Today's word count: 1892
Total word count: 22,847
Tomorrow's outline: confronts Owain, begins to piece together the truth
Woo-hoo! Halfway through November and I'm right where I need to be to reach 45,000 words by the 30th. That is, if I don't finisht the story before then--I only have four chapters to go!
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Monday, November 12, 2007
Today's word count: 397
Total word count: 17,014
Tomorrow's outline: Okay, here's the deal. My 397 words today were the general outline for my remaining chapters. As it stands at this (very tentative) moment, there will be 23 chapters. I'm just starting chapter 18. That's 6 chapters to write. In a nice twist, that's how many chapters I've written so far in November. So I stand a good shot of finishing this book by midnight November 30.
Given that I don't continue to write only a few hundred words a day. But I'm not going to feel guilty. I'm not. Or at least I'm going to use guilt as a motivator--believe me, I wouldn't have typed 100 words yesterday if I didn't know I had to post it in my room.
Stay tuned . . .
Total word count: 17,014
Tomorrow's outline: Okay, here's the deal. My 397 words today were the general outline for my remaining chapters. As it stands at this (very tentative) moment, there will be 23 chapters. I'm just starting chapter 18. That's 6 chapters to write. In a nice twist, that's how many chapters I've written so far in November. So I stand a good shot of finishing this book by midnight November 30.
Given that I don't continue to write only a few hundred words a day. But I'm not going to feel guilty. I'm not. Or at least I'm going to use guilt as a motivator--believe me, I wouldn't have typed 100 words yesterday if I didn't know I had to post it in my room.
Stay tuned . . .
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Friday, November 09, 2007
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
One Week In
So how am I doing one week into my November challenge?
Let's do the numbers.
According to my daily goal of 1500 words, I should be at 10,500 words after seven days. Check--and a little more :)
Although I'm not doing NaNoWriMo, I wanted to know how close I am to keeping up with their daily goal of 1657 words. At that rate, the total after seven days is 11,599. Awfully close.
Which means, as long as I keep it up, I'll have between 45,000 and 50,000 words by midnight on November 30.
Lots of those words are, frankly, rotten. But hey! I can't fix them until I actually write them. (A friend told me that was very profound, so I thought I'd share.) And at least I'm not stuck in the same place like I was for months.
Overall, there's one day in particular I'm proud of in this last week. Yesterday.
Why, you may ask? After all, it was my lowest word count day by far, less than 1200 words.
But yesterday was also my hardest day of the week, both physically and mentally. I only had 426 words written by 8:00 last night. I figured I wouldn't worry about it, but then I went ahead, sat down, and wrote a good 700 more words.
That's what I'm proud of--that I didn't quit when I wanted to. That I showed up.
On Sports Night, a great comedic show by Aaron Sorkin, Casey is in love with Dana, who has just broken off her engagement. All his friends want to know what Casey's plan is to win her.
"I show up," he says. "And then I see what happens."
That's it? they want to know. That's not a plan. But at the end of the episode, he'd gotten where he wanted. How?
"I showed up," he said.
So that's my plan.
I'll show up.
And I'll see what happens.
So how am I doing one week into my November challenge?
Let's do the numbers.
According to my daily goal of 1500 words, I should be at 10,500 words after seven days. Check--and a little more :)
Although I'm not doing NaNoWriMo, I wanted to know how close I am to keeping up with their daily goal of 1657 words. At that rate, the total after seven days is 11,599. Awfully close.
Which means, as long as I keep it up, I'll have between 45,000 and 50,000 words by midnight on November 30.
Lots of those words are, frankly, rotten. But hey! I can't fix them until I actually write them. (A friend told me that was very profound, so I thought I'd share.) And at least I'm not stuck in the same place like I was for months.
Overall, there's one day in particular I'm proud of in this last week. Yesterday.
Why, you may ask? After all, it was my lowest word count day by far, less than 1200 words.
But yesterday was also my hardest day of the week, both physically and mentally. I only had 426 words written by 8:00 last night. I figured I wouldn't worry about it, but then I went ahead, sat down, and wrote a good 700 more words.
That's what I'm proud of--that I didn't quit when I wanted to. That I showed up.
On Sports Night, a great comedic show by Aaron Sorkin, Casey is in love with Dana, who has just broken off her engagement. All his friends want to know what Casey's plan is to win her.
"I show up," he says. "And then I see what happens."
That's it? they want to know. That's not a plan. But at the end of the episode, he'd gotten where he wanted. How?
"I showed up," he said.
So that's my plan.
I'll show up.
And I'll see what happens.
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Monday, November 05, 2007
Sunday, November 04, 2007
Saturday, November 03, 2007
Friday, November 02, 2007
Thursday, November 01, 2007
OCTOBER READS
Trying something new, an easier way to indicate how I felt about a book. I'll give each book a letter grade. (Hey, I said it was new, I didn't claim it was original!)
DARK STAR SAFARI/Paul Theroux/B+: The writer, who taught in Africa during the 60s, makes a trip from Cairo to the South African Cape, almost entirely by land. He took buses and taxis and hitched rides in trucks. He was shot at by bandits in northern Kenya, went part of the way by river with a drug runner in Malawi, and visited the places he'd lived and worked. Only one thing kept this book from being an A for me--his superior attitude to the angels of mercy and charity groups that abound in Africa. I think he makes valid points about their usefulness or lack thereof, but he doesn't offer any alternatives so I tended to roll my eyes when he went off on that tangent.
THE BEEKEEPER'S APPRENTICE/Laurie R. King/A: A book club book that I recommended. The first in the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series. 14-year-old Mary literally stumbles over the great (and retired) detective while walking the Sussex downs one day. She ends up Holmes' student, then assistant, then partner. There are several cases in the book that weave together into an overall story of revenge and trust. Obviously I love it or I'd never have suggested it to my friends.
HEART-SHAPED BOX/Joe Hill/B: Hill is actually the son of Stephen King and, in his father's footsteps, his first novel is supernatural horror (though the horror is mostly psychological in nature.) The book opens when an aging rock star buys a haunted suit on the internet. But it seems he was targeted for this particular ghost. It took me a good 50 or 60 pages to get into it, but then it moves right along and I was surprised and pleased by the character development. A good vacation read.
THE GOOD HUSBAND OF ZEBRA DRIVE/Andrew Taylor/B: Another Mma Ramotse book, about the traditionally-built African woman with her own detective agency in Botswana. I read these books for the pleasure of a quiet hour--not a lot happens, but it's always fun to spend a little time with the characters.
THE MEANING OF NIGHT/Michael Cox/C+: I wanted to like this book. It's set in Victorian England, it's got secret births and mistaken identities and true love and betrayal. Unfortunately, the structure and style made it hard to read. It opens with a murder, goes along chronologically for a few chapters, and then the bulk of the book is one long series of what happened in the past to bring this about. But I finished it, so that's something.
E=MC2/David Bodanis/A-: Our couples' book club book, "a biography of the world's most famous equation". The best review I can give this book is simple: it helped me understand what the equation means. That's no mean feat for a science idiot like me. Bodanis is a great writer of science for the masses--I especially liked the stories of people he included.
DARK ASSASSIN/Anne Perry/B: Although I once bought everything Anne Perry wrote, in recent years I've confined myself to borrowing them from the library. In this latest in the Monk series, William Monk is back in the police force as part of the River Police. His first serious case involves tunnels being dug for the new London sewers and a young woman who may or may not have jumped to her death. Perry is great at Victorian atmosphere, but her plots and characters have seemed to stagnate a little.
THE DANTE CLUB/Matthew Pearl/C-: Another book that had a great story buried somewhere beneath the layers of too many words and too much self-consciousness. The Dante Club is a group of Boston poets and publishers who are committed to the first American translation of Dante's The Inferno. But the publication is imperiled when a series of gruesome killings begin in Boston, mirroring the torments of Dante's Hell. The club rushes to discover the killer before Dante is completely corrupted. The author is a Dante scholar, and I think that ruined the book. Too much information, too little pacing, too slow moving.
NOCTURNES/John Connolly/A-: A book of short stories from a new-to-me author. I picked it up because it was October and the stories were spooky. I loved the variety of his settings and characters, from witches in an English village after WWI to a contemporary serial killer. I loved his style, I loved his subjects and the way he wrote about them, and I will definitely pick up his novels.
NOBODY DON'T LOVE NOBODY/Stacey Bess/B: Book club for tonight. Bess taught for 7 years at the School With No Name in Salt Lake City, a school for children in the Family Shelter. Her book talks about the children and their experiences. Moving, makes you think, didn't quite go all the way for me. Bess tended to repeat herself too often and I felt like saying, "I'll be more inclined to serve if you quit telling me that I should!"
Trying something new, an easier way to indicate how I felt about a book. I'll give each book a letter grade. (Hey, I said it was new, I didn't claim it was original!)
DARK STAR SAFARI/Paul Theroux/B+: The writer, who taught in Africa during the 60s, makes a trip from Cairo to the South African Cape, almost entirely by land. He took buses and taxis and hitched rides in trucks. He was shot at by bandits in northern Kenya, went part of the way by river with a drug runner in Malawi, and visited the places he'd lived and worked. Only one thing kept this book from being an A for me--his superior attitude to the angels of mercy and charity groups that abound in Africa. I think he makes valid points about their usefulness or lack thereof, but he doesn't offer any alternatives so I tended to roll my eyes when he went off on that tangent.
THE BEEKEEPER'S APPRENTICE/Laurie R. King/A: A book club book that I recommended. The first in the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series. 14-year-old Mary literally stumbles over the great (and retired) detective while walking the Sussex downs one day. She ends up Holmes' student, then assistant, then partner. There are several cases in the book that weave together into an overall story of revenge and trust. Obviously I love it or I'd never have suggested it to my friends.
HEART-SHAPED BOX/Joe Hill/B: Hill is actually the son of Stephen King and, in his father's footsteps, his first novel is supernatural horror (though the horror is mostly psychological in nature.) The book opens when an aging rock star buys a haunted suit on the internet. But it seems he was targeted for this particular ghost. It took me a good 50 or 60 pages to get into it, but then it moves right along and I was surprised and pleased by the character development. A good vacation read.
THE GOOD HUSBAND OF ZEBRA DRIVE/Andrew Taylor/B: Another Mma Ramotse book, about the traditionally-built African woman with her own detective agency in Botswana. I read these books for the pleasure of a quiet hour--not a lot happens, but it's always fun to spend a little time with the characters.
THE MEANING OF NIGHT/Michael Cox/C+: I wanted to like this book. It's set in Victorian England, it's got secret births and mistaken identities and true love and betrayal. Unfortunately, the structure and style made it hard to read. It opens with a murder, goes along chronologically for a few chapters, and then the bulk of the book is one long series of what happened in the past to bring this about. But I finished it, so that's something.
E=MC2/David Bodanis/A-: Our couples' book club book, "a biography of the world's most famous equation". The best review I can give this book is simple: it helped me understand what the equation means. That's no mean feat for a science idiot like me. Bodanis is a great writer of science for the masses--I especially liked the stories of people he included.
DARK ASSASSIN/Anne Perry/B: Although I once bought everything Anne Perry wrote, in recent years I've confined myself to borrowing them from the library. In this latest in the Monk series, William Monk is back in the police force as part of the River Police. His first serious case involves tunnels being dug for the new London sewers and a young woman who may or may not have jumped to her death. Perry is great at Victorian atmosphere, but her plots and characters have seemed to stagnate a little.
THE DANTE CLUB/Matthew Pearl/C-: Another book that had a great story buried somewhere beneath the layers of too many words and too much self-consciousness. The Dante Club is a group of Boston poets and publishers who are committed to the first American translation of Dante's The Inferno. But the publication is imperiled when a series of gruesome killings begin in Boston, mirroring the torments of Dante's Hell. The club rushes to discover the killer before Dante is completely corrupted. The author is a Dante scholar, and I think that ruined the book. Too much information, too little pacing, too slow moving.
NOCTURNES/John Connolly/A-: A book of short stories from a new-to-me author. I picked it up because it was October and the stories were spooky. I loved the variety of his settings and characters, from witches in an English village after WWI to a contemporary serial killer. I loved his style, I loved his subjects and the way he wrote about them, and I will definitely pick up his novels.
NOBODY DON'T LOVE NOBODY/Stacey Bess/B: Book club for tonight. Bess taught for 7 years at the School With No Name in Salt Lake City, a school for children in the Family Shelter. Her book talks about the children and their experiences. Moving, makes you think, didn't quite go all the way for me. Bess tended to repeat herself too often and I felt like saying, "I'll be more inclined to serve if you quit telling me that I should!"
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
NOVEMBER WRITING CHALLENGE
Novemeber, as you may or may not know, is National Novel Writing Month. It's a big deal in writerly circles, or at least it's been heard of. The object of NaNoWriMo is simple--to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. That breaks down to 1657 words per day.
I'm not participating in NaNoWriMo. For several reasons, none of which matter here. But I am taking the point of the challenge to heart. And what, you ask, is the point of the challenge?
To write.
I've been working on the same novel for more than a year. The short story that is sprang from was written two years ago. I have beautifully written and rewritten the first 100 pages dozens of times. But I've never gotten further.
And I have to get further. Because I have a whole trilogy I want to tell, and I'm ready to outline the next two books, and I can't write them until I write the first.
So here comes November.
My rules:
1. I will write 1500 words a day. (That will give me 45,000 words at the end of the month, enough to either finish or come very close to finishing the novel.)
2. I will only write new words and new scenes. I am not allowed to touch the first 100 pages. No matter how much still needs to be fixed or added or deleted. Those 100 pages will just have to wait until November is over.
3. I don't think there is a 3 . . . Wait a minute, I've got it. I will post here every day my word count from the day before and a simple outline for that day's writing.
How about it? Want to help keep me on track and see if I can finally finish off this book?
Novemeber, as you may or may not know, is National Novel Writing Month. It's a big deal in writerly circles, or at least it's been heard of. The object of NaNoWriMo is simple--to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. That breaks down to 1657 words per day.
I'm not participating in NaNoWriMo. For several reasons, none of which matter here. But I am taking the point of the challenge to heart. And what, you ask, is the point of the challenge?
To write.
I've been working on the same novel for more than a year. The short story that is sprang from was written two years ago. I have beautifully written and rewritten the first 100 pages dozens of times. But I've never gotten further.
And I have to get further. Because I have a whole trilogy I want to tell, and I'm ready to outline the next two books, and I can't write them until I write the first.
So here comes November.
My rules:
1. I will write 1500 words a day. (That will give me 45,000 words at the end of the month, enough to either finish or come very close to finishing the novel.)
2. I will only write new words and new scenes. I am not allowed to touch the first 100 pages. No matter how much still needs to be fixed or added or deleted. Those 100 pages will just have to wait until November is over.
3. I don't think there is a 3 . . . Wait a minute, I've got it. I will post here every day my word count from the day before and a simple outline for that day's writing.
How about it? Want to help keep me on track and see if I can finally finish off this book?
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
I attended another concert last weekend, with another child. As opposed to Blaqk Audio, this performer is one a few more people have heard of. In fact, so many people have heard of her that some tickets in some cities were selling for 2000 dollars apiece.
Hannah Montana.
Actually, Hannah Montana is the alter ego of Miley Cyrus, daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus of Achy-Breaky Heart fame. Disney Channel launched her to fame this last year in her own television series where Miley is a regular 14-year-old girl in school, and only a few people know that she's also world-famous pop star Hannah Montana. Now, of course, has come the album and tour.
First, the concert was in lieu of throwing my daughter a party for her 9th birthday next month. And in lieu of several presents.
Second, I am not telling you how much I paid for tickets. It's none of your business. (Although, to preserve my dignity, I will tell you I paid considerably--way considerably--less than top price.)
Third, I enjoyed myself. Does this mean I have no standards? Or, as I prefer to believe, does it mean that I'm capable of finding pleasure in almost any situation?
My oldest son asked me which concert I liked better--Blaqk Audio or Hannah Montana.
On the side of Hannah Montana--I got an actual seat to sit in. And I brought a book to read during intermisison.
On the side of Blaqk Audio--way more interesting people to watch. Everyone at Hannah Montaha looked pretty much like everyone else. Lots of moms of a certain age, lots of pre-teen girls who shrieked a lot, and an occasional father who was the very definition of longsuffering. There were no fishnets, no corsets, no persons-of-uncertain-gender.
Honestly, where is that Mother of the Year award?
I attended another concert last weekend, with another child. As opposed to Blaqk Audio, this performer is one a few more people have heard of. In fact, so many people have heard of her that some tickets in some cities were selling for 2000 dollars apiece.
Hannah Montana.
Actually, Hannah Montana is the alter ego of Miley Cyrus, daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus of Achy-Breaky Heart fame. Disney Channel launched her to fame this last year in her own television series where Miley is a regular 14-year-old girl in school, and only a few people know that she's also world-famous pop star Hannah Montana. Now, of course, has come the album and tour.
First, the concert was in lieu of throwing my daughter a party for her 9th birthday next month. And in lieu of several presents.
Second, I am not telling you how much I paid for tickets. It's none of your business. (Although, to preserve my dignity, I will tell you I paid considerably--way considerably--less than top price.)
Third, I enjoyed myself. Does this mean I have no standards? Or, as I prefer to believe, does it mean that I'm capable of finding pleasure in almost any situation?
My oldest son asked me which concert I liked better--Blaqk Audio or Hannah Montana.
On the side of Hannah Montana--I got an actual seat to sit in. And I brought a book to read during intermisison.
On the side of Blaqk Audio--way more interesting people to watch. Everyone at Hannah Montaha looked pretty much like everyone else. Lots of moms of a certain age, lots of pre-teen girls who shrieked a lot, and an occasional father who was the very definition of longsuffering. There were no fishnets, no corsets, no persons-of-uncertain-gender.
Honestly, where is that Mother of the Year award?
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