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Post by Head Mutant on Nov 14, 2006 14:19:19 GMT -5
Halfway mark, woohoo!
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Post by pfrsue on Nov 14, 2006 20:29:14 GMT -5
I went over 27,000 today - trying to stay a little ahead as tomorrow might be a little tight for time.
Still, as I was working on it this evening, I can't escape a little panicked voice in the back of my mind saying: How the HECK are you going to pad this thing out to 50,000 words?
On the bright side, although I'd decided that the situation of the main character was unrealistic and probably made the whole story a throw-away, I did a little research last night and found out that I'm wrong. This is a viable situation and after a few thousand years of rewriting when NaNoWriMo is done, it might actually work as a book.
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Post by TheOogieBoogieMan on Nov 14, 2006 22:24:16 GMT -5
I just started doing my writing for the day. I'm almost at 22,000 words, and I still have quite a bit to go.
It seems like it's harder to write as the days go by. The ideas are there, but I've been getting more distracted than ever when I write. The kicker is that I want to be writing more everyday, because I don't want to be struggling to reach 50,000 on November 30th, but also because I have an exam next week, and studying for that means less time for writing.
I won't stop, though. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...
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Post by Head Mutant on Nov 15, 2006 15:30:49 GMT -5
Yeah, the writing does get harder, particularly on some days. On the other hand, doing this very regularly for 15 days now (yay, into week 3!), it's gotten easier in that I don't have to work myself up to any great energetic lengths to get it done. I just do it, and the rust is flaking off my fingers as it goes along.
I'm glad you both are still with it. Don't give up Oogie... LOADS of people are further behind than you.
I wasn't previously worried about making the story last 50K words -- the book was pretty much going to be a collection of stories at this camp as the summer goes along -- but now an overarching plot is settling in to stay, and I'm a little worried that there might not be enough story to go the distance. Or that I'll make it stretch, but it will overstay its welcome. I can already envision cutting this book down after the month is over.
Anyway, I had a nice moment today. I'm preparing to go out of town for the weekend, and I'm going to be using a very old laptop for my continued writing. So I printed out my book so far, and seeing 68 pages spit out of the printer in a nice thick package made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. As did the knowledge that this is only HALF of what will eventually come.
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Post by TheOogieBoogieMan on Nov 16, 2006 18:41:57 GMT -5
Ugh...what a horrible night...
Around midnight last night, an hour or so after I finished typing my 25,000th word, I did something really stupid with my computer that caused all my files to be wiped out. Including my novel.
I didn't have it saved anywhere else, so, with the exception of the passage on my profile, the first half of my novel is completely gone. And there is no way I'm going to rewrite all that I've done so far.
I'm going to keep writing anyway; I would hate to have to quit, after typing so much for so long, because of something as stupid as a computer error. I remember where I left off last night, so that won't be a problem.
Besides, as I've mentioned before, I was planning on deleting the whole thing once I was finished. I just started a little early, I guess.
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Post by Head Mutant on Nov 16, 2006 21:32:52 GMT -5
Oh noooo...
First of all, it might not be truly gone. Check all your temp files directories and consider using file recovery software.
That's horrible. I've been backing up my novel to e-mail every day now, because I'm outright paranoid against such a disaster.
But grats on 25K!
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Post by pfrsue on Nov 16, 2006 21:41:35 GMT -5
Erghhhh! Oogie, that just stinks!!! Keep writing though. definitely! I will never forget the day when my son (then a wee toddler) blithely smacked at my keyboard while I was writing, and deleted eight pages of text. I still don't know how he did that. I'm not sure why I didn't sell him to gypsies after that either. Since I'm writing at work and at home, I have my novel saved on a floppy and two hard drives. Plus I'm keeping a seperate txt file of it for word count uploads. Worst case scenario, I still won't lose more than a day of work. (Unless my son hits the keyboard or something, in which case the universe will probably collapse in on itself. He's much older now.) I'm up to 31,900 - was a productive day for me, not so productive for my boss.  And the downside/upside is that my car broke down on the way home today so I have an unscheduled day off tomorrow (excepting trying to find someone who can fix it) in which I can get even more writing done. Uhm... whoopee. |
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Post by TheOogieBoogieMan on Nov 17, 2006 18:19:46 GMT -5
Well, I didn't get any writing done yesterday, so I'm going to write a whole lot tonight. Which suits me just fine, since I was planning to write a lot this weekend anyway. I wanna get ahead a little. I worked on trying to get my novel (and other files) back last night and this morning, a process that included using two file recovery programs, with no luck. So, I'm basically rebuilding the civilization that was my computer from scratch. Trying to remember all the websites I had bookmarked has been the biggest challenge. |
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Post by pfrsue on Nov 19, 2006 20:09:49 GMT -5
Well let's hear it for Word Challenges. The Wisconsin-Madison, Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Wisconsin-Elsewhere and California-Santa Barbara groups all competed against each other this weekend for highest word count average. The competition ran from 6pm Fri-6pm Sun. and when the smoke cleared, I ended up contributing 8,239 as my share for Wisc-Elsewhere. This brings my total personal word count up to 42,849.
Mommy, I want to go hoooooome!
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Post by TheOogieBoogieMan on Nov 20, 2006 0:35:55 GMT -5
I passed 30,000 the other night, and I'm starting up again right now. I've got an especially strong case of [whiny voice]"I don't wanna!"[/whiny voice] that I have to fight through tonight.
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Post by TheOogieBoogieMan on Nov 20, 2006 1:08:16 GMT -5
And good job with the 8,000+ words, Sue. Won't be long til you're done now.
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Post by Head Mutant on Nov 20, 2006 21:48:41 GMT -5
Ah, Oogie, I know your pain now. I spent the weekend at a convention, diligently hacking away at my novel on a laptop in my spare time. Came back with 8,000 new words to add to the file, only to discover that somehow I lost two chapters from the original file completely. It might have something to do with transferring files between my work and home computers, and I might have overwritten my newer file with an older one without realizing it until now. I have to go in tomorrow and see if the chapters are anywhere to be found. I'm terribly crushed. Sure, it's not as bad as losing half or all of the novel, but without those chapters I'm just 35,000 -- and I'd be more like 38,000 by now with them. I have to waste a day to go back and rewrite them  |
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Post by TheOogieBoogieMan on Nov 21, 2006 2:04:35 GMT -5
Tough luck, Justin. At least I'm not the only one to have been hosed by technology whilst writing my novel anymore.
I won't have much time for writing this week. On wednesday, I have a mid-term exam, and on friday I have both a Latin test and a science project due. So basically, the plan I've cooked up tonight about finishing the novel is this: by thursday night, I should have at least 35,000 words done. Therefore, what I'm hoping I can do is type 5,000 words a day starting friday evening. If I can do that, I'll have reached 50,000 words by Sunday night.
Easier said than done, especially considering my shoddy work ethic as of late, but I really want to get this sucker over and done with.
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Post by pfrsue on Nov 25, 2006 20:01:15 GMT -5
My brain hurts.  A lot. Just sayin'.  |
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Post by Head Mutant on Nov 25, 2006 20:51:47 GMT -5
Congrats Sue! That's awesome!
Due to a lockin and a generally crappy day, I skipped writing for the first time this month. But the good news is I'm about 8k away, so we shall see.
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