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A little update on this year's NaNo attempt:
- I'm restarted three times already
- I should have almost 10,000 words by now but I don't
- I'm not checking my current words out because I know it will be bad
- I've contemplated killing off all my characters at least twice
- I fear for my sanity
The madness has begun. Fueled by Halloween candy, coffee, tea, and diet Pepsi I start NaNo 2008. I thought it might be nice to post my play list for those who asked about it.
National Novel Writing Month 2008 Soundtrack*:
- # 1 Crush - Garbage
- Would? - Alice in Chains
- Three Days - Jane's Addiction
- Roads - Portishead
- Iris - Goo Goo Dolls
- Sympathy for the Devil - Rolling Stones
- Sea Lion - Sage Francis
- Possession - Sarah McLaughlin
- So Long - Everlast
- Paint it Black - Rolling Stones
- The End - The Doors
- Sweeter and Sweeter - Alex Parks
- Half a World Away - REM
- Hallelujah - Leonard Cohen
- Born Slippy - Underworld
- Post Modern Sleaze - Sneaker Pimps
* So far, I'll probably end up adding more. Also these songs are in no particular order
When you're going to attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in the span of 30 days it makes sense to be prepared ahead of time. Here are some tips that I've picked up along the way
1) Have a decent outline..or at least an idea of what you're writing about: The rules say you can't start writing until 12am (local time) Nov 1st but you can make a plan for yourself. Even if you just plot everything out in your head, as long as you know what you want to write it will help avoid burning out right at the beginning.
2) Ignore your inner editor and critic: Nothing can throw you off like that voice telling you all the mistakes you may or may not be making. If you stop to edit then you're daily word count is going to be low and it may even cause you to get discouraged enough to quit. Tell that voice to bugger off on a vacation until you've finished your novel or December, whichever comes first.
3) Pace yourself: Don't set unrealistic daily and weekly word goals for yourself. If you write more then the 1666 words a day needed to end on time that's great, but if you can't then don't try forcing yourself to. As long as your story is flowing then you're fine.
4) Don't Panic!: Yes, it's a huge task. Sure others will have higher word counts then you, but that's okay. You're not in this alone so I repeat, DO NOT PANIC.
On a personal note, I like to have a play list of music that relates to the story I'm trying to tell. It helps get the words out when I'm feeling a little blocked. This may work for you too but I know it's not everyone's cup of tea.
On Saturday the most difficult month of the year starts for me. I will have to balance home/family, work, and writing a 50,000 word novel while also finding time to sleep and eat. My guy will probably take the time to work overtime because he thinks I won't even notice. I do notice by the way but I'm focused, it's one of the things he loves about me so he can complain too much. He's very supportive though.
I had planned on having my Christmas stuff done by now but I don't. So I guess I will have to find time to do that as well. I do not want to be stuck shopping in December in crowded malls, plus I have to mail a few of our gifts and I don't want them to be late. Cards are easy as least. We can do those fairly quickly then mail them off on Dec. 1st.
Anyway, as supportive as those around me are it's still going to take a lot of balance to deal with everything. You can't avoid bosses, or ignore everyone else around you without making them lose patients with you.
Since my plans for today have been basically canceled I'm left with a lot of time to kill. I had cleared everything so I would have today free, and since Open Office is still being touchy and I need to have my tech guy look at my computer I can't even organize my notes to do some work.
I'm too distracted to read, there's nothing good to watch, and I don't feel good to going for a walk isn't too appealing either.
Apparently I spoke too soon on the open office front. I don't know what the heck is going on but it either doesn't like my laptop or my laptop doesn't like open office.
It worked fine yesterday but today it crashed in the middle of me working on an article and won't start up again. I'm trying to fix it but I just keep getting more and more frustrated with it. Maybe Santa will bring me a newer laptop for Christmas this year.
At least I can still research and just make notes by hand in a notebook.
Lately the subject of pen names has been coming up more and more between some writer friends and I. Some of them use one, others don't see the point, and a few of them not only have one pen name but two or three.
Pen names can be a useful tool in the world of fiction writing, especially if you don't write for just one genre. It helps keep you from being stuck in a hole when it comes to building a fan base. Especially if you're established in one genre. A pen name also helps you keep your professional and personal lives separate.
Once you figure out if you want to use a pen name you face picking one, or two, or three. It's no easy task.
Personally I do use a pen name for my fiction ( I'm trying out a few to see how I like them), and my real name for any freelance work I do. I'm one of the writers who writes in more then one genre so I'll probably end up with more then one, but for right now I'll have to stick with one and make sure I'm 100% happy with it.
This is my current schedule for the next two weeks:
- Organizing our office and den
- Lots of research
- Plotting out NaNo novel
- More research for non-personal projects
- Mini Halloween Party
- Work
- Getting the rest of our Christmas cards and shopping organized
Then for all of November I'll either be working or trying to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.
Well that's the plan anyway.
Open Office v.3 has been released finally. I did the beta with it for a bit but I had a few issues with the performance so I've been waiting for the finally release. I just got it installed about an hour ago.
So far the main improvement I've found is the language tool. This tool helps you with any minor grammar mistakes that you may have made on top of your spelling mistakes. It is a tool that I have a real need for. I used it on one of my current works in progresses and man did I see a lot of of silly mistakes.
For example, I can see where in the document I was when I was either think or distracted because I add an extra space when I start typing again.
The language tool will help me see where I need to work on my skills as a writer because I know my grammar is very rusty.
I'm off to run all my other w.i.p files through the language tool now. Then when I go back to them I'm not worried about my inner editor causing problems and wasting time.
With Thanksgiving over with and voting this morning I'm now free to make the changes to my blog that I was planning on doing earlier.
So far I have:
- Edited the title and sub-title of the blog. The sub-title is an un-sourced quote on writing. From time to time I will probably change the qoute.
- Changed my picture, this is another item I'll probably change a lot.
- Removed the " Get Open Office" button/link. You should totally get Open Office but the button was causing issues with the NaNo word count widget Until I can fix that I'll just have to have a link to openoffice.org
I still have to :
- Add more links. At this point I'm leaning towards creating a post filled with all my links so it's easier to organize and update them, then I'll just post a back link to them in the vox provided link section.
It might seem like a small task but it's not. I'm an avid link collector and most of them will probably end up posted here. Hopefully they're as helpful to others as they are for me.
And for a little fun here's a macro...
