NaNoWriMo Journal: Week 4

My novel is almost done. I have found out so far that I’m a bit of a procrastinator, but thankfully, I’m generally focused. Of course, having pie, cookies, and brownies on hand as bribes after I finish writing helps a bit. Currently, my novel’s word-count is 57,480. I’m going to make another list, because I like lists, and this way you won’t realize that my spelling has been falling to the wayside since I started NaNoWriMo.

                My novel by the numbers:

·         2: types of grain I talk about excessively. Here you were, thinking that you might not be able to have multiple discussions on the topic of corn, but you can! See, that is the truly amazing thing about writing a story set in, while living in, the Midwest. Yep, your brain is officially blown.

·         2: people die, just because I need more drama

·         1: nice old guy

·         1: young, bitter guy who captures Kera for unknown reasons

·         2,000: NaNoWriMo words destroyed by my forgetting to save and weird software trying to take over my computer (others were destroyed from different stories I forgot to save)

·         2,000: words I had to make up the next day, therefore rewriting the scene from memory. (And it was not pretty!)

·         5,150: words I wrote on Sunday (after that fateful word-sucking "software update" that I'm convinced is trying to hack into my computer)

·         1: cryptic message

·         25 (approximately): awkward metaphors because I’d never written a dystopian (or futuristic) novel before

·         25: days which it’s taken me so far to write the first draft of my novel

·         632: average number of words I write per day, above the NaNo minimum

·         2,299: average word-count per day

·         2,520: words I have left to get to my approximate goal (of 60,000 words)

My plot has been progressing nicely, and my characters have taken direction. I love it when that happens. It’s just so freeing, you know? It makes me feel like I made great characters, which may or may not be true. I’m going to try to write some words this week, but I have a safety net in case I don’t.  I'm looking forward to writing this week, but I'm also glad that I'll get a little time off this week. Then on Friday I will write 2,000 words, or however many are left, and validate my novel, therefore being declared an official winner.

Happy writing!

Katia,

the writer girl

NaNoWriMo Journal: Week 3

            My novel is going very, very well. By that, I mean I’ve written 10,005 words in the past week. Also, there has been just enough conflict, and my characters’ relationships are good. I love my characters, and my plot has been going well enough. I don’t have many awkward, time-filling lulls that I did in my June novel. Might I add that I am 10,000 words ahead of schedule? Yes, NaNo life is very sweet now.

            My novel by the numbers (so far):

·         3: characters whom I absolutely love

·         1: start of a romance

·         2: women who are out to get Kera (my MC)

·         40,154: words so far

·         6: days ahead of schedule

·         2,230: my average  number of words per day so far

·         1: case of extreme estrangement

·         2: scenes where Kera’s in her best friend’s (and crush’s) arms

·         1: death

·         3: comments of stunned disbelief made by my friends

·         18: days of writing happiness

Good luck to everyone who’s doing NaNo, and who will be starting week 3 as of tomorrow. Happy writing, and may the traveling shovel of death enter your novel as needed!

Katia,

The writer girl

NaNoWriMo Journal: Week 2

NaNoWriMo is awesome. It may not be the highest quality writing (far from it), but I’m writing a lot, and a lot more than I would normally. I have so far a word-count of 30,140 words. I wrote 10,000 of these in the past 72-hours, and I had my first 5k day yesterday. My novel has a surprisingly active plot, considering the fact that I don’t plan at all. I have a lot of dialogue, which is nice. My characters are getting along well, and there has been a good amount of action, at least according to me. I’m just so happy while writing it, and it seems like everything’s been working out really well. It’s not so much that the story’s great, although I happen to think I have a great premise; it’s more that I’m just really enjoying the process. Writing a novel is a seriously amazing thing.

                I have told most of my family members that I’m writing a novel, so as to keep me committed to my word-count, et cetera. My aunt, upon hearing about this (and after a few email-exchanges) sent me a package in the mail. It was a big bag filled with chocolate with different types for different levels of motivation, six-word memoirs, and a nice card as well. She rocks. I did thank her for that, by the way.

                In my novel for the past 17,960 words:*

·         My MC tells her friend what she is going to attempt (her journey to find the Exiles)

·         My MC and her best friend survive on little food

·         They (MC and best friend) realize that tunics aren’t made to support hare-brained journeys where you walk for days to try to find your friends who may be dead already

·         Kera (MC) gets a heatstroke

·         They find the community

·         There’s a bit of romance

·         MC realized working in the fields is awful

·         Someone dies

·         People are sad

·         People are happy

·         They leave the Exiled Community, breaking away in the middle of the night

·         People act like scared daredevils

·         Soup spills on someone’s shoes

·         I have more stupid tree metaphors

·         I expand to include stupid sky metaphors and stupid wheat metaphors (See, I’m not just a one-trick horse, everyone! See . . . Or not.)

And more! I’m having an awesome time writing my novel and I hope everyone else is too.

Sincerely,

 

Katia, the writer girl

*What I wrote in the last week.

NaNoWriMo Journal: Week 1

Note: I apologize for any typos that I will make in the next four weeks. I have been writing madly and thus am not entirely accountable for my errors.

                I woke up last Thursday with a story burning on my lips. For months, I had thought about this story, and now it was time to write it down. By “thinking about it for months,” I mean I did think about it for months, but that I had never made a plan or outline. All I had to go from was a list of hastily-scribbled names, a bad chart, lots of strikethroughs, and a vague idea of some of the relationships in my novel. As I avoid outlining whenever possible, this wasn’t the best plan, but it’s how it went. My idea of coming up with a fantastic outline during my Spanish class that afternoon didn’t work out so well. Although I went into it with no plan whatsoever, it’s been going brilliantly so far.

                On Thursday, I wrote about 1300 words, hampered by my bedtime. On Friday, however, it was the weekend, and so my writing took off. I wrote 3,000 words and read an inspiring pep talk. It went much better than I thought. I was picturing myself crying, and spending hours trying to type out those 1,667 words. However, that hasn’t been the case . . . yet. Yesterday I wrote 4,000 words of sheer madness that may or may not have made sense, and today I wrote 3,500. Right now my novel is 20 pages, single-spaced (12,000 words) and positively filled with typos. I love my story and characters, just as I have since June, so I knew that wouldn’t be a problem. A setting took shape quickly, and now I have a plot, unlike in June. Mainly, everyone’s getting mad at the MC and she wants to leave. Still, it’s a conflict. My story has been going very well, and so I’m very happy with that aspect.

                There is, however, one aspect that I didn’t plan. (There are many aspects that I didn’t plan, due to my anti-planning nature. This is simply the one that I found the most confusing and then very amusing.) My dystopia setting is very rigid. I’m having the setting similar to The Giver. For example, everyone wears light-colored tunics, and their food is a grain that the workers in the community grow. They live on the prairie, so that’s not colorful, either, and they don’t have many animals, either. I was having a hard time describing the world, because I enjoy using similes and metaphors, and if you don’t have anything to compare something to, how do you describe it? I was confounded for a few hours, and then I found a solution. My solution was to make comparisons—just only using trees. Therefore, my manuscript is full of sentences like, "My worry dried up like a drop of water on a sun-baked leaf," and "To me, it seemed to be like resin from a tree; sticky at first, but then you grow used to it and forget about it as it seeps more and more onto your hand, leaving you covered with tree sap." Yes, these are lines from my actual manuscript, taken for your amusement. Feel free to use them if you like; I’m sure I’ll edit them out once I get to my second draft. Here’s to another week of literary abandon!

Katia