Well, I'm over 13k in my word count now. It feels OK, but not as epic as last month. I think I went somewhere around 18k by this time in October. Still, I'm on pace for, well, let's see...
A 50k completion around the 11th and a total word count topping at over 125k. That makes me feel much better. Shoot, if I can overachieve by that much I'll be ecstatic. I really had to muscle through my first novel's last ten thousand words or so. Its a good feeling to have one novel under my belt. This badass novelist just has to replicate the results +2 or 3 points.
Even if I only meet my goal of 60,000 by the 30th I'll be happy. That's +8k my final total for "Fool's Gold." In fact, at this pace I may end up doing a second book this month after all. I said I'd spend the end of the month editing and rewriting Fool's Gold...but I don't know. People are pushing me in the Overachiever's threads on the NaNo site.
In any case, I am still having fun writing this SciFi book. The Captain is a crossdesser after he snapped and went bonkers. The female main character is kickass, and the Russo-American Pirate speak is really working. Haha.
Writer's Tip: If writing about pirates or those that speak like pirates Alestorm or other Pirate metal really helps.
In any case, good luck to all the WriMos! Keep it up comrades!
Showing posts with label 50000 words. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 50000 words. Show all posts
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Ah, the Sweet Relief!
My first novel is complete.
It's very rough and in a definite first draft form. Still, the moment I pecked out that last word I breathed in a deep sigh of relief. Don't get me wrong, I had a blast writing the book! Writing 52,332 words in ten days (most of that total in the last four days) can really take it out of you though! I'm glad it's all on (digital) paper now. I can relax now and just wait.
I'm still planning on doing the official NaNoWriMo in November. Next time, though, I think I'll pace myself a little better. I am proud of myself for cranking out those 119 pages in less than two weeks, but geez is it tiring. A more sane pacing, I think, is necessary for the next novel.
The next agonizing part about my first novel, though, is waiting for the rewrite. I want to set it aside for a good solid month or so before I touch it again. Stephen King recommends putting one's work in a drawer and forgetting about it for a while to move onto new things in his book On Writing and I find this to be sound advice. It allows one to get fresh eyes on it and be brutally merciless in the rewrite. When the book/story is so fresh out of one's mind it still feels like one's child. If you abandon it to the dust bunnies in your bottom drawer then come back to it weeks or months later there is less of an affectionate feeling there. I can see that.
Still, I'm a very impatient person, so if I'm back in a few days talking about rewriting don't be shocked. It's a character defect, I know, I'm working on it among others! At least I didn't procrastinate with the novel. It felt good to pound it out so furiously. It was almost like that feeling you get after vomiting profusely where everything feels so much better and there's that relief. Or when you poke yourself repeatedly with a thumbtack because it feels so good when you stop. It's cathartic.
One thing that really started to spook me as I got further in the book was this:
I didn't feel like I was writing it. It felt as though the characters had actually come to life and begun to tell their story their way. When I wrote the novel I was barely present. I was just moving my fingers and the words came from someone else reading it to me straight from their own fictional memories. That blew me away. I'd never had that feeling before. It felt simultaneously very cool and very frightening! It's one of those out-of-control feelings where you don't feel like you have any say in what happens. Disconcerting to say the least.
Still, I think it makes the world all that much more real. Someone told me when I explained this sensation "It's your book, but it's their world." That about summed it up for me. It's exactly like that. The characters demanded that the story be told the way it was told. My fingers on the keys just followed their instructions. The weirdest thing was how quickly I could phase in and out of that mindset. I'd be completely immersed in my own novel for an hour then in a flash be texting my fiancee and have no trouble going right back to the novel a moment later. Like I said, really cool and really spooky.
Anyway, I'll be back to post an excerpt soon! Keep your eyeballs peeled! (This assumes people are actually reading this bullshit, lol.)
In Earnest,
-Adam - AKA Lykeios -
It's very rough and in a definite first draft form. Still, the moment I pecked out that last word I breathed in a deep sigh of relief. Don't get me wrong, I had a blast writing the book! Writing 52,332 words in ten days (most of that total in the last four days) can really take it out of you though! I'm glad it's all on (digital) paper now. I can relax now and just wait.
I'm still planning on doing the official NaNoWriMo in November. Next time, though, I think I'll pace myself a little better. I am proud of myself for cranking out those 119 pages in less than two weeks, but geez is it tiring. A more sane pacing, I think, is necessary for the next novel.
The next agonizing part about my first novel, though, is waiting for the rewrite. I want to set it aside for a good solid month or so before I touch it again. Stephen King recommends putting one's work in a drawer and forgetting about it for a while to move onto new things in his book On Writing and I find this to be sound advice. It allows one to get fresh eyes on it and be brutally merciless in the rewrite. When the book/story is so fresh out of one's mind it still feels like one's child. If you abandon it to the dust bunnies in your bottom drawer then come back to it weeks or months later there is less of an affectionate feeling there. I can see that.
Still, I'm a very impatient person, so if I'm back in a few days talking about rewriting don't be shocked. It's a character defect, I know, I'm working on it among others! At least I didn't procrastinate with the novel. It felt good to pound it out so furiously. It was almost like that feeling you get after vomiting profusely where everything feels so much better and there's that relief. Or when you poke yourself repeatedly with a thumbtack because it feels so good when you stop. It's cathartic.
One thing that really started to spook me as I got further in the book was this:
I didn't feel like I was writing it. It felt as though the characters had actually come to life and begun to tell their story their way. When I wrote the novel I was barely present. I was just moving my fingers and the words came from someone else reading it to me straight from their own fictional memories. That blew me away. I'd never had that feeling before. It felt simultaneously very cool and very frightening! It's one of those out-of-control feelings where you don't feel like you have any say in what happens. Disconcerting to say the least.
Still, I think it makes the world all that much more real. Someone told me when I explained this sensation "It's your book, but it's their world." That about summed it up for me. It's exactly like that. The characters demanded that the story be told the way it was told. My fingers on the keys just followed their instructions. The weirdest thing was how quickly I could phase in and out of that mindset. I'd be completely immersed in my own novel for an hour then in a flash be texting my fiancee and have no trouble going right back to the novel a moment later. Like I said, really cool and really spooky.
Anyway, I'll be back to post an excerpt soon! Keep your eyeballs peeled! (This assumes people are actually reading this bullshit, lol.)
In Earnest,
-Adam - AKA Lykeios -
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