Action scene

I've written an action scene! And it was fun!

I can't do action scenes so I'm always amazed when I do. This is why I like Nano. It stretches my limits.

1297 words to go and counting.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you who celebrate it!

For us it's just another day but I will think of all of you with your families and turkeys and too much pie, or whatever you are doing to celebrate, and I will eat chocolate in your honour. (I'll eat chocolate anyway so it might as well be in your honour.)

I wonder what it feels like to have two major feasts within just one month of each other. I have enough trouble sorting out Christmas.

The last ten thousand

I thought the last ten thousand words were meant to be the easy downhill slope to the ending? Not a bit of it. I am quarrying words one at a time. I've got plot holes and character holes and motivation holes and I kind of know where I want to be at the end but I don't see how to get there.

So, normal Nano then.

Too cute!

It's a LOLcat. It has kittens. How could I resist?

Keep slogging on

Some days the words flow, other days writing is as easy as quarrying rocks. It's tempting to give up on the bad days and assume that what I'm writing is rubbish but Tim Hallinan says

When I read the work six weeks later, I can’t tell the good days from the bad ones. In other words, I usually have no idea whether I’m writing well or badly.

from Timothy Hallinan's Writer's Resources.

I love Tim's website. It's the best writing encouragement you can get.

Watch a professional writer in action

Holly Lisle is giving away a new book one scene at a time as she writes it. If you would like to follow the process of a first draft as it emerges from the keyboard of a published writer, then you need to go here and sign up. The scenes will be sent to your email address as they are written.

TalysMana: The Gate Between Reality and Story is a collaboration between Holly and her daughter Rebecca Galardo who is producing the jewellery for the story. I've signed up.

Almost free

GUD magazine is offering its first 5 issues (nought to four) almost free. You can pay what you want, anything from one cent upwards. Buy all five for five cents if you like - that's less than 5p for those of us in England.

Is this the way forward for online publishing- letting the market decide the going rate? I don't know but I do know that this is a bargain. If you like sci fi or fantasy, you might like to head over there now.

A day off

Yesterday I took the day off and went to the London Nano meet. My Beloved came too because it was too wet to play tennis.

On the way home I sorted out some ideas for part three of the story. I've got ninja pirates kidnapping someone. It's not as daft as it sounds. OK, maybe it is then.

Just 18,000 words to go and then I can do some serious editing!

(Dan has some much better photos here.)

Lily admires the size of Dan's lens.

Tyrone takes out his anger on the chips

fairyhedgehog and Holly6000 listen attentively

Jim and our Canadian nanoer who is living here because she doesn't like cold winters

A picture is worth a thousand words

This is my novel at 28,000 words.

It's a pretty picture, anyway.

Wanting to edit

I desperately want to go back and edit my Nano story. There are inconsistencies and gaps and I want to polish it and make it pretty. But it hasn't ended yet and unless I get the story all written down I'll have nothing to edit. I tried editing as I go before in a non-Nano story and it didn't work.

So, here goes with more suckishness today. I tell myself that if I can just get to thirty thousand I'll be over the hump.

A story emerges

My story is emerging as a Diana Wynne-Jones/Isaac Asimov fan fiction mishmash.

I'm amazed I haven't been approached by a major publisher yet but maybe I need to add a few ninjas first.

Half Way

I've passed the 25k mark. I'm completely bogged down but I'm not ready to give up. Yet.

Does your story matter?

I love Chris Baty. From his latest Nano pep talk

I didn't say this in the Week One pep talk because we'd only just met and there's really only so much cornball sentiment from a random guy on the internet that anyone should have to tolerate in one month. But here's the truth: You have a book in you that only you can write. Your story matters. Your voice matters.

I'd love to believe that's true. If only my story were not so derivative.

Let's face it, some stories matter more than others.

My dongle is broken

My internet has bust. I'm borrowing a connector from my son but only for this morning. Then I'm offline until I can get a new dongle. Just so as you know.

Thinking time

Today I've written 400+ words and that's it. I'm going to be planning the next few bits of my story and turning them over in my head. Tomorrow I'll be back at the keyboard tapping away. I think I need to do this. I can't think and type.

In a world of my own

I've managed 2,000 words on my Nano novel today but only just. It's my lowest word count day yet. The trouble is, I'm running out of plot.

Perhaps I'd better start plotting instead of reading blogs. If you don't hear from me, I'm in a universe far, far away trying to work out what my characters can do next.

Widgets are go!

Nano widgets have gone live. Yay!

I'm not evil

We don't like to think that we are immoral, so we make up reasons for our behaviour that make us look good. We even believe them ourselves.

A recent study found that given the choice between two magazines, one with women in swimsuits and one without, the men chose the swimsuit magazine. That wasn't the reason they gave, though. Each man was shown two magazines: one with wider sports coverage and another with more articles, and one or other of these had the bikini pictures. The men chose the magazines with swimsuit pictures but justified their choice by saying that they liked the magazine because it had more articles, or wider sports coverage. When they were told the real reason for their choice they did not believe it.

It's interesting to bear in mind when constructing villains. No one ever thinks that they are the villain.

Thanks to Mind Hacks for an excellent summary of the article.

Nano tip

Don't forget to back up your work.

I've remembered so far. As soon as I've written my 2000 words I get out my memory stick because I couldn't bear to lose all that writing and have to start again. Every Nano there are stories of people that lose their work. I don't want that to be me!

If you look in the comments you'll see that Sylvia has an even easier way to back up.

The Secret

The secret of Nano is not to open my browser until I've written 2000 words. It's a better incentive than chocolate.

Inspiration

Inkygirl is doing a Nano cartoon every day.

You be the judge

Please pop over to Writtenwyrdd's blog to judge the twenty-one entries for the Halloween competition.

It's up to you who gets the cuddly Cthulu!

You don't have to be mad. Well, actually, you do.

There is something magical about meeting other people who are not only as mad as you are but are mad in the same way. The London Nano Weekend Kick-Off party was full of people who are mad about books, writing, science fiction,and computers and who are crazy enough to try to write a novel in a month.

We were at The Mad Hatter pub, so there was a hat competition. Silly Boy doesn't usually have Cthulu sitting on his head. Honestly. One of the Nanoers was wearing an entire bird on her head that she had knitted herself. I was impressed.

That photo is shamelessly stolen from captainmcdan's Flickr photos. You can see the rest of my photos here. Thank you Lily for organising it.

Halloween

We had five or six groups of treaters and one trick: a banana left lying on the doorstep.

A bit later, some kids came and asked for their banana back. All in all, a good night.