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So I'm at 185K, not moving as quickly as I would like but I'm confident that I can still hit 350K, and I'm realizing that I might need to change some things.
Jihad has grown from one book into seven into what is probably ten, with the addition of Shanni-a book about a half-Goddess and her life-and Fallen. Fallen is something that I'm not a hundred percent sure that I'll write right now, but having written some scenes, it looks quite probable.
Fallen, if I write it, will be the story of the Phoenix's mortal life after she forsakes her duty/place/powers as a Goddess. Right now I'm writing up scenes that I think will be part of this book when I eventually write it. Not sure.
Snapshots is really interesting because it's moving all over the place. A lot of what's in it feels like it needs to be in other books though. I do need to tell the story that Snapshots is supposed to be about-the story of Astarael-but I'm not sure how I can work out the other pieces and turn it into its own novel.
I'm getting the words out, the ideas, the thoughts, the scenes, but the way in which they are coming out is entirely jumbled. I don't know what I'm going to do with it afterwards, but then again, that's not to be thought about right now-right now I need to think about writing the darn words, and then come December...
Let's not think about that, shall we?
There are only ten days left, folks... you should be closing in on forty thousand... and if not, this weekend is the time to write. Write until your fingers ache. Whatever you do... just write. Write as many thousands of words as you can without breaking your hands.
If anyone hits 50K this weekend, comment here. Let me know how this challenge was for you, how the month went; I'd love to hear from you.
If you hit any milestone this weekend, let me know! Comment here or on one of my posts over the weekend.
You guys rock.
Thanks for reading,
~Dianna
So I'm at 180K, rolling along nicely, back in the game. I'm 100% sure at this point that I'll be able to hit 350K. It's just going to take a helluva lot of work. And a lot less of me getting sidetracked. There are no more days off for the month of November.
I feel six different kinds of recovered from my weekend.
Life is good.
I'm not sure what the word count people are supposed to be at if they're aiming for 50K, but wherever you are, don't worry. You still have two weekends left, and that is an absolutely awesome advantage. That can mean a lot of words.
Me? I'm going to have to start making sacrifices to reach my goal. I'm going to have to sacrifice my grades a little bit and allow my work to either not get done or to get sloppy for the next week and a bit. It's only one week-I can catch up easily enough.
My social life? That's down the drain. No more social life. I'm going to be going to school and coming straight home until December first. The only plans I have are a write in and some things with my family to mark Daddy's fourth anniversary of death.
This time of the year and the month is always hard for me, and it is only going to get harder, but I'll pull through just like I do every year. And the wonderful people in the Nanowrimo community will get me through this just like they always have. Come December, it'll be hard to let go, hard to sit there at the TGIO and say bye to all of those people for a year.
Those of you who have vibrant, strong Nanowrimo communities in your area-get out to the last few events. Meet people. Make friends. And then do whatever you can to keep those friends. Know which ones you'll see next year, and which ones you won't. Keep in touch at least electronically if you can't see each other. These people are people like yourself in some way-they are writers, they are willing to take on this crazy challenge, and they are probably wonderful people all in all.
Thank you to everyone who is reading my blog. I want to invite you to email me with an excerpt for your novel. If you want, I can critique it. If it's good enough, and you give me permission, I will post your excerpt on my blog. I just want to read your work.
You guys read this blog-I want to return the favour and read some of what you've written.
~Dianna (diannalgunn@gmail.com)
So I'm back into the flow of things, my mind is working after a brief OD on sleep, and I'm back to writing.
Now that Phoenix Falling is finished I'm working on something Entirely Different. It was supposed to be a book called Astarael, which was supposed to track Astarael's life, the building of the Drakor kingdom and all that good stuff.
Well, apparently, my muse has other ideas.
I'm now writing a novel entitled Snapshots, which isn't really a novel at this point, rather a connected group of short stories which all intertwine. Not every Snapshot is a story of it's own. They're kind of like chapters, but I'm not writing them in order.
This is a big experiment for me and as such is a big risk for me to do during Nanowrimo-I mean, I'm already almost 30, 000 words behind-and that's even having dropped my goal to 350K, and it could fail at any moment-but so far it's been working.
So far it has been mostly linear, but I can tell that soon enough my characters are going to start jumping around in terms of what they want me to write, where, and when. I'm pretty sure that this isn't going to become one cohesive novel at any point in time, rather a mess of background notes for a number of different books.
And of course Jihad, which first was one book and then decided it wanted to be seven, now wants to be ten.
Will it ever end?
Now that we're just past the halfway point, you might be slowing down. You might be thinking, oh, I can rest on my laurels and still win. Not so. You have to make an effort to write something every day-even just a paragraph or two-or you'll lose focus and you'll get derailed.
Go ahead and take one day off-but once you've taken more than two, you're running the risk of never catching up.
There is, on the other hand, still plenty of time to catch up-you just have to be willing to work at it every day.
More tomorrow.
Hi everyone. It's my second day of getting nothing done so I'm lowering my goal down to three hundred and fifty thousand. At this rate, that is much more attainable. I just need to pray that this weekend is good for productivity...
I'm sure there are a lot of other people in the same boat at this point, whether their goal be fifty thousand or one hundred thousand or just to finish the book wherever it's meant to end. To all of you-try to keep up a minimum word count during the week, and I wish you all a productive weekend
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So yesterday was the halfway point-you should be around 25, 000 words right now, because that's halfway through 50K. Don't get discouraged if you aren't-there is always more time than you think there is, and you can always make time. Even ten thousand words is just a productive weekend or maybe two-and there are two left.
I'm not going to say much more on this because I'm really rather tired still
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So yesterday was the halfway point-you should be around 25, 000 words right now, because that's halfway through 50K. Don't get discouraged if you aren't-there is always more time than you think there is, and you can always make time. Even ten thousand words is just a productive weekend or maybe two-and there are two left.
I'm not going to say much more on this because I'm really rather tired still
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I'm exhausted, I'm at 170K, so I'm really behind, and I don't have much else to say because my brain is dead...
Hope everyone else is doing well.
Well at this point I'm a little behind where I need to be, but I did just hit 150K and am on my way to bed...
I've finished Phoenix Falling and it's an absolutely heartbreaking tale. I really liked the way I wrapped it up, although I knew that was how the story was going to end, the actual writing turned out better than I thought
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I am currently sitting at 125K, and according to my math today, my math yesterday really, really sucked and I'm actually about 20K behind where I need to be. I'm working out the details of how I'm going to catch up on that, but I have faith in myself that I can do it and that I will make the 400K at the end of this month, bar untimely death of me or someone close to me.
I am coming to the end of Phoenix Falling and I must say that I am amazed with how this book has turned out. It has tied in with Moonshadow's Guardian, and the suspicion I've had all this time that these worlds were connected and in the same universe has indeed been confirmed, in a beautiful and heartbreaking tale
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Well, 110. But 100K is the victory here. I did the math and I'm only 3K behind where I need to be to hit 400K, but I'm more like 15K behind where I want to be, and I know I'm not going to really be able to make that up.
But this post is more about thoughts than that. It's more about the pep talk that I got last night and my thoughts on it. My thoughts on what was said
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Comments (4)
Comment by Dianna G
on Can you see it?
I Wish This Was 42
Fictional Worlds
I just found your blog and felt the need to say hello to a fellow Nanowrimo participant. I hope your Nano is going well.
What other challenges do you participate in, if any?
Good luck with Nanowrimo!
~Dianna