Category Archives: Writing

State of the NaNo

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I am apparently a filthy liar. I’d told people I’d be blogging about my progress with NaNoWriMo. And I haven’t. And I’m half way through November. Yowzers!

Life’s been something of a zoo. It was this way in October, but it’s even worse now that I’m in November. Work’s been a zoo, writing has been a zoo. Having a feline medical fiasco in the middle of this also hamstringed (hamstrung?) my time. So what time I’ve had to write has been dedicated to the novel. I don’t know when I’ll have a sec to do my post-con report.

But I’m taking a few minutes before I start hammering away at the novel again to recap the last couple weeks.
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My November 1st News

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I nearly forgot to post this. NaNoWriMo seems to have eaten my brain.

One of my stories has been selected to appear in the first Crossed Genres anthology, collecting samples of their first year of publication. In addition to my February short story, “A Crazy Kind of Love,” Nathan Crowder’s “Deacon Carter’s Last Dime” from the June issue will also appear.

Further details can be found here.

Writing War Journal, Day 100

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The last couple weeks have been a zoo. I’ve been trying to prep for AmberCon Northwest the last couple weeks.

Additionally, I’m taking a new route with NaNoWriMo this year and doing an outline. In year’s past I’ve belligerently refused to make an outline, instead drawing off of the mad androgynous man in the back of my head that claims to be a muse. I would point proudly at the likes of Raymond Chandler, Roger Zelazny and Phillip Pullman, three excellent authors who did not bother to use an outline. And there’s a power that comes from sitting at the keyboard and having a story pour out that even I don’t know the ending to, in which the story has a life almost independent of me.

But this year I actually have a story arc I want to handle, and that means looking at things in advance. Otherwise I see myself getting painted into a corner around point B and not knowing how to get to point C.

I don’t know that this will be a long-term commitment to the outline. But I know that when I went through a period of GMing heavily structured games for a while, it really helped me get a sense of narrative flow so that it helped me GM by the seat of my pants. So I think having this new approach this year will probably help a lot.

In other writing news, I finished off two short stories that might appear in small print-on-demand anthology chapbook thingies. I’ll post more about those when I know more about those.

I also have cool news to share on Sunday.

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Writing War Journal, Day 55

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I’m calling draft #1 complete. It needs a lot of work, but I’ve hit a good stopping point. I came about 10,000 words short of my goal. I may still hit it in revisions, but I just felt like I had reached my limit and anything more at this point would be nickel and diming the book to death.

The climax I chose probably needs some back fill to have it make sense outside of my head, and I also have some stuff I keep telling myself I’m going to remove. But otherwise, I think I’ve got the core structure done. I’ve sent it to a couple people, and want to see how leotarded it reads before going for a slightly broader critique audience.

I’m going to spend the next several days working on other projects. I’ve got a novella that’s been unfinished for nearly a year that I want to clean up. I also need to get cracking on a submission to Nathan Crowder for a POD anthology he wants to do. Hopefully I’ll be able to club CotRK a bit more before November hits, but I also need to get back on track with research for this year’s novel that does not have a cute name yet.

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Writing War Journal, Day 54

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Got a good stretch done at lunch Friday. Saturday was kind of a bust for writing. No writing accomplished Saturday. In the morning it was just a meandering sprawl of doing other stuff. In the evening I mostly worked on trying to make sense of the rules I was using for the one-shot Sunday. Sunday morning involved me driving over to Bellevue and back. I was supposed to meet someone for coffee, but she never got back to me. I had meanwhile promised to drop something off while I was on that side of the water, so even though my coffee plans fell through, I still had to drive over there. Then I had to finish cleaning the apartment before people showed up. Got a good chunk written last night, though, due in large part to guilt over not writing Saturday. So that was good.

Not sure about the climax I’m working up for the book. There’s a certain amount of me in all the characters, but I see it most strongly in my main character. My decision was that I wanted to have the climax be very personal to the character instead of just a big actiony stab-things-in-face climax. But it feels like it’s cutting too close to home for me. The last thing I want to do is be the guy who writes himself as the protagonist for all his novels. =P But, this is also just the first draft. I can revise it heavily on the next pass. I’m also getting a little concerned that I might not be able to wring 70K out of this. Maybe in the second draft, but with my current writing plans I just don’t think it’s in the cards. Bah.

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Writing War Journal, Day 51

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Got a big chunk of writing at lunch yesterday. Was depressed to find that I got twice as much written in half an hour than I did in two hours at the type and gripe. I don’t know why I hoped to be more productive there. I’m usually not. Overall making good progress to hit 70K by the end of the month. Assuming, of course, that I can manage to wring that much plot out of the book. =P

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