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National Novel Writing Month 2019: When in doubt, write Nanomachines!
- Thread starter FlowersisBritish
- Start date
obviously live journal is the correct place to post every story in existence :3
WC: 22821
My wife turns in early on Friday nights as she has to be at work at 7am on Saturday mornings, so it makes sense for me to wait until after she turns in on a Friday. It's cold in the house, and I'm done for the night, but overall I think I do prefer writing late. Work and various other things make it difficult most nights. My writing tonight had a lot of stuff that's probably going to bore the hell out of other people, about text anti aliasing techniques. But hey. It made sense for the story.
My wife turns in early on Friday nights as she has to be at work at 7am on Saturday mornings, so it makes sense for me to wait until after she turns in on a Friday. It's cold in the house, and I'm done for the night, but overall I think I do prefer writing late. Work and various other things make it difficult most nights. My writing tonight had a lot of stuff that's probably going to bore the hell out of other people, about text anti aliasing techniques. But hey. It made sense for the story.
No such luck here. I'm on act one still, and this puppy has four acts total. This draft is probably going to end up north of 100,000 words before I'm done. I'll try to keep pace until then, of course, and I expect that's going to mean I keep going into mid December. I need to come up with shorter ideas maybe.
WC: 15100
Well, that's a bit of an awkward place to stop for the day, but it's a nice number and I know what I want to happen and won't forget it.
It's nice when the story itself reveals characters it needs and naturally introduces them. For example, one of the brigands my characters just encountered, who was intended as nothing but a fire-and-forget sub-boss, has told me that he's actually going to turn on the rest of his group and present himself as an ally while in truth actually working for a far more important enemy. That enemy was only connected to one of the characters, so getting to know (and eventually be betrayed by) one of his subordinates will add more of a personal feeling to that section.
Well, that's a bit of an awkward place to stop for the day, but it's a nice number and I know what I want to happen and won't forget it.
It's nice when the story itself reveals characters it needs and naturally introduces them. For example, one of the brigands my characters just encountered, who was intended as nothing but a fire-and-forget sub-boss, has told me that he's actually going to turn on the rest of his group and present himself as an ally while in truth actually working for a far more important enemy. That enemy was only connected to one of the characters, so getting to know (and eventually be betrayed by) one of his subordinates will add more of a personal feeling to that section.
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Benchmark is 15k folks. I believe in you. 15 is a fun number. A good number. I'm hoping to be at 15k tomorrow personally.
I love moments like that. Moments like that are what makes writing so much fun for me.
I love moments like that. Moments like that are what makes writing so much fun for me.
After day 8, I've caught up to the day 8 benchmark. I'll think about the day 9 benchmark on day 9, after I get some sleep.
WC: 13664
WC: 13664
assuming you are writing something like fantasy. After editing you will likely be able to get that just south of 100k which is a fine range for such a book.
if it makes you feel any better my work this month is basically writing words 110k-160k of a book :P
I still haven't introduced the sixth main member of my cast. Hopefully, I can get around to it by the halfway point.
WC: 15740
WC: 15740
WC: 13,500
One of my chapters, an action heavy one, ended up being three times the length of a normal chapter.
One of my chapters, an action heavy one, ended up being three times the length of a normal chapter.
WC: 7427
I'm woefully behind. My inner editor/critic is going on a rampage, which isn't surprising considering I've been in editing/critique mode for the past two years working on my friend's novel with her. I'm also pretty much pantsing, which I'm not great at.
Some of the tips in this thread are helpful. I've been focusing on dialogue too much, and I don't have nearly enough descriptions. I might switch from first person to third person and see if that helps at all.
I have the next three days off, so I'm going to hopefully write 3-4k a day to catch up.
If anyone has advice for forcing the words out/links to fun prompts/advice, I'm all ears. :)
I'm woefully behind. My inner editor/critic is going on a rampage, which isn't surprising considering I've been in editing/critique mode for the past two years working on my friend's novel with her. I'm also pretty much pantsing, which I'm not great at.
Some of the tips in this thread are helpful. I've been focusing on dialogue too much, and I don't have nearly enough descriptions. I might switch from first person to third person and see if that helps at all.
I have the next three days off, so I'm going to hopefully write 3-4k a day to catch up.
If anyone has advice for forcing the words out/links to fun prompts/advice, I'm all ears. :)
It sounds like you're already on the right track. Frankly, if I wasn't trying to get out words, I'd have stalled out days ago to better plot this thing (and to have less paragraphs about stuff like the pros and cons of different anti aliasing techniques for rendering text), but to keep up my pace, I've got to go with the version of the story that's in front of me, not stop to try and find the idealized version of it that isn't.
My first NaNo in 2016 only had a few rough spots, plotting wise. The third act (of five). I had to toss out a chapter and a half and change tracks (I know you're not supposed to do that with NaNo, but it was soooo not working). My second in 2017 around October 20th, I had a spark of inspiration that answered all my questions, and by November 1st I had all the twists and turns plotted out and ready to go.
This year I have not been so lucky, and it's been a different experience. However, I think I get too obsessed with the 'perfect' plot, and when projects get away from me it takes me years to start a new one. NaNo isn't letting that happen. I've got to keep going. Maybe it won't be the best thing I wrote, but it'll be finished and I can move on to something else if I don't think this draft is worth revisiting. Maybe I'm underselling the idea. My two readers seem very intrigued and into what I've got so far. But either way, so long as I finish it, that's the main thing for me. Early next year I plan on taking that 2017 draft and working it up for self publishing (I took last year off to work up the 2016 draft and self published it earlier this year). Next NaNo? I plan on revisiting a concept I got 100,000 plus words deep into before it got away from me made me afraid to start something new for years.
Because I think NaNo forces me to keep moving forwards. Maybe it won't be the perfect plot structure. Maybe it won't have the most elegant ending. But this years idea is worth exploring, and that shelved concept is worth another go at, even if it means mostly starting over.
Let B follow A and C follow B and don't worry too much about how you get to Z. Your characters will nudge you in directions. Don't second guess it on a NaNo. Keep going. My first act is close to its crescendo. My problematic second act outline is filling up with day to day stuff, character stuff that's just shaken out of exploring the people and situations I set up, and I think I've got enough plot intrigue to soldier on.
I have mine up.
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Without fail every time I get in the 10k point of writing I suddenly feel like the story is garbage and my writing is the worst thing ever. sad
WC: 26227
More than halfway to the target! Maybe a quarter of the way towards the end of the novel! Mayyyyybe.
I'm really happy with one detail I just yanked out of nowhere tonight. One character hid a short message for another by spoofing a MAC address and ensuring that the manufacturer portion of it wasn't any real manufacturer. This clued the other character into the fact it was spoofed, and from that they figured out that it was actually a short hexadecimal ascii value pointing them to a hiding place.
Not sure if anyone else will find any of this interesting, but hey. I was proud of myself.
More than halfway to the target! Maybe a quarter of the way towards the end of the novel! Mayyyyybe.
I'm really happy with one detail I just yanked out of nowhere tonight. One character hid a short message for another by spoofing a MAC address and ensuring that the manufacturer portion of it wasn't any real manufacturer. This clued the other character into the fact it was spoofed, and from that they figured out that it was actually a short hexadecimal ascii value pointing them to a hiding place.
Not sure if anyone else will find any of this interesting, but hey. I was proud of myself.
WC: 50315
I hit the goal. This is my best record for amount of days(9) as I beat last year's record by a whole week(7 exact days). Also, this is the best Nano ever for me, period.
The novel is nowhere near done, I'm on Chapter 15 and there's 25 Chapters so another 25-30k words would have to complete it. This would make it the longest novel I would ever complete.
I hit the goal. This is my best record for amount of days(9) as I beat last year's record by a whole week(7 exact days). Also, this is the best Nano ever for me, period.
The novel is nowhere near done, I'm on Chapter 15 and there's 25 Chapters so another 25-30k words would have to complete it. This would make it the longest novel I would ever complete.
Thank you very much, it was an honor to do this and this quickly too!
WC: 12257
AHhhhhhh. I keep falling further behind. I need to write earlier in the day.
Holy Crap Timu, you're a machine. Congrats.
AHhhhhhh. I keep falling further behind. I need to write earlier in the day.
Holy Crap Timu, you're a machine. Congrats.
WC: 17932
Book is really rolling now, though it took me a while to do so today.
Wow amazing job! This is impressive, and I don't think I could ever hit 50K in 9 days. Congratulations!
Book is really rolling now, though it took me a while to do so today.
Wow amazing job! This is impressive, and I don't think I could ever hit 50K in 9 days. Congratulations!
Yeah I did way better than I thought, I never expected to do it this quick but I really got into the spirit of really sticking to writing a lot, and having no writer's block helped with that too. Thanks man.
WC: 17000
It's surprisingly hard to write a decent fight scene when you haven't decided on your MC's power set. Or is that actually not a surprise at all and just something I should have thought about before committing to a fight scene and I kind of hate myself for not doing it?
It's surprisingly hard to write a decent fight scene when you haven't decided on your MC's power set. Or is that actually not a surprise at all and just something I should have thought about before committing to a fight scene and I kind of hate myself for not doing it?
Same, I'm writing an action scene today and I'm dreading it lol
All the more for the rewriting process I guess
After day 9,
WC: 15056
I was hoping to be more than 56 words ahead of the benchmark, but today's scene came slowly for some reason.
WC: 15056
I was hoping to be more than 56 words ahead of the benchmark, but today's scene came slowly for some reason.
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Also as a heads up we'll be having a writing hangout over the discord voice channel in a little less than 3 hours (So 4pm est). Format is about ten minutes of chitchat, half an hour of writing, rinse and repeat for two hours. Its a fun productive time. Perfect for someone who's falling about 6k words behind (like me). Hope to see you there!!
Like, I don't even think I could keep that pace writing stream-of-consciouness.
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