Drexler One

Yay!

John — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 02:35:53 +0000

I finally did it! My official final word count is 50,931 words. I still have to clean it up a bit before I can pass it off to my editor friends, but it’s done. I’m a winner! Yay! It’s not even that crappy! I think the second plot line really improved the story, actually. I guess we’ll see what people think of it when they read it. Anyway, no more for me today. Bye!

Onoes!

John — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 14:36:30 +0000

Just for fun, I decided to try out the word count validator at the NaNoWriMo website. Lo and behold, it comes up with a different count than OpenOffice has been providing me. I was expecting a slight variance, but the official counter drops my count by over 700 words! This means I’m going to have to work a little harder to finish on time. Good thing I checked!

Getting there

John — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:38:24 +0000

It seems I’m about as bad writing on this stupid blog as I am with my novel. I’m adding a second parallel plot line to try to keep my word count climbing. Going back and making the existing stuff longer requires a bunch of reading to make sure I’m adding things in the right place, and that just slows me down too much. It’s got a nice film noir feel to it, sort of a gangster detective type feel. We’ll see if I can milk it for another 6500 words or so. If I can, I’ll finish on time for sure. Unless I don’t.

Am I ahead? or not?

John — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:56:24 +0000

Well, I managed to write enough words today to be considered “on schedule” to meet my goal of 50k words by the end of November. I’m really happy about that. I’ve got one week left and a nice long weekend at the end of it to get everything wrapped up. This all sounds good, but there’s a problem. You see, I just wrote the end of the story.

Yes, that’s right. I’m done. I’ve told the story.

So now what am I going to do with the remaining 13k words I still have to write? Well, I don’t really know. I had this problem before, the last time I wrote a novel during NaNoWriMo, and the only thing I can think to do is go back and add stuff to the story that’s not really there. I can’t do any editing, I can only add stuff, so doing that is going to be a challenge. Hopefully it’ll work out. I really thought I had enough plot to last the whole month, too. Next time around, I’m going to do two novel’s worth of plot so I won’t run out.

So far behind

John — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:15:16 +0000

It’s almost depressing how far behind I am right now. I couldn’t bring myself to write for two full days, and I wasted most of today, too. I realized that I diverged pretty radically from my outline on a few points, so now I’m kind of making up the plot as I go. I have some vague idea where the ending is going to be and I’m writing towards it as I can, but writing a novel is sort of like swimming across a fast-moving river. At the end of the 50k words I’ll be on the far bank, but there’s no telling how far I’ll be swept down river from where I started, so I’m not exactly sure where I’ll end up. I guess that excitement is part of the point of all this. What am I, a philosopher? Meh, maybe. Maybe that’s why my story is so boring.

Ahead once again!

John — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:57:44 +0000

I passed the half-way mark today! I’ve still got a lot of work to do, but there are plenty of things left to write about that aren’t even the main plot. Finding the right balance of main and non-main plot advancement is pretty tricky. I probably won’t get it perfect (ever), but it’ll be better than last time. Maybe next year it’ll improve to the point where I don’t feel bad about it. The crew of the Drexler One has run into some problems, and now it’s time to see how they deal with them! The fate of all humanity is at stake.

Behind as usual

John — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:33:03 +0000

Well, even though my car’s in the shop so I should have lots of extra time to write that I’m not spending driving, I’m somehow still 2500 words behind schedule. Thankfully I’m coming up on a weekend, eh? I’ll watch a little star trek tonight and then dive back in, and hopefully end up with a nice lead come Monday. It being Friday the 13th and all, I’m trying to work in something a little paranormal into today’s writing. See if you can pick it out when (if!) you ever read this steaming pile of wordy crap. To infinity and beyond!!

Good luck, we’re all counting on you.

John — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:17:13 +0000

“Lagrange Control, this is Drexler One, ready to go,” she said.
“Lagrange Control acknowledges. Good luck and God speed.”
“Drexler One acknowledges.” All eyes turned to her. Her face could have been carved from marble, and the suspense was thick as an oversized kidney bean. Suddenly, her face broke into a lopsided grin. “Shit, I hope this thing don’t blow us all to Hell. Light this candle!”

Welcome Distractions

John — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:21:32 +0000

It’s actually kind of bizarre. I spend all my time in front of a computer typing, and yet I find I have difficulty actually getting the letters of English words to come out of my fingers in the right order (never mind the spelling beyond that!). I guess I spend so much time coding that I end up being able to match parentheses quickly but the finger movements for English words are sort of a secondary skill. Anyway, my novel is becoming covered in little red squiggly lines indicating that my story telling brain is outrunning my poor little fingers. But spell checking comes with editing, and all of that is in December. Now I have to go write! I broke 10,000 words!!

Almost caught up

John — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:16:45 +0000

Despite my suddenly-crazy work schedule, I’m almost on schedule. At this point I’m less than 100 words behind. That’s a lot better than I was expecting. Hopefully I’ll be back on track by tomorrow and can get ahead a little over the weekend. I’m pretty pleased with how the introduction is coming.