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I hit fifty thousand words today, and am going to bed sitting at 52, 206 words so far. I'm aiming to write a lot more this weekend and I'm really proud of what I've accomplished so far.
For those of you who are nowhere near where I am-you're not supposed to be. There are still twenty-four days left to write your novel. You're supposed to be at 10, 020 or so words tomorrow, so if you're close to that, you're pretty much right on track.
One thing I have to suggest is that you go out and meet the people in your area. I don't know if this holds true for every area, but in Toronto there is a great, lively Nanowrimo community, that has helped me through quite a lot in my lifetime. Thanks to them I have reached goals that I never thought I could. I have written more words in a month than most people do in three lifetimes.
These people are so amazing, and I see the same amazing community every time I venture out into the forums. I've had a really great time Nanoing every year, and this year, my sixth year, that hasn't changed. A lot of the faces have changed but the spirit, the soul of Nanowrimo here in Toronto has stayed the same.
Those of you who are behind, it's all right. Take a few dares. Ask for help on the forums-or comment here and ask for help. I always respond to comments. You can even email me, diannalgunn@gmail.com, and I will do my best to help you.
Find a writing buddy, someone who writes at about the same pace you do, and challenge them while they challenge you. Participate in word wars. The Nanowrimo community, if you just take fifteen minutes to go onto the forums and look around, is full of great people who are willing to help you write your novel.
We are closing in on the end of the first week. Pat yourself on the back. You've made it through the first week of Nanowrimo pretty much. Hopefully, you've written 10, 000 words. If you haven't, that's all right-there's always time to catch up, and there's a weekend coming up.
Wherever you are in your novel writing endeavour, you have accomplished something to be proud of, even if you've only written one sentence.
Well done, Novelists. Well done.
So I started in on Phoenix falling today and so far that novel stands at around 13, 000 words and I stand at around 45, 000 words in total. I'm pretty happy with this, considering that my goal for tomorrow was originally 42K, so I'm ahead of myself.
You should be at around 6, 666 words right now if you're aiming for 50, 000 words. If you aren't there, never fear-you have a weekend coming up, and those can work wonders for your word count.
Here's the prologue for Phoenix Falling:
Prologue
When time dawned, we were all one. We spoke as one, took our actions as one; we were the council, a single driving force behind the magic of the world and the ways in which it worked. We were all friends, and none of us would act on our thoughts until we all agreed.
Then we created humanity, and it is with the creation of these people, who were divided as Those Who Are asked us to make them be, that we slowly became divided. It is in the way that these people acted that we found our quarrels.
For the Gods and Goddesses of the Appollinian tribes believed that their way was right, that women were equal to men just as Goddesses are equal to Gods, and that all people have a right to make decisions for themselves. That no man or woman should be allowed possession of any other man or woman.
The Gods of the Fidolian tribes, and I, their only Goddess, struggled with these ideas. I was on the side of the Appollinians, but the two Gods, the main rulers, were not. They said that in humanity women were naturally weaker than men because they were built smaller, and that therefore men should be the ones in places of political power, and also because women spent almost a year in pregnancy, which could make them crazy, and their place was to look after those children.
I told them that human women had their own strengths, and that because they birthed the children and fed them in their earliest months, they were just as important as men. We quarreled over this for many months. At one point they conceded that women were equal, but it did not change how their tribes worked.
Together their tribes conquered mine, which led to discord throughout the council. The other Appollinian deities did not like the actions that the Demon in particular took against me. We were the three deities of Fidolius, the Demon, the Shadow, and I, the Phoenix, Gods and Goddesses each with our own tribes until the Demon and the Shadow allied to take mine down. The Shadow begged for forgiveness and he received it. The Demon said nothing of the event.
After that, the Demon was our only real frustration. The Shadow said little, but supported the Demon, knowing that as the Demon had power over him in some ways, the Demon's people had power over his people in many more.
The Demon said that women should not be equal to men in his faith, and so they were not for many years, unable to become members of the Temple organization, unable to fight in wars. But even more frustrating was his view on criminals, that each and every criminal should be enslaved for a period of time suitable to their crime.
We agreed that criminals should be punished-but we said that no man or woman should be able to literally own any other man or woman, and we spoke of the crimes masters committed when they attacked their slaves, and of course the Demon did not listen, and criminals in Fidolius went on being enslaved, and any children they had while in slavery were also enslaved, regardless of which parent was the slave.
We argued against the practices of beating and branding slaves, of putting magical collars on them that would kill them if they tried to escape. We argued against the brand of blood magic that the Demon asked his followers to use to summon them-it did not matter whose blood was used, so long as there was blood and the right words were said.
And thus the council fought. We became divided. The Appollinians on one side, the Demon on the other, and the Shadow and I caught in the middle.
I tried. I pleaded that the Demon see things the way I did, the way the Appollinians did. I begged the Shadow to take a firm stance against him-alll of us together could have appealed to Those Who Are and had the Demon removed, but it needed to be almost unanimous. I tried to keep the council together.
And as I tried I found love, love in the arms of Loki, Appollinia's version of the Shadow, and it made me bitter because I knew that if I offered the Shadow my love he would help us in an instant. Instead I lay with the God that was almost his twin in human mythology, and I asked him to keep the affair hidden, afraid that knowledge of it would make the Shadow truly bitter, that he would have his people turn against mine, perhaps even against Appollinia.
This is the tale of the division that was created, the love that was felt, and the day that I fell...
I'm officially at 30K now... so far so good... I'm looking forward to a large writing marathon. I'm hoping to hit 50K by Friday, which I should if I keep up the current pace, and then write another fifty or sixty thousand words this weekend. If I manage that, I'll be right on track and I should actually hit four hundred thousand words. I'm wondering when the inspiration is going to die, and I'm praying it doesn't happen until December first.
To hit fifty thousand words you should be around five thousand words right now, so if you're around there, you're good, give or take a few hundred words. Not much else for me to say, except that I'm glad you're still reading and bearing with me through my lame posts. I've got a great pep talk ready for the end of this week/beginning of next week.
I'll be starting on Phoenix Falling later tonight, so keep watching for an excerpt and I am sure you will see one very soon. 
By now to be on track you should be at 3, 333 if you're aiming for 50K. If you followed my suggestion and managed to write more than that on the first, that's great. I hope you still wrote yesterday, and that you intend to write today-because you never know when there will be an emergency and you'll really need those backup words you wrote on the first.
You probably won't be able to write as much on the weekdays as you will on the weekends, but aiming for a goal of 2, 000 words each day is a good idea. If you have to cut out certain activities like watching TV or surfing certain areas of the web to hit your desired word count, so be it. This is a self-challenge, and trust me, when you have that winner's certificate and the icons as well, you feel like you're at the top of the writing world
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So far I'm at 10K, and I thought I'd share a little excerpt with you guys. This isn't from Phoenix Falling, because I need to do a little more prep work before I can start this, it's from a novel whose plot I adopted from last year's adopt a plot thread.
Here goes
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Sorry I didn't post anything yesterday. It was hectic; a friend of mine ran into some trouble and I had to help her out.
I just want to say thank you to everyone for reading and thanks to all those who participated in the workshop. I would love to see your feedback, so if you have any comments-things you thought worked well, things you thought didn't, things you think it would be interesting if I tackled next year-let me know. My email is diannalgunn@gmail.com
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This is the last full exercise. Tomorrow will be an optional prompt/exercise. Today you're going to put together a plot outline.
Plot Outline Part Two
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By this point you've already picked out your plot and gathered some ideas. Today you're going to brainstorm a few more ideas, make some decisions and begin working on your outline.
This outline is going to be somewhat more detailed than what I normally use, but don't be afraid to modify it slightly or expand on parts you think are most interesting/important to your story
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Today you're going to finish up the character questionnaire for both your villain and your main character. Remember that you can either have this conversation in your head or write it out as an interview scene.
~What is this character's biggest weakness? This can be physical or mental
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First I want you to repeat yesterday's exercise, only this time focusing on the Villain and making up their basic profile. Once you've finished that, move on to the character Questionnaire.
You should go through these questions with both your main character and your main villain; it is important to flesh out these two characters so that they seem real-like living, breathing people. Answers to the questions should be up to one paragraph long, no longer
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Comments (2)
Comment by Dianna G
on Word Count And Such
I Wish This Was 42
Fictional Worlds
I know people who are already over 60K... I can personally write up to 30Kish in a day, if I have the whole day to do it. I could write more, but I don't have the focus for that. I feel that I write as much as I can and however much that is, it's enough.
~Dianna