nanonano

I won again.

Yes, this makes number seven in a row for me. I've participated in Nano every year since 2002. And never lost. That's something I'm damn proud of.

This year was the usual struggle. I righted myself about four days in when I realized I couldn't write teenagers as my main POVs. So I jostled things around a little. But I still had pieces left over from the original version. Did I have enough? Could I still win?

This morning I dumped all of the story I had into a massive doc file. To this moment, I really don't know how much I wrote today. I'm a little scared to find out. The spreadsheet said 1400 words but it was probably closer to twice that, even with reusing/retrofitting old scenes. And I'm nowhere near done with the actual story. Pretty nifty feat all things considered.

I also completed mini_nanowrimo. I don't know what the final count for that will be yet. I'm undecided about next year. I may take a year off to try out the Yuletide challenge. I can't imagine not writing in November. That would be... weird.

The victory is a little bittersweet today with losing tv_elf. But we managed.

Victory is mine, but we have a long way to go before winning the war. I still need to write my mini_nanowrimo entry for that challenge. Hopefully I can maintain the writing momentum. If nothing else, I proved that even when all hell is breaking loose around me, I can Nano. I just would rather a slightly less torturous route next year, please?

Pain is a surprisingly good motivator for me.

Rather than contemplate my health issues more tonight, I simply focused on writing and somehow managed to catch up. I'm finally on target for the first time since day 1. I'm moderately flabbergasted.

I'm a little amused because again the characters I expect to be easy to write aren't. And the ones that are nice side characters are opening up all kinds of avenues. I still haven't a clue how we got here. Or what's in store for me. But I'm finally more interested in the story, even if it isn't the one I intended to write. I may need to change the title.

So I headed over to Murky Coffee for a write-in, passing several men setting up a Veterans Day ceremony at the Clarendon war monument with a wreaths from the American Legion branches. I could see the people gathered from the upstairs window at the coffee shop, including a wide range of military uniforms. Since my book is just post WWII, I opted to use whytcrow daily suggestion as a scene, learning that my gambler did indeed serve. I made him serving in Africa, so he saw a lot of sand and desert. It actually amazes me that he wanted to go back to Las Vegas after that. I learned some useful bits about Vegas and Veterans Day history to write that scene, some of which may or may make it. Then writer_rivki showed up and we wrote some more before we headed over to the DC for Chris Baty signing at the Barnes & Noble after dinner with other CVS people.

I was surprised the signing was held in the cafe. The B&N had apparently scheduled a second writer to sign at the exact same time. At any rate, it was a fair size crowd, drawing from both DC & Northern Virginia regions. Most of the people were already participating in Nano. Every tech toy imaginable was on display from laptops to Danas to notebook and pen. The DC ML handed out little random plot bits to include in the novel. At least I picked something halfway doable.

( Observations of Nanoers )

Off to finish my 2K for the day, so whytcrow can't catch me. Mwa-hah-hahhh-haaah. Ahem.

NovaNano met for its "Thank God It's Over" party tonight at Ned Devine's in Fairfax, a Irish/Aussie style pub. Unfortunately we picked the night of the snowstorm, so we were a little worried we would either have to cancel or no one would show up. They had wanted to set us up in what they charmingly called "the WB Yeats library", but the previous large party would simply not leave and they couldn't exactly force the issue. Our two gentlemen managers had the most delicious accents. Jen and I suggested that it was quite all right if they wanted to talk to us all night. I certainly had no objections, but her husband might have. So instead they linked up a bunch of tables right in front of the band setup. Our managers mentioned blithely that they had live music starting at 9pm and they'd have to move a few of our tables to accomodate them. (Actually it was probably to save some eardrums. They were quite loud in usual local band mode. I wanted a decent incendio spell for the drum machine or whatever they thought was sounding out a beat. Because I don't know what it was but you sure as heck couldn't dance to it!)

Despite the weather, we had a decent crowd. It was nice to see iced_spice again since the first NovaNano party, especially since she's been so encouraging about "Where or When". Hopefully I can carry that into writing the rest of the novel. Delighted to see littlemy and writer_rivki again from the writeins. I finally also placed a face and name with one of our more prolific posters/writers on the board, which was a bit jarring, but in a good sense. We had some good discussions going back and forth, although sometimes the background noise made it hard to talk.

Speaking of the novel, I have not worked on it this week at all really, just finishing one HP fanfic piece I had in the works before Nano started. I knew the post Nano exhaustion was going to hit, I just wasn't expecting it to be so sudden. I made my CVS goal for this week to rewrite the dread 14K. I'm rather stuck on some level. I know they're at a party and something will massively blow up amongst the group, but I haven't figured out what happens yet.

btw, if you want to friend the "other" mes, look at hildy or wabbitseason. I'll probably continue to update this one as I'm working on "Where or When", but obviously nowhere near the frequency as during November.

Um, thank you, Ripper, I think.

To no one's surprise, I signed up for a second stab at National Novel Writing Month. After all, I proved I could do it once, so why should this time be any different? On the other hand, our little writing group's two month trial run was an unqualified disaster. I simply could not keep up the same momentum as I had the previous November.

The one that will probably change is genre. Having burned out on fantasy, I am considering writing a regular science fiction story. No magic or sorceresses this time. I am currently waffling between two major story ideas. It may be a game time decision to see what the Muses want to write.

I did upgrade to a paid account, so I can keep my old userpics for awhile. I'll be rotating in the new cast as we go along. I was delighted the participant icon this year was 100X100 so I could use it on LJ easily. Absolutely loathe the Component color schemes, but Generator doesn't allow for links.

*door creaks open*

Helloo, anyone here? No, good. *looks around the bare walls* Nothing a little paint and some curtains can't cure. Hmm... maybe a writing desk over in the corner.

Hm? *turns around* Oh, yes, I guess you'll be wanting November's rent. I'll move in now so I can get settled before the big event. I have to be completely ready to write when NaNoWriMo starts on the 1st. Nothing can break my concentration from writing.

Well, theoretically, anyway.

I don't know why I'm starting this journal. I've working on writing projects before without feeling like I needed to have a Livejournal to go along. But that is the one good thing about this crazy thing... at least I'll know that others like me are trying to do the same thing.

Like I said in the profile, I'm not sure what I'll be posting here. Some background stuff, research links, maybe character info. Any actual writing will go behind lj-cuts. Some of the entries will be friends only, so if you want to read, add me as a friend, email me, or leave a comment.