As November draws to a close, I've downed tools on anything non-essential to complete the final push to make my 50K in 30 days. Am I going to make it???
I think the answer is yes. After last week's stall, I finally took my heroine out of her usual environment for a trip to a new and exciting world, and hey presto, the words started to flow. I'm now sitting at just over 45000 words with an anticipated finish date of Friday. Who would have thought it last week? There's a pretty major plot hole I've managed to skirt around during this first draft, and that's going to need a lot of work during revisions. But I think finally, after three and a half weeks, I now know my hero and my heroine well enough to get this story finished. Wish me luck... Well, my NaNoWriMo draft is not going to plan. Instead of the start at the beginning, work to the end of last year, this story is revealing itself in bits and pieces from different point of views and my lack of progress is frustrating to say the least. It's a futuristic, involves a family business (which is an interactive show) under siege from an unknown person. The heroine is in the family, the hero is a new hire.
So this morning I've pulled out my trusted Once Upon a Time Storytelling Gard Game and Once Upon a Time Dark Tales Add on and randomly picked eight cards - five storytelling and three dark to help me out. The aim is to take inspiration on the story from the hints on the cards. Here's what I got (they're hard to read in the photo). 1. He lived the rest of his life as a beggar, which was perfectly just. 2. They ate it at the feast and it was delicious. 3. And he was reunited with his family. 4. Haunted. 5. Tiny. 6. (Interrupt) Troublemaker - I interpret this as unexpected troublemaker 7. Enemy 8. (Interrupt) Monster - interpreted as unexpected monster. I find it fascinating that of eight cards picked randomly from a deck that I have trouble fitting my hand round, six fit my story. The two that don't - Tiny and Monster. When I say they don't fit, they don't fit yet. Hopefully my subconscious will get to work over the next eleven days and give me the inspiration to include those elements in my story. Oh, and for anyone following the story of my Alphasmart Dana. Cost of repair $500 approx. Cost of replacement $250 approx (not exactly the same) or I could buy a wireless keypad for my iPad, buy a workprocessing package and use my iPad to write (approx $100). Needless to say, I'm going to be retiring my Dana... It's November, which means its National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short. We're now 12 days in and I'm a little behind my target word count. Last year I sat out on our deck in the quiet every night after the washing up was done and pumped out 1700 words on a story that had been percolating for a very long time. The scenes literally wrote themselves. This year, I am struggling. The words and scenes were really stilted and (dare I say) boring when writing from the heroine's point of view. Switched to the hero's point of view and very quickly reached my 1667 words for the day. Major revision of my heroine on day five. Day ten, the man who's missing popped in to give me a scene. On day one, I thought he was probably dead. Day eleven was good to me as a result of this revelation. But on day twelve tragedy struck..... My Dana, longtime writing companion, is faltering and expert advice suggests it may be terminal. Purchased in 2007, the support unit used words like "Such outdated technology" and "Not worth fixing". Those of you who don't know the Dana or Alphasmart (Alphie) they are a range of very robust, very basic word processors with auto on and direct to your file, and a tiny screen that makes editing almost impossible. Perfect for writing dirty first drafts. Even more perfect for slotting into your handbag and slipping it out any time you are waiting for anything to get some words down. Once you're home you connect to your computer via cable, hit send and it adds all those words to your manuscript. That's the part I love the most. Watching it hand over the words. Luckily I was able to retrieve everything from the Dana, and I now have a work-around to let me continue to use it until it dies altogether. Please, God of Technology, don't take it until after the 30th of November. Are you doing NaNo this year? How are you going? We've got a little piece of Australia two and a half hours southwest of Brisbane and we love getting away from the city to the peace and quiet. The only problem is the further behind you leave civilisation, the harder it is to access internet and mobile phone services.
Once upon a time, we used to have to drive five kilometres to the "internet cafe" - a widened shoulder on the top of a hill where there was line of sight to the nearest telecommunications tower. Then we changed providers and could access the phone from our gateway and the internet by standing on top of our gatepost (which doesn't even get strange looks from the locals because everyone has to do it). Now, we have one bar of signal in one tiny spot in our owner builder project and two-three bars about twenty metres away out in the paddock and full signal on top of the gatepost. Here's the view towards the road from our closest internet/phone spot to the shed. I quite like it, but then I do spend a fair amount of time out there. I love that the sky is really big once you get away from the city. The stars on a clear night are to die for. And there is one benefit to limited internet - more writing. |
Fiona Greene AuthorWhen you set out on a journey and night falls, that's when you will discover the stars." Archives
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