A thought to ponder

118,818 / 140,000 (84.9%)

Brain = Mush (still)

Long day at the day job. I did a piddly amount of work on the EED (tm) but they were good words, so I'm pleased.

I'll leave you with the following quote, which came up on one of my page-a-day calendars and which has been circling and circling around my brain for the past few days. (I love calendars. I have 3. It's an addiction.)

Feel free to discuss...

“People are more than the worst thing they have ever done in their lives.” Sister Helen Prejean

Word Meter v7.2

**Just a reminder to check over at reneesweet.livejournal.com if I haven't posted here in a while. I keep forgetting to cross post!**

*sigh* I've changed it again. But I'm sticking with it this time! I swear! I reassessed my plotting notes and have decided I should be able to wrap up the rough draft in 140,000 words. Which is sort of ridiculous but not as bad as 150,000, so that's something. I'm also confident it will be completed by the end of vacation, most likely including the couple of scenes I skipped (which I originally thought I'd leave for revisions). Whoo-hoo! The end is in sight!

118,067 / 140,000 (84.3%)

The Downward Spiral

After a nap, I managed about 900 words. I could have written another hundred, but that would have meant opening up another tree of dialogue I'm too tired to finish and I find I write dialogue better as a whole instead of in bits and snatches.

114,960 / 150,000 (76.6%)

I'm definitely working up to a big crash. In me, that is, not in the WIP. Whether I'll last through the end of the book before I crash remains to be seen. If you'd asked me yesterday whether I thought there was any chance in hell I'd finish it by the time I got back from vacation (my goal), I'd have said no. Today? Just might be possible. If I break down the number of scenes I have left, it seems totally do-able. But who knows how long it will take me to write each scene? Not I, that's for sure.

As this book goes on, I'm feeling more and more strongly that this will be a learning novel and not a submission-worthy novel. Yanno, unless some sort of magical thing happens in revisions. But, that's okay. I've got a great idea (well, part of an idea) for the next book and have learned so much from this experience. Even if I shove it under my bed, so to speak, I won't regret a single moment spent on it. I think that's pretty cool.

First, progress:

110,192 / 150,000 (73.5%)

Last night, Ben and I watched the movie Gone Baby Gone. It was great. It's based on a Dennis Lehane novel, which I haven't read. But after seeing the movie, I really want to. I'm going to assume that the screenplay is closely enough based on the novel that I can attribute all of its genius to Mr. Lehane. Anyone who's read the novel and seen the movie, please chime in and correct me.

This is a writer's movie. You've heard me say that before, about The Prestige. If you haven't rented The Prestige yet, please stop reading this, because I can no longer speak to you. I'm not kidding. Go. Now. Rent. Love. Come back and thank me and then we'll be back on speaking terms.

Where was I? Oh, yes. A writer's movie. I think this is the most perfectly balanced plot I've ever seen in a movie. Twists and turns that lead us right where Lehane wants us, questioning everything, with no clear picture of who's right and who's wrong. Seemingly simple characters that peel away layers of themselves like onions throughout the film, revealing a mirror-like symmetry that is as perfect and satisfying as it is disturbing. And the opening lines! I actually made Ben pause the movie so I could rant for two full minutes about their brilliance.

Pure fucking genius. Dennis Lehane, I bow to you.

Goals for tomorrow: twice as much wordage and half as much book hate.

P.S. I post more often on my LiveJournal account, including snippets of my current WIP sometimes (like today). Check me out there, if you're interested: reneesweet.livejournal.com

Sometimes the best way to make word count is to stop writing.

I've been working on a big magic scene since yesterday. By big, I mean significant, not long. Yet, it's taking me for-fucking-ever to scrape out each sentence. Today, I took drastic measures--I skipped the rest of the damned thing. I left an all-caps message in the body of the text commanding myself to fix the scene and finish the transition. Well, that's not exactly how I worded it, but there've been enough potty words on this LJ in the past couple of days.

Okay, who am I kidding? There are never enough potty words. I love profanity! But, I digress. It's late, I'm tired and still high on new-phone-euphoria.

THE POINT is that, while I really, truly hate leaving scenes unfinished and I hardly ever do it, sometimes it's the best way to get going again. As soon as I jumped ahead a few minutes in the story, the words were flowing again like normal. As for the still unfinished scene, I'm sure I'll have a brilliant idea during revisions. *nervous laughter*

'Night all.

102,905 / 150,000 (68.6%)

P.S. I'm *madly* in love with Matt Nathanson's latest CD, Some Mad Hope. I can't recommend it enough. Great melodies, Matt's enjoyable everyman voice and clever lyrics that are swelled with hope even as they're prodding at those bruised places inside you.

The Big Sex Scene

I tapped out 3,000 words today, leading me up to and carrying me almost all the way through The Big Sex Scene. I've blogged before about how ridiculous sex scene terminology is, so I won't go into it again here. I do feel compelled to confess that the following words worked their way into my scene: buttocks, crease, plunge and the ever popular phrase "juncture of my thighs". *shakes head* I will DEFINITELY be doing a cheese factor read-through when it's finished. Which probably won't be until tomorrow night, since there's no way in hell I'm writing sex with someone sitting next to me on the bus. Uh-uh.

102,112 / 150,000 (68.1%)

*Yawn*

I think the re-plotting is finally paying off. I wrote 1500 words today with relative ease. The story came easily -- the movie in my mind -- the only times I struggled were when I was trying to actually describe it in a correct, interesting way. Here's an updated progress meter. I've upped my goal to 150K because I'm writing very. freaking. long. Do not fear, beloved CPs! I'll be tightening and cutting and trimming a whole bunch off before I subject you to it. ;)

99,129 / 150,000 (66.1%)

And now, for the sleeping.

This trip hates me.

I won't torture all of you by recounting my disgusting work day. Suffice it to say that it involved a person clipping their fingernails at their desk, me nearly being pelted with said fingernail clippings and a boatload of inconsiderate people who pretty much just created unnecessary work for me. Rock.

I wrote some tonight, though not as much as I hoped I would. This trip is sucking the life out of me. My coworker and I erupted into a hysterical giggling fit, complete with laugh-crying, at the end of our meal tonight because we were both nearly delirious from this endless, endless week.

Ugh.

But! The point is, I did write. I didn't get as much word count done this week as I hoped I would, but I wrote everyday except one and that's a good thing. Total (pitiful) word count for the trip so far is 1,376 words. *sigh* I actually checked it three times because I would have but cold hard cash on a bet saying it was at least twice that. Drat.

Tomorrow I should get some time in at the airport and on the flight, assuming I don't crash completely. My goal is to have this rough draft done by mid-July (one year from it's creation!) which means I need to figure out my daily word goals and, oh yeah, stick to them. Perhaps I'll do that before bed tonight. Yanno, in the next three minutes.

Tootles!

Progress, at last!

Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh. Wrote 1,002 words tonight, relatively quickly. And damn, it felt good! Here's where I stand right now (though I'm quite positive I'm going to exceed 120K):

95,729 / 120,000 (79.8%)

I'm travelling all next week again, which hopefully means I'll get in some decent writing time in the airports and at the hotel at night.

Words!! I made words!!

*cue choir of angels*

Hallelujah, I actually wrote tonight. I mean, more than three sentences kind of wrote. Yahoo!

Ever go through a period of time where even though you know rationally, in your mind, that you're fine and you're just a little temporarily stuck there's a voice in your heart screaming, "WHAT IF THIS IS IT?? WHAT IF THIS IS THE BEST YOU'LL EVER DO? GET STUCK HALFWAY THROUGH EVERY GODDAMN MANUSCRIPT YOU EVERY TRY TO WRITE!"

*ahem* Yeah, I was hearing a little bit of that voice lately. But I'm good now. *big grin* I needed to figure out the logistics of the next scene, which included figuring out exactly what touristy location in Managua I could have my MCs enjoy a romantic evening and then be set upon by a pack of pissed off rat-shifters. And then, of course, there were the logistics of the fight scene which, frankly, I suck at. But that's just peachy because this is the Rough! Draft! Which means I have another go (or three) to have my black belted husband help me make the fight scene cool.

So tonight I was able to sit down, shut of all the voices in my head and let the movie play. Just a little, but whatever. A little is better than the nothing I've been getting lately.

The key to this will be writing everyday, I'm sure of this. I busted through 30,000 words in November without any of these issues because I was actually -- gasp! -- d i s c i p l i n e d. Imagine that!

Well, I'm off to get a good night's sleep so I don't suck at the new job tomorrow. And then? Yep. More words!!!

Oh -- p.s. 54,908 / 120,000 I can't find a working word meter right now so this will have to do. The % complete hardly matters anyway since I keep changing the goal from 100K to 150K to 120K and back, depending on my mood.

Peter Jackson, oh how I love thee

Renee's Progress

Hello!

Just a teensy little pile of new words. Between holiday distractions and my recent discovery that a new season of CSI has been released on DVD, I'm getting very little done. But I'm getting something done which is much, much better than nothing done. Enough to keep the story running in my mind, anyway. I'm still picking my way across the dialogue minefield of the scene I mentioned in my last post (or was it two posts ago?).

Some very exciting news: Peter Jackson is officially signed up as Executive Producer for The Hobbit!! Yahoo!!! My love for his work on the Lord of the Rings trilogy is virtually bottomless and I was crushed when his disagreement with the studio led to him leaving The Hobbit. The article I read indicated that he had an idea to split the book into two films which gives me pause. But I trust Peter. He'll do it right, I know he will. I also found it interesting that he is the Executive Producer and not directing. I wonder who'll be cast... Aha. I just checked IMDB and apparently he can't/won't direct because of his unresolved lawsuit with New Line over unpaid fees from LOTR. Also per IMDB, many of the LOTR actors are eager to reprise their roles. Hurray!

Okay, I'm off to early bed (naughty naughty, stayed up late watching CSI last night!). It's likely I'll be scarce over the next few days but I *will* still be writing (dammit!) and I'll still be thinking of all of you, faithful readers. I hope you are finding a moment or two of peace and meaning from the season.

Show and tell

Renee's Progress

I'm going to go with a weeknight goal of 700 words and a weekend goal of 1,000-2,000 per day, depending on my plans. I will start incorporating some semblance of a social life back into my schedule so I won't be making 700 words 5 days a week. But I'll keep my social calendar to a minimum and do my best. There they are, my new goals proclaimed to the universe.

Oh! Before I spend any more time blathering on about me, I have terribly exciting news to report!! Karen has finished her book! The first draft came in complete just a few days past NaNo. Please pop over to congratulate her on completing her very first novel.

Now, back to me. *snobbish laugh* You'll notice I bumped up my word count goal from 100K to 150K. The true goal here is between 100-120K, but I know I'm writing super long so I'm trying to set a realistic gauge of my progress. It'll all get shaved off in revisions. Based on where my current wordcount puts me (roughly a third of the way through) I'd say I'm about right. I might be a little farther than a third through the plot, but it's hard to say whether or not I'll keep writing as long (i.e. length-wise) as I have been now that nearly all the characters have been introduced, etc.

The scene I worked on today gave me pause. I'm feeling challenged by this particular relationship in the book. There is a lot of history between these two characters -- history that will be effected by the events in this book, but doesn't actually warrant becoming part of the story itself. So I need to find a way to (quickly!) establish the terms of their relationship so I can get on with screwing it up. Ha ha.

One of the things I hear over and over in the writing community is "show, don't tell." Readers don't just want to be informed, they want to learn, explore, discover. They want to have things revealed to them! They want to have ah-ha moments. They want to infer the nuances of a relationship, not receive a download of the ins and outs of what pulls the two people together.

Which means I can't just spend three paragraphs explaining the history between these two particular characters. Weaving it into the story is much more fun, but also more challenging. I'm afraid I'm not going to do it well enough and the rest of the implications to the relationship are either going to be lost or appear overwritten. (Hey! Who left the door open? Insecurities are creeping in! Were you raised in a barn??)

Either I'll nail it, or I won't, I guess. And if I don't, well, that's what revisions are for. Either way, I just need to write through the scene. Now that...that I can do.

A goal met, at last!

Renee's Progress

1,717 words today. Phew! I made up my words for the last two days including meeting my 1,000 word goal for today. Karen kicked serious word-heiny again today--visit her LJ here to read about her progress. Chandra is also doing well, although I don't know whether or not she hit her goal today. She has a nifty writing accessory, though, which you can read about here. I haven't heard from Jon today so I have no idea how he's doing.

I've realized that for the most part, I am not writing in rough draft form. I tend to edit as I go, which makes for a better first draft but also a slower first draft. I wish I could tell how many words I write then replace with other words. I bet I've actually been doubling my word count goals! ;) Part of me wishes I could turn off the internal editor so I can just push forward with getting the story out on paper (so to speak) but part of me is just so darned pleased with the quality of what I'm writing that I feel like I can't complain. *shrugs*

The space bar on my keyboard is going. And my laptop weighs 7.5 lbs., which has had me whining about how heavy it is for months now. I finally decided it was time for a new one since it's essentially taking the place of my husband and all my friends this month. Tonight I took a break at the 750 word mark and Ben and I went to look at a Mac Book. It only weighs 5 lbs.! Whoo-hoo! I'm very excited. He's ordering it for me online and I should have it by mid-week. Hopefully my space bar will hold out that long. I have a Dell laptop right now and have never used a Mac before so there will certainly be an adjustment period, but I'm looking forward to it.

One last note before I go. You may notice that despite my rockin' word count today, my overall word count for The Gatherer has actually gone *down*. This is because there are multiple places to view word count in Liquid Storybinder, the fabulous FABULOUS program I write in, and the one I had been previously using was incorporating the word counts of the notes I had in addition to the chapters I was writing. So I've found the real word count number now, which is just looking at the counts from the individual chapters, not the additional notes and references I've got going in the various documents.

Ok, I'm off to get some sleep. Tomorrow I have a house errand to do and then I'm hoping to write 1500-2000 words.

Sweet dreams everyone...

NaNo Day Two

Renee's Progress
Jon's Progress
Karen's Progress

(No update yet for Chandra.)

653 words for me tonight. Again, not 1,000 but I'm not sweating it. I was dead tired and I worked the crap out of a part of this scene. I'm really pleased with what I wrote again. I'll get caught up this weekend on the words I owe and hopefully some extra beyond that. I've got some stuff going on next weekend that will unavoidably cut into my writing time, so I'm going to try to work ahead.

In other news, Jon has finally created a blog! Go say hi here.

Many, many kisses go to my genius husband for helping me with the word count meters above. Zokutou is down for NaNo and darn it if I don't find that little blue bar terribly motivating. So Ben came to my rescue.

I hear my pillow calling...

NaNo Progress, Day One

Renee's Progress
Jon's Progress
Karen's Progress
Chandra's Progress

Congrats NaNo Harem!!!

I didn't make my 1,000 word goal, but I'm totally happy with what I accomplished. I love what I wrote tonight -- the rewrite of this chapter is much better than the original. I actually clapped out loud at myself a couple of times because I'm just that dorky. You'll also notice that the overall word count has increased by a little over 2700 words -- that's because I ended up pasting in a big portion of the original chapter (hooray for not completely sucking the first time!). But I'm not counting that towards my NaNo goal, since the whole point is to advance my word count.

I'm heading off to get some sleep now. I probably won't post everyone's results everyday (unless they want me to) but I'll keep posting Jon's until he creates a blog of his own.

Official NaNo start count:

23,246 / 100,000 (23.2%)

That's right, I'll be past the 50,000 word mark (that's more than halfway to my goal, my little math geniuses!) thirty days from now.

*cue dramatic music*
MARK MY WORDS PEOPLE! THAT WORD COUNT METER WILL READ 53,246 OR HIGHER BY 12/1 OR I'LL... I'LL... be really pissed. Yeah. So there.

Let the fun begin!

NaNo's Eve

Well, here we are on NaNo's Eve, a.k.a. All Hallow's Eve. I can't procrastinate long because I'm tired and I have to write a recommendation letter before I can work on The Gatherer but I wanted to pop in and say:

1. Happy Halloween

2. ohmyfreakingwordnanostartstomorrow

and

3. The anthology HOLIDAYS ARE HELL was officially on shelves yesterday (sorry I'm a day late). Kim Harrison, Vicki Pettersson, Marjorie M. Liu and Lynsay Sands -- yowzer. Not even my NaNo book diet can keep me away from that one. I'll have it in my hot little hands this weekend and my biggest problem will be deciding which story to read first! Barnes and Noble is also having an online discussion forum with all four authors. I believe it lasts all month. Check it out.

Anyone else want to join my NaNo harem?

Ok, that calls to mind images that make me giggle. Tee hee.

Anyway. I've realized I forgot to give proper credit to the Vegas photographers - all the pics in the previous post were taken by either Jonathan or Cara. I didn't even bring my camera on the trip, a first for me. Usually I spend half the vacation behind the lens instead of enjoying the experience.

Ok, I'm off to go warm up for NaNo. First up: a complete rewrite of the scene that stalled me a couple of weeks ago. Goodbye slow paced getting-to-know-you conversation, hello crazy lust-laced dinner flirtation! (That's the scene, not my personal plans for the evening. Dammit!)

And on the fifty-fifth day...

...she wrote 1,092 words. And the words were good. Mostly. And she smiled and ate a grapefruit to celebrate.

22,738 / 100,000 (22.7%)