Title: Something to Think About
Series: Final Fantasy XI
Characters: Darian, Anrym
Rated: G
Words: 1,410 (end)
Summary: Darian receives a visit from Anrym, who asks him to teach her the intricacies of White Magery.
Notes:Prompt from Myrna, from, um, quite a while ago. I hope I got Anrym right, as I don’t write for other people’s characters as a rule.
I just reread the gong show that is my NaNo novel… it’s sad to read a description paragraph and have it stop in the middle without me finishing my sentence. LOL. ^^;;;
50,102/50,000.
I did it, and a day ahead of schedule (since I wanted to finish this this weekend instead of worrying about it on Monday).
I didn’t copypasta songs to pad wordcount.
I didn’t copypasta blog entries as “writer’s notes” to pad wordcount.
I wrote 50,000 words on ONE SUBJECT, something I thought I’d never, EVER be able to do.
I did it.
Thank you all who helped me. I’m posting the original document here as a PDF to prove that I actually wrote stuff. Word count in Word doesn’t match that of the NaNoWriMo validator, so don’t think I cheated or something.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS SOMETHING BARELY RESEMBLING A DRAFT. Most of the major points are there, with author’s notes in between the scenes that don’t have any tie ins. I still need to write those. THIS IS REALLY BAD WORK, PEOPLE, so don’t post here saying that my characterization and grammar lolsuck because I HAVEN’T EVEN EDITED IT YET.
HAY GUYSE I’M BEHIND DUE TO STUFF TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY BUT I LIKE JUST WROTE 2600 WORDS IN 100 MINUTES AND IT’S THE BEST CHAPTER IN THE WHOLE DAMN BOOK AND I’M SO PROUD OF MYSELF AND I WISH I COULD SHOW YOU BUT I CAN’T YET. ;_;
Okay, that hurt to type.
Not much to report — I really hate this, actually, because I can’t show you guys my progress through various stories.
Anyways, I’ve posted up to where it’s safe. This is really crappy writing, people! I stopped trying after Day 7.
I’m a little surprised at how badly I’m handling NaNo this year:
- I’m allowing myself to get behind (but not too behind)
- I’m not making daily posts
- I don’t have an outline (no, seriously)
I really don’t know why. Lack of enthusiasm? Who knows! All I know is that I’m struggling with it this year, big time.
I’ve posted some more of the story over here (or if that doesn’t work, try this link). If you’re nitpicking and counting the words, it won’t match up — I’ve cut out all the junk that I’ve crossed out but that I’m keeping in my word count.
The story has three parts to it:
Part 1: Adelheid and Nicolaus’ escape
Part 2: Erlene’s rescue
Part 3: The Near East
I’m about 90% done Part 1, 50% Part 2, and 0% Part 3.
Astute readers will note that I’m over halfway done my word count and I’m nowhere near being done.
Descriptions are still killing me. Ever since my mother said my descriptions have been improving and that I’m doing better at setting the mood, I’ve been terrified at screwing things up (sorry, mom) — the antithesis of NaNo itself. I think I’ve finally gotten over that… now my big enemy is fatigue, which has been taking me over lately.
Tonight will be a challenge since I’m 600 or so word behind from yesterday (which I’m hoping to write over lunch), and then I have to write another 1667 words tonight before Dynamis. Sky, on his part, is about 1000 words behind from yesterday, and he probably won’t have time to write before Dynamis.
I’m not actually worried about falling too much behind, since everything is recoverable so far; it’s finding the motivation to continue. I need something to motivate me, a carrot at the end of a stick, something like that… but what?
Sorry I haven’t been posting status updates; it seems like no too many people are reading this, so I’m disinclined to post further out of fear of boring people. But anyways!
First, I’m going to stop reporting my wordcount, because there’s a handy little widget to your right that says it all in real-time (or close to it.)
I fell behind on Tuesday night; Tuesday is when I do Dynamis (an end-game activity that gets you shiny things and lots of death), and though I usually have the time to write before it’s time to go, I didn’t have that opportunity this week and I only got 300 words before I kissed dirt in Dynamis-Windurst.
That left me with a whole lot of words to write on Wednesday.
Let me tell you about Write or Die. I’d sugar-coat it and say that it’s not as bad as it sounds, but it is. It’s basically a text box in which you write words (you can set it to go up to a certain wordcount or by time). That sounds pretty banal, but there are three settings to this little instrument of pain: gentle, normal, and kamikaze. Gentle fades the screen to red if you stop typing for too long and brings up a box telling you to keep writing. Normal does the same, except instead of bringing up a text box, it begins playing horrible sounds like babies crying, alarm clock buzzers or whatnot, until you start typing again. And Kamikaze mode does neither of those; it lets you type on your merry way, but if you stop? It starts deleting your words. I am not kidding.
Anyways, on Gentle mode (I refuse to use the two others), it really lets me focus and just keep writing, writing, writing. I can pound out 350 words/10 minutes on that thing. With that, I managed to catch up, and I’m back on track so far.
That said, I’m having some trouble writing. See, I had a few scenes in mind when I started this little adventure, and I’ve written them for the most part. However, I need to figure out what happens in between… and I actually have no clue how to go about that. As a result, nothing is sequential at the moment, so I can’t even post something to entertain you all.
I’m sure I’ll get around it; Sky and Myrna are great sounding boards, so I can bounce ideas off them and see if they stick. I’m also not too worried about wordcount — if I can get to the last part of the story with 20,000 words remaining, I won’t have to worry about running out of words to write before I reach the end of the story.
There’s a curious phenomenon in the NaNoWriMo world called the Week 2 Slump. The underlying cause of it is actually coming down from the euphoric high you feel as you undergo your first week surge into the land of words. Much like an adrenaline crash, the Week 2 Slump is extremely draining, both physically and mentally, as you realize that you’re only a scant quarter through your novel and the dishes have been piling up and mouldering in the sink. (Not that I have any first-hand experience with this, cough cough.)
Week 2 Slump hit me hard with my first two NaNos; the first year, I simply… stopped writing, and I fell 15,000 words behind that I fought vailliantly to write in the last weekend of the month. The second year wasn’t quite as bad, but even though I was hitting wordcount, I was definitely not enjoying what I was writing (and does it ever show).
My epiphanies the last two years came in the form of new stories: A Mind of His Own (Digimon) the first year, and Ebb and Flow (and original story loosely based on SaGa III) for the second. The problem now is that I’m only writing one single story, and I don’t have the benefit of completely switching gears unless I write things out of order, which isn’t a bad thing, but not as entertaining for you, the reader.
I just need to get through Week 2 and I should be okay. I had a disturbing slump during Week 1, and I still feel that one of the sections I’m writing (which I’m posting below) is boring as all fuck, but hey, it’s a challenge.
12,114/50,000.
There’s not much I can say right now, and unfortunately, I have nothing to show you because of what I’m writing. I struggled through some Nicolaus stuff before I gave up and started writing stuff that happens six months after what I’d written so far. Interestingly enough, this is material that I originally intended to open with, and the entire focus of the story was supposed to be on that one character. (Sheesh, why am I trying to hide it? I’m writing some Erlene stuff. No need to beat around the bush.)
Anyways, because of that, I can’t show you what I’ve written. It WILL be posted, and this month at that, once it becomes relevant for me to do so.
Not much to report. I worked on the glossary yesterday (and actually made it kind of funny), and I wrote an extremely difficult scene tonight. Brain’s kind of mush. I split the files into three for ease of reading, too.
Title: Exodus
Series: Final Fantasy XI
Characters: Adelheid, Nicolaus, Erlene
Rated: T, rating subject to change
Word Count: 6,770/50,000
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