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New Advent Calendar - NaNoWriMo Day 1

11/1/2014

1 Comment

 
PictureImage by Dominik Martin
Maybe it's a little early to be reporting my Day One, especially since it isn't even noon yet, but my husband and I have made an agreement to give me a November Novel Advent Calendar. When I make my 1,667 words of the day, I get a treat, basically left over Halloween candy. Well, I'm on my treat break now with 1,785 words under my belt, and as promised, I was rewarded. I think word goal chocolate tastes even better than normal chocolate. 

I'm certainly not done writing for today. I'm going to try for those reverse NaNo numbers again, though that's what I said I was going to do last year and we all know how well that worked out - or if you don't, I'll just tell you that I dropped out of the race at 15,000 words. 

I did get the advantage this year of starting NaNo on a weekend. There's pro's and con's to this. The pro is that I know that I can stay up for the midnight kick-off and write until I drop. The kind of con is that having Halloween on a weekend means that I have no excuse not to celebrate it! We hosted our own little Halloween party. I am NOT complaining about this. Both Matt and I love hosting and have been looking forward to this for a long while. Loved everyone who came over, loved the cheesy movies and the board games - yes, we have nerd parties, get over it, in costume, too! - but that meant that I was still technically hosting come midnight. I openly announced that I would disappear around 11:30 to prepare, but then I looked at the time and it was 11:56pm. So much for getting my head in the game. I still went into the corner with my computer and started typing, but once that last movie ended, just before 1:00am, I still put my work down to say my goodbyes to those who were heading out. The last of them stayed until just a little after 2:00am, and in that time I had made it to 1,085 words. For having my attention divided and really not being as writing ready as I had hoped to be, I think I did pretty well. 

Slept-in this morning, of course, and I will have to spend some time today with normal life things like cleaning up from the party - which isn't too bad because we have awesome friends who don't act like animals and offer to help - and day job duties like marking and planning. My day job is not great for maintaining hobbies, just saying. It's mostly what killed my writing last year, even if I made up for it in the summer. 

Highlights: character descriptions. I'm still getting the feel for the narrative voice I want to use in this. I've flipped back and forth in my head while I was planning so I'm just seeing what happens now. And a 12-2am writing start doesn't always get me on the same foot that I'll keep writing on, anyways, so I've got time to play around with it. Heck, if I have to write the same scene 3 times, who cares, one of them, or parts of all of them will come together when it's time for re-writes and revisions. 

RIGHT! Characters! One of the reasons I wanted to try this Alice in Wonderland project was to really have fun playing around with crossover characters. I'm just now introducing the nightclub and talking about two very personality-filled characters who are lurking outside, summoning their patrons to the door. 

I think that I have plot in this story, but at this rate, I think I'd have fun just writing through a series of character introductions... which is oddly enough one of my complaints about CATS so either I'm being hugely hypocritical or I'm starting to understand where Andrew Lloyd-Webber is coming from... 

Don't worry, if I get to 50,000 words with all character and no plot, it just means that I'll have another big summer project ahead of me. 

Well, time to re-fill the hot chocolate cup and get back to it! Maybe I can double my word count before lunch... and by lunch I mean a late lunch because I've only been awake for a couple hours...

Happy Writing, Everyone!

1 Comment
Sharon link
11/12/2014 08:57:46 am

I just figured out you were posting all your NaNoWriMo thoughts here (though I guess this is the most likely spot you'd be posting). I love writing character introductions and getting a feel for each personality. I find it hard to maintain consistency through my story, though, sometimes a few characters go astray and I have to rein them back in so that they still make sense in story form!

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