Dear friends and family

For the second year in a row I have managed to write the 50,000 words necessary to be considered a NaNoWriMo 'winner' ('officially' 50,101). One thing that is interesting about this year's effort is that there is still quite a bit of story left to write at the end of the month. It's also a somewhat better story (though, not that much) than last year's.

If you care, you can see my author profile here (don't miss the link to an excerpt from the story).

What's next? When can you read the whole thing?

What's next is that I'll probably add the missing bits to the story in dribs and drabs over the next couple of months. I also want to get back to another story I started at the beginning of the year that was interrupted by house hunting, moving and finding a new job.

You'll be able to read the whole story after I add the missing bits and write (or edit) the second (or maybe third draft). The current form of the story is pretty much unreadable. The plot and characterizations changed over the course of the month. About 20% of the words that I wrote during the month are in the count but no longer contribute to the story. But I think I will try to finish it next year and make it available to those that want to see it.

Thank you to everyone that put up with me during the month, especially Judy, who gave me the space to do my thing.

And finally a plug for NaNoWriMo. As far as I'm concerned, this is a complete blast. A frustrating, time consuming, life wrecking, life enhancing blast. If you've ever finished (or just quit reading) a novel and thought to yourself 'even I could have written a better book than that,' you owe it to yourself to try sometime. Pick up or borrow a copy of 'No Plot, No Problem' by Chris Baty, read it and join the fun next November!

God bless,
Bill

Hurrah! I did it again! (50,101)

I still haven't quite finished the story and what is done will need a rewrite. But I have crossed the 50,000 word finish line for the month. This writing stuff is always surprising. You never really know where the story will go or what these characters will do until you have them start interacting with each other and the setting and situation.

Very cool. I'm off to wind down and then try to get a decent night's sleep. Hopefully my characters won't wake me up early, wanting to party some more. Good night all.

The End is Near (46,491)

Not a big morning, but fair enough. 1500 words makes me 93% of the way toward the goal. Only 3500 or so words to go. At least the story is somewhat settled in and I just have to finish telling it.

Speed typing (44,977)

I just knocked out 922 words in about an hour. Not bad stuff either. Just need to do that again about five and a half more times in the next two days.

Snow Day? (44,055)

Last night a big freeze overtook the area. I think I'm still going to have to go into work, or at least get something done working from home. I got almost 1400 words in this morning. If I can do that again, or a bit more, tonight, I'll be pretty happy. Gotta keep moving.

Got my 2500 done (42,691)

And a little more. I'd still like to get another 1000 tonight. But I don't think my brain can do it right now. I'll have to get a bunch done in the morning!

Yay! over 40K (41,178)

Actually, I went over 40K with a productive day yesterday: almost 5000 words. I added another 1100 this morning and will try to get a couple thousand written tonight.

Being over the 40,000 mark is a big deal. It seems to put the 50,000 word goal in sight. But I know there is still a bunch of work to be done. First, I have to write about 3,000 words a day - every day - for the rest of the week. Then, after I let this thing, this story, which has changed focus and plot about a half a dozen times in the month, sit for a month or two, I will have to write a second draft.

On the up side, I will have written another 'novel'. And I can get back to my regular life. And I can get back to my other writing. Yay!

Sorry, Cal and Peter (35,084)

Wow, I wrote almost 3000 words yesterday. I didn't realize my morning was so productive. Today's early output was not as good, just under 1000 words in a couple of hours. But I guess today's drama was a bit more personal than usual, I had Peter lose his job. Yesterday's crisis was just Cal having to get his car to the shop.

The best part about today is that I'm over 35K. The bad part is that that is still about 4 days behind the pace. I should have tried harder to get some stuff written during my 'vacation'. Wasn't that the point?

Oh well. I need to work from where I am now. I still have much of this weekend left and four more mornings. Let's do it.

Plodding (plotting) along (33,114)

I didn't think I wrote 1800 words this morning, but I guess I did. I'd still like to get another 600-1200 words in today. We'll see if I can get back to it tonight.

I had some revelations on where the plot ought to go, yesterday. It's not completely different than the original treasure story, but probably more realistic and hopefully more dramatic. I did a little bit of re-write (additions) yesterday to re-orient the plot. But I mostly made notes on where some changes need to go. Unfortunately, I'm going to lose about 10K-15K words in the rewrite. Hopefully, I'll add that many and more in order to get a well-rounded story.

This is indeed an interesting process, especially compressed into one month like this.

Not as easy as I thought (29,000)

I thought the writing was going to get easier as I got out of the early part of the story and into the meat of it. I guess what I wrote today is just more transition and not really a necessary part of the book. It took over two hours to eek out 1200 words. At least it was progress.

Finally launched the boat (27,797)

I finally got past all of the setup and got the houseboat out on the lake. A few more hints dropped that the dive shop operator is not very supportive of treasure hunters.

Between the two sessions, this was my third most productive day this year, 2852 words.

Good progess (26,558)

I obviously made good progress over the weekend. I'm going to try to keep pushing through the next couple of days and at least catch up.

My plan for the holiday weekend is to write a bunch in the mornings (sort of like I'm already doing, but without the need to stop and get to the office) and then enjoy the afternoons with the family. I think that will get me solidly up on my word count. Who knows, maybe I'll hit 50K by next Sunday. Wouldn't that be grand?

Treasure buried (18,754)

I think I managed to create a pretty decent treasure story. A couple of details really added to it and changed the name to Three Wise Men's Gold. And one surprise came out of it, too. Now I have an antagonist. Someone else that knows about the gold and actually feels that it is rightfully his. He is not only searching for it, but he works hard at discouraging anyone else that might be trying to claim it. Thankfully, he's probably not that smart or well financed. But he will be a pain.

Continuing the saga (18,090)

I'm just about finished with the saga of of Henry's Hidden Haul. Hopefully, it will seem like enough incentive for the story to launch into Lake Roosevelt in the next chapter.

Gold Rush (17,138)

Today I got to start the story of how the treasure gets to the bottom of the lake. I've chosen to tell the actual story of the Henry family and how they worked hard to get their fortune and I will continue with how they lost it. In a way this is a departure from the main story, but I think it lends to the air of adventure. It may need to be edited down later.

Love scene? (15,668)

I finished off the chapter I was working on yesterday. I had been working toward a fight and a reconciliation. Both are a little understated, but I think they fit. Maybe I need loonier characters?

Bogged a little (15,163)

Managed to squeeze out another 2K words or so. I should be just about ready to launch into the main plot, though. I'm hoping that will be easier going.

I start my new job tomorrow. Yay!

Yup, This is definitely more fun (13,054)

My second chapter is a little short on action and long on dialog. But that can probably be fixed later. And I made up an entire conversation to happen as text messages. I'm going to have Eric help me with the translation, so that I get it a little more 'correct'.

Still a little behind, but making up ground. Stay tuned.

Yay! One fifth of the way! (10,204)

I hit the 10K word mark today! Yay! But at what cost? It turns out I've decided to scrap the story represented by the first 8K or so words. I just could not bring myself to finish it. It was too dark and depressing.

My new story is still set on the houseboat on Lake Roosevelt, so maybe I'll be able to salvage a couple of thousand words for that, along with much of the research. In the meantime, I'm keeping them around as 'invisible filler' at the top of the new story so I can claim credit for writing them this month. :)

The new story is so much more fun. The main character is much less like me, so I feel much more free to have things happen to him and have him react in ways that are much more interesting and fun - and hopefully funny. I'd better get back to it. I'm still over 6K words behind the pace.

BTW, If anyone is actually reading this, you'll have noticed that this is the first post in several days. Sorry. I was on vacation. I actually did some writing while I was away, but we had very limited Internet capabilities, so I was just checking email and such and not worrying over this.

That Was Difficult (7315)

I woke up this morning with a brilliant flash of inspiration of how to add more drama and tension to the story. The trouble was, it required me to spend the day writing about a very bad man doing some bad things. This was a chore, so I only wrote about half as many words as I had hoped. At least I succeeded in exceeding the average expected count for the day.

I'm about 2700 words behind pace, if I can continue to do an extra 800 to 1000 extra words a day, I will be back on track before the end of the week. And I still would like to be a few thousand words ahead of the game before my vacation is over. Maybe tomorrow's writing will be more fun.

A Little Behind (3216)

After that jump out of the gate, I guess I fell a little behind. But not too bad. I did manage to add 200-300 words each day. There was quite a bit going on, and I knew I had the weekend and most of next week in which to catch up. Now I need to follow through and get caught up -- and ahead -- before I start my new job.

I'm still struggling with the plot. I have something outlined on paper and in my head. I came up with a more interesting twist, but haven't been able to figure a way to fit it into the setting. Maybe when I'm further along I'll be able to see how it could work.

Off to a Good Start (1480)

I woke up a little early this morning and had the beginning of my story rumbling around in my brain. So I simply got up and got to it.

It turns out that the opening paragraph I previously wrote is not where I'm starting the story. I started completely from scratch and put 1480 words into the file. This feels like an order of magnitude more than I did last year by this time (it is, I had 88 words written in the morning last time and most of that was just outline, this is almost 20 times that much, and my outline is separate).

I think I've learned quite a bit about the craft of creating a story in the last year, too. I'm only about halfway through the first chapter and there's already conflict and a looming crisis. And my characters are talking about stuff that matters. This is fun.