Now what?

Now that I are an author, so to speak, what do I do? I don't get a good night's sleep, apparently. Even though the pressure of NaNoWriMo 2005 is off, if I wake up in the middle of the night my author-brain kicks in and starts working up edits for the story I 'finished' and new stories.

Even the old trick of reading to calm my brain doesn't work as well, because I start evaluating the story I'm reading (unless I stick to biographies and histories or something). (sigh)

Hopefully, I'll grow out of this, too.

Best NaNoWriMo Title 2005

From someone listed as vorpal from Toronto, Canada:

A Month of Random Phlegm Coughed Up By My Brain, a Bastardization of Conventional Novel Writing, in G Minor

Hurrah! It's done! (50,026)

The first time I uploaded, trusting that Microsoft Word's word count was reasonably trustworthy, the count was short at only 49,993. Seven words!! In response, several more sentences came pouring out of me. Resulting in Word saying I have 50,061 words and NaNoWriMo's official counter saying 50,026. Either way I'm golden.

I have a 50,000 word novel.

It's 50,000 words of crap and drivel. But it's my crap and drivel. And I can do whatever I want to with it. And what I choose to do now is ignore it for a while, sleep and work and watch TV and stuff like that, without worrying about how many words I could be writing.

The last couple of days were very painful. Something about being so close to the end caused my worst behaviors to come creaping out and try and derail the whole thing through distractions and procrastinations. That's why I'm still up at almost 3:00 in the morning just finishing up my writing and my blog.

Anyway, Praise the Lord that's over. And thank Him for all I learned in the process. Good night.

Rounded 45K (45,017)

I thought I could get the whole thing knocked off tonight. But it didn't happen. It's after 11:00 and my mind is getting too foggy to finish off the last 5000 words. I'll have to jump on it tomorrow. It might take two days now, to get the rest but I'll do it. Yay!

End in sight? (43,633)

It feels like the end is in sight. But it also feels like my story doesn't have enough left in it to reach the word count for NaNoWriMo. But I'll right something and get there one way or another.

That was excruciating (40,520)

In a way, it's a good thing I had all day to put in a bunch of words. But they were sure hard. As close as I am to the end, it's either too close to really extend the story or not close enough to start wrapping things up. At least while I wasn't writing yesterday, I listed to WriMo Radio and got a bit of an idea on how to push my NaNoWriMo story in a more workable direction. It's still a limp noodle of a story. But I guess if there's no killing or fighting or cussing or sex, that's what you get the first time you try. Okay, I need to knock off another 5-10K words today. Get to it, Bill.

Time to stop (37,487)

Time to stop NaNoWriMo for the day. I'm tired. My story is at a juncture and I'm not sure where it will go. I'd rather attack it when I'm more refreshed. I can come back to this tomorrow, sometime, I hope. It will be a busy day. If not, then Monday I have all day to work on this and catch up.

Slow morning (35,556)

I thought I'd get more done this morning. But there were too many distrations. Heading to the movies with my son now. I'll get back to NaNoWriMo later.

A bit more (34,589)

I almost had a character derail the story. But I turned him back at the last minute. It would have made a messy, but perhaps interesting, diversion. If I need to add more at the end, I may have to let him go crazy again.

Three Thousand More (33,275)

Wow! 3 thousand more words 'just like that'. Of course I'm padding like crazy with extra description. But that actually seems to be what this storytelling stuff is all about. This section was fun because I finally got to write some 'action' and not dialog. I hope to get some more done today, but we'll see. Six thousand words in one sitting might be enough for now.

Yay! Thirty-K! (30,038)

Whew! I'm still feeling the pressure of falling behind. But I may have found the story groove again. It was hit and miss for a couple of days, coordinating with family members around for Thanksgiving. And I really needed to take yesterday completely off. I'm hoping it really helped and I'll be able to bang out a bunch of words over the long weekend (and still spend a few precious hours with my wife and kids, NaNoWriMo is not life).

Slipping a bit (27,240)

It took two and a half days to write another 2000 words because I was selling a car. What a hassle! Thankfully, I should be able to focus a bunch of time over the weekend on NaNoWriMo, in between visiting with children and bites of turkey.

Blazing! (25,109)

Yes, I'm the man. 2000 words in 2 hours! I think I need to stop just to let my fingers and brain cool off. I will get back at it again tomorrow and maybe get some good progress in the morning. Hopefully, my afternoon activities won't take up all of my attention.

Finally some more progress (23,114)

I wish I were already over 25K, but I've had a rough couple of days and couldn't really get into a rhythm until this afternoon. I just did over 2500 words in about 4 hours, so I beat my usual 500 word per hour NaNoWriMo rate. More to come.

Trying to keep up (20,428)

Yesterday I thought of a really cool direction to take the story. Thankfully, I talked myself out of it and will save it for another book. It would have completely derailed what I've written so far. I just need to buckle down and push through with what I've got. And after this morning's session of NaNoWriMo, I see that what I've got may not be so bad. I'm sure it will take some real work to edit this into something that is more compelling and actually makes sense. But I think I can make it work. It is my first attempt, after all. ttfn.

Just a few words (19,527)

I'm going to try to shift more writing to the mornings. So I added just a few words tonight to top off the NaNoWriMo count a little. G'night.

Early mornings work (18,732)

I guess I should try harder to get up in the mornings and write for NaNoWriMo. I'm usually pretty productive and I don't feel as tire as I do at night.

Word count climbing (18,214)

But the story is not cooperating. I spent over an hour creating a story map tonight, which means I didn't write about 1000 words during that time, which means I have fallen a bit more behind. But I needed to get my bearings in order to get anything more written for NaNoWriMo. I am hoping this will get me going on just writing for a while and getting caught up. Now to get some sleep.

Holding on (17,047)

I can't believe I let the rest of the weekend go by without adding anything to my NaNoWriMo book. I have to plead that I had other valid obligations (mostly). Now, I'll really have to work to get caught up. My word count gizmo says I need to add over 2,000 words a day now. That's about what I was able to do tonight. 500 words per hour seems to be about my pace. But maybe I'll speed up a little as the story starts finding its path a little more solidly. Onward!

Interesting developments and 15K! (15, 032)

I'm so glad to feel like I'm over another hump. 15K is a good place to reward myself with a bit of a break from NaNoWriMo focus, even though I'm still almost 5K words off the pace. But to add to my good news, I was able to bring in a couple more characters that can drive the darker side of the story without being too dismal and I added a plot development that will make the MCs life a bit more interesting. I'm real hopeful this keeps everything moving a bit more smoothly. More to come.