It's Almost Over

Wow. Four days to go on NaNoWriMo. I passed the 45,000 word mark last night, and I might have 46,000 words down in another hour or so. That would give me plenty of breathing space for this last stretch, since I could write only about 1,000 words a day and still be done in time.

That wall I was worried about never came. I never hit a spot in this novel where I was stymied on the next step for more than an hour or two. When that happened, I just played a video game or read something else for a while, and when I came back, I knew where I wanted to go.

The only thing I'm really stuck on now is precisely how I'll end the book. I don't want to just stop writing when I hit 50,000 words, I want there to be some closure. A sequel hook, if nothing else. I think I have an idea, but it's going to be tricky.

This has been a real ride. At first, I was exhilarated, and times I still find myself in that sort of zen state I hit when I'm really into what I'm writing. But lately, it's been a real chore, pounding out this novel every single day for a month straight. I think I'll be real glad in a few days, when this is over and I can turn away from writing for a little while. But just a little while.

-E. Maxfield Moen

Week 4

I'm fully on track now, as far as sheer word count goes. I should be hitting the 40,000 word mark tomorrow. It's rather breathtaking, in a way. I find it hard to believe I've been doing this for four weeks now. It doesn't even feel like it's been two weeks.

When I started doing this, I said to myself that 50,000 words isn't a whole lot, as far as novels go. It's not even 200 pages. I could read a 200 page novel in three days, and that's just in my leisure time. And yet, at the same time, when I realize that I've written almost 40,000 words in less than a month, it shocks me to the core. I always wanted to be a novelist, but I never before now considered the size of a project like that. Even in my previous attempts to hammer out a novel, I always looked at it more as discrete parts that fit together, rather than a cohesive whole.

Of course, that's the way to tackle a big project. Don't look at it as one huge thing, or you'll get overwhelmed. That's how I'm approaching this novel, too. I think what's really surprising me is how the ideas are just flowing out. I thought the time constraint might strangle me after a while, but I've been going strong. Every day now since November 1st, I've sat in front of this computer and refused to let myself budge until I'd written something. It's a good feeling, to know that this is something I can do, if I put my mind to it.

Well, there's only one more week to go. And unless I get a major case of writer's block, I don't see anything that can stop me.

-E. Maxfield Moen

Past the hump

I did a lot of catching up today, and now I'm past the halfway mark. 25,857 words. I once again ended up adding another part I'd planned on mentioning later. However, there was a good spot for it, and the timing felt right, so I included it.

The proverbial waste matter is gonna be hitting the fan for the main characters real soon. I've got several game-changing events coming up in the next few sections, all in preparation for the final event. I'm still confident I'll have this done by November 30th, come hell or high water.

-E. Maxfield Moen

NaNoWriMo, Week 3

I haven't updated this in a while, so I thought I'd mention my progress. I'm almost at the halfway point, 24,000+ words and counting. I slacked off a bit on the weekend, so I tried to play some catchup tonight.

The plot's not moving as quickly as I expected, I keep throwing in stuff I hadn't seen coming. For instance, tonight I had planned on writing about a press conference. Instead I added a part with Dr. Edwards and his two companions discussing the press conference in his apartment. Then when I got ready to move to the press conference, I found Dr. Edwards talking to his cabbie on the way to the press conference.

I imagine if I planned on this actually being a 50,000 word novel when I'm done with it, the plot would seem to be dragging its heels. Maybe it is in any case. But, this is the first draft, and one thing I've heard from several sources is "Write now, edit later." I'll just get down everything I have in my head now, and worry about tightening the story up later, as I usually try to do.

That's about all for now. The way I have this planned out, the real fun stuff is right around the corner, just in time for the halfway point. In further drafts of the story, this will probably be closer to the 1/4 mark. I can already see a couple sections in my head I can probably chop out if the pacing is really that much of an issue. But that's for another time. This is turning out to be a much wilder project than I'd anticipated, and I'm still looking forward to November 30th and 50,000 words. Wish me luck.

-E. Maxfield Moen

Phew

I didn't get around to writing last night like I'd planned to. I was goofing off...OK, I was procrastinating, and by the time it occurred to me I should be getting down and dirty I was having trouble keeping my eyes opened. So when I rolled out of bed today, I told myself in a very firm tone of voice that I was going to knock out at least 2000 words before I could go out and screw around with my friends.

Instead, I got down a little over 2,500 words before realizing I was seeing double and decided I needed a break. So I'm stepping back from the novel for a little while, and instead looking around at the forums on the site I'm doing all this writing for. My stats for the site say that at the rate I'm going, I'll be done by November 28th. This is a huge improvement from the date of December 5th it had given me before I updated my word count.

I'm still on Chapter Three, which has already become much longer than I'd expected. The chapter is basically a huge Infodump, explaining the basic operation of magic in this novel, and some history. I'll probably end up breaking a lot of it up and sprinkling it throughout the novel in later drafts. But for right now, one thing I've read over and over regarding writing is "Write now, edit later." that's pretty much also the goal of National Novel Writing Month, so for now I'm going to let the ideas flow out, and worry about how well it all works later.My mantra for the rest of this month is will be "This is just a rough draft."

It's often tempting to go back and revise something, or to hover over a sentence and say "What's the best way to phrase this?" But I have to keep in mind that my goal right now is just to get words on paper, I have all the time in the world after November to smooth over awkward sections, to edit, revise, and rework the novel. I've got a long way to go yet.

-E. Maxfield Moen

Update

I had hoped to get some more writing done last night, but I didn't get a chance. I had to be up early today, and I forgot about it until a couple hours after I should have gone to bed. So, to make up for it, I just did some writing now. For some reason, I seem to be at my creative best in the wee hours of the morning. But at this point in the novel, I'm still in territory that I've firmly fleshed out in my mind, so getting the creative juices flowing was no problem.

My word count is up to over 6,000 words now, which seems like a good pace. If I can keep it up, I should have 50,000 words banged out before I know it. I plan on trying for another 2,000 words tonight, but we'll see what happens.

Stephen King, in his book On Writing, suggested that you should write three pages every day. I've felt a little guilty that I haven't done anything approaching that up till now. But so far, I've knocked out 11 pages in about three days, so it looks like I'm finally following his advice. Let's hope I can keep this up.

I paused in my writing about halfway through Chapter Three. I hope to at least finish that chapter tonight, and maybe get started on Chapter Four. I'm still working on ideas that have been percolating for a while now. The details get more and more vague somewhere around Chapter 5, but I know where I'm going with the story, even if I'm not fully sure how to get there yet. However, the whole point of this National Novel Writing Month exercise is just to write away, so I'm not too worried.

The only thing at this point that could get me worried is if I start slacking off. That's part of the reason why I'm writing these blogs, to keep myself motivated. If I don't follow through with this, I'll have documented evidence of my laziness right here where anyone can see it. The thought of the shame that will cause should help keep me going.

Finishing Chapter Three should be a breeze. As I said, I've had the whole thing mapped out in my head for months, so I know exactly where I'm going with this section of the story and how I want to get there. After a while, the road gets a bit rougher, but I've marked out most of the landmarks in my head, so I at least know where I'm going. I'm going to stop with the road metaphor here before I beat it to death.

So, 6,000 words down, 44,000 to go. And a little under four weeks to do it in. This is going to be interesting.

-E. Maxfield Moen

NaNoWriMo Day 2

Well, I finished Chapter 1 of Mage War. I found myself introducing something a lot sooner than I'd expected. With only 50,000 words to work with, I gotta keep the pace fast and flowing. I posted all of Chapter 1 on the site as an excerpt of the novel, I figured that should be enough to give anyone checking me out a good idea of my writing style and the feel of the novel.

It's funny, 50,000 words sounds like a lot at first blush, but it really isn't. Chapter one came out to just over 4,000 words. If I keep that average going, the book will end up being 12 and a half chapters. Of course, that's just for this site, I won't have any such constraints when I begin reworking the novel for actual publication. But I want to try and fit in as many of the ideas I've had for this novel into that 50,000 words. I think maybe one thing I'll do in this draft is exclude a couple side characters I'd planned on using. It should improve the pacing and the wordcount without seriously damaging the story. Especially as I've already decided to expand the role of some other characters.

Anyway, I think I'm doing pretty well with this so far. I'm pretty confident I'll have those 50,000 words banged out before the deadline on November 30th. I'll post more developments here as they occur.

Crossing the Rubicon

I decided to join the National Novel Writing Month, which started today. It's an organization designed to kick authors like me in the butt to get writing. Basically, it runs through the month of November, and writers who sign up get 30 days to pump out a 50,000 word novel.

Obviously, 30 days isn't long enough to thoroughly research, revise, and edit a novel, even one that short. The idea is to just put your imagination and creativity into overdrive and just write. The actual quality of the novel is secondary. This made me a bit nervous when I was thinking about joining. It seemed to me like it glorified hack writing. But, in the end, I decided that I'd try and see what a deadline does to motivate me. If nothing else, by the end of this month, I should have a very rough first draft.

The story I decided to go with for this is one I've been kicking around for a while. I'm calling it Mage War. In essence, it picks up right where "Where Do We Go From Here" left off. That short story ended with Dr. Darrell Edwards III making a presentation at a scientific conference. Mage War starts off a few hours after the conference, with Darrell and his friends watching the fallout from his conference and deciding their next steps. I've had a vague outline in my head for a while of what I want to do with the story, but I haven't really written anything yet. So I thought that this would be a good novel to write this month.

I signed up today, and as it'll be midnight in 5 minutes, that'll give me 29 days to get going on this novel. The timing is a bit annoying, since I'm still taking classes this month, but if I hold off, I'll have to wait till next year to try again. No time like the present. Maybe the added constraint of balancing this with my schoolwork will motivate me more.

-E. Maxfield Moen