Falling Astern

Wordcount : 21,727

As November goes ever onwards I find my NaNoWriMo wordcount falling short most days. This is partly due to my inability to wrangle the story where I want it to go, partly because the difficult days have discouraged me, and partly because of a series of time-consuming problems which have eaten into my writing time.

Aside from work, I have had to contend with a boiler failure at home (which has taken far more time and energy to sort out than it really should), illness, searching for a new flat (we have to move at the beginning of January), and a devastating lack of sleep. All of which makes writing extremely difficult at best.  In the interests of full disclosure I must admit to socialising more than perhaps I needed to as well.

Today was a good day though. I managed to write over 5,000 words, which has helped me catch up a bit.  At 21,727 words I am now 43% of the way to the target. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I am 7,873 words behind schedule as I type this, meanig that I must now type 3,142 words per day for the next 9 days. That’s an imposing number, but with a few more days like today I could make it yet, so I’m not quite ready to give up.

I still don’t feel that I have anything I want to show to the world yet. I think I will probably keep my NaNo to myself; at least until I’ve had chance to finish a first draft (the full novel will be significantly more than 50,000 words) and an opportunity to do at least one re-draft so that it doesn’t look too amateurish. However I can reveal that my NaNo is a swashbuckling science fiction story about a gifted boy engineer who joins the crew of a small trading and sometime buccanneer vessel called the ‘Dead Man’s Hand’. I decided that sci-fi was a good genre to start my first NaNo with because so much can be explained away off the cuff, although I’m trying to keep the science elements as reasonable and realistic as possible.

And now to bed.

One week in…

Wordcount : 8,766
Mo’ : stubbly (picture to follow)

It’s been a week since I started both NaNoWriMo and Movember, and you’ll no doubt have noticed that I haven’t blogged much about it yet. Writing, it seems, gets in the way of writing.

So, as expected I’ve been doing a lot of sitting at a desk and typing; although not actually enough so far. I should have written some 11,169 words by now, so I am 2,903 words behind (or just under two days in NaNo-time). Partly this is because my life is generally pretty busy, but it’s also because new impediments to writing seem to spring up all the time.

Towards the end of last week, for example, I was rudely awakened by a loud dripping noise at 5am to discover my boiler leaking, and then was unable to sleep, which led to a very unproductive day. I was also unable to make my wordcount over the weekend due to being kidnapped by @abiknipe for a weekend away in Portsmouth, which was fantastic and probably warrants a blog post itself if I can ever find the time.

One of my friends has suggested that I post a sentence or two that I am most pleased with each day. I’m considering it, but the truth is that due to writing under harsh time constraints a lot of my output is very rough, to be revised after November, and I’m not sure I’m ready for it to be read. However there is the odd bit that I am very pleased with, so I may post some excerpts over the coming days.

I now find myself having to write a new daily average of some 1,874 words per day. Back to the novel it is then…

NaNoWriMo and Movember start here

Word Count : 0

Mo’ status : facebald

November, month of exciting challenges and endless frustration, is now upon me. Freshly shaven, I anticipate keenly becoming ever more hirsute as the month progresses. As yet, I have written nothing of my novel for NaNoWriMo, and I am already starting to panic about my ability to finish the job.

Frankly, starting to write anything has always been the most difficult part of writing for me. The blank page stares back at me from the computer like some incredibly smug challenger, confident that I cannot possibly win. This isn’t helped by the fact that I have two conflicting ideas for my novel, and I just can’t decide which to write.And it’s started to strike me that 50,000 words in 30 days is a lot of writing. I have to average 1667 words per day in order to make the grade. Not so bad, you might think, and in terms of sheer typing you’d be right. However I have to find the time to commit to writing amongst my normal life and busy work schedule. Furthermore I have no idea, for the most part, how the plot of my novel is going to progress. Thinking time must be factored in.

I’d best go get started. More details on my novel to follow.

November : video games, moustaches, walkie-talkies, and writing

Hello Internet.

It’s the 30th October. In two days November will be upon us. This means many things to many people. For me, November 2010 holds many exciting and terrifying prospects.

Firstly, I have just taken delivery of Fable III – despite its flaws I was a big fan of Fable II, and I fully expect to be once again engrossed in the world of Albion and its endless (and very British) charm. I am also excited to take on the role of a zombie-killing cowboy in Red Dead Redemption : Undead Nightmare in which the gritty Western world of Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption is invaded by the living dead. I will be competing for Fable III time with my girlfriend who, despite being a casual gamer at best, was thoroughly addicted to Fable II.

Unfortunately for me I won’t be able to commit much time to either of these pursuits, because I will be far too busy writing a novel. Yes, despite having very little free time to speak of, I have committed to attempting to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. As if that weren’t enough writing, I’ve started blogging about it too. Wish me luck.

Since I’ll be spending most of November locked in my room typing away, and my girlfriend will be spending most of it in the living room playing Fable III (which I can’t walk in on for fear of spoilers), I have invested in a pair of walkie-talkies so that we don’t stop speaking altogether. These will be primarily used as a means of co-ordinating the all-important tea breaks.

I may also join thousands of other fools worldwide in growing comedic facial hair during the month of November. This largely depends on what I can get away with at work, however.

I’ll be recording my mo’ and novel progress (possibly with extracts if I actually manage to write anything that isn’t horribly embarrassing) in this here blog, as well as anything else that happens to spring into my mind that may be of interest to my circle of friends.

Here’s to November…