NaNo 2010: Write In Motion

Word Count: 13289 for a total of 53,607

I originally wanted to post this recap of Saturday’s awesomeness on Saturday or Sunday but my brain was feeling a bit too fried. Doing it today also gave me the distance I needed for perspective. One of the fun events that our Vancouver region does during NaNoWriMo is to do an all day writing event. Known as Write in Motion, this year we wrote across the town at various spots.

To summarize the event, We had a blast! Our ML, nancy, and I discovered that together we wrote one half of a novel in just one day with our combined word counts! As you recall, Kender dared me to wrap up my novel Saturday. And I’m happy to report that I beat that challenge and wrote 13289 words.

NaNo 2010 Day Ten

Word Count: 2833 for a total of 25871
Revised Words: 5971 for a total of 29009

I’ve done it! I’m now on the backside of 50k words. I’m not sure if it’s all downhill from here but it does feel good. Julien has returned to the Earthborn plane and has been mirroring Tracy around. He’s trying to get a feel for what is going on and observing her activities throughout the day. He has yet to contact her directly through dreams but that will come soon enough. I did get Julien in trouble by first attempting to shift Tracy’s aura so that it’s more relaxed. Then I had him use her computer to try and uncover what happened after he died. As there was no info on it, he got frustrated and acted out. Which drew attention from those in the house. Julien has fled back to SGI HQ and tomorrow we’ll see what that does for him.

NaNo 2010 Days 5-8

Word Count: 2973 words today, for a total of 20353

Hooboy. What a weekend. I didn’t post anything mainly because I was busy with a Tarot Intensive that my friend Katrina Wynne was putting on. Pretty much ate most of my waking time over the weekend. But I did manage to write just above the normal daily word count all three days.

So what is going on? Well, I graduated Julien and introduced Tracy and her plight. What a plight she has going on. Things are just getting worse and worse for her and finally she called out to have help from “the powers that be.” Julien is now briefed on her case and he’ll be sent Earthbound to observe and see what he can do for her.

My goal is to try and keep writing 3000 words a day and to wrap this up by Thanksgiving. Then it’s time to switch gears and work on some other things that have been neglected.

NaNo 2010 Day Four

Word Count: 3013 words today, for a total of 11770

Today was funky. I woke up late, and had to attend to Real Life things before I could actually properly sit down and focus on anything. I did manage to squeeze 250 words in before heading out, but it left me feeling off. When I got home, after doing errands and visiting a friend (and getting food into my belly), I sat down to hammer out 2000 words. And as you can see… I completely wiped it off the map. Go Team inno!

NaNo 2010 Day Two

Word Count: 3077 for a total of 5644

Today I took the plunge and badly wrote a car race and wreck for my MC Julien. Basically, the goal was to kill him off so the real story starts. A friend of mine remarked about why I did two days of “prewriting”, and I basically told her that I wanted to have a pre-living and death scene in the story so that the reader has a small chance to connect to the MC. This way we can watch him develop from a jock teen to a spirit guide in training. Tomorrow the fun part starts as I get to figure out the ins and outs of SGI, Inc and introduce both Julien and the readers to this new world I’m trying to create.

NaNo 2010 Day One

Word Count: 2567

In 2008, while I went crazy and wrote a novel in a month by hand, instead of posting the whole thing live, I wrote about my writing experiences. This was partially based off a fellow writer (and friend) Jamie Grove. I didn’t do this sort of coverage last year but due to the whole social network thing getting tied into the site and all, I think I’ll bring it back. Click the more button to read on!

Story ideas come from the strangest places

This year’s NaNoWriMo novel is based off an experience I had this past July. I was driving my car in town and speaking to my spirit guide. I was musing how such a guide ended up with me as their charge. I’m always wondering if my guides and totems think I’m a major pain in the ass, so I pictured this guide in particular shaking his head and rolling his eyes a lot at me. What can I say, my guides are probably just as smart assy as I am.

In any case, as soon as I asked the question, “How did you get assigned to me?” the seed of a story idea flooded into my mind. I then said, “Never mind. I guess this sort of answers it.” And thus, Spirit Guides, Inc. My novel in-progress for 2010 was born.

Story Soundtracks

The first year I participated in NaNoWriMo, I created a soundtrack to write by because I thought it’d be fun and help motivate me to greatness. I’m a writer who writes to music and it did spur me on. Over the years, I’ve created more playlists and soundscapes for my works. I’ve found that when I set up a list of songs, carefully crafting the way the sounds play and match images in my head that it does something more than creating something fun and tangible to share with my friends and cohorts.

Creating a playlist of songs, helps me set my story pace. There are fast songs and slow songs and I find that I have to have a certain pace or beat to fill the gaps between each major plot point. So, behold… here’s the playlist for my 2010 NaNoWriMo novel. Enjoy!

Perpetual–Day One

They say that the world will end with a bang, a loud noise that will tear apart the fabric of the great nations sitting across the globe. They say that the world will shake and spew magma down upon us all. They got it wrong. It does not start this way at all. The world, as it began to end, started silently. A small tear opened from deep down below, near the very center of the world and worked a long shambling path upwards until it pushed up and outwards, feeling the coolness of the winter air from high above.

If it Works… Do It; or How I uncovered my 2009 nano idea

“If it works, go for it,” became this year’s motto for uncovering my central idea for NaNoWriMo 2009. I fretted over the past five days about how “late” I was in getting an idea for my story. Kender and I brainstormed some ideas last night, and after awhile, our session devolved into discussing and me writing up an scenario I had for our D&D campaign. Today I spent hours scanning the NaNo forums, as well as my old Scrivener files for past rejected ideas. In that slush pile, I found an idea. And a rudimentary liking and shape took hold in my mind.