Writing Ray - Camp Nanowrimo The Final Stretch

I started this post on Sunday but as is often expected I got terribly sidetracked and since I spent most of the weekend worrying about my uncle I didn't get that much writing done anyway. But now that there is positive progress in that quarter I was able to chill enough to the point that I could write my socks off last night.

If you were on Twitter late last night you may have noticed that I went a little mad and decided to attempt to hit my Camp Nano goal before I went to bed. I only had around 1200 words to do so I thought in the 4 hours I had it would be a piece of piss. Not quite so easy but I did it nevertheless. That's right folks at around 12:07am this morning I wrote my 15,000th word on my novel and validated it to win my first Camp Nano!

Ironically enough when I copied and pasted my  Camp work in the website's validator it actually came out saying I had 15,001 words which is enough to make one twitch and write another 99 words to have a round number back.

I do still have two days to write more if I fancy, and I might do some since I reckon I am only one or two scenes from the end of book one. I will still need to go back and do the first 15K of the book and fill in the missing 10-15K from round the middle but that is gonna be the task for between April and July's Camp.

I'm hoping to maybe have the first full draft finished over the summer so I can have a go at editing it and hell I may try and write some of the second book during November's Nanowrimo! I'm hoping to start an Open University Creative Writing module in October so I may sneakily use my novel for some of the TMAs if I can. Or simply use what I learn from the module to help my writing in general.

All in all April has been a fairly productive month, in terms of actual numbers maybe not more productive than January through March since I was less stressed about it so didn't worry about the word count so much. But still 15K is all good stuff and some of these scenes are damn important and I hope that much of it will survive to make the final draft.

Depending on what extra writing I get done over the next two days I may do a last Camp Nano post but otherwise stay tuned for my April reading round-up probably on Friday since on Thursday Jess and I are going to see FREAKING LAINI TAYLOR Y'ALL!! *flails*. That will be a post in itself since I hope to get pics of the lady herself and of all the fun shenanigans we'll have plus it's likely there will be a haul of some sort *shrugs* y'know what book bloggers are like when they get together...

But anyways have a good evening
Ray

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Writing Ray - Camp Nanowrimo Days 23 & 24

Morning m'noodles! Got a wee bit of updating to do since I wrote nothing on the 23rd but then I wrote ALL THE WORDS last night.

Well to say I wrote nothing on the 23rd is slightly inaccurate - I *thought* some things and I scribbled them down. Technically it was after midnight but since I hadn't slept yet twas still the 23rd :P I was supposed to be trying to get a decent night's sleep since I was meant to be getting up earlyish to go with my parents to the airport so I could bring their car back (they gone pissed off to San Fran WITHOUT THEIR CHILDREN-who-are-in-fact-adults). But of course my stupid-ass brain decided that midnight was a prime time to launch a plot bunny at me that would run rampant when I really wanted to sleep.

I haven't finished my first book yet, I'm maybe over half-way with the first draft but definitely not finished. So it's extremely unhelpful for my brain to keep coming up with ideas for what is going to happen in the 2nd and possibly 3rd book (Originally I had only conceived of it being a duology but the damn bunnies are making that unrealistic) before I am done with the first.

This particular plot bunny was related to one of my secondary characters; the thought occurred to me that I had no idea who this character's family was and where they came from. BAM! Plot bunny had the answer - of course her family are Royals from a neighbouring country! She was married to the previous King (before y'know, he got murdered and shit) so it would make sense that the eligible candidates were either from royalty themselves or very high-ranking nobility.

Super-unhelpful-late-night Plot bunny also gave me the answer as to why this character's family had not apparently thought to inquire about her well-being for the last 25 years since you'd think Royals would be a tad concerned if one of their Princesses just went incommunicado for a couple of decades. After the coup when the King's brother went all Scar and whatnot, he simply decided to tell the Queen's family that she'd been killed during the takeover (purely accidentally of course *sniff, boohoo*) and that left him perfectly able to forcibly marry her off to his pet Duke - cos that's just the kind of scumbag he is.

So somewhere across the sea is a kingdom where this character's family rules from who are blissfully unaware of her survival and the subsequent mistreatment and abuse she suffered at the hands of the Duke (*hackspit*). But following events at the end of book 1 which I won't discuss for OBVIOUS reasons the whole Scooby Gang could always go and enlighten these guys about their beloved daughter/sister's survival and *voila* allies galore!

And that was my plot bunny. Eventually around 1am I did get to sleep but spent much of yesterday being a shleepy grumpasaurus. But after application of tea and noms in the afternoon I did get more lively and then proceeded to wordsprint my way to a very handsome word total.

Yesterday I ended up writing 1,649 words which has put me nicely ahead and taken my overall Camp total over 13K. I only need 1940 words to get to my goal so there's a possibility that I could get away with raising my goal up to 17K to stretch myself a little further.

I also had a rather good twitter night :P I've become one of those vaguely annoying people on twitter who now constantly tweet about their book or stuff related to writing and/or tea. It got me quite a few new followers yesterday which was hilarious and cool as well as a few retweets and favourites (apparently undertones of male flirtiness go down well with folks).

So yea I'm going to go now since I'm meant to be meeting my sister today for therapeutic home store browsing and Cap America watching *longing sigh*.

Laters
Ray

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Writing Ray - Camp Nanowrimo Day 22

So I didn't plan on doing any writing yesterday because, y'know I'd wrote myself into a soggy mess on the DDS buuut then I found myself horrendously bored. So bored that I ironed all of my foldable clothes and filmed a vlog. So bored I could have easily eaten an entire tube of paprika pringles (because NOM), so bored that I found myself watching a crap-ton of Youtube videos by a girl whose videos would normally never appeal to me (hair & beauty shit) purely because of her outrageously amusing way of talking.

THAT IS HOW BORED I WAS.

So I was vastly relieved last night when Kiersten White (author of the Paranormalcy series and Mind Games) tweeted  about wanting to do a 30 minute word sprint. Yes! I now had a reason to do some writing - a bit of gentle competition with the alarm on my Q10 software. So I started writing on the scene which follows the double-whammy of feels.

30 minutes later would y'all believe it I did 534 words! It was more than I needed to do in order to stay on track to reach my end goal and since I carried on a bit afterwards to eventually reach 710 words I was rather proud of myself.

My Camp total is now 11,411 words which pleases me because palindromic numbers y'all!

Gotta get some more done today before I drive to my parents tonight cos I'm taking them to the airport at God-awful o'clock tomorrow so they can bugger off to San Francisco, LA and Las Vegas for three weeks - lucky bastards. Ugh, parents just because I'm nearly 24 doesn't mean you stop taking me on your awesome holidays - except of course that's entirely your prerogative and you are taking us to Dublin in August so I'll shush.

Happy Wednesday folks and Happy World Book Night!
Ray

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Writing Ray - Camp Nanowrimo Day 21

Feck damn today was hard.

As in- emotional train-wreck hard. As in- I just killed one of my characters and now I'm emotionally compromised hard.

I finally did it. I finished the DDS (Dramatic Death scene if you cba to look back a few days). I have avoided it and procrastinated my way through several reading books and my garden for two bloody weeks but it's now done.

And fuck was I a mess. I mean sobbing, snotty mess - my poor boyfriend was fretting all over the place because I was crying over my own damn fictional characters. I knew it was going to be bad writing this scene, but geez. Either all the authors I like have learnt how to detach themselves from their characters after a few books or they are seriously down-playing how emosh writing can get.

As Julie Kagawa likes to say "...Readers. Your tears feed my muse" well my bloody tears feed my characters so I better get some of them back!

I finally got on track with my Camp word goal, now on 10,700 words give or take a word. I can write less than 500 words a day now and hit my target on the 30th. But I probably will hit it early and maybe take it up again although perhaps not back to 20K - best not to push it too far and lose it right at the end.

With the completion of this scene my whole manuscript total goes up to 51,314 words which is pretty fucking epic if I do say so myself.

I'm probably gonna need a day to get over how much this scene messed me up and then there's the question of do I carry on with the last few scenes of the story or do I go back to the middle and write something nice and happy? I'd be tempted by the latter but since I'm feeling a tad masochistic right now I'll probably keep on trucking through the feels, tears be damned.

So that was my Monday, how y'all doing?
Ray

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Writing Ray - Camp Nanowrimo Days 19 & 20

Evenin' chaps! Thought I'd leave it until the end of the day to do my post since there was no point recapping yesterday since I did a measly 102 words. Ze family came round to help le boyf and I to decimate the front garden. It went from an outrageously overgrown litter-trap to a surprisingly large space that has only three plants left alive in it. Five hours of extreme gardening left us all a bit shattered.

But I digress - quelle surprise. I mixed today up a bit by doing some reading in the morning (Devoured Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor so now I can blaze through DoGaM!). Then I carried on with the fight scene I started on Day 17.

Things got a bit emosh as I reached the point where I do my evil writerly thing and kill one of the characters - except I didn't kill him in this scene, he's gonna die in one of my incomplete scenes that I have avoided for nearly two weeks. But it's still rather heart-breaking to write another character's reaction to seeing that dead character. Twas a close call on the tears front - I think I smushed my face a bit I was leaning on my hand so hard while I was writing.

My evening has been typing up the seven pages of hand-written scene, mysteriously adding 100 words along the way because y'all should know I can't *not* edit as I'm typing up. Oh and I forgot to mention that yesterday I lowered my word count goal on the Camp Nanowrimo site again, down to 15,000 words this time. I think this should have been my goal from the start since it's about what I was producing a month on my own before Camp and I think I've been stressing too much from being so far behind on a 20K goal.

Now my stats are looking a fair bit better - my Camp Word Count is  8887 words,  while my overall word count on the novel is up to 48,318 words. I have two incomplete scenes currently standing at a combined total of 2554 words as well as a scene from what will be the sequel to this novel that's 2468 words long.

That's a lot of words. Especially since this is still the first novel I've written that I've got this far with - my 2010 Nanowrimo attempt got just over half the amount I'm currently at so *party poppers* for me! It's by no means finished yet but in terms of Camp I'm two-thirds of the way through the month and I'm now only 1113 words behind where I need to be to finish on the 30th.

Tomorrow I really will try and go back to the DDS, since I've written the bit just after it now I'm hoping I can write up to meet that point from my FMC's POV without sobbing my heart out. *readies mournful music and tissues*

Hope everyone had a Happy Easter (and ate much chocolate), I am now going to flail at Karou and Akiva
*zoops away*
Ray

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Writing Ray - Camp Nanowrimo Day 18

So yesterday... ended less coherently than it started. Didn't get that much writing done only 681 words but had a bit of fun writing scene that *still* isn't my DDS but technically it's taking place at the same time but just from a different POV. 

Now I'm wrestling with a fight scene which I'm trying to write without having plotted it out, and without extensively detailed knowledge of sword-fighting terms. There was some periodic googling to make sure I wasn't writing utter drivel but I'm sure that I will have to re-word things later anyway. I quite like scenes like this because there is basically no dialogue (too much swording for talking) so I can just think about how awesome the action would look if it were a film.

I shan't waffle much more because I need to flash-tidy my house ahead of my parent's coming over to help wrestle with our wayward garden. I have a lot of empty wine bottles to hide from last night when me, and my boyf's brother's girlfriend and my boyf's friend's wife all got rather drunk in our lounge whilst watching/singing along to Pitch Perfect, Frozen and Mulan (because we're all mature adults :P). Excellent evening; I sang VAIR LOUDLY and hopefully reasonably tunefully and managed to avoid waking up this morning with a banging headache, which was a win for me.

May get some writing done later tonight if I get chance, I gotta hide all evidence while my mother is about because lawd knows she won't fully understand or appreciate how I'm spending my time. *sigh*

A bientot

Ray

p.s. sorry for how incoherent this post is, I don't think my head is quite on an even keel just yet.

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Writing Ray - Camp Nanowrimo Day 17

So yesterday was an odd day at least in terms of my writing. I didn't get all that much done despite my vows to actually get the DDS done. Which frankly for anyone who knows me- that is the least surprising thing you'll have ever heard.

Most of my evening was spent trying to understand what the hell I'd done in order to get a Camp Wordcount that was 1300 words less that what I previously supposed. The first part of that conundrum was quickly solved when I remembered to add in the fourth scene which I wrote on the 2nd day of Camp. But then I had a wordcount which was now 300 words *more* than my Excel Spreadsheet had counted up.

Basically I think the easy solution to this problem is to say that I am an idiot who forgot to update the spreadsheet properly and this in turn mucked up my total. Based off the total on the word document and the bit of handwritten stuff I did yesterday I have 6928 words so far. Still behind by a good chunk but maybe I can sort that out today.

I can't spend much of my evening writing today as we have visitors coming later for movies and wine so gotta try and get as much done this morning/afternoon as I can. Seriously though I am gonna take a stab (oh no poor word choice Ray :S) at getting this DDS scene done or at least make progress with it.

We'll see how well *that* goes.
TTFN
Ray

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Writing Ray - Camp Nanowrimo Day 16

Afternoon my petals, I know it's a bit late to be writing about yesterday's Camp activities especially since I've written nothing so far today. But I spend a delightful few hours this morning frantically re-reading a Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor ahead of the arrival of my beauteous signed copy of Dreams of Gods & Monsters (Look at all the pretty on my Instagram). So I have that to look forward to once I've got somewhere with this Scene of Doom or Dramatic Death Scene as I have otherwise been calling it.

But in recap of yesterday, as you will know over the past few days I have rebelling at Camp, more than I already am by carrying on with a novel that I'd started before April. Rather than continue to slog fruitlessly at a scene, I skipped ahead a bit... into the next book and started writing a scene.

Last night I finished that scene. It ended up being 6 hand-written pages and 2500 words, over 1K of which were written just last night. I'm pretty happy with it and I think it's been really helpful to write as it gave me some insight into how my MC is going to be affected by the events that are happening at the end of the first book. Knowing what her mindset is and what she is feeling a few weeks after the fact will be very useful things to know for when I actually write them taking place. I should have a better understanding of what her initial, visceral reaction will be in the moment.

I know the reaction is going to be fueled by pain and grief and a little bit of betrayal (of the "how dare you leave me here without you" kind). Now thanks to my awful realisation while in the shower a little while ago I also know that my MC is going to be wracked with guilt at having a hand in bringing about the death itself.

Well done Ray, torture her some more and make it even more heart-breaking to write. Y'bitch...

*sighs* So yes I will soon have to be writing that and my poor Alpha Jess will have to avoid reading it for as long as possible until I have something nicer for her to read. I'M SORRY OK? *offers chocolates*

Yours Evilly
Ray

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Writing Ray - Camp Nanowrimo Days 13-15

Well I'm doing a rather terrible job of keeping the blog updated while I'm at Camp. Not that my progress has been so remarkable as to warrant daily update post because frankly y'all don't want to hear about the snail-like increases in my word count over the past few days.

In a very eerie turn of events I wrote the exact same amount on Days 13 & 14 as I did yesterday (803 words) so I'm finally over 5,000 words but since I should have been at 10K by the end of yesterday I've got a way to go. If I still want to hit 20,000 words by the 30th I'm going to have to pick up the pace.

Part of why I got so bogged down over these past five days is because the scene I'm working on a particularly tricky one that demands a lot of emotion that I have really struggled to inject into it. My progress was so sluggish that on Monday I decided to try something nutty and started hand-writing a scene that isn't even going to be in this book. It's possibly going to end up as one of the first scenes in the second book and I've really enjoyed working on it, despite the fact that I should probably concern myself with the beginning to Book 1 before Book 2 but hey-ho.

Today I will probably do some more on the Book 2 scene until it reaches a nice end point. Then I may look at going back to the DDS (Dreaded Death Scene as I shall henceforth call it) or possibly skip to one of the scenes directly after it. I may find it easier to write the aftermath of the event than the actual event itself.

But I may have to head out into the garden again because the sun is so lovely that I ought to soak up some rays before the plumber comes to fix my kitchen tap (so I can finally do the dishes).

Laters
Ray

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Writing Ray - Camp Nanowrimo Day 11 & 12

Bet more than few people got concerned I had just stopped writing again :P

Never fear for I was merely trying to get two last bits of work out of the way before the term finished for Easter. Now that both my French assignment and my TA portfolio are done I can relax and get back to writing my novel!

Taking a week off the book has buggered me up a little bit because I'm now nearly 7K behind where I should be at this point and that's with me lowering my word count to 20K. Plus the scene I'm working on is super-difficult and full of both action and emotion, so that's making it hard to get back into the swing of things.

Friday I got a smidgy bit of writing done (203 words) but yesterday after many hours of walking and garden destruction I actually got 460 words done. Yea I know it's not a massive amount in the grand scheme of things but it's progress.

My Camp Nano Total so far is 3664 words by the end of the 15th I need be on 10K so I have 6,336 words to catch up on. That should mean I have at least this current scene finished and maybe the one after it, which hopefully is more than doable since I have no work for two weeks now :P

I spent quite a bit of time last night trying to find some music to listen to which would actually fit the mood of the scene I was trying to write - surprisingly tricky, but I ripped the CD le boyf bought recently ahead of this concert we're going to in May - Yoshiki Classical (Le boyf is a big fan of X Japan who Yoshiki used to be drummer for, I believe). The CD is all orchestral with some purely instrumental versions of X Japan songs and bizarrely two themes for the Golden Globes which is surprising. But all of it is supremely mind-blowing and epic to have blaring through your headphones, genuinely tingle-inducing to listen to. O_O

Right I have more writing to do this morning, I want/need to get through all the plotting notes I have so far for this scene so I can plan out the fighting bits (possibly in my garden while flailing a sword about).

Hope any campers who may see this are doing well, keep going almost half-way now!

Toodles

Ray

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Writing Ray - Camp NanoWrimo Day 2 & 3

So I forgot to do this post yesterday and it's likely that I'm not going to get anything written today because ya know, procrastinator extraordinaire...

I had a bit of a wobble after I cranked out my 1050 words yesterday since it felt like squeezing blood from a stone the whole time I was writing the scene. I could sense how forced the writing felt and I'm sure that when I go back to that scene I'll want to rewrite everything I did before I finish it.

I think I diagnosed part of the problem in a chat with my fabulous Alpha Reader Jess - I don't write well with fixed timescales and goals to meet. It's not a great thing for if I ever wanted to get published or whatever because of course deadlines are some serious shit and you can probably land yourself in a whole world of trouble if you don't deliver what you're contracted to do when you're supposed to. But I just can't write my best that way.

For me though I can ignore deadlines if I want (except with my OU work that's gonna mess things up if I start skipping doing TMAs). Writing is not my job, it's a hobby and when a hobby starts to feel restrictive and time-constrained with requirements then it's not a hobby anymore - it's a damn chore and I predominantly procrastinate chores.

I think that's part of why I stopped writing book reviews because every time I read a book there was the nagging feeling that I should be reviewing it on the blog. Even though I wasn't even receiving ARCs from publishers I felt obligated to share my thoughts in detail about the YA books I was reading. It forced me to think critically and analytically about the stories and characters I had just got to know and I bloody hated that. I like to just immerse myself in books and only think about things like that if something is glaringly bad and throwing me out of the story. Reviewing threatened my enjoyment of reading so I stopped.

Unrealistic word count targets and arbitrary deadlines threaten my enjoyment of writing so if necessary I'll ignore them. I'm not going to stop writing during April if Camp becomes too stressful but I'll just go back to working on the scenes from my story as I was before this month and writing at my own damn pace.

With this mentality in mind I settled to my laptop last night and working from the hand-written start point done on a train on Sunday (whole separate story here) I did a whole scene of nearly 1600 words. In possibly less time that I did the first day's writing. When I looked up from typing to see I had over 1000 words I was surprised that I had gotten that far - that's when I know that the story is flowing right - I didn't have to stare and glare at the corner of my screen willing the wordcount to go up; it just happened.

Today I won't write anything and that's fine. To satisfy my inner pedant I have got enough words banked to allow me this day's respite without falling behind (on my wholly arbitrary word goal) so tomorrow I can start on a new scene and hopefully the words will fly again.

I feel happier for having come to this conclusion and I think there'll be a better outcome because of it.
Which means for story for Jess to read :P

Later dudes
Ray

P.S. Current total word count for 2014 Writing Project- 46,042 hells yea

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Writing Ray - Hint of a Prologue and Camp Nano!

Howdy there chaps!
Hope y'all are having an excellent Thursday (I strangely find them much preferable to Tuesdays, I hate Tuesdays with a vehemence known only to Sam Winchester :P)

For today's post in the Writing Ray series, I thought I'd give you lovelies a wee hint of the Prologue from my book/novel/story whatever the hell I call it. It's the only thing I have from the first third of the story so far so it may be a while until anyone other than the Privileged One *winks* gets to read anything else from it.

But never fear because hopefully I shall be remedying this lack of beginning during April when I attempt Camp Nano which is the off-season version of Nanowrimo which is in November (Ye olde readers of this blog will perhaps recall the fatal Nano attempt of 2010). Camp Nano is different in that you get to set your own word count so it's less pressurised if that's what you need.
I'm aiming to write 25,000 words on my Current novel and more specifically write the first 25K of the story since all my scenes so far have been for later on in the book.
So come closer to April I shall post a bit more about that maybe....

Anyways now for the exciting bit (or so I hope it will be for y'all). Here for your enjoyment and if constructive, your writing critique. Here is a chunk of the Prologue from my novel which has been vair tentatively titled Fire Will Tell (it'll probably change unless I get attached).

The Citadel was under siege and the King with fire in his hair stood looking out over his city with fear in his heart. In his arms lay his newborn daughter, a mere wisp of copper visible on the crown of her head. All this ruin for one little Princess.

King Keelan sighed; it had been futile to hope that the darkest day of his reign would not be today. Barely a year under his rule and his brother's lust for power had overwhelmed his sense. Isaiah was going to sacrifice everything for a chance to be King.

A door flew open behind him. The dishevelled Baron Deryn had arrived, bloodied sword in hand. Keelan's boyhood friend was pale and shaking.

"Majesty there are Amberford soldiers making their way to this wing!" he panted. "I had to cut my way through a squad to get here ahead of them. We must leave immediately!"

"Deryn, do you know why Isaiah has declared his intention to take the throne? Why now in particular?" Keelan turned away from the disheartening sight out the window to face the younger man, cradling his daughter close against his chest.

"She is the reason," he held out the swaddled infant. "My daughter. Isaiah believes that because my wife bore a girl under a red star, the Gods have deemed my line unfit to rule. He is rending this city apart because he has been swayed by the fanatical ravings of the Duke of Amberford."

Deryn stared at his King "Kelvan is mad with grief for his wife. He would sacrifice his own newborn son if the Gods would return Elenora to him. I fear for the boy's safety while his father is in such wrathful humours." Retrieving a handkerchief from his pocket, Deryn began cleaning off his blade.

Nodding sadly Keelan approached his friend. "This I know, and it is why I must ask too much of you. Kelvan's rage has spurred my brother into treason and I fear that he may sacrifice the Princess to strengthen his cause. You must take her now and keep her safe. The passages between the walls lead down and out in the Temple Quarter, follow the signs of the star and it will bring you to the Mother's Temple."

Confusion flickered on the Baron's face as the King handed him his only child. "Are you not coming with me through the tunnels Keelan?" Opening his jerkin he carefully tucked the child inside before buttoning it back up. His swordbelt would stop her from slipping down.

"I cannot flee, if Isaiah wants my crown he will have to wrest it from my dead hands. I can also prevent anyone from following you. Now go Deryn, keep my daughter safe. A day will come when she will be a guiding star for the realm. She will be their hope. Gods blessings go with you both."

Keelan held out his arm, Deryn reached to clasp forearms with his oldest friend for what was to be the last time they met in this life. Clear blue eyes met sombre brown ones. Though only three years separated them in age, at that moment Deryn could see decades of wisdom shining from the youthful King.

"May the Gods forgive me, I will do everything in my power to protect her Majesty," saluting he turned and made for the open panel in the wall behind the King's desk.

Readying his own sword Keelan cast a look towards the main door as the heavy footfalls of soldiers in armour approached. His fate was soon to be decided, that of his heir was not out of his hands.

He called out one last time to his friend, "Deryn? If you see Emelyne, tell her I love her always and that I have entrusted our Star to you."

The Baron nodded grimly and closed the secret door behind. Now it was just several miles of narrow passages between him and safety. He needed a plan to avoid getting killed once he got out of the Citadel.

Lifting a torch from a bracket on the dusty wall Deryn began to run, his other arm acting as a shield against knocks to the sleeping infant now in his care. Soft tufts of copper hair peeked out from inside her swaddling clothes. This was all too much responsibility for one man to bear.

*Keeps eyes closed* There... half of the Prologue... argh.

What you guys think? Anything? Nothing? *flies away*

Laters

Ray

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Writing Ray - Almost a bit of a Milestone *confetti*

Good Morning m'lovelies! Tis quite a nice Sunday here in the Shire (of Derby) there is actual sunshine which is novel although I shan't be venturing outside to check how warm it really is.

For anyone who's been following my tweets this past month and half you'll know that I've kind of been abusing the #writing hashtag as I've been working on my story/book/novel (I've been unsure about what to term it). Compared to all the authors I follow my progress is minuscule but for *me* it's incredible and I felt a bit of  a celebration was in order.

So last night when I finished what was the 11th complete scene my book stood at 27,337 words, up until a short while ago I was fairly confident that this project was now the longest piece of creative writing that I'd ever done to date. Turns out because of how I left my Nanowrimo story from 2010 the whole draft file was missing the part of Chapter 9 that I'd not finished so it was about 1800 words shorter than it should be.

Due to this I actually have 500 words to go until 2014 WIP becomes the longest thing I've ever written but that isn't too bad cos now I have an excuse to WRITE MORE! *dances*

So I shall save the real celebration for when I've finished my next scene... this was a bizarrely useless post.

But I just wanted to share it with y'all :D
Laters
Ray

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So Yeah, NanoFail

As you will have probably noticed for the second half of this month the blog has been rather devoid of Nanowrimo updates. This is because I failed. Just after the half-way point I was hit with the realisation that I was neglecting my university work somewhat and deadlines were starting to creep up on me so I was forced to shelve my novel until I could continue.

I will finish this month with less than 30K but on the whole I am still pretty happy with my effort. Before Nano I had never written anything on a story longer than 5K so to have the first third of a novel written (albeit a very shitty first third) is still quite an achievement for me. Maybe next year I will plan far enough ahead to make sure I don't run out of chapter outlines halfway through the month.

I did find it pretty exhilarating having to just write without going back and self-editing after every paragraph and I really liked my story although I'm sure that as I start to read back through the Nano work I will wince at how awful my writing truly is. Most likely I'll have rewrite the whole damn thing (something feels off about the POV) so maybe next summer once I've outlined and characterised properly I can rewrite what I already have and finish the whole novel.

What was also kind of daft was that almost a week after I'd halted writing on my Nano story a completely new story idea leapt into my head which I'm also quite enamored with so I may work on that for bit before I go back to the NanoFail at some point.

So as there's only 2 days of Nano left how is everyone doing? Have you finished? Nearly there? or like me has real life gotten in the way and your word count is *waaay* behind? Whatever your word count WELL DONE! Y'all are awesome for even signing up! There's always next year to try again!

LadyV

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Nanowrimo Day 16

Ugh worst day so far! I literally had to squeeze blood out of a rock today to actually write something and I have no idea what I've done all day! All I managed was a pathetic 612 words and I've still not finished with Chapter 9. I just haven't been in the mood today at all, I'm too busy thinking about the uni work that is gonna bite me in the ass pretty soon although when you think about it how hard is it gonna be to write a 2,000 word essay on Balzac when I've already cranked out nearly 28K of a novel?

But I'm really hoping I get past this feeling of "ugh" cos I don't wanna fall behind and bugger up my chances of actually succeeding first time although I'm thinking that this weekend could be "Hang up Nano for a couple days so I can blitz my work weekend". Stressing about not writing is making me not do as much of my proper work as I really ought to :(

Gah but anyway it's late I have to be up tomorrow (*cough* today technically) morning for a 10am class - which I foresee being slept through because I fail like that.

Oh and tomorrow there is a *very* high chance that the MOST AWESOME BOOK OF THIS YEAR will arrive through my mailbox so forgive any squealing tweets, vlogs and blog posts that may appear.

That is all
LadyV

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Nanowrimo Day 15- Half Way Point!

Well dang... we're now half-way through November! I dunno bout other folk but this month seems to be going much slower than October, maybe that's just cos I'm absorbed in my writing so time seems to be getting gloopier. Most likely the second November ends the whole world will start whirring at top speed and I'll end up splatting straight into Christmas.

I know that loads of people are feeling all christmassy already but dude I can't think that far ahead I'm more concerned about the precipice I'm creeping closer to everyday! That being that I've only outlined to the end of Chapter 11 and I'm half-way through Chapter 9 now! *gulps* So unless I take a day off from working on the story to outline at least briefly the next four or five chapters I'm gonna come to a grinding halt just after I hit 30K or thereabouts.

Today has not been terribly productive since my classes started up again after Reading Week (or Doss week as it should be known). But I have in the last hour or so managed to get at least 1K written. Earlier I finished the outline of Chapter 11 but didn't have the energy to carry on past there.

So at the half-way point of the month I am rather happy to have 27,234 words! If I can keep this up I may finish a day or two before the 30th! *crosses fingers*

Well it's once again rather late, I'm not gonna make the mistake tonight of picking up a book after finishing at 1am like I did yesterday. Yes the book I read was really intriguing and quirky, not to mention set in Paris (does it count as research?) but I don't think I should have read it all in one go :S

Bonne nuit mes amies
LadyV

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Nanowrimo Day 14

Hi Everybody!! As you can already tell by the over-excited use of exclamation marks I am *very* happy today!
As of 1am on Sunday Night/Monday Morning (whichever you prefer) my novel is past the 25K point. *happy dances*

Today has been massively productive in terms of Nano (in other areas not so much :S) I was really excited about writing this particular chapter because it was the one that was easiest to visualise in my head and it's one of the most dramatic scenes in the first third of the book. I wrote over 1K for it yesterday and today I've done nearly another 3K and in record time as well! I was up so insanely late last night that it's a relief to have finished writing so early today! (lol like 1am is *Early*).

So yea as of now my novel is 26,083 words long! Going into this month I never expected to get even as far as 10K let alone 26K so I have to say that I'm thrilled beyond belief to be at this half-way stage. Now I just have to hope that going into the 3rd week I can keep up with my writing and get my Uni work done. I would so hate to have to quit because everything gets too much to handle especially when I'm doing so well for my first year doing Nano.

 A big thanks to the folk who've supported me thus far, let's see if we can take this all the way!
Bring me that horizon!
LadyV

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Nanowrimo Day 13

Well bugger me, yea so it's 4am and I just finished writing for "today" supposedly Saturday but since I keep doing most of my writing stupidly late at night it's usually the day after that I should be counting the words towards. But what the heck?

I'm staying up later and later writing and subsequently waking up later and later in the morning, my reading week is pretty much over, I've done little to no work and my sleep pattern is shot to hell - just great really. I am gonna have a bitch of time getting back into the work routine although I think it will improve my chances of getting my word count done before stupid o'clock cos I can write in between classes up on campus. At home I just faff about all day and end up at 9pm with nothing done. Ugh I'm such a lazy git.

So I've now finished Chapter 7 and I'm a good chunk of the way through Chapter 8 (which I've been looking forward to writing - introduction of bad guys and shiz :P). If I can haul my carcass out of bed before noon I may try and get past 25K words and/or finish this chapter so I can do the uni work I have for Monday *sad times*.

I pass out sitting pretty on my 23257 words. I'm satisfied to stay just slightly ahead of the recommended target as I don't want to try and overachieve in my first year. Maybe next year I'll go crazy and aim for more than 50,000 over the month but for now I'm happy if I actually finish and don't quit when my uni work gets too manic :S

Night y'all here's hoping I wake up and stay up
LadyV

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Nanowrimo Day 12

Evening! This is a significantly earlier post compared to the last few days. I actually got close to my word target before 1am! I could have written more but I felt like doing some reading before going to bed today.

I'm now nearly done with Chapter 7 after today's 1955 words added to yesterday's 1808. Tomorrow I'm hoping to be up reasonably early (for me so that's like 10am to normal folk :P) so I can finish the last bit before cracking on with Chapter 8 which I'm more excited to write cos I finally get to introduce my bad-guy in person and the most awesome HenchTwins ever! Plus my FMC is gonna get hit with some seriously big news about her mother. Tis gonna be so much fun!

Keeping it short and sweet - Overall word count at the end of Day 12 - 21400 words!


Oh if anyone wants me to post an excerpt or something then please leave a comment!

Night Chaps
LadyV

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Nanowrimo Day 11

Ok When I say this will be quick I mean it this time. I'm not ranting again - the problem hasn't been dealt with yet and I'm thinking that the friendship is metaphorical toast unless he decides to swallow some pride and apologise. Bah I'm not keeping any high hopes.

Once again I procrastinated most of the day away and was left frantically trying to make my targets late in the evening. Tomorrow I'm gonna get my lazy arse up campus and do some proper work as well as write since my reading week has been pretty much a waste of time so far.

I had wanted to crack 20K today but it's getting on for 2am and I just don't have the energy to carry on tonight. I got 1,808 words done today and I'm maybe half way through Chapter 7.

Overall my word count is 19445 so I should be very able to get to 22K by tomorrow night. It would be awesome if I could be over 25K by Sunday night but we'll have to see how things go.

Anyways I'm for bed although I'm going to have an interesting time trying to fall asleep with the insane gale-force winds I have whistling round my house :S

Toodles
LadyV

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