Brief Update

Well, I’ve finished over 30,000 words! I will finish this year. I am just hoping to have the story done by 60,000 words. My friend is still competing with me and we are both planning on finishing together. Things are going well. I introduced a character yesterday as an antagonist and I think he will end up becoming part of my protagonist’s party to his final end. I’ll see.

NaNoWriMo Plus 5

5 November 2006

I think I’m doing okay. I’ve got 15,000 words completed over forty pages. Doing this around two kids and job seeking is really getting to be a pain in the kiester. Especially when one considers the fact that my wife is doing the Festival of Trees with her friend and also doing my sister’s wedding dress. I try and help her as much as I can, but I’m still trying to crank out ten pages per day. I just promise her help after I hit my first five pages. So, I wake up earlier than anyone else in the house and try and get my first five pages done before anyone else wakes up. It just gets hard getting up early when at least one of the kids has me out of bed in the middle of the night. Ah, but it’s a labor of love. I love my wife, I love my kids, and I love writing; in that order. I write because I have to, but I’m going to use Bradbury’s advice of quantity eventually yields quality. It’s just one of those situations of what do writers do? They write. The more I write the better I’ll get. I am going to get this 50,000 word goal. Check out my stuff at NaNoWriMo.org. I think I am definitely enjoying this, though. It’s worth my time because the story is really starting to take on a life of its own. Already it seems to have deviated from the initial plot I laid out for it. But I want success, not necessarily adhesion to my plot. The story is called Finder of Lost Things

Off and Running

I made it off the starting blocks yesterday morning at 6:30. I had been up six times that night with my lovely children and decided, since I was already up at 6:00, I’d take a half-hour power nap and then start. I started, and finished around 8:00. I also got to keep writing throughout the day, thanks to my lovely wife for understanding and supporting me in doing so.

I, today, am sitting just short of twenty pages, double-spaced, and will access the web tomorrow and post my success on the NaNoWriMo page. This is getting exciting and fun. I want to get at least ten pages per day in until I get back to a day job so I can have that cushion to fall back on if I need to. I’d rather not have to; I’d just rather exceed the 50,000 word goal and have it ready for judging on the 30th without having to worry about any real writing on the last day. Also, I don’t write on Sundays, so I find I need to kind of make up for that day’s five pages throughout the week. But I’m not really missing anything if I don’t I just write on a six-day week.

My edit for my first-completed short story, “Crisis” is almost complete. Then I’ll input the corrections and get the work to Kori. After her edits are input, I will give it out to my friends for their approval and perusal. I hope to meet the 31 December deadline for Writers of the Future, but I might not make it. So, I might just hold out for the 31 March deadline instead.