so it's not as much of a sacrifice to work during lunch. I am so glad I still get to read this month -- it helps my writing so much when I read something else that's really good. Time to get to work, though. Basically, no major novel crises so far (knock on wood!) and I'm grateful
for that.

Progress report #10

I took another day off yesterday. I'm not a Christian, but apparently I just can't stand to write on Sundays. LOL. Well, I'm back to work this morning and feeling good about it. I can't believe this month is almost halfway over!

Word count for today: 1,904

Time: 50 minutes

Excerpt:

Zach was having trouble reading Ambrose—he either had some bad news or wanted to talk to Zach about something personal. Or maybe something else. Zach decided that now wasn’t the time. And he saw an easy solution to his most pressing problem.

“Hey, can you do me a favor?” Zach said suddenly.

“Um, OK,” Ambrose said.

“Can you just tell Philip or Jane that I won’t be able to work on the church today? I’m going to the doctor. I think I might have gotten what Resa has.”

Ambrose looked like he didn’t believe Zach, and given Ambrose’s nature, Zach was sure he was going to be questioned about his health and symptoms. But to his surprise—pleasant surprise, this time—Ambrose nodded. “OK, Zach. I hope you feel better.

Total word count: 18,794

Comments: Yahoo, that's just this morning! Looks like I get to relax and read my book at lunch. Oh, I'm happy about that. I don't seem to have had much of the second week slump I was expecting, which is pretty exciting -- I feel like I'm still just plugging away. Let's hope that continues.

Progress report #9

We're 1/3 of the way through the month, and I have written just over 1/3 of my 50,000 words!

Word count for today: 1,642

Time: 60 minutes

Excerpt:

“Jacob doesn’t like you. He thinks you’re too extreme, that it’s not relevant to most people, and that’s not what religion should be.”

“What religion should be,” Ambrose echoed. “Do you agree with that?”

“I guess,” said Resa. “I don’t know. It’s not on my mind very much right now. I just want to settle down and get ready for the baby—”

“Well, I wonder,” Ambrose said. “I’ve been wondering, actually. Whether that’s true.”

“Please leave me alone,” Resa said.

“I’ve been wondering who should serve whom,” Ambrose continued, ignoring her. “If people should serve God no matter how strict the rules are. Or if God should bend the rules to fit people. Or maybe,” Ambrose added,” whether we’re never supposed to live up the strict rules in the first place.”

Total word count: 16,890 (although the official site validated it at 16,775)

Comments: Too tired tonight, sorry!

Progress report #8

Okay, okay . . . technically, it's tomorrow. But I still got those words written, even if I did it at the very lat minute! Go me!

Word count for today: 1,709

Time: 60 minutes

Excerpt:

Ambrose stepped all the way into the room and said, “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Resa said. Ambrose could see her hands shaking.

“Stop,” Ambrose said.

Resa stopped.

“What’s going on?” Ambrose said.

“Why does it matter?” Resa said. But instead of asking him the question rhetorically, she was actually pleading him.

“Are you seeing someone?” Ambrose said.

“No,” Resa said.

“Are you going to have a baby?”

“No.”

Total word count: 15,248 (30%!)

Comments: My SO might be going out of town for all or part of the day tomorrow. Of course, I would like to spend time with him, but at least there's a bright side if he does -- lots of relaxed writing time! I think I do well with a mix of pressured time and relaxed time. This morning, for instance, I really needed to just relax with a good book, and I'm so glad that I did! I guess it's a good thing I have enough spare time (and I write fast enough) to not have to devote every waking moment of my free time to writing.

Well, this is interesting for pretty much no one except me, and I'm pretty tired, so I'm off to keep reading that good book until my eyelids start to droop. Hope everyone's novels are going well!

Bad kitty

I didn't write this morning. I have an exhausting day at work ahead of me and I just wanted to eat my bagel and bury my nose in someone else's book.

But this isn't entirely a bad thing. Reading helps your writing so much, especially reading really well-written stuff.

I'll try to get writing done on my coffee breaks today instead. But it might be a below-average day as far as output is concerned.

Progress report #7

Word count for today: 1,811

Time: 60 minutes

Excerpt:

Ambrose hesitated. “How do you sneak around, anyway?”

“What do you mean?” Audrey said. “It’s not like this is a high-security prison. It’s a mission trip with a bunch of serious, pious students. It’s really not that hard to sneak around, because no one’s expecting me too. I mean, let me put it this way. If you had to pick one girl on this trip as the most likely to sneak into someone’s room, who would it be?”

“Oh. I don’t know,” Ambrose said, hoping his face wouldn’t turn red. He actually had thought about this a little. In case things didn’t work out with Audrey, or maybe if he got sick of her. She already tested his patience a lot of the time they were together—and really, they weren’t together that often, and most of the time they were together, they weren’t talking. “Resa.”

“Resa?” Audrey laughed.

“Just because her brother is really pious,” Ambrose said. “And they’re twins. I would expect her to want to differentiate herself from that a little.”

“I don’t know,” said Audrey. “She strikes me as incredibly dull.”

“Well, anyway, it wouldn’t be you,” Ambrose said quickly.

Total word count: 13,539

Comments: This morning I set my personal record for words per hour: 2,268! Yowza! That makes me feel good, since I'm worried about getting into a slump with the second week beginning.

EDIT: I am now more than a quarter of the way done! Woohoo!

The NaNo experience so far

I just finished a scene, and I have a few extra minutes, so instead of forcing myself to write more, I want to think a little bit about what this experience has done for me so far. Sure, it's only been a week, but it's also been over 11,000 words and 7 hours -- that's a lot!

So far, this experience has been so positive. And that really has nothing to do with the "quality" (heavy quotes there) of the writing I'm producing. Most of what I've written is pretty bad. I didn't bother to do some of the necessary research before I started (I got a bit too antsy and eager to start actually writing to focus on that) so it seems a bit flimsy or contrived in places, and in other places, there are inconsistencies and things like that.

My favorite example is that in one scene, between the two male protagonists, one of the characters tries to start a conversation and ends up disappointed because he wanted something out of the conversation, but it didn't really go anywhere. Well, shockingly, this is how I felt writing the scene as well. I kept trying to get something out of it, and nothing really happened. LOL. I'm sure I'll cut things like that when (if) I go back and edit this thing.

Anyway, no, this experience isn't great because of the quality of the writing. It's great because of the way I feel when I start my day at work having already written 1,000 words and planning to write 1,000 more during my lunch break. It's just so different! I feel so different having done that! I know that in some ways, this pattern isn't really a sustainable one. I mean, right now things are getting a bit busier in my office, and I find that, for one thing, my wrists are pretty sore at the end of the day after having worked in a word processor for about 9 hours straight. And for another thing, I'm basically giving up reading books this month, since I'm using my usual reading time to write, and I know that I can't give up books forever (shudder!). But on the other hand . . . if I do start another project after this one -- since I'm pretty sure that this is going to be one of those projects that you keep hidden in a box underneath your bed and hope to hell that no one ever finds it -- knowing I've done this will be a huge source of encouragement, even if I don't finish. And in a way, that's the whole point of this program. So I feel very connected with that overall goal.

And you know, I've written a few things I actually like. Here and there. One quote about writing that I love is from Hemingway: "I write one page of masterpiece to ninety one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket." Another that I just recently came across is by Cecil Castellucci, who is apparently a writer/director: "The best flowers are fertilized by crap." Indeed!

So even if things go horribly wrong with my novel, I'm really glad I chose to do this. It makes me feel good and makes life a lot more interesting. And I'm sorry if this post isn't as coherent as could be, but I've already been through 1700 words today, so you know how it goes.

Progress report #6

Word count for today: 1,689

Time: 65 minutes

Excerpt:

“It’s not like that,” Zach spoke up.

Everyone turned to look at him. “What do you mean?” Lily said.

“It’s not just about restrictions,” Zach said. “Yes, there are sacrifices you have to make if you want to join this elite group. But it’s not a burden. A lot of us wish we had what it takes, so we could make the same choice. Ambrose will have to give up some things, but from our perspective, it’s really very minor compared to the privileges he gets in return.”

Lily was quiet after that. Ambrose noticed that she was no longer looking at her cards, but was instead staring at Zach with obvious interest.

Total word count: 11,728

Comments: Still plugging away. Not much else to say, except that I'm afraid I'm hurting my wrists will all this fast typing. I don't have very good form. Anyway, here are some interesting stats about my novel (interesting to me, anyway):

• Total Words Written So Far: 11,054
• Total Hours Spent Writing: 6.87
  
• Avg Words Written Per Day: 1,579
• Avg Hours Writing Per Day: 0.98
• Avg Words Per Hour: 1,609
• Avg Morale Per Day: 7
  
• Number of Words Remaining: 38,946
• Number of Days Remaining: 23
• Number of Hours Remaining: 24.00

EDIT: The stats are from earlier today when I originally posted. That's why the total word count doesn't match up.

Progress report #5

Word count for today: 1,537

Time: 60 minutes

Excerpt:

“On . . . on cherche Mme Dupont?” Zach replied in an obvious American accent.

“Oh!” the girl said and jumped to her feet. She threw her book down on the table and hurried up to them. “You’re from the American mission trip,” she was saying as she scrambled toward them.

Zach didn’t quite hear her words at first. He was watching her hair blow around her face as she moved, most of it pinned up in a ponytail but her bangs and some extra strands hanging in her face. As the girl came closer, Zach realized with a flutter of his heart that her eyes were a very pretty hazel color, and that underneath her tank top, one of her bra straps was falling down her shoulder.

“You’re American too?” Zach heard Ambrose saying.

“Yes, Mme Dupont is my aunt,” the girl said with a smile—Zach watched her lips curve upward—as she gestured toward the house. “I’m Lily,” she added, and stuck out her hand.

“Ambrose,” Ambrose replied, shaking it briskly.

“Zach,” Zach heard himself say as he too touched her hand.

(Yikes, one of the first times, I've really wanted to edit something in the excerpt -- the repetition of face in the third paragraph -- but I'll restrain myself!)

Total word count: 10,039 - 20% done, hell yeah!

Comments: Work is busy, so I'm tired. Maybe I'll be able to write a few more hundred words tonight at home -- I've been so good about breaking 2,000 every day, and I hate to see that stop before it absolutely has to!

Progress report #4

Word count for today: 2,219

Time: 75 minutes

Excerpt:

“Please don’t be mad,” Jake54 typed back.

This only made Resa more nervous. “What happened?” she said.

“I got in an accident last night after work,” Jacob said.

“OMG are you OK?” Resa typed.

“I’m OK,” Jacob said. “But the problem is that it was my fault, and now I have to pay for the damage. It’s going to delay me for at least another week or two.”

Resa just stared at the screen, not wanting to think about or believe what he had just said. No. She couldn’t wait that long. In a few weeks, she would start to show. Not very many people would probably notice, but Zach would—she was sure of that. And if she kept feeling nauseous all the time, she wouldn’t have a good explanation for her sudden weight gain, either.

Total word count: 8,502

Comments: I do feel better today. Hooray! I also feel good because I had trouble starting this morning, but then ended up writing at a rate of about 2,000 words per hour.

FYI, I basically have two regularly scheduled writing sessions a day during the week. One for about 45-60 minutes in the morning, and another for about a half hour during my lunch break. It's really great having regular times during the day to write. I think it helps my productivity.

Anyway, I think it's interesting hearing how and when people work on something like this, so I just thought I'd share. In general, I'm still happy with my progress despite my laziness yesterday, and I feel like I'm still going strong!

Lazy day

No writing today. I haven't been feeling well, and a 4-hour drive on top of that was too much to handle. But I have a decent idea of where I'll start tomorrow morning, so hopefully that will go quickly and smoothly. That's about it. Here's to hoping my stomach will feel better!

Progress report #3

Word count for today: 2,164

Time: 70 minutes (Yeah!)

Excerpt:

“That’s why I don’t think it’s wrong,” Audrey said quietly.

“No. It’s wrong,” Ambrose said. “I’m sure it’s wrong. But Robert never told me what, again, should have been obvious, which is that if you make a big sacrifice, by choosing to do something wrong, you can get an equally big reward. That’s just common sense, right?”

“Maybe Robert’s never found that out for himself,” Audrey suggested.

“Maybe,” Ambrose said, “but I bet he has.”

“Why?” Audrey said.

“Because he’s tried so hard to steer me away from it,” Ambrose said.

Total word count: 6,283

Comments: I was worried today because I sat down earlier but felt too sick to my stomach to write (especially since I wasn't sure what scenes I was going to be doing today). I think this was actually a good thing because it gave me extra time to contemplate what I should write, and then I knocked the whole thing out really fast. I'm also happy with where the story is going in terms of characterization. I know will have to go back in and add more about the setting during the editing process, but I feel like I'm starting to know my main protagonist a little better, and that's good.

Anyway, I won't worry as much in the future if I don't get the writing done early in the day -- especially if I know I'll have 60 minutes or so to do some serious writing later that day.

Progress report #2

Word count for today: 2,068

Time: 90 minutes

Excerpt:

Resa went back down the dining room. Most of the group had already cleared their dishes, but her brother was still sitting there, sipping coffee and reading yesterday’s paper. He looked up when she came into the room, and she guessed from the look on her face that she probably looked worse than before.

"OK," she said. "I'll go to the doctor."

Zach just nodded. "OK. I'm sorry. I was just worried."

Resa slumped into a chair and put her head down on the table. "I know," she said. Just another week or two, Jake54—her Jacob—had said on the computer last night. Just another week or two, she thought over and over as the group prepared to leave for the day. Just another week or two.

Total word count: 4,119

Comments: It can be hard for me to get started and decide what scenes to write, but it's easier once I make that decision and get going. Also, I know I'm writing a lot of crap, but I'm also surprised that so far, I've managed to find an excerpt for both days that I'm happy to put up on this blog/the NaNo site without editing it at all. That makes me feel really good -- like this isn't a complete waste of time!

I'm going out of town this weekend, but my laptop is coming with me! I'll be busy during the day, but the evenings won't be too bad, so I think I'll still have time to write.

Progress report #1

So, I'm going to try to log my writing time. I'll do it once a day. I'll post my word count for the day, the time I've spent that day, an excerpt from that day's writing, and a cumulative word count. And I'll also add some comments as well!

---

Word count: 2,051

Time: 80 minutes

Excerpt:

"This would be a serious transgression," Ambrose said, but his heart wasn't in it anymore. He was thinking about how alone they were. The room had no windows. The door was locked. The adults were in another wing of the building. And she was here, on his bed, holding his hand. If he was going to have one chance in his life to "transgress," this was it.

Total word count: 2,051

Comments: I'm glad I'm starting with something exciting and steamy, because in a way, that's my comfort zone! I know it's going to get tough once I'm a little further in (the "middle" part of the novel, I guess), but for now, I'm just happy that I managed to write 1,600 words in an hour. That means I still get to play video games after work today!

Happy noveling!

It begins - for real!

Good luck, everyone!