Alder's Grove

So, I'm 26 days into nanowrimo - by my chart, that's 86.67% of the time by the end of the day, and 80.29%
done with the writing before I start today.

This month was an experiment - several experiments, actually.

* Writing 15K fiction pieces.
* Writing fiction-for-submission serially, i.e., one after another with no break.
* writing several pieces of different lengths for nano.

What I've learned already is that I have a process in writing for submission that is different from my process for writing for y'all or for serials, and that messing with it messes with my brain.

The process is:
* write 250-1000 words of a piece
* throw it out
* start again.
* finish that, then edit heavily.

skipping steps 1 & 2 totally messes with me. <.< Also, wastes time.

I've also learned that pacing for longer short pieces is totally foreign to me and I have no idea how to do it.

also, I need/want/crave/like distraction projects. See Doomsday.

that's it so far. See you on the 1st!~

Nano project #5 is the first novella in a series of 8, following 8 students through their 8 years at Doomsday Academy.

That means, of course, I need to figure out 8 students. Three I had pregenerated: The Catboy Samurai and his best friends Sianna the dancer and Sweetbriar the prickly. The other five...

Here's a little something about one.

I'm about to the point where I have to start deciding if these are 5 different characters or bits from the same people. Also, I could use more: http://aldersprig.livejournal.com/977386.html on LJ or http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/849230.html on DW.

The birds were following you.

The birds had always been following you, as long as you could remember.

But you were leaving home, now. You were leaving everything you'd ever known, and the birds - the birds were still following.

The loud ones were yelling at you, which wasn't the most fun in the world, but it was worse because you were on a wagon with other people, all of them heading towards Boom Town, Cynopolis, and they were starting to look at you funny.

A sparrow landed on your shoulder. "Oh," the nice lady next to you exclaimed, "he must be hungry."

You didn't have the heart to point out that the dull coloration meant that the little bird was a girl. "Just lonely," you said instead. "There aren't that many sparrows around here."

From the look on her face, it may not have been the safer answer.

First Line of Yesterday: She leaned back from his hand. Nobody had told her she had to obey him; then again, after a couple slaps from the slave factor’s crop, nobody had needed to tell her she was supposed to obey anyone. It was rather self-evident.

Technically, I've already posted the last line of last night; it was part of Pick a Card, one of the previews for Doomsday.

But the last line of The Despot of Santa Roux Finds Love is: They were, too. Marie steadied the lemonade...

A grand total of 35,456 words written, 2,482 yesterday. This keeps me at my one-day-ahead-of-par, which makes me happy.

58% done with my 60K word goal!

A While Ago, I asked for suggestions for what sort of traits would you enjoy reading in Doomsday students.

I got these suggestions:
Someone who was raised thinking Faeries Are Bad.
Someone who is Really Damn Good at Workings.
A purebred Mara Change. (those 3 @inventrix)
kid with some kind of special needs? Physcial handicap? (@dahob)

I'm coming to the time when I need to have these 5 characters fleshed out - 3 boys and 2 girls, to go with Sianna, Sweetbriar, and Austin.

So wanna tell me something about one of these five 8-year-olds?

The below is another guest post, this one from Nasim Mansuri!

What I learned from the years I did NaNoWrimo (and from the years I didn’t)

I wrote my first novel ever during November 2008. I was twelve years old.

 2008

When I decided to take on the challenge, I did it mainly to prove that when I said ‘When I grow up I want to be a writer’ I actually meant it. I quickly immersed myself in the forums, and after deciding on a fantasy novel that involved travelling, metaphors and a unicorn, I wrote it.

I learned that it is possible to come up with an idea only a few days before you begin to write it, and succeed.  I learned that it doesn’t take a wise person with decades of accumulated experience to write a novel. Becoming a successful novelist isn’t really a distant, unattainable goal; in fact, successful novelists themselves aren’t really that distant: names I recognized from bookstores popped up in pep talks, and many of the people I spoke to in the forums had links to their latest published novel in their profile.

In 2008, I learned that I can write a novel in 30 days, and more importantly: I can become a novelist.

( Read more... )

The below is a guest post from Jeff Cook:

First, Lyn, thank you very much for the opportunity to appear on your blog. I really appreciate the opportunity.

Now for the details. Here's the things I've learned about the process of taking a Nanowrimo project to publication. Now, I'm not a best-selling author, but I have published two books, with two more coming out early next year (one self-published, one traditionally published.) I've also been accepted in a number of anthologies. I can't tell you how to hit it big, land the high end agent, and retire... but I have learned a few things about putting out a book that will garner pretty good reviews from reviewers I've never met, getting past the gates of the publishing world (there's a lot of them), self-publishing vs. trad-publishing, and putting out a book you can be proud of. I have a long way to go, and a lot to learn, but within a year of publishing, the books are at least helping make a significant dent in the bills. So take from this what you will.
( Read more... )

I recently came across these two posts on alternate ways of doing wordcount for NaNoWriMo:

http://dailydishrecipes.com/the-reward-system-one-word-on-day-30/

and

http://hoss-some.tumblr.com/post/64586353845/recently-i-came-across-a-post-by-myvariousnanos

I found them interesting, although possibly not-for-me (I like building in skip days, myself).

My own 60K is actually divided over 24 writing days and 6 off days (including a vacation in the middle). I'm curious to see how the actual writing goes.

Maybe I should look at my tracking data & see if months follow a flow patter.

If you NaNo, how do you divide up the 50,000? If you write, how do you work out your writing quota over time?

Hat tip to @capriox_B:

Why You Might want to work on multiple projects this Nov.

This is a very reasonable article on not focusing on one piece the whole month, but using other pieces to maintain momentum.

I am on the look-out for all sorts of advice on Nano that goes beyond the first-time "keep writing keep writing" sort of trend.

I have planned for Nanowrimo, among other stories, a 5000-word piece on Austin, the catboy samurai, to which the existing pieces can be a prelude.

So tell me, what sort of shenanigans should Austin be getting into?

Anyone else doing Nanowrimo?

What's your plan?

I'm doing a series of stories - some for submission, some for you guys, more or less ;-)

I have a cover:

~ @NaNoWriMo wellll *cough* pic.twitter.com/9es6jb2UGm

— Lyn Thorne-Alder (@ThorneWrites) October 17, 2014

;-)

And a wordcount plan:

Okay! I have a wordcount plan for November! #NaNoWriMo2014 pic.twitter.com/PhyTndFPgJ

— Lyn Thorne-Alder (@ThorneWrites) October 16, 2014

Whee~

Edited to add: PLUS write & address one Christmas card or buy/make one Christmas present (or one hour of a christmas Present) per at-home (not on vacation) day.

~

(Chapter titles are imperative verbs: Kneel, Duck, Thrust, Come, Hold, Choose, Agree. Each title covers two chapters, one from each POV (there are two protagonists with parallel but different stories), and is the first word of that chapter.)
(It's either really dumb or really clever or both)

First Lines: Laces were laced, buttons were buttoned. The tunic was deceptive in its simplicity; if it weren’t embroidered in monk’s-tears, she could wear it under armor in the ring.

Last Lines: "For a year."

"A year is enough. They'll

(I was having trouble getting to sleep, okay? ;-)

21201 words on Inner Circle, bringing it to 81,856 total words.

At this rate, I should be able to get to 25,000 by the end of tomorrow. (84K total)

First Line of Yesterday was a whole paragraph: His hands worked quickly enough that Taslin had only reached for a washrag before Vinroth had already sponged her off, getting the soap off her body and scrubbing carefully at a few raw places where she’d gotten sand embedded in cuts.

(Vinroth needs a better name, I don't like that one).


Last line of the night: “I think I’m just going to tell you to say ‘what the fuck?’ because it will sound less absurd than continuing to say ‘ma’am’ when what you clearly mean is the other.”


I wrote 2035 words yesterday, bringing the IC total to 17,007 and the total total to 77,662.

Wow.

I also spelled granddaughter "granddather." Twice.
And I accidentally played with a trope, which was fun.

First line of Friday: “Mmm, and that is a story for another day. A day, perhaps, in which I am in your shower, washing your back.”

Last line of last night: Having given in, Smooth and Neutral - Debbesthandon - seemed to be enjoying riself.

I wrote:
3038 words on Friday
3185 words on Saturday
2093 on Sunday
that brings my Inner Circle average/day to 2582.2
my Inner Circle total to 12,911
(low goal for Sunday: 8686, high goal 11,114)
and my total words written in Nano to 73,566

First Line of Inner Circle: “Kneel, Taslin Altreka.”
(the first ~300 words were a redo of The Test Intro)

Last line of the night:
The woman started walking, and Valran, having been given no other directive, followed her.

I wrote 2389 words (my goal is 1700/day for 11 days), bringing me to a total of 2389 words, and a nano grand total of 63,045

Okay, this is funny:
First Line of Yesterday: Tairiekie jolted into consciousness as her head thumped against something again

Last line of yesterday: Tairiekie gave up the last hold on her consciousness.

I wrote 3824 words yesterday, bringing my total to 56,877 words. This thing is ending up running longer than estimates...

At this rate, I will be done yesterday ;-)
Except I still have to finish the last chapter and insert interludes, so probably tomorrow.

First line of Thursday: Tairiekie thought about that. It shouldn’t have felt that complicated, but her mind felt as if it were stuffed with cotton. “That sounds... that makes sense. What are you doing?”

last Line of Last Night:
“-I found a spigot!” Enrie popped her head up from the rubbish bin. “I think this is what you wanted!”

I wrote 3,493 words Thursday and 2,089 words Friday, bringing my total to 48,592
(goal on this project is ~54,000; I'm on chapter 25 of approx. 30).

at that rate, I will finish... today. Or possibly tomorrow. An average of 3,239.5 words/day so far... but I'm sick, and just aiming to hit 50K today.

First Words: “Well, one doesn't normally feel their looks, do they?”

Last words: “That’s funny?” Saydrie finally asked.

I wrote 2209 words yesterday, bringing my total to 38,857
My daily average is 3238.

At this rate I can still finish on Nov 16th!

Saturday was technically a skip day...

First Line of Friday
“No, not really.” Saydrie shivered. “It’s cold all the time.”
“It gets colder.”

Last Line of Sunday:
“No, ma’am. As I said, they were being unbearably rude to my teammates, so I made them pay.”

3,427 words on Friday
1,631 on Saturday
4,483 on Sunday

Bringing my total to 32,630 and my daily average to 3,263.

At this rate, I may finish on the 16th!

First Line of Yesterday: The closest building was the Arts Hall, so they took the stairs down off the roof, into the center of the building, and out through the side door towards the Mechanics Building.

Last Line: Enrie was standing up. Why was Enrie standing up?

(better but I wanted to get to 4000): But that being said, if you vent it that way, you’re going to have an explos...oh.”

4002 words.
Bringing the total to 19,281 words.

Average/day of 3213 and a half words.
At this rate, I will finish on Nov 16

First Line of Yesterday: ...be instructed upon today. This way.” She flapped her hands at the three of them, and, obediently, then went.

Last line: “And clever of you, to think of the stables.”

3,145 words
Bringing the total to 13,600 words

Average: 3400/day

At this rate, I will still finish on the 15th (except I have a skip day on the 10th) (double-except this might be the 9th, because there's a write-in on the 10th)