Archive for November, 2007

8
Nov

NanoWriMo – Week 1 in Review

   Posted by: Michell    in SWN Archives

Well, it has been an interesting week, to put it mildly.  I was able to kick off Nanowrimo in the manner I was hoping for.  I had over 2,500 words my first day which was exactly where I hoped to be.  Still, despite hitting the word-count, I wasn’t thrilled with what I put down.

Yes, I know that the quality of Nanowrimo output can sometimes be a bit suspect but I had pretty high hopes for this book.  By day two I had straightened out the story and things were moving along better.  Now on day eight I’m just shy of 18,000 words; maybe not quite as far along as Aaron or Terry, but I’m well on track to hitting my goal within the first 20 days.

I’ve already managed to contact some of my friends from last year.  One friend who goes by the handle of ShyEmpress was living in Calgary last year.  This year she’s in Tanzania and still competing.  Thanks to Nano, I’ve been able to get back in contact with her.  It’s just one of the many things I like about Nano.  You meet new people and make new friends.

I also like the status bar.  I’m actually thinking about getting a status bar of my own whenever I’m working on a project.  It’s very motivating.

Now there is one thing that I have learned.  I was wondering how I would handle the whole introduction of the previous book in the sequel.  How do I give the reader some sense of what happened before?

That could be why I was having such trouble starting the story.  I wasn’t sure how to tell the reader what had happened before without regurgitating the entire first book.  I decided to only talk about the bits that mattered, those things that made my character who he was and brought him to the current spot.

Once I got past that, I was able to move on and actually start writing what I wanted.  Since then, the story has truly become a family project.  My wife and kids have been giving me ideas for the story which has really helped.  I did go into the whole project knowing what the overarching story line would be as well as a couple of twists, but the extra help has been great.

I have set a single hour personal best.  I wrote just over 2,600 words in 60 minutes.  I know I won’t be able to do that every single time I sit down, but it’s nice to know that I can do it when I have to.

So that’s the update for this week.  Hopefully next week will be just as good.

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1
Nov

The Meter is Running

   Posted by: Michell    in SWN Archives

Well… Nano is officially on and despite my earlier bravado, I am somewhat concerned.  I just started a new job on October 1st with a brand-new company.  Oddly, that has meant that my focus isn’t quite on Nano which means that I’m not quite as prepared as I would like to be.

Still, even though I have some butterflies flitting around in my stomach, I am excited at the opportunity to write another book.  I was out for my mid-day stroll with a friend of mine and we were talking about my last Nano experience.  As we were talking I realized just how much it meant to me.  I know this one will be even better.

As I’m writing this post, I’m already logged into the local Nano IRC chatroom.  This chatroom was witness to some truly magnificent Word Wars (including one where yours truly was forced to humble another member of SWN).  Besides being a place to improve productivity, it was also a great venue to network.  I met several people who I would never have known otherwise.  People who I definitely look forward to seeing again this year.

So far, things are looking a bit slow on the old IRC, but I suspect that it’s because people like Mr. Kite are going through the stretching exercises, likely accompanied with much muttering and chanting.  Me, I’m taking these moments to reacquaint myself with commands and some of the more colorful characters from last year.

Anyway, enough rambling… let’s talk strategy for a moment here.

For those of us who have read any writing self-help books, one message has probably been common in every book:  write a little everyday.  Why, if you only wrote 300 words per day, every day, you would have more than 109,000 words written in a single year.  That’s only slightly more than 1 page per day.

Doesn’t sound like much does it?  Sounds almost possible, doesn’t it?  I’m here to say it absolutely is.  Last year I was averaging about 5 pages per day.  20 days later, I hit my 50K words.

This year, I expect more of the same… I just hope I don’t have to work too many late nights with the new job.

With that, I wish all the participants good luck and I’ll keep you posted as to my progress.

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