Tag: NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo – Day 3

I’m pleased because I managed to get the part of the story I wanted done, and make some headway into the next.

I have decided on a little more of an introduction to some of the characters, and just a little insight into the main character, Princess Marigold, a child really, even though she is deemed to be of age in their land, and how there are redeemable qualities, only she spends more time proving she has none.

That, of course, will only last for a very short time, because a calamity is coming, and she will be in the middle of it.

Next, will be an introduction to her younger sister Ophelia, who is anything but a Princess. She is the workaholic, pain in the neck kid who asked too many questions, and then questions the answers. She will have a role to play, but it will not be as straightforward as it might seem.

She, too, can be thought of as ‘strange’ as some kids are, but that is for a specific reason, and you will have to wait to find out what that is.

So, back to work, I have an hour, at least, before the day is up and a head start on the word count may come in handy further down the track.

NaNoWriMo – Day 2

Today, things go better.

I had to go to the hospital with my other half for an appointment with the doctor in the fracture clinic as she has a fracture in one of the tips of her fingers. Nasty and painful.

But….

As with any hospital when they say your appointment is a ten am, when you sit down the sign on the wall says that a wait of up to two hours is possible, just in case any emergencies turn up.

So, time on my hands, it’s a perfect opportunity to write. Especially after she is sent to X-Ray, and kind of disappears. A tenuous text connnection keeps me informed of the wait time, and apparently the loss of her ticket to get the X-Ray, but staff are tracking it down.

Meanwhile back in the fracture clinic…

The story is going well, far better than I thought it would, and by the time she returns from X-Ray, an hour and a half has passed and I’ve got 1,200 odd words written.

I should come down here every day and write!

When I get home I transfer the words to the main book file and then meld it into the text already there, make some alterations to accommodate the new plot line, and presto, 1,746 words are done for the day for a total of 3,928 words so far.

I’m on target, but, as everyone knows, targets are there to be shot down, and I’m just hoping mine won’t, for a while anyway.

NaNoWriMo – Day 1

Well, as expected, the day did not go well. I guess this might the price I pay for trying to be prepared, and have a plan.

For me, things rarely run to a plan, no matter how minutely I plan everything.

Because this is in part, some old writing that was loosely brought together to become a story, and because I took the week before this started to get all of those pieces in some sort of order, when I sat down to begin, I got the legend sorted out in my mind, and then found the next piece of writing was slightly different.

In plot, and the position.

I discovered, after an hour of toing and froing, that some more was going to need to be written in between, so with a sigh, and a little anguish, read forward some other pieces, and found that it might be easier than I forst thought.

Six hours later, the sun setting, and the heat going out of the day, I took a break.

The day culminated in 2,182 words written, read, and reread again, just to be sure. Of course, after I’ve finished and the editing starts in earnest, it’ll be quite possibly a different story.

But, for now, I’m happy with my progress.

This year it’s going to be different

I’m guessing it will be the same for a lot of others.

We are currently coasting out of COVID 19 restrictions to a freer life that allows us almost all of our social norms.

October had seen the start of suburban sports again, from football, to tennis, to little athletics, and to which our youngest grand daughter has re taken up again.  It consumes three or four hours of a Friday night, under lights, and involves over a thousand children aged from 5 through to 17 and parents.

It’s one of a few welcome distractions from writing, and, of course, as a number of people know, November is NaNoWriMo month, and typically for me over the last three years, the time when I write, or finish a work in progress.

This year, as noted elsewhere, I’ll be working on my YA fantasy story.

Last year, November disappeared so quick I nearly missed it.  That’s what happens when its head down tail up buried in the writing.  There’s little time for anything else.

Many years ago, we used to go away somewhere overseas in November, because it was a six week window to cheap airfares.  Then, I guess more people realised it, started travelling, and airlines decided to increase their prices and killed that little treat.

More recently, we began to travel in the few days after Christmas, and return sometime in January, picking times that were reasonably affordable, and apparently people didn’t travel as much.

Now with COVID 19, there is no overseas travel and very little intrastate travel too because of cross border restrictions, so that will not be a distraction any time soon.  And, while it may upset others, I don’t really care.  More time to write, and plan for when we can go somewhere … though that appears it will be travel inside our own country.

And, hopefully, the ice hockey season might get under way, COVID 19 withstanding, and now that I’ve figured out how to get the live coverage over the internet, and at a reasonable hour of the day, it’s one sport I’m determined to make time for.

Since we can’t go, or more to the point, can’t afford to go to, the tickets to any Maple Leaf game at home in Toronto little short of horrendous for us overseas travellers, I guess I’ll survive watching it on TV.

So, I’ve shipped in a supply of Molson beer, and I’m ready to go.

This year’s NANOWRIMO

Once again, it’s into the fray come November 1.

This year, I will not be necessarily starting from scratch though it will feel like it.

Since my eldest grand daughter was about 5, now nearly twelve years ago, I’ve been promising a YA chapter book about a princess, based on her.

She seemed to like the idea of being a royal pain in the neck, which is what I said she would be in the book, but, by the end of her adventure, she will have transitioned from spoilt brat to a woman worthy of becoming a Queen.

A long time ago, when my wife was in hospital having an operation, my daughter who is also the editor and mother to said princess, and the princess herself were sitting around in the hospital room waiting for my wife to return from radiology, and decided to come up with the quest said princess had to go on.

Thus, over the next hour, we came up with a lot of different ways to make her ‘suffer’, ten in fact, because at the end of each ‘trial’ she had to collect a magic stone, ten altogether, which had to be arranged correctly to fulfil the prophesy.

And, of course, save the realm from destruction.

Yes, there’s always some sort of world threatening calamity behind every quest.

And since then, she had become unofficially Princess Marigold, and the title hovering between The Dark Horse and The Legend of The Dark Horse. Or maybe, when it’s finished, something else.

Over the twelve years I have been writing bits and pieces, and in the last month been putting it together in a single file, as well as a synopsis, and, God forbid, a plan, which I found quite by accident, and we must have put together on a forgettable day in 2015. That’s the date on the file.

So, come November, it’s back to it, and hopefully it will be done by her 18th birthday, in September next year.

At least now, she had grown so much, that she will be able to dress up as the princess, and feature on the front cover!

And, as each day passes, I will trying to keep everyone informed of my progress.

So now I’m off the soapbox, back to the end of June report

Sorry, I just went off my head, just before…

It’s the problem with having the news channel on all day, listening to constant bad news.

That’s why, I suppose, it’s up to us writers to create something good, and with a happy ending.

I’ll be honest, I like happy endings.  You know, where the good guys win and the bad guys lose, emphatically.

My latest book, nearly through the 6th editing, and closer to publication than it was a month ago, has a happy ending, but not before a great deal of angst.

A bit like real life these days.

But there are other stories, with twists and turns, some predictable, others out of left field, but, still remembering that you can’t just pull a twist out of nowhere, it has to have hooks set up previously, but not necessarily discernable by the reader.

Until that moment when they realize, ok, so that’s why that piece of unrelated information was dropped back there in Chapter Three.  Of course, they don’t realize the author went back to Chapter Three much later and added it when he or she decided on this new twist.

A recommendation perhaps not to write by the seat of your pants, just the flying.

So…

I’ve finished one story, with 47 episodes.

Another is sitting at 33.

One that I’m particularly enjoying writing is at Episode 55, but I have 6 already planned, which is unusual for me, but it’s how excited I am about it.  I even know basically how it’s going to finish.

Another, my foray into WWII is going along, not quite as quickly as I hoped, but there’s a lot of research required, and thankfully there seems to be enough information about what I need to know about that period about on the internet and in books.

IT’s a part of writing that makes it difficult sometimes because you want to write, but it has to be plausible, and sometimes I’m ferreting about for a week, sometimes two, just to get the facts straight.

I’m also cognizant of the fact NANOWRIMO is coming, and it will sneak up on me.  To do it requires a plan of sorts because 50,000+ words don’t just write themselves, especially over a period of 30 consecutive days.  It requires discipline to write about 2,000 words a day.

Other than that, I have two other books to finish editing and two others that need finishing.

Ugh!

Maybe I should give up social media for a few months……….

Past conversations with my cat – 68

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This is Chester.  We’re both a little tired this morning.

I spent a little too much time on the next few chapters of my NaNoWriMo project and lost track of time.  It was going so well, I thought it best not to interrupt the flow of words.

But…

This morning, after getting to bed about 2:30 am, I found it hard to get out of bed.

Fortunately, as usual, I had the cat alarm clock wake me out of deep sleep to be informed that it was breakfast.

I looked at the clock and saw it was 6:30 am.

I mean to say, Chester was with me at 2:30 when I was writing, and he didn’t tell me that it was time to go to bed, much earlier than I did.

I think he enjoys torturing me like this.

So…

I get up, get him breakfast, some smelly fish food that even he turns his nose up at, and go out to the writing room with the intention of getting on with the story.

Next thing I know, there’s a gentle tapping on my forehead,

I wake up and it’s Chester.

What? I ask.  You can’t possibly want more food.

No.  I thought you were dead.

That’s amusing, he sees me asleep in bed and doesn’t think I’m dead.

How could you think that?

There are only two reasons why people become inanimate in their chair, they have suffered a heart attack or stroke, or they’re dead.

What about simply falling asleep because they’re too tired, and their faithful assistant didn’t tell them to go to bed earlier?

Look, let’s not make a beak deal out of this.  I was concerned.  Perhaps I won’t be next time.  A final glare and he jumps down off the keyboard, which left a page of endless d’s on the page I had been working on.

Perhaps he’s getting old and forgetful, or, suddenly he realises I mean more to him than just giving him food and cleaning the litter.  No, stop deluding yourself.  You’re his friend, he’s not your friend.

Oh, well, for a moment there…

Past conversations with my cat – 67

This is Chester. He’s come down from his bed in our bedroom to see what the commotion is about.

He stops at the top of the stairs down into the lounge room and sees the TV.

I might have guessed, the Maple Leafs are playing, he says.

Yep, I say, gleefully, and they’re winning.

Its not over until you know what…

Way to be a spoilsport. Stop complaining and take a seat. It’s a new day, a new coach, and a new invigoration in the team.

He sits and does that wrap around thing with his tail that indicates irritability.

Don’t get your hopes up, he says. And shouldn’t you be out in the office working on your NaNoWriMo project.

Under control I say. It’s practically writing itself.

Is that a shake of his head?

Past conversations with my cat – 66

This is Chester. He’s feeling very smug.

Our focus has mainly centred on getting the NaNoWriMo project done each day, but in between all of this, a number of issues have arisen.

The first, the Maple Leads, and what Chester calls my obsession with ice hockey.

He doesn’t get it. No one plays ice hockey in this country at the same level, and you can never find it mentioned anywhere, so why bother.

Besides he adds in his most cutting tone, they’re a bunch of losers.

So they’ve lost six games in a row and sacked the 50 million dollar coach, but…

To him it’s but nothing. Chester now refuses to watch the ice hockey with me, not until they win again. That 6-1 drubbing two games back was the start of the slide.

I tell him that we’re missing key players and with the newish lineup it takes time to work as a team.

Right.

So we move to God Friended Me.

What the hell is going on there. Miles and Cara are stumbling, with doubts seeded, Rakesh has just had his heart torn to shreds and the incoming Bishop is at a crossroads.

So, for a little early advice…

What’s going to happen to Miles and Cara?

Chester: I’m cynical, their the heart of the show, they won’t be forced apart. It’s all about the ratings.

What’s going to happen to Rakesh?

Chester: Draw out the angst for another 14 episodes, we’ll have to keep tuning on to see what happens.

And the bishop and his girlfriend?

Chester: Send them to another parish, they’re just a distraction we don’t need.

I’m inclined to agree with him.

Except about the Maple Leafs. They’re in Pheonix tomorrow, maybe with a new head coach they might pull off a miracle.

The Camp NaNoWriMo Award

Finally figured out how to produce the Award.

New Award - 1

I managed to finish 77,145 words for the completed first draft.

2020-05-04 (3)

Let’s hope that it will not take until the next Camp NaNoWriMo to get a second draft completed.

But, the good thing about these camps us that it forces you to get on with the job and complete it within the specified month.

Perhaps I should set aside July to artificially create another Camp for myself and work within the parameters on my own.