Wow, where'd the time go?

I just realized that the National Novel Writing Month ended a good two weeks ago, and I haven't said a thing about it here. Long story short, I made it. 52,568 words in one month.

I don't know if the last part of the novel could be exactly called an ending. That's one spot where I normally have trouble in my writing, figuring out when and how to bring it all to a conclusion. Even with these blogs, I usually sit around staring at the last paragraph and thinking "Ok, now how do I bring this all together without making it look like I just walked away from the keyboard at a random point?"

I think part of the problem in this case was that when I hit 50,000 words, I realized I was only at about the 2/3 mark. I had a lot more I wanted to do with the novel from that point, which I had known from the outset would be the case. But, then I got to 52,000 words, and I still didn't see the end in sight. So, I just wrapped up what I was working on there, ended that section of the book, and said "Ok, I can call this done."

I don't know when I'll get back to it. I want to flesh it out some more, get to the actual ending. But I was already in the middle of a couple other things when I started this project. I have some notes here from editors who read two of my stories. My first priority is to read those notes, go over the stories with a fine toothed comb, and figure out what adjustments to make.

I think I may have said this before in this blog, but the notes I have here from one of the editors who read "Long and Short" seem to stem from the fact that I revised the story heavily several times. The draft I have now is about half as long as the original draft. A lot of that was dead wood. I was trying to tell two or three stories at once. But it looks like I may have removed more than I should have. I'll have to consider that carefully in my next draft of the story.

The other critique is a bit meatier, and I nearly slapped myself on the forehead at one comment. I fell into the dangerous writing trap of telling rather than showing early on in the story. That's the first thing I'm going to have to work on.

I'm almost done with school now, so I'll have a lot more free time. That means no more excuses for slacking on my writing. Heck, if I was able to pound out a 50,000 word novel while attending class, I should have no problem revising my latest story, and getting to work on the next.

I think I'll send "Where Do We Go From Here" to Leading Edge. They say they'll consider anything up to 15,000 words, and this one is about 11,000, so that shouldn't be a problem. Maybe I'll finally strike gold with this one. And while I'm waiting on that, I have "Little Lucy" to work on. Time to get back into the wild world of publishing.

-E. Maxfield Moen

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