Posted on

Distractions

I’ve fallen rather behind on Nano. And what’s more, instead of writing or even going on one of my walk/runs for marathon training, I spent last night in a frenzy of watching TV episodes on hulu.com. I watched the latest Heroes and Dollhouse episodes, and then discovered that hulu also has some old Buffy episodes, so I went and watched three of those. I have no proper excuse, but I choose to fogive myself for the indiscretion on the premise that I needed a mental break.

Going home to work on Nano doesn’t seem to be effective for me. So I will be going to a coffee shop with no internet access tonight, which will force me to either write or stare at the blank screen for long periods of time. (I have no games on my computer.)

However, there is another distraction that I have to be concerned about. As usual, I’m getting all kinds of ideas for other stories and novels while I’m in the middle of a current creation. Most of these I can just take down a few notes on and set aside. But this idea has sort of hit me upside the head and I really, really want to write even though I know that I really, really have to wait until I finish draft zero of my current Nano novel. (And that’s finish all of draft zero, by the way, not just the 50,000 words for Nano.)

So I will take down the beginnings of notes and ideas, forcibly put them away in a file, and try really, really hard not to think about it too much. Oh, but it’s going to be hard.

[X-posted to my livejournal.]
Posted on

Nano – day 8

Project: Untitled Alternate World Novel
New Words: 5,577 (This is over the course of several days since I last posted.)
Current Total Word Count: 12,372
Goal: 50,000+ words

Random Sentence(s): Mitra found the girl was nestled in outcropping further down the mountainside. The snow had melted around her in a circular ring. There were not footsteps in the snow leading into the circle and Mitra could not figure how she had got there. It was a most curious thing.

Notes: I fell behind on Friday and Saturday. The staying up to one a.m. several nights in a row had taken a toll and I was exausted both nights to the point that I didn’t bother writing. This gave me 4400 words for catch up today. I drove down the hill to a local coffee shop to get some work done, because it was far too distracting to try and write at home. I am now only 1,000 words behind, a more reasonable number, which I should be able to catch up in the next day or two.

[X-posted to my livejournal]

Posted on

Nano – day 3

Project: Untitled Alternate World Novel
New Words: 2,659  (Sweet tasty words.)
Current Total Word Count: 6,795
Goal: 50,000+ words

Random Sentence(s): Once someone somewhere had told her that there was more space between the particles in an individual atom than there was space between galaxies in the universe, that the world we perceived as solid was actually more empty than full. Sonia knew this intimately.

Notes: I basically wrote to the end of what I’m calling Chapter 3. (i have not written Chapter 2, by the way.) My chapters at this point are determined by the switch from one character’s point of view to another. The “keep writing until the end of the chapter” concept is working well for me. It gives me a defined stopping place, when I can then decide if I want to keep writing. It also keeps my writing longer than I might otherwise, because I cannot stop until that point.

Posted on

Nano – day 1

Project: Untitled Alternate World Novel
New Words: 4,136 (Yay! A damn fine start, if I say so myself.)
Current Total Word Count: 4,136
Goal: 50,000 words

Random Sentence: As the sky began to lighten, Jahine felt a sense of purpose grow within him and the doubt that had cajoled him the dark early hours fled.

Notes: A lot of this came out in backstory. This is just fine, because while I know that much of this will be cut in edits, it is helping me get a better sense of this world and how it all works. Though I do keep trying to bring what I’m writing back to the immediate action of the story, since that makes it all feel more alive to me.

I’m feeling rather good about this start to the novel, since it feels to be the most coherent of all the Nano novels that I worked on over the years. Of course, this could just be the excitement of starting out a new story, but I have a feeling deep in my gut that this one, for once, just might work. Here’s hoping.

[X-posted to my livejournal]