OK, I *finally* shook off the blahs and got my sorry ass in gear. No, no, don’t look at the work count..I’m still a tad behind there. But behind the scenes I cleared up a lot of little niggling things that were leeching psychic energy away, and I remembered that having a bit of a ritual helps with my writing.

As always, my friends, old and new, have been incredibly supportive and I’ve been drawing huge gobs of power from them.

My MC and his faithful sidekick are on the run now, fleeing down alleys and hiding out in seedy taverns, so things are starting to get interesting in the book, too.

I’ve decided to give myself today off. I’m already feeling stressed and burnt-out, though not just from NaNo.

Is this the sophomore slump? Or is this that weird situation where the less you have to do, the harder it is to accomplish? I’m not sure. I’m just really having a lot of trouble quieting my mind so the words can flow. I keep jumping back to problems I’m working on for my freelance job, or articles I should be writing. Last year when I was working, I’d come home from work and leave the job behind. I guess because I’m working from home and at crazy hours, I’m having trouble ‘shutting down’ that part of my brain.

As to the book itself, it’s… meh. So far I think last year’s was a lot better, but then I don’t remember what I thought of that one on day 5.

Bonus event: Now that I’m posting regularly, the spammers are flooding the site. No, you don’t see them. But I’m having to moderate 50-100 link-spams comments every day. Vermin. I detest spammers and their bots.

Well it hasn’t been the most auspicious of beginnings.

Problem the first: The NaNoWriMo web site is tanking hard. I can’t even access it to post my word count, so my little counter gizmo isn’t updated.

Problem the second: A water main broke and I had no water all day, which made my morning a major chore and had me off kilter all afternoon. Granted I should’ve been able to rise above that.

Problem the third: I had decided I was going to use Scrivener as of last night. Then I got a beta key for Jer’s Novel Writer and fell in love with its margin notes, so I transcribed everything from Scrivener to JNW. But then I found out that JNW really isn’t ready for prime time. I was spending more time fiddling with trying to get it to accept notes than I was writing. So then I transcribed everything back to Scrivener. *sigh*

That all said, I think I got about 1,800 words done. I’m aiming for 2,000/day, so I’m starting off behind. Of course the day isn’t over yet.

As to the actual writing…it didn’t exactly flow at first, and I spent a lot of time naming people and filling in Scrivener’s ‘research’ panel with notes about the characters. But by the end of my writing session it was feeling a bit better.

Just a few more hours until NaNo starts. I’ve been chomping at the bit to get started. Of course, I spent most of the last week worrying about what software I’m going to use, rather than about trivial details like plot or characters. I ended up deciding on Scrivener, though Jer’s Novel Writer was a close runner-up. I really like its margin notes.

So I’ve got the Scrivener project set up. Chapter 1 is sitting there blank and waiting. Of course, I have to work tomorrow…didn’t expect that. Not that I’m complaining. Eating is a good thing. But it means I have to give up my “Start at midnight and write until I drop!” plan. Probably for the best.

I’m more excited this year than I was last year. And I’ve been thinking about last year’s novel, which I’ve hardly touched since. I think I’m going to break it out in December and get to work on re-writing/expanding it. I think there’s enough there to make a decent book. But we’ll see.

Anyway, wish me luck. And nag me if my word count starts falling behind. I’m aiming for 2000 words/day and a 60,000 novel.

October is here, and that means the NaNoWriMo site has been swept out and re-opened for business! Can’t you feel the energy in the air? Thousands of writers and wannabe writers, sharpening their metaphorical pencils and getting ready to put noses to grindstones in order to bang out a novel in a month.

I have *no* idea what I’m going to write this year, though. Honestly last year’s novel is still bouncing around inside me head though I haven’t touched it since last December.

I have time to come up with a plot, though… but not infinite time…

And so it comes to an end.

The last 5000 words were almost physically painful. I ran out of story before I ran out of words. In a real world setting, the difference between 48000 words and 50000 probably wouldn’t be that big a deal, but dammit I wanted 50000!

So I went back to the beginning and started editing/adding. But it felt like every time I added something, I cut another bit. Finally at 49,200 words I said ‘screw it’ and went back and gave my main character and his love interest an explicit love scene.

If I were ever to try to make this into a sellable novel I’d clip that bit out since it doesn’t really fit in with the tone of the story, but then I’m sure in the course of editing the whole thing I’d make a lot of additions and changes and who knows where the word count would end up.

But I wanted to hit 50K today. I got out of bed, started writing, and aside from 1 or 2 very brief breaks, I’ve been sitting here every since (its almost 4 now). I just NEEDED to finish!

I wish I hadn’t had to go cheap with the sex scene, though. But oh well. I need to get up and stretch. 🙂

Did a lot of chores on the way home from work, so got a late start. And I still have some things to do around the house; basically I’m trying to get the weekend free for one last big push.

Still, I broke the 40K barrier. And, amazingly, I think I have just enough story left to carry my through to 50K.

I’m really going to do this, dammit. I’m fucking amazed…

Tonight wasn’t easy. First of all, I was exhausted when I got home so I laid down for a minute and the next thing I know it was 8 pm, so I started late. And I had a lot of distractions on my mind. Some pleasant, and some not. A friend of mine is having a tough time in her relationship right now and I’m a bit worried about her.

So the words came slowly. And then suddenly I was writing a relationship between two of my characters and finally the floodgates opened.

Which makes me wonder if it’d be possible to outline a book, identify the scenes I needed, and then choose a scene to work on based on my mood or what’s on my mind?