Eaters of the Dead - reading

In the midst of NaNoWriMo, I was able to finish Eaters of the Dead. That sounds remarkable except that it took me a long time to read this book. That wasn't because the book was bad, but it wasn't entirely compelling to finish.

Ultimately I thought it was good. It's based on Beowulf more than anything else, though there are references and footnotes throughout, and the list of sources at the end includes Lovecraft's Necronomicon. Pretty authentic!

NaNoWriMo 2013 Day 18

I ended day 16 with 30,037 words, saying I had some revisions to make. I finished the revisions and ended up at 31,543 words, a gain of 1,506 words over two days in a section that's about 6,500 words long. That's not many words, given how long I've sat here staring at the story, but getting the revisions done was critical for moving this part of the story forward.

After writing some new content, I ended the day at 32,290 words, for 1,289 words for the day.

I also filled my whiteboard with notes, then organized them into my outline, then filled it again with more notes, which then also got incorporated. The outline is pretty happily fleshed out right now, except for the last entry which says, "HOW DOES ANY OF THIS RESOLVE?"

NaNoWriMo 2013 day 16

I caught up to par on day 12 with a 4,501-word day, and have stayed ahead since then. I ended the day today with 30,037 words, which is just above where I should be on day 18.

I am working on chapter 5 and am well into the second part of the setup. The first part spanned chapters 1-4. I've introduced a fair number of characters, and gotten some feedback on the story so far, which actually led to a complete restructuring of chapter 5. Ultimately, though, it will make for a better story. I just need to finish the restructure, add the new pieces to it, and from there I can move on to the next setup part.

THEN new things can happen!

NaNoWriMo 2013 - first 10 days

So much for catching up! I'm currently about 6,000 words behind. The good news is that I know I have enough material to pass 50,000 words. It might even be a good story. I just need to make it happen by the end of the month.

In looking at my progress thus far, I looked at how well I had done with keeping on-pace in years past. The result? The first three NaNos I did were pretty well paced. I made steady progress and crossed the 50k mark toward the end of the month. The following two? Fits and spurts. I still made 50k, but each one was a slow start and hard finish. Here are the graphs:

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

For 2009 and 2010 I also went well past the 50k mark. I'm hoping this year will bring many more words, since it's the sequel to the 2010 book, which topped 60k.

NaNoWriMo 2013 Day 5

I caught up!

I spent the evening using the word sprints available in the http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#r-nanowrimo chat room. While I didn't exactly compete with the others in the room, it was good to be able to focus on writing for a pretty good stretch of time. My total for the day was 4,096 words (not intentionally a power of 2, but I'll take it) and my total count is 8,840 words now.

In the story, I had two characters that I knew I wanted to get together see each other, but one of them turned and bolted. I wasn't exactly expecting that reaction. Back to the drawing board on getting them in the same place at the same time.

And now to get to bed at a reasonable hour.

NaNoWriMo 2013 days 1-4

I got a slow start this year, and it hasn't picked up any. Today is day five and while I haven't started writing for the day yet, I'm sitting at 4,744 words so far when I should be at 6,666 minimum, and 8,333 by the end of the day. I'm still working on chapter one and am feeling uninspired thus far by the writing. I'm not uninspired by the story outline - there's some cool stuff to come, and my sounding board friend has been really helpful.

I'm reintroducing some characters from the first book - characters that didn't end up doing much of anything. For example, the First Commander's daughter who appeared in chapter one of Following the First Star and was then (spoiler alert - ha!) irrelevant is back for chapter one of this book.

I should have plenty of time to write tonight. I'm hoping to get back on track. I know I can do it - I've had plenty of days writing thousands of words, and I only need 3,589 to catch up. But so far I haven't been following the NaNoWriMo mantra of just getting words down. I've been too careful. I've been editing in place. I've been revising bits and pieces here and there. I won't keep the pace if I keep this up.

NaNoWriMo 2013 Starting

I'm off to a slow start this year. I'm writing the sequel to Following the First Star, and have quite a few notes on the current state of the world, but I still don't have a clear idea of where I'm going from here. After re-reading it, I skimmed it again up to a scene in the second part of the book, then read more closely after that. It was funny that I had plans for a certain character only to find that character died in the first book! Whoops.

I went to the kickoff on Halloween night, where we got to hang around and mingle, then start writing all at once at midnight. It was pretty cool to transition from a party-like atmosphere to a bunch of people quietly typing away on keyboards, and one jerk listening to music on headphones loud enough that all around could hear it. I only got a few hundred words that first night because I hadn't gotten enough sleep all week due to work. Today is day two, and I am about to start writing for the day now (4 PM).

Here goes!