Archive: NaNoWriMo 2007

Novel Snippet

Tuesday, May 27th, 2008

I’m going to be leaving my latest novel draft to sit for a while, but a good number of people cheered me along so I thought I’d toss out a small snippet in case anyone is interested in reading it.

Be warned: It’s rough, this is not my greatest work, and possibly not even a good example1. Also it shows at least one quirk of my early drafts that may be a deal breaker for some folks.. When I’m writing along and I come across a character2 that I’ve yet to name, I just pick a word3 and place it in brackets ([ ]). I do this because I’ve found stopping to decide on a name can kill my momentum deader than dead. Also, as I have developed rather strict language rules for this world I can’t just pull something out of thin air. So even though the second guard is a major character throughout the novel, so far I know him only as [Driver], because when he showed up, that’s what he was doing.

So, if after all that you still want to read it, I hope you enjoy it.

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  1. I’m currently too close to this one to be in any way objective at this point. [↩]
  2. Or a place, or race of strange creatures, or a new flavor of pie. Pretty much any noun. [↩]
  3. Usually a word that describes who they are, or what they’re doing in the first scene they appear [↩]

Posted in NaNoWriMo 2007 | 2 Comments »

Well That’s Done

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008
WIP Novel
First Draft
97,778/97,778 words

Just a quick post to note that yesterday I finally typed “THE END” on the first draft of this latest novel. I’ll post about it in more detail soon, but I wanted to thank all the folks who offered encouragement and support throughout the process. You know who you are. I’d list you all, but I’m sure I’d leave someone out1 (but if you can always list yourselves by leaving comments).

  1. and I’m already running late this morning [↩]

Posted in NaNoWriMo 2007 | 4 Comments »

Writing Updates: April 2008

Thursday, May 1st, 2008

May already? I feel like I just posted one of these. Sorry for the lack of other content around here, but I’ve been pretty much spending any and all time I carved out to write on the novel. How did I do on the “write every day” front? Well, I missed two days in April: my eldest daughter’s birthday, and my wife’s birthday. I’m happy to excuse myself in those cases1.

I cranked out 12,926 words, making April an improvement on last month. While I did miss two days I was more consistent in my output I’m pretty sure this comes down to having a daily goal of 550 words, which I didn’t always make, but it seemed to work better than “some words”. Read on for the breakdown

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  1. thereby avoiding the feeling I let myself down, which can derail things if I let it. [↩]

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Writing Updates: March 2008

Saturday, April 5th, 2008

March was not a great month for me. I got pretty sick, and on March 24th I was too out of it to write. But I did manage to go eighty three days straight without missing a day. I’ve also been working long hours, which caused me to somehow miss another day as well. I’m still not feeling 100%, but I’m getting there. I wrote 11,781 words this month, making it my worst so far this year.

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Writing Updates: February 2008

Sunday, March 2nd, 2008

Another month gone by all ready? Yikes!

I made it all the way through the month without missing a day of writing, which if you remember my plan from last month means I didn’t have any weeks were I wrote more than five thousand words. I did write 14,732 words this month though, which is a few hundred more than last month.

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Writing Updates: January 2008

Thursday, January 31st, 2008

I’m going to strive to be a bit more transparent about my writing this year. It’s something I have a hard time with, which might date back years to when I learned answering “What do you want to be when you grow up?” with “Be a computer programmer” seemed to be a more acceptable answer to most people than “Be a writer”. So to start I’m going to talk about the past month, and provide a bit of an info dump into what I think the future holds.

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NaNoWriMo 2007: I Win (Now Back to Work)

Friday, November 30th, 2007
NaNoWriMo 2007 Winner Yesterday I passed the 50,000 word goal necessary to succeed at NaNoWriMo. I didn’t do quite as good as last year, which probably stems from the state of the outline going into November. It still has some holes, but it’s in better shape now then when I started. I don’t think I learned anything new from the process, but it was great to get back into serious a daily writing ritual (a process I started before November to be sure I was prepared). It’s also great to have 55% of a new novel down in first draft form. The trick will be keeping at it for the next 40,000 words. I can’t keep up this pace, but I plan to not drop below 1,000 words a day. I didn’t intend to take today off from writing, but life had other plans. I want to thank the folks who cheered me on via twitter. It really was a great motivator (and one I hope to keep using now that NaNoWriMo is over). I’d also like to thank the folks behind The NanoMonkeys podcast, both for the daily advice, and for giving me a chance to try my hand at podcasting1 and risking the reputation of their Parsec Award nominated podcast in the process. I hope other writers who listened found my advice useful. And of course, thanks to my family for putting up with the hectic schedule that allowed me to succeed. Congratulations to everyone else who reached their goal this month. I hope everyone who tried, whether they succeeded or not, came out of the experience with something positive.

Progress Graph

  1. original post is long gone, but you can snag the replay [↩]

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Go Listen: Lafferty, Sigler, and a Barrel of Monkeys

Wednesday, October 31st, 2007

Mur Lafferty’s Playing for Keeps

Playing for Keeps […] tells the story of Keepsie Branson, a bar owner in the shining metropolis of Seventh City: birthplace of super powers. Keepsie and her friends live among egotistical heroes and manipulative villains, and manage to fall directly in the middle as people with powers, but who just aren’t strong enough to make a difference. Or that’s what they’ve been told. As the city begins to melt down, it’s hard to tell who are the good guys and who are the bad.

Mur Lafferty’s latest podiobook officially launches tomorrow (although you can hear the first chapter right now). If you’ve ever listened to I Should be Writing you’ve probably heard of it (although perhaps under the title Keppsie’s Bar). It looks like Mur is trying out some new things with the Playing for Keeps Experience feed which will feature a host of additional content, including PDFs of the chapters and Stories of the Third Wave, a supplemental podcast.

Listen to the Promo and subscribe.

Scott Sigler’s Nocturnal

Something lives deep beneath the streets of San Francsico. Something that has been there for centuries, something that comes out at night … to feed on the dregs of society. A sub-culture, with its own myths, its own legends of leader named The King that will lead them out of bondage, and their own demon, a hunting shadow known only as Savior.

But the legends of Savior’s brutality have faded, the fear passed into stories told to frighten the young ones. When The King finally appears, just as foretold, the Nocturnals know their time has time — the time to come out from under the streets and hunt humanity in the open.

Scott Sigler’s newest podiobook thriller launches tonight at midnight EST. As usual it sounds like quite the ride. If you’ve heard Scott’s stuff you already know what to expect, if you haven’t you can head on over to Podiobooks.com and grab Earthcore and Ancestor at any time.

The print version of Nocturnal is currently scheduled for 2010, but the podcast launches tonight, so why not listen to the promo and subscribe.

The NanoMonkeys

NanoMonkeys Coverart

Hosted by PG Holyfield, Chris Miller, and Kris Johnson, the NanoMonkeys aim to help get you through the madness that is NaNoWriMo.

For those of you, like me, that are participating in NaNoWriMo, and thinking “Gah! Who has time for new podcast novels?”, I’ve got just the thing for you. The NanoMonkeys is a daily podcast (approximately five minutes per episode) that runs throughout November offering writing advice and encouragement. This year the line up features a number of guest authors (including me on November 3rd). I made listening to this part of my daily routine last year, and I recommend you do the same.

This year’s welcome episode is available now. What are you waiting for, subscribe?

Posted in Input, NaNoWriMo 2007 | 3 Comments »

NaNoWriMo 2007

Wednesday, October 17th, 2007

NaNoWriMo 2007 Participant

I figured it was time for a bit of a writing update. I’m currently prepping for NaNoWriMo. If you don’t know what that is you can read about on their site. Short version: Write 50,000 words on a new novel during the month of November. I did it last year (and won) and I’m looking forward to trying again.

I’m currently doing some plot work in preparation. I’m using the same world as I used for Miracles, but none of the same characters (although I could easily play six degrees of separation I don’t think any of that will make it into the book). This will be the first novel I’ve written using Scrivener (the software that got me to buy a Mac mini, but that’s whole other post). I’m planning on the novel (not titled, I never seem to title my novels until the end) being about 90,000 words, which means I should finish my first draft sometime in January, although I’m aiming for the end of the year.

After this one is done I’ll go back and restart the stalled slog on Miracles, and possibly toss around some of my short stories back out into the market. I hope to have the Miracles revisions done by April, then I’ll hopefully start revising this new book. My first novel is pretty much dead in the water. I’m still waiting for feedback from two of my first readers (hmmm, time for an email). The feedback I’ve gotten to date has me thinking that there’s something worth saving there, but it needs a lot of work. If nothing else it was a great learning experience.

I’m also planning to try and post updates once a week in November, but it all depends on my word count progress (pretty much everything in November depends on my word count progress). If you miss hearing from me or just can’t get enough of me I recorded an episode of The NanoMonkeys Podcast1 (my podcast premiere, not counting voice mail or live chat) during the first few days of November. Besides, if you aren’t busy you should sign up for NaNoWrimo yourself (and leave a comment if you do).

  1. original post is long gone, but you can snag the replay [↩]

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