tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55325406348592184762011-11-11T23:46:06.934-05:00It's NaNoWriMo. That's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.February Gracenoreply@blogger.comBlogger221100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5532540634859218476.post-69713286114795047292011-11-05T23:10:00.000-04:002011-11-05T23:10:10.660-04:00

This post is a bit difficult to explain and I am a little behind on word count for the day so I won't really try to now: explanation will follow later on (hopefully tomorrow) For tonight: Frankie, baby, these are for you. I would love to crochet myself an official Frank duck after this month's festivities are over. It's been years now since I've added a duck to my collection, but I made a

February Gracenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5532540634859218476.post-43230520712220611252011-11-01T13:53:00.002-04:002011-11-01T21:27:19.359-04:00

omg. Omg! OMG!!! It's WHAT TIME on the first of WHEN and I've yet to write a word?!? Am I even going to attempt this, this year? Yes and no. Well, yes in that I am writing for NaNo but no in that I won't so much be winning. It's not that I don't plan to try for the 50k, it's that I literally can't win. This year, I'm part of the rebellion. Yes, it's finally come to this, mon frere. I did

February Gracenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5532540634859218476.post-73356424957260610202010-11-25T20:17:00.003-05:002010-11-25T20:19:41.971-05:00

I hope Douglas would approve.Closing in...but I have a feeling the last 8k are going to be the big challenge. Time for sure to rest my eyes, though. Tomorrow is still another day in November.

February Gracenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5532540634859218476.post-22109918227282913162010-11-24T21:18:00.003-05:002010-11-24T21:22:32.285-05:00

Really is a joy forever.Even if I didn't write another word more, this would be a victory considering I've been typing blind a lot of the time. Oddly, I think it's actually helped the writing- I know I have material to go back to later that I never would have written if I'd been concentrating too hard. Even the stuff I already know has to go eventually can potentially be altered- but even if it

February Gracenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5532540634859218476.post-45291557079865128442010-11-20T03:33:00.002-05:002010-11-20T03:39:24.834-05:00

With no alternative but certain and epic NaNo failure for the first time, I bit back my misgivings and tried typing with my eyes closed.Shock!The typos were manageable, because I can still feel the tip of my left index finger upon the surface of the correct key (to hold my place)even though I can't tell where the rest of my fingers are. (It's bizarre enough to be able to type at all, given the

February Gracenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5532540634859218476.post-29896386766308953792010-11-14T18:52:00.006-05:002010-11-16T02:05:42.004-05:00

Yesterday's breakfast: once a Dunkin Donut goes past 12 hours old I usually can't eat it. Desperate for chocolate frosting, sadly, this is what happened...This year, NaNo is a whole other animal for me.My first year, I joined on November 17 and had finished my 'novel' at 52k words ten days later. Last year, by the 15th I was over 50k words and though I had to take several eye-related breaks, in

February Gracenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5532540634859218476.post-25863487681789830612010-11-13T22:29:00.003-05:002011-11-01T14:14:17.659-04:00

Talk about your Freudian slip, I actually said this out loud earlier: "I may be writing an uphill battle but I don't want to look in the mirror on December 1 without having written 50k words at least." Now, in all fairness to me (and I'm not usually that fair to me, believe it) I have been writing. Blogging doesn't count I know but even creatively, in fact just today I pounded out 1651 words

February Gracenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5532540634859218476.post-49951645112899308002010-11-13T20:37:00.003-05:002010-11-13T20:49:18.456-05:00

My wordcount...All those ugly little red squares.What's happened to me this year? Usually I'm at 11K by dawn of day two- but this year...this year...Oh yeah, there was that thing where I got really sick in August and was still on IV drug infusions for the first part of this month (before I finally went AWOL and all my doctors got together and decided 'enough already') following that, I've been

February Gracenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5532540634859218476.post-8958860913538800112010-11-03T22:09:00.002-04:002010-11-03T22:14:40.163-04:00

Ugh, I am about done with even attempting to use the NaNoWriMo forums this year.I've been trying for more than an hour just to send a PM to someone to answer questions they asked in the Reference forum and it's over capacity. Or some other thing.What's gone wrong this year? I don't get it. Last year was so much better than 08, and there don't seem to be that many more writers this year or am I

February Gracenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5532540634859218476.post-65453732124492761252010-11-02T10:51:00.002-04:002010-11-02T10:56:20.574-04:00

So.This year is off to a way different start for me.Usually by this point, I have 10k words down and no idea where my story is going.This year, I wrote a very modest and sane 2400 words in the first day (have yet to write today, I had to clear my head of blog stuff first) and a scary idea of where my story is going.This year I'm off the map.I'm doing the thing that scared me to write because no,

February Gracenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5532540634859218476.post-13839420427655937642010-04-06T19:57:00.004-04:002010-05-10T04:19:28.988-04:00

Hi there!I'm sorry to those following that I never posted that post NaNo 09 update- I have a valid excuse.Really.My retina tore.That is not the kind of thing you make up and unfortunately it's what happened to me a couple weeks after NaNo ended.I had to have it lasered back together (spot-welded, the doctor called it...) and I was forbidden from reading OR writing for weeks afterward. The

February Gracenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5532540634859218476.post-51316730699163030172009-11-30T23:40:00.006-05:002009-11-30T23:45:44.277-05:00

Yes, I am wearing the official Our House NaNoWriMo footwear of victory.Observe:The story about these socks will follow as soon as my eyes no longer feel like they're burning and/or going to fall out.More of the afterglow coming soon...Final word count:80,142With additions/editing/polishing to follow...And yes, I tip my hat to you, Douglas.So Long, and thanks for all the fish, indeed!All three

February Gracenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5532540634859218476.post-29321294428117614912009-11-24T20:08:00.005-05:002010-11-02T12:48:03.838-04:00

Yeah...um...what?This is not FOOD in bar form! This is bar in purple form!So I'm on the NaNo forums, like I shouldn't be because Dru is hollering at me that I have to start stitching up these plot holes and Benjamin is begging me to just decide if Annabeth is going to wake up already or put him out of his heartbroken misery and Annabeth is just getting really pissed that she can't seem to drink

February Gracenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5532540634859218476.post-31712496721921025422009-11-17T19:31:00.008-05:002009-11-17T20:01:04.538-05:00

No, that's not part of my novel, that's real life folks.There is a very cool Wrimo called 'thingit' who posted a thread in the All Ages forum on the NaNoWriMo site saying that she was about to go on the air on the only all English radio station in Santiago and talk about NaNo. She wanted stories. So I chimed in with mind and darn if she didn't talk about me on the air!If that wasn't enough,

February Gracenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5532540634859218476.post-81846955926596208682009-11-17T13:32:00.002-05:002009-11-17T13:36:01.694-05:00

This NaNo is turning out to be quite a different experience for me from the first.Maybe it's that people know I'm doing it this year and so there's kind of a 'watching over my shoulder' thing going on.Maybe it's just that doing it with three writers in the family all at once is too much (someone has to do the dishes after all)Whatever it is, I'm 200 words shy of 55,000, the story has more loose

February Gracenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5532540634859218476.post-64416797344148430872009-11-17T00:33:00.002-05:002009-11-17T00:51:41.953-05:00

So.Despite being out of commission for two days due in part to a major migraine, I still made my goal of 50K by midnight Sunday (the 15th). In fact I made it with a couple hours to spare and kept right on going.Why doesn't my word count say 50K anymore?Because I am purposely keeping my progress bar blue until the validation begins. No more word count updates for me from here on out.My buddies are

February Gracenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5532540634859218476.post-66675691119516022912009-11-07T23:22:00.005-05:002009-11-07T23:39:36.568-05:00

And I am not talking about the Russians here.There are nifty little widgets now at the NaNo site that you can use to track your wordcount progress.I picked out a neat one with a calendar that gives you happy little light green squares on days when you make goal, even neater bright green squares when you do REALLY good on a given day and unhappily, little red squares if you don't make goal on a

February Gracenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5532540634859218476.post-64671138693117868252009-11-06T19:32:00.007-05:002009-11-06T20:04:18.244-05:00

Maybe Punky Brewster had it right; matching socks are death to creativity. But as you can see, The Kid is having no such footwear related crisis, it seems as she continues along...Ugh.I wrote 2000 words today, all utter rubbish.Trash, refuse, and any other ugly adjective you want to attach to them- all nonsense. And I do hate writing nonsense.I've got scenes out of sequences, I've got bits of

February Gracenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5532540634859218476.post-30313160097411353382009-11-05T19:13:00.002-05:002009-11-05T22:51:24.374-05:00

Oh.Good.Grief.What have I done to my poor eyes?Today's wordcount- zip.But I do hope to do something about that before midnight if I can hold my head up long enough...--hours later--Okay so I've added a paltry 700 words...there's still an hour before midnight and I did get a nap in for the sake of the eyes...Today's thought on the experience that was the past few years of my life...The experience

February Gracenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5532540634859218476.post-51533610720182251632009-11-05T18:45:00.004-05:002009-11-05T22:30:26.760-05:00

And already, there are wardrobe malfunctions...it's only day four, my socks no longer match and they tell me my cardigan is inside out...but who cares! I'm writing a novel and no one can see my feet (well, now they can...)Holy cow.I've never typed let alone written so much in my life. My wordcount took on a life of its own after Chris Baty's passionate plea that we not injure NaNo angels by

February Gracenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5532540634859218476.post-60993042439475663732009-11-01T18:34:00.000-05:002009-11-05T18:43:28.382-05:00

This year, knowing about NaNo in advance (and having a long time to think about it when I was unable to see) I had many fleeting ideas for concepts to try for this year's novel.Last year I had two ideas, neither of which worked and then I just started typing dialogue- and there it was, the entire novel just wrote itself.The same thing seems to be happening this year. I had decided that I wanted

February Gracenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5532540634859218476.post-46849429244288912362009-11-01T18:19:00.001-05:002009-11-05T18:32:26.714-05:00

Yes, yes it is. It's tilted, it's brilliant, and what's more it has a picture of my inner editor on it.You see, last year after hounding me all of my life, I saw a thread on the NaNo forums asking what your inner editor looks like and mine immediately marched out of the shadows of my mind and declared her identity with a statement something like this:"I'm here, darling, I'm fabulous and I am not

February Gracenoreply@blogger.com0