I won again.

Yes, this makes number seven in a row for me. I've participated in Nano every year since 2002. And never lost. That's something I'm damn proud of.

This year was the usual struggle. I righted myself about four days in when I realized I couldn't write teenagers as my main POVs. So I jostled things around a little. But I still had pieces left over from the original version. Did I have enough? Could I still win?

This morning I dumped all of the story I had into a massive doc file. To this moment, I really don't know how much I wrote today. I'm a little scared to find out. The spreadsheet said 1400 words but it was probably closer to twice that, even with reusing/retrofitting old scenes. And I'm nowhere near done with the actual story. Pretty nifty feat all things considered.

I also completed mini_nanowrimo. I don't know what the final count for that will be yet. I'm undecided about next year. I may take a year off to try out the Yuletide challenge. I can't imagine not writing in November. That would be... weird.

The victory is a little bittersweet today with losing tv_elf. But we managed.

Whew, I finally caught up. I'm at 15042, thanks to a late night surge.

One lovely widget I've discovered: Write or Die. You can set yourself a word count goal and a time. I usually worked in half hour increments. And if you fall off the pace, well, it lets you know in no uncertain terms. Right now it's working better in IE than Firefox which is annoying.

The book itself is chugging right along. I'm starting to find ways to rewrite the older scenes I had started with. I basically made the three boys brothers, which simplifies matters considerably. I'd rather not create three sets of parents for this thing. I'm a little worried that I'm doing so much of the real world scenes and none of the fantasy bits yet. But I'm getting there.

"I wrote that book in three days flat. On the third day, a Monday, I sent an excuse to the hospital, because I did not dare leave my book at that point – I had to go on until I had finished it. It was not a long book – a mere fifty thousand words – but it had been with me a long time."

Agatha Christie, Autobiography on the writing of the Mary Westmacott book "Absent in the Spring"

I came upon this quote while rereading her autobiography. She talks a lot about the writing process. She also talks about carrying a novel around you for years and years until finally it's the right time for it to be written. I have to say her breakneck pace (16K a day!) is quite astounding in the day of handwriting and typewriters. My hands hurt just thinking about it.

And there's her hardboiled comrade Dashiell Hammett who set his goal for 5000 words a day.

I've managed 3000 on a really really good day and 4000 once during the third Nano. And those were using a laptop computer!

I've learned to accept some things about Nano.

1. I will write like mad in the first week.

2. By Veteran's Day, I'll have a "Ack, this isn't working" epiphany.

3. I find some way to right the ship and ride that wave of renewed productivity to 50K.

That's just the way it's worked for all but the first year. I still think that first year was a dream, because I don't know how I came up with an actual plot that moved forward.

I think I know the problem this time. I'm just not sure how to solve it yet.

Taking a cue from pinkpolarity, I'm posting my Nano pester list. The sad fact about Nano is no matter how much I try the "no research" style stories, I still wind up needing to do research on the fly. That's how I've wound up researching the Met opera radio broadcasts at 2am some November evening. Or finding out how long it would take to ride a horse down the Vancouver island coast. It's just the way things happen.

My list is fairly sedate:

Philadelphia: I visited the city recently, so I have a decent picture of it in my head. I'm less interested in the touristy parts of town and more in how people live. I'd like my characters to live in Northeastern Philly, specifically around Port Richmond. Any other ethnic neighborhoods, particularly Eastern European, would be useful.

Polish culture/folklore/mythology: For some dumb reason, I keyed on the idea of the family being Polish. So any stories of growing up Polish would be helpful. I've found some good lists of names and some sites on folklore. What I'm not finding are any references to mythical places, like Camelot or Asgard? Something they'd know and recognize, something they may have been taught as a child. Likewise, is there anyone children would recognize as a protector? The Polish certainly have enough saints.

Board games & Chess: For board games, I'm thinking more fantasy oriented games, like Settlers of Cataan, although maybe elements of card games, like Magic. Some of the characters are heavy into chess. Has anyone competed in chess tournaments or taken chess lessons?

Missing children: Two kids (both 13-14 years old) disappear during a board game with their friend. The friend reappears. The others are never heard from again. How do the police treat this? Is the friend and family considered suspects?

Catholic schools: I need experiences in attending Catholic schools. The students would be junior high/high school age, if it helps. I'm hoping to have one of the priests/monks to be at the school watching over some of the kids. Is it more common to have gender-separated schools or combined?

Oh, yes and hockey: I was thinking about Philly sports and of course Michael doesn't like the Phillies or the Eagles. He's a Flyers fan, god help me. Other than you need to get the little puck past the goalie and that Alex Ovechkin rules, I really don't know much about hockey. Football I can describe, baseball I can fudge, hockey I'm at a loss for words other than "He shoots, he scores!"

crossposting to my other journals

Victory is mine! *falls over dead* Or to borrow the bumper sticker created by Auburn, "Fear the other hand!"

This was a slow gradual Nano, rather barreling through at high speed. But I still pulled it off. I honestly thought I wouldn't finish until sometime tomorrow, but I managed my best day last night at 4,000 words. I'm still boggled that myself, since I came home with only a few hundred words done at work. This year was the year I couldn't multitask at all. Maybe I'm getting older, maybe the jaw issues are making it harder to concentrate, whatever that mojo was gone this year. I worked on Nano or nothing else. Do you know how much work I used to get done during football games? I can still write with music, thank god. Even if my Nano's soundtrack goes from John Cougar Mellencamp to Duran Duran in as many minutes.

Written for mini_nanowrimo:

( Just a Girl; 200 words )

5071 / 50000 words. 10% done!

Nano is going somewhat slowly for me this year. The word count picked up a little last night with the introduction of a new character into the works, so maybe things are changing for the better. I'm still behind though.

I nearly had heart failure yesterday morning when I opened my files and discovered I was missing about 400 words from the previous night. I use Rough Draft which saves fairly regularly, so I was curious what happened. Rather than worry about it, I tried to rewrite the bits from scratch. And then discovered the problem. I had backed up my novel on a thumb drive, but I also had a copy on the laptop. Guess who forgot which version she was working off of? So I fiddled around and edited a little (the four letter "e" word!) and now things are better. I've made sure I have the same version on both drives now, just for sanity's sake.

I'm keeping up with mini_nanowrimo fairly well. I'm working on one or two fic ideas, just to get some words written on them. Usually that's more than enough to do the 100 words a day I set for myself.

This place needs a good dusting. Maybe in December... Friendly reminder: mini_nanowrimo closes memberships on October 31st. For those who don't want the sheer masochism of the full Nano, you just have to write a minimum of 100 words a day. Every day the mods post a collection of pictures, lyrics, words, prompts. You can write original or fanfic or whatever. You do not have to post anything, unless you want to. I enjoyed it quite a lot. It was a good outlet when I didn't want to work on the actual Nano. Nano itself is a scant day away. I'm not panicking... yet. That'll come eventually.

So I'm having reasonable success with grindstone this time around. Maybe focusing myself on one particular unfinished project helped that along. Or maybe I was just in the mood again. I'm over 8K as we speak, including the longish scene that'll be changing in the final version. I added a new character that I rather liked, but I needed to tweak her backstory. I suspect it'll smooth out once I've put all the files into one big one. It's just easier to track word count changes if they're separate, since I don't always remember to note word counts before I start.

In writing news, I've signed up for grindstone. I'm hoping to work on one of my retro era stories for the event. I've written part of it and think I've found a way to write the rest. Whether it'll be 10,000 is the $64,000 question though.

So I did that number crunching of all the writing I did for November:

Nano: 50,743
sga_flashfic 1: 2,042
sga_flashfic 2: 502
Mini Nano: 6988

Bringing us to a grand total of 60,275 words.

*blinks*
*double blinks*

Okay, maybe I'll buy the prolific tag I've been given, after all.

And here we are. The last entry for the mini_nanowrimo challenge. I had my doubts going into this challenge, but I enjoyed it a lot. Some days more than others, but that's true of the regular Nano too. I wrote more SGA fic in this one month than I've managed for nearly a year. Hopefully I can ride the wave to bigger and more impressive fic. This piece however is original fic, based in part on a story I wrote awhile back for a sf writing class.

( The Long Room; original fic; 220 words )

Victory is mine, but we have a long way to go before winning the war. I still need to write my mini_nanowrimo entry for that challenge. Hopefully I can maintain the writing momentum. If nothing else, I proved that even when all hell is breaking loose around me, I can Nano. I just would rather a slightly less torturous route next year, please?

So according to the count, I have cracked the 50K mark. I will have to wait until tomorrow to pull all the seperate files together for the big behemoth. I need to write a whole lot more to finish up the storyline. Three major sections haven't even been started yet. I'll save that for later. I am determined that I will actually finish a Nano. I'm including the first 6K that I wrote initially. I was hoping I could catch up with a final burst of speed, but it didn't quite work out that way. The most I can hope to whittle it down to about 3K which is pretty damn impressive actually. Better than either of my previous years in that department. One of these days I will figure out how to eliminate that first week of dithering.

Only one more day of mini_nanowrimo to write. I'm pleased beyond measure with how that little experiment worked for me. I wanted an small outlet for the more fannish stuff while I was doing Nano. Of course, I hadn't intended the Nano to go fannish, but stuff happens. After this is over, I want to do a full accounting of how much I wrote, because I'm really curious.

And our next to last mini_nanowrimo entry again uses the visual prompt. I'm not actually sure whose POV this is. I'm assuming one of the Americans, maybe even Sheppard, but he doesn't quite have the right old West drawl. What can they do about the Wraith anyway? Force them into small odd space like the Reavers? Oh and less than 1000 words before 50K. I'm a happy happy camper.

( Good fences; 155 words )

In honor of my medical procedure today, I wrote this little piece about Rodney hopped up on painkillers in "Sateda" for mini_nanowrimo. I'm hoping I don't have that reaction. I also hope I can somehow function. I have less than 5K to write for my Nano dammit!

( Morphine; Rodney McKay; 208 words )

Here is the latest entry for mini_nanowrimo based on the photo prompt. I'm actually considering extending this little piece, because now I'm curious about this world.

( Trail of the Ancients; 238 words )

Happy Thanksgiving to all the Americans on my friends list. This is another entry for the mini_nanowrimo set during third season after "McKay & Mrs. Miller". I'm sure they should have had this discussion before this season, but in light of meeting his sister, it made more sense for later.

( Thanksgiving; Rodney and Teyla; 359 words )

Here is an entry for mini_nanowrimo. I've done random exercises for the last two days. Nothing really to write home about. This marks my return to SGA. Since I'm focusing on Radek's introduction in my Nano, this is fairly relevant. This is Radek's thoughts after the events of "Trinity".

( Hubris; Dr. Radek Zelenka; 192 words )