Boo-Yah!

I had the opportunity, I had the time, and generated better than 2,800 words of story to break the 50,000 word barrier.

It feels good to hit such a major milestone. However, I now have to keep that same resolve to finish the novel. I originally thought the story might turn out to be a 110K tome, but in following the outline, I now think it’ll be only take another 30–35,000 words to complete it. This means I’m comfortably past the halfway mark.

The goal now is to finish the story by the weekend before Christmas. It’s totally doable. I’ll be out of work after December 14th (no, it had nothing to do with NaNoWriMo), so I’ll have plenty of time.

I’ll put it away until after the New Year, and while I’m looking for work, I’ll also start the dreaded revision process. There’s kind of a theme here…don’t you think?

50K Tonight or Bust…

With about two-and-a-half writing days left, my word count is 48,059. I figure by the time I get down to working on my story tonight, I’ll have at least three hours available to me, which is plenty of time to break the 50,000 word barrier.

This may help me achieve my NaNoWriMo goal, but it’s really only about the half-way mark to the completion of my novel.

The writing still feels like work, but at least I’m no longer in the funk I was in last week and 10,000 words ago. The writing feels good, like I’m working towards something meaningful. It was definitely worth gutting it out and working through the funk. I came out the other side feeling like I learned something valuable – that I made a personal breakthrough.

Okay, enough with the break-out-the-hankies sentimental stuff. I still have a long way to go, but now I have the means and the mental tools to get me through the tough parts.

Uh-Oh…

The writing is beginning to feel like that dreaded four letter word: W-O-R-K.

Thankfully, I am working from an outline so I do know where the story is going and know what I want to write. But as I flesh out each scene, it feels like I’m slogging through it instead of approaching it eagerly.

I wonder what other writer’s do when they get to this point. It feels like I want to take a break, but with only seven days to go until NaNoWriMo ends, it’s not an option. Besides my word count is only 38,808 – meaning I have to produce over 11,000 words in 7 days to meet the November 30 deadline.

Maybe I’ll switch from drinking regular coffee to triple shot espresso’s – to see if that helps…

Going Beyond the Count

We’re more than two-thirds of the way through NaNoWriMo 2007, and with only 9 days left, I gotta pick up the pace.

I’m slightly ahead of the game at this point, but tonight I really have to turn it on as I am going under the assumption that I will not have the time or inclination to write tomorrow (Thanksgiving Day). Besides that, I looked at my outline last night and found I am only a little more one third of the way through my story.

This means that my novel is going to end up in at least the 100,000 word neighborhood. Obviously I won’t be able to complete the book by November 30th, but I do know I will have no problem meeting and surpassing the 50K goal by the end of the month. The real goal is to complete the first draft no later than this New Year’s Eve. So, the more I can do now, the less stress I’ll have trying to meet my goal next month.

Once done, I’ll shelve it for 3-weeks with a wake-up call to begin first revision on the weekend going into Martin Luther King Day. I promised my first reader I’d let him look at it once I cleaned it up a bit.

After all these years (7) of doing NaNoWriMo and other writing ventures, I feel I’m finally producing a marketable manuscript – but that’s just my opinion. Time, agents and publishers will let me know if I am right. . .or not.

Finally…I’m there…

It was a beautiful weekend, sunny, but cold. I wanted to hike some trails, but with all the hunters out in the woods, I was worried I’d get my ass shot off. It’s happened to others before.

So, I glued my still intact butt to my chair and dedicated much of the weekend to working on my novel. From Friday night through Sunday night, I was able to hammer out about 9,000 words, ending up with a total word count of: 30,321 – which means I’m a little above par as of the 18th.

I’ll have to continue to write at least in the 2K neighborhood for the rest of the week, as I will have no time at all to write on Thanksgiving Day. My oldest daughter is coming back from school for most of the week, and the whole tribe will be heading out to a big family gathering for the annual feast. There will be lots of food, conversation, food, laughing, food, drinks, food…You get the idea. It’s gonna be a good time.

I’m Getting There…

As of this morning, I am 19,649 words into my NaNoWriMo Novel. I am not where I should or want to be, but I am getting close. Things have slowed at work, so I’m only working eight-and-a-half hour days now. Tonight will be pizza night so I don’t have to take the time to prepare dinner for the kiddo’s. The only thing I’ll have to prepare is coffee! I don’t have any other pressing engagements tonight or tomorrow night – so I can dedicate a lot of time to the writing over the next two nights.

I am behind where I was at this time last year, but the story is definitely flowing much better this time around. It’s just a matter of stealing blocks of time to write. Like last year, this story is going to be way more than 50,000 words, but unlike last year, I don’t think it’ll take until late early February to finish it. Plus, I like this story much better.

In the past, I always fancied myself the type of writer that didn’t need to outline, that the story would just come to me as I wrote it. However, that approach to writing has not worked for me…outlining has.

I don’t create extensively detailed outlines. I write down the general idea of the story, the setting and the characters. I sketch the flow of the story and then imagine series of challenges, setbacks and obstacles for the characters to overcome, for both the protagonist and the antagonist, and add them to the flow of the story. No one in my story has an easy ride – ever.

I often write the story in a linear manner, but sometimes I just want to get down to working on some of the grittier parts. I put on some hard rock from my playlist and get to work writing out the action scene. Writing out action scenes beforehand frequently helps me go back in the story and build a better sense of tension leading up to that scene.

Much Needed Update

I feel bad about letting this blog lay dormant as I have. I have been putting most of my concentration (and updates) on the Writers Report blog, and writing my 2007 NaNo Novel. I’m a little behind in my word count right now with only 13,137 words (I should have at least 20,000 by now), I’m still confident that I can be at least par by the end of the week – if not a little ahead.

I am writing a suspense thriller titled Makin’ A Killing. It’s a story of how an average, everyday couple becomes inadvertently entangled with a professional hit man known as “The Machine”.

This past weekend, I ended up trashing two days of writing to do some major reconstruction on my story. Before I made the change the story was all over the place. I was having a chat session with a good writing friend of mine, when I light went off and I knew what direction I needed to take the story.

So yesterday, I spent the time re-writing a little more than a third of the story, and it made all the difference. Now I have a clearer picture of where I am taking the story and can hardly wait to get home tonight to get it down on the page.

If you ever get stuck in your story, try and talk it out with another writer. If you are involved with NaNoWriMo, they are easy to find in the NaNo Forums. It’s a great way to get a new perspective on your story that may help give it the jump-start it needs to get moving in the right direction.