Double Timing NaNoWriMo Word Count

 I have two laptops. My old laptop is on my desk at home.  Most of  my writing takes place on that one. It's got a lot of stories and idea blurbs on it. 

NaNoWriMo is Here! Are you Rockin' It?

 I'm a bit over 2000 words. Not really a great count for day 6 of NaNo, but its something. 

Here's the problem. 

This was a challenge to do from a randomly picked prompt. not my idea or something I'd usually write about.  So I spend a lot of time forcing myself into the shoes of my MC (main character) to come up with the next move. 

This time I also printed out a worksheet of the Hero's Journey to fit my story into. I've got some of it down but mostly I have no freakin' clue where I'm going with this story. 

And so I flounder... questions! Questions! Questions! 

What next? 

What should MC do now? 

How does she know this isn't just her imagination? 

Is the guy she just met one of them or will he help her?

Is she about to get sucked into a nightmare? how do I save her and let this get crazy? Should I? 

Oy! My head! 

Ok, NaNo, See in tomorrow at 7 am with coffee. 

Good luck out there you NaNo wizards. Write on, Write good, Write often. 

How's your word count? 

Writing, Word Count, and Series Writing

I usually never give a negative review. If I don't like a book, I simply move on. (this came from my mother who always said, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.") However, the book I've got on my ipod is a bit of a crazy maker.

It's Evanovich's latest Stephanie Plum novel, Takedown Twenty. For those not familiar its about a woman bounty hunter who is in a love triangle between a cop and another bounty hunter. That's the short version. But that "Twenty" in the title stands for the 20th book in the series. Whew! That's not only a lot of books but a lot of work to make each one different and unique. In the beginning these books were very entertaining, funny, and fast paced. Everything I like in a good book. I love the page-turner, keep-me-up-all-night book. This book ain't it. :(

I think one of the main problems in the 20 books is that somewhere along the line the main character, Stephanie Plum, stops growing. She's stuck in this emotional vacuum of tracking bad guys, falling down stairs, getting food/trash thrown at her and bouncing between the two boyfriends. This happens over and over and over in all twenty books. Nothing new, everything predictable. Sadly I can't even bring myself to pay for these books and usually just download them from the library. In the beginning I used to run right out and buy two hardcovers as soon as they came out. One for me and one for my mother in law.

Now I'm in book 20 and really have to wonder if the writer was just trying to make a word count. A few chapters in, the main character stops at a store and then the writer lists about 20 items that she bought including napkins, vegetables, two magazines, blah, blah, blah... As a writer, all I'm thinking is; was she trying to make a word count???  Why does the shopping list need to be in the story? Since it's written in the first person it makes me think of that annoying person you meet who dumps every tiny detail of her life into every conversation.  I want to scream; is there a point to all this blather?

Back to the main plot. Is this twenty something woman ever going to grow up? Change? Don't we all change and grow? Doesn't she want to get better at her job or improve her life in any way? She's an inept bounty hunter, which lends to the comedy aspect, but if she never improves or learns the skills of her job then how is this book any different than the 19 before it? She strings two guys along and they follow like puppies...for 20 books?

I think in every book we look for what happens next. Like in the Hero's Journey we need challenges met and the return of the golden chalice. Without that, what's the point? In Takedown Twenty I felt like I'd already read it. Nineteen times.
Too bad. Evanovich is an awesome writer but somewhere along the line...we lost the fact that its a journey, not a scene.

Writing Ten Pages

I read Stephen King stays at his desk until he writes at least ten pages.
Sounds easy, right?

Sometimes, I guess it is. Today, not so much. I've never had such a hard time squeezing out ten pages. I kept starting to stand up and then dropping back into the chair, remembering I promised myself ten pages today.

I'm drawn to this vampire story for some reason. Its a little outside my usual writing, but its like exploring a new land. I want to see where its going to go. The ten pages today were torture. I finished about 3 o'clock. Not too bad overall but the writing was hard. I counted every minute, every word, every page.

Then I finished editing the first 100 pages of another book. Tonight I'll print out another 100 pages and edit that between other working on other stuff.

I decided to start setting goals from reading Zoe Winters' site. She does word count each day and she's fairly prolific.

Do you set writing goals? What are they? Do they
help?

That's Hemingway's cat cemetery. -->
He really did love his kitties.

Challenging Youself

One of the writers I most admire is Zoe Winters. She regularly posts her word count and how far she's gotten in her lastest WIP.  I need to do this. Not post it per say, but challenge myself to get X amount of pages done each day. In Stephen King's book, On Writing he says he completes at least 10 pages a day. Now I question if he perfects those 10 pages with edits or does he just blow them out to come back and edit later? Probably a little of both since we know writing isn't an exact science. I usually plow through to the end but sometimes I back track.
So what word count to set?
I work full time, volunteer and just started piano lessons. :) So with all that on my plate, what would be a viable word count? Should it be set for each day? Week? Or should it be a time goal? X amount of hours each day or week?
Sometimes 10 pages fly by, other times 5 pages are absolutely painful and time is a factor when you work 8 hours a day.
Do you set word/page goals? Are they daily or weekly?

How do you get it done? 

139,750 words...too much?

So while waiting for my editing buddy to finish my latest WIP I'm looking at a story I wrote last year but shelved. I like my story, characters and all that but the ending was flat. I absolutely hate cop-out endings in books. Like when you read a great book, a real page turner and then the ending is a WTF moment. Like what were they thinking? Where's the climax? The promised drama? The OMG ending?
So in that other story I hated that I didn't have a better ending so I shelved it.
For a year.
And now I have it! I'm real excited about my ending now and I open up the old story and realize it's over 500 pages. Ayyaakk! Could any newbie possibly interest an agent in a 500 page book?
Ugh! Now I'm going back through this story that I love with some mental scissors.
This ever happen to you?

Word Count? How's 139,750?

Ewwww, I just realized my word count was 139,750... (559 pages)

So, what do you think? Not such a good thing for a first time author? Is there an agent on earth who would even look at it?

Oy!

My head hurts.

Threshold of Midnight:

Diana sat down to breakfast with a madman. Eggshells, she thought. This is what they mean when they say walking on eggshells. This edge of your seat fear that the wrong move, the wrong word, will set him off.
She chanced a glance toward her husband and saw it. Right there in those Robert Redford blue eyes was the mania. That touch of insanity that crawled into their lives a few months ago was shimmering in her husband’s eyes like a gleam of another dimension. A place where madness grew like wild flowers in an open field. Or maybe weeds. Weeds that set their roots down deep in Luke’s brain and mangled his thoughts. Tightening on his brain cells and twisting them with fear anger and confusion. She knew if she could get him to some kind of mental hospital they would tell her the fruit loops in his box were doing the jig right now, trying to escape.
“Sorry Mrs. Archer. Your husband’s a couple beers short of a six, brain’s gone fishin’, out to lunch-probably permanently.”
Thank you much, doc, but that little fact is old news. Now, tell me how much time would a lady get for murder in New Jersey? If she used the insanity defense would it really matter which one of them was crazy?
“We need all the dry goods in today, Diana.” Luke insisted as he mopped up his soft-boiled eggs with his whole-wheat toast. “I’ve packed the linens in boxes and put them in the mud room. Take those down, too.”
Diana looked across the breakfast table at her husband and felt the heat of anger rise up inside her. And fear. There was always that too, inching up her spine, twisting her gut like some kind of venomous snake. And it won out over the anger every time. She looked away, across the room and out the window over the sink. The sun was out today. Birds singing in the trees and clouds drifting by making the morning seem just like every other day. If she focused on the trees and the sky it was almost like her life was normal. Just for a few minutes.
“Diana.”
Reluctantly, turning back to Luke, Diana promised herself she was not going to feed his mania today.
“Yes?”
Luke nodded and continued with his instructions, but Diana wasn’t listening. Instead, her thoughts turned to getting out of this situation.

Death or divorce.