Weekend Writing Warriors: Nanowrimo Sunday #2

Have a WIP, an EIP, an MS, or a published work you want to share on your blog, eight sentences at a time?

Want to sample other people’s WIPs, EIPs, MSs, or published works, eight sentences at a time?

Be a Weekend Writing Warrior!

Rules are here!

List of participants is here!

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I survived the first full week of National Novel Writing Month!

At the scheduling of this post, I have 13,487 more words of Odd Duck than I did when I started, some of which I might actually keep once National Novel Editing Month rolls around.

Regardless, I’m sharing eight sentences (edited slightly both to fit the limit and because I ditched the delusion of first draft perfection a while ago) from this week’s output, which introduces Grant, who does occasional, semi-legal computer hacking for Tom.

Grant’s place—the whole third floor of a building with Fort Knox-level electronic security—is a huge open space full of painted silk partitions he uses to make an ever-changing warren maze.  Just go with it:

“Grant?” I hollered.

“I’m in my office!” he hollered back.

“Can you give me a hint?”

“Head north—the green path.”

A few of the screens looked more green than the others, so I followed them until I finally worked my way to Grant and his computers, which had been set up in the northeast corner.

“Hey, Grant,” I said.  “How’s tricks?”

“For kids,” he said, glancing up at me.

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Like Tom, Grant is ex-Army (a tech, not a sniper) and was in Lieutenant Kyle’s platoon.  He’s a computer genius, something of a weapons expert, and, thanks to their little adventure in Afghanistan, a severe agoraphobe whose PTSD has been impeding his ability to change into his other form.

It’s difficult to use firearms with paws, you see.

I don’t know if I’m keeping Grant; I can’t add every animal to the list of weres without losing sight of the book I intend to write.  But this is Nanofodder, and if nothing else, I’m learning a bit more about how this world might seem to non-predators.

Nanoedmo is gonna be a hoot, though.

I’ll try to visit everyone today, but if I’m a little late, please forgive me.  I have a wordmeter to feed!

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Image “jack rabbit camouflage” taken by the very talented Devra, located via Flickr and shared under a Creative Commons license.

Nanoduck

So.

Nanowrimo.  Fifty thousand words in thirty days.

It’s going well, so far, if  “well” can mean generating only slightly under 6,000 words (at the publishing of this post) in three and a half days and developing a persistent ache in my writing hand.

I certainly would, even though my stats page over at the Nanowrimo site says that if I can keep this up, I’ll finish on December 10th, which isn’t particularly ideal.

If I’m gonna do this thing, I want a $#!%ing winner’s badge.

But word count isn’t the only goal for National Novel Writing Month.  It isn’t even the primary one for me.

This has been  a tough year for all kinds of reasons, and its been all too easy to let my writing suffer for it.

I need to ignore my inner critic, that nasty, bullying bitch who insists that every single, stinking sentence be perfect, and I haven’t been.  I need to stop waiting to get the details right before I start and I haven’t been.  I need to get out of my own way and I haven’t been.

I need to write like it’s a priority and I haven’t been. 

Maybe placing word count over quality, at least for a while, will do the trick.

I started with a list of general scenes I thought I needed, scribbled over lunch on October 31—there’s foreshadowing for you—when I still wasn’t sure it was the best idea to give myself a huge honking project on top of everything else that’s going on around here.

Maybe it isn’t, but there’s always something going on, isn’t there?  And I’m starting to think that waiting for the perfect time is a losing game.

It’s time to try making the imperfect times work for me.

So far, I’ve hit two of the scenes from my list,  introduced a couple of important secondary characters, sussed out some relationship dynamics, and learned a lot about my MCs father, who is not your average bear.

Have I written a lot of crap that will need to be edited out?

Ohhhhhh, yeah.

This morning, I did a page and a half about waiting for a backyard grill to heat and barely remembered to have the MC mention a clue I’d absent-mindedly planted in the previous scene.

The coffee must have hit about then:  Oh!  Right! Mystery novel!

But it’s dawning on my that writing down all this extraneous stuff makes it so much easier to clear it away.

Out of brain, out of mind.

Some of this stuff  might be part of the unseen backstory of the characters, some might end up being a quiet throwaway backdrop for the setting.  Other stuff may belong in a different scene or in a completely different story. Or it may be utter bilge, destined for the editor’s sump pump.

Regardless, it isn’t gumming up the works anymore.

And  I already have a better idea of  what this book isn’t and who the characters might be—even if a lot of them are working under the names X and Y because I refuse to stop to figure it out—and I’m slapping notes on previous pages to remind myself to FIX THIS LATER.

I have a side list of plot points and characters and motivations and agendas.  And that clue.

I have the makings, the inklings, the possibility of a cohesive plot.

I have, apparently, salmon burgers waiting to be seared over an untreated charcoal fire and perhaps a bit too much organic hard cider.

And a little over 44,000 words to go.

Onward.

 

 

Weekend Writing Warriors: Nanowrimo Sunday #1

Have a WIP, an EIP, an MS, or a published work you want to share on your blog, eight sentences at a time?

Want to sample other people’s WIPs, EIPs, MSs, or published works, eight sentences at a time?

Be a Weekend Writing Warrior!

Rules are here!

List of participants is here!

_______________________

On Friday, I signed up for Nanowrimo, on the theory that if you want to get something done by deadline, you assign it to someone who’s already swamped beyond reason. Or something like that.

Regardless, it’s incentive to get Odd Duck done, so I’m doing it.

Here are eight sentences from yesterday’s 2,282 words:

Lowell Rhombeck’s office was not in the warehouse district; it was uptown, in a curved, mirrored oblong of a skyscraper with a crowning rotunda that made it look like the kind of thing a giant flapper might have tucked into her garter. It had a name, but everyone outside of the Historical Society called it the Flask Building.

It was also the fourth tallest and third most expensive chunk of business real estate in the city. The pack corporation was doing well enough to afford taller and shinier, but its CEO didn’t need to show off.

I had nothing to prove, either, so I took the express elevator instead of the stairs.

The woman sitting in the outer office wasn’t the one I was expecting. Instead of a curvy, green-eyed brunette in a smart business suit, there was a streamlined blonde in a streamlined linen dress that matched the amber brown of her eyes.  

I didn’t recognize her, but I knew when to cry wolf.

 

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I took the photo on the Chicago Architectural boat tour I took with a friend (Hi, ‘firstmausi!) this past summer.  I honestly don’t remember its real name, but another friend, who works in Chicago (Hi, Lyra!), tells me that it’s not an office building but a residential high rise, full of what I assume are extremely expensive condos.

But I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to put a flask-shaped mirrored building in a detective story, so I appropriated it for my own ends.

I’ll try to visit everyone today, but if I’m a little late, please forgive me.  I have a wordmeter to feed!

Half-Nano Final: It Took a Village . . .

. . .But I did it.

Twenty-five thousand and seven words in thirty days.

Not in plot order, necessarily, but all from the same story.

This might pale in comparison to everyone who managed a full fifty-thousand , but considering all the Keep Sarah From Writing Events, both scheduled and spontaneous, that were held in November—most of which were my own fault, I agree, hush—I don’t think I could have double my output without quitting my day job, becoming a full-time hermit instead of a part -time recluse, and giving up sleep altogether.

Or the kids.

I’d been working on setting more realistic goals for myself, and twenty-five K was a good one.  It was challenging but not overwhelming, and while the highs maybe weren’t as high as last year’s Nano, falling behind that third week wasn’t as devastating as it would have been if my daily goal had been higher.

And I loved the impetus of writing every day and the satisfaction of getting something down, even if it was only a couple of paragraphs on a legal pad, a scene idea scrawled on the back on an envelope, or a quick e-mail typed to myself on my work break.

That part, I’m keeping.

I’m not sure how many of the actual pages I’m keeping—at one point, I wrote a sort of Möbius scene, where the beginning couldn’t have happened before the end and vice versa, but it reads so well. . . but I managed to establish a few plot points and made a few character discoveries along the way.

But story development and a re-established writing habit weren’t the real prizes this month.

I already knew how encouraging my friends are* but I also  learned that my family, or most of it, thinks my writing goals are important enough to warrant tolerating my odd habits—up to the point where I’m endangering my health—or, rather, that I’m important enough, which is even better.

This month, I was fed, listened to, left alone, dragged out for walks, sent to bed, woken up, and hugged—a lot.  And everyone—even the kids, who honestly weren’t that bad . . . at times—gave me time to do what I needed to do.

I realized yesterday, after my husband took the kids out for the afternoon so I could clean the back hall/do laundry/nap, that they’ve always done this for me, when I let them know I need it.

Turns out, that’s the real Writer’s Life—the Life, full-stop—that I’ve always wanted, right there.

Who knew?

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*Seriously, thank you all—not just for this month, either.

Half-Nano Update #4: Gaaaaahhhhhh!

I made some headway this week—I wrote every day on my NanoWIP, had some plot discoveries, added two characters, and gave an actual name to a third.   I asked a friend for suggestions  about an aspect of an MC’s job and she provided The Perfect Thing.

I also sampled a lot of coffee.  And cake.  For the book.

But I wasn’t quite able to catch up on my word count.  According to the math, I should be at 20,016 words, and at the posting of this, I’m at 18,831.

I have six days to write  6,169 words.  That’s 1,028 a day, and doable,  I hope, even with my folks arriving Tuesday and the living room still to clean and Thanksgiving to do.*

Plus, I’ve been using up a lot of the time I might have used for writing this weekend worrying about the four-and-a-half hour CPR class I’m teaching today.  I know the material, but it’s my first time using a classroom in this particular location—the first time I’ve been inside this particular location—and the first time I’m leading the class.  I don’t know where any of the equipment is, I don’t know how the projector works, and I’m not entirely sure where I’m sending the paperwork afterwards . . .

Wish me luck and many, many words, would you?

How’s YOUR Nano and/or November going?

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*Or help do, as my SIL is in charge of the turkeys this year—and most of the rest of the actual meal—while I appear to be in charge of leftovers, which will involveseveral gallons of turkey-matzoh ball soup and several more gallons of egg noodle-turkey soup.  And possibly sandwiches.