ysobel | Entries tagged with nanowrimo

Words today: 741. Less than half of what I "should" be doing but twice what I had a few hours ago? ETA: pushed out enough to get me over 1k yayyy. still not enough, but every 260 (or in this case 378) words counts a little...

Total words: ~~13849~~ 14227

The good news is that I'm likely to hit 15k soon. ~~Hopefully~~ Probably tomorrow. The not so good news is that 15k is 30% of the wordcount and tomorrow is 40% of the days. Erp?

On the bright side, judging by the latest pep talk, a week two slump is sort of normal. So maybe it will get better? Or maybe I will end up only getting 30k words instead of 50, idk.

Crossposts: http://isabeau.livejournal.com/1202648.html

...also, my brain is weird, but that is not at all new.

#

So I seem to have acquired an iPad. (Combined birthday plus early Christmas present from my dad and sister.) This is very much yay \o/ there was sonic dolphin squeaking noises going on when I got it.

However, since this was one of the "omg waaaaant but can't afford, gah" sorts of things, I haven't been paying attention to what all is available, especially in the way of apps.

So. Any suggestions? Especially for:

a) increasing the sorts of ebooks I can read (I currently have a stash of ebooks / downloaded fanfic / etc, in forms ranging from .pdf (which it seems okay with) and .epub (ditto) to .html and .rtf and .txt (which it doesn't, but I suppose I could "print" them to pdfs?)

b) writing (since it might make a nice portable ... thing what is for writing)

c) knitting-related whatevers

?

#

Also, er, remind me how to get info off of an iPod? I've been afraid to sync up my iPod because it has all the right musics and playlists and stuff, and while I have the music files more or less restored from backup data, the playlist info did not seem to come with, and I really do not want to have to do all that again.

#

nano wordcount for today: er. 138. I know the day isn't over, but sheesh. My daily wordcount is kind of plummeting (845 for day 8, 611 for day 9, 358 for day 10), and it's become less "novel" and more "random unconnected scenes" because I have NFI where I'm going... or rather, I have one idea left and I'm afraid to write that because then I won't have anything so I'm trying to delay getting there? I don't even know.

And I try bribing myself ("X words and you can do/have Y", where X ranges from 2k to 1k to 500 to 250 and even that last feels impossible, and Y ranges from WoW to ebz to playing with new toys to knitting to reading to having chocolate to whatever) and it NEVER WORKS. I don't know what's wrong with me, because it ought to work, it just ... doesn't.

Crossposts: http://isabeau.livejournal.com/1202293.html

12,736 words.

~~That puts me, oh, 3k behind the minimum I need. No problem, right? Sigh.~~

I mean. Uh. That puts me 12k more than I had nine days ago?

Crossposts: http://isabeau.livejournal.com/1201652.html

Yesterday, I had an excuse for not getting words. Yesterday was Family Birthday Celebration Fun Times, which took up pretty much the entirety of the day. At 10:30 I sat down to write and was too exhausted (was, in fact, tired enough that it took me a while to realize why I was so tired, what with the time change and all; my "extra hour" of sleep just meant that I got up at my normal time instead of early for church, and so my body still thought it was 11:30. After a long day of social stuff. Fun, yes, but hello, still an introvert.)

...so I threw together two sentences (all of 22 words zomg). 22.5% of the way in 23% of the time; not horrible by any count except the annoying perfectionist part of my brain that thinks that by the end of Day 7 I should be over 14k words.

Today, I thought, I would write. I mean, Saturday had been a good writing day; surely I could pull that off again!

( ...not so much )

Crossposts: http://isabeau.livejournal.com/1200970.html

Amazingly, good sleeps make it so much easier to write. 557 words in about half an hour's time, which seems to be my general best pace. And I'm not done with the day.

I was a lot less cranky when I woke up this morning, having actually SLEPT last night. Especially since my total wordcount is only a few hundred behind the 1667/day average; I keep comparing it to the 2k/day goal count, where I'm basically a day's count behind, but that's silly. Well. I alternate between thinking that, wordcount be damned, writing every day will be my own personal nano victory (so that even if I only get five hundred words a day from now on, leaving me with less than 20k words, I still have defeated my own personal "just give up" demons), and thinking that zomg I must get the 50k or it Does Not Count.

Obviously, the best thing will be to write every day *and* get 50k. Though that does not allow for any off days, or busy days, or holidays, and it doesn't allow for the fact that I have gotten rusty at the whole Writing Words Down thing and it's kind of like running a marathon when the best you've done in the last few years is walk to the mailbox and back, except for how it's not quite the same, but still.

(I am a touch babbly. Can you tell?)

Will ~~definitely~~ probably hit 10k this weekend; with luck, today. Which is a fuckton better than I've done the last few years of NaNo. So go me \o/

ETA - I horribly miss, however, the things that one can do with a laptop. Like tilting my chair back, instead of sitting up straight. Or like going outside, where it is nice and sunny, and writing there. Or going to write-ins. But I do not have a laptop and I haven't figured out how to get back to writing longhand (there is logistical issues, namely the fact that my writing-dominant hand is so close to my stomach that notebooks etc would have to be intersecting my body for me to write on them) and so I am stuck with what I have. Sigh.

Current Mood: itchy, like I've got spiders
Crossposts: http://isabeau.livejournal.com/1200607.html

Day 1: 2180
Day 2: 1259 - 3439 total
Day 3: 1751 so far - 5190 total (ETA @7:20: 2193 / 5632) (ETA @11:20: 2633 / 6072

Per the baseline average of 1667 words/day, I am pretty much on target. Per the intended average of 2000 words/day, I am 1k behind. Per the part of my brain that is obsessing about how much I suck unless I have more words than anyone else, I am perpetually behind and should just give up.

(Not giving up. I was close to it last night, in a "I should just give up being a writer" fit of emo, but then

apocalypsos linked to an article that was all "lol nano is the stupidest thing ever", which made the contrary part of my brain go "um haha not a chance of me giving up", and I don't know how long that will last but.)

(I am kind of worried about stuff because 2k is a marathon for me, and yesterday's words were probably the most I could expect out of a tuesday-or-thursday because of rehearsals, and thanksgiving will mess things up, and birthday celebrations [which LJ oh so thoughtfully sent an email going "hey isabeau, did you know isabeau's birthday is coming up?" to which I snorted because yes, yes I did indeed] will mess things up and I can barely scrape by on *good* days and flaaiiil.)

I have completely given up on writing linearly; so here, have a random snippet. You know that bit in the Valdemar books where the herald-to-be looks into their Companion's eyes and is lost in the ZOMGBLUE♥LOVE♥ACCEPTANCE♥YouWillNeverBeAloneAgain?

Yeah.

( Totally not Valdemar )

Crossposts: http://isabeau.livejournal.com/1199762.html

This is the first day of NaNo, so you'd think I'd be writing furiously in order to get a head start. That would be, you know. Sensible.

Instead, I have a) read my flist, b) used up my ebz actions, c) researched names trying to find Appropriate Names for the characters in my story, d) reported a phishing email to Blizzard, e) written this entry, f) checked Ravelry (but only briefly), g) done some more name research, ... you get the picture.

Technically, since it's not noon yet (for another ... minute), I have not Doomed Myself By Procrastination. Even with the fact that I'm going to a movie later (Secretariat ftw), I have plenty of time.

I'm just kind of. Er. Facepalming a bit.

ETA: Threw on another hundred words (zomg I am on a roll </sarcasm>). After movie I plan to put Scrivener into fullscreen mode and just write. Whether or not it will work out as planned, I don't know.

Crossposts: http://isabeau.livejournal.com/1199051.html

It is officially November in this time zone.

It has been November for nine minutes, and I have written 200 words.

\o/

(now I go to bed)

Crossposts: http://isabeau.livejournal.com/1198568.html

I ought to be doing NaNo prep work, given ... well, given the fact that NaNo starts OMGSOON.

For instance, my main characters don't have names. Nor do the country or city they live in. Nor do I have any clue what sort of cultural feel places have. Nor have I decided on what language to steal names from, which may or may not be related to the cultural feel. Nore have I figured out how much I can steal from existing Earth cultures without doing obnoxious cultural appropriation... but anyway, I should at least have *names*

Instead, I am refreshing Echo Bazaar waiting for more actions. *facepalm*

( tangent re ebz )

Really, the universe (and my subconscious) is conspiring to make the first week of NaNo as difficult as possible, what with rehearsals, and birthday, and going to see a movie (Secretariat! *horse-obsessed inner twelve year old flailings*), and birthday celebrations, and new addictions like ebz, and knittings that will probably seem really really attractive and must be started right this minute zomg and stuff.

...anyway.

My mom, who knows about NaNo and is decently supportive even though I don't know that she entirely Gets It, asked me today if I'm getting up early tomorrow so I can get a good start on the novel.

"No," I said, "duh, the time-honored strategy is to stay up until midnight and get a good start *then*."

"And write until 2 or 3 am?"

"Something like that."

"You aren't serious, are you," she laughed, kind of like I had proposed swimming the Atlantic or fighting velociraptors or something: this was a joke, and she was in on it.

>_>

I assured her I wasn't.

I mean, I'll probably only stay up until 1...

Current Mood: amused
Crossposts: http://isabeau.livejournal.com/1197989.html

I am signed up for NaNo ... which starts on Monday ... and I still haven't decided what to write.

The strongest possibility so far is a pre-existing idea that I described recently as "Totally Not A Cross Between Valdemar Books And The Last Unicorn", with middle-aged disabled protagonists (that still have sex lives zomg) and quests for the magic unicorns that once made a pact-or-something to defend and protect the kingdom of TotallyNotValdemar and then mysteriously vanished.

Problem is, technically speaking I have already committed prose (only, like, one scene, and towards the beginning, and I wouldn't include it in the word count and stuff, but novels-that-have-been-started are kind of Verboten). Also, I care about the idea and the characters, which ... is sort of bad for a "write 50k words and allow it to be crap" thing.

OTOH, if I start from scratch, I don't go anywhere. I've tried that.

So, either I come up with something in the next two days, or I go with the evil telepathic unicorns thing.

Problem is, I know what happens if I try to write something that exists in my head. It's what happens every single fucking time at

ficfinishing. I get nowhere, 80% of the time -- there was a SPN fic that I tried finishing up this time and I haven't made any real progress on it -- and the 20% of the time I squeeze words out I end up loathing the idea as well as the words, and can't stand to even think about the story.

It's ... if I know the story well enough to write it, I freeze up out of fear of Doing It Wrong, or fear of What Is On Paper Does Not Match The Ideal Story In My Head. If I don't know the story that well, I can't write it.

*dithers*

Crossposts: http://isabeau.livejournal.com/1197101.html

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quick nano update
New toy!
Day 9
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Day, um, 6 or something? I've lost count?
Nano progresses
Ah, cat vacuuming
aaaaand T-0!
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i hear the voices when I'm dreaming

Entries tagged with nanowrimo

quick nano update

New toy!

Day 9

(no subject)

Day, um, 6 or something? I've lost count?

Nano progresses

Ah, cat vacuuming

aaaaand T-0!

T -6 hours (and counting)

T-3 days and dithering