NaNoWriMo 2008

[Shiny Grimer]

If I want to meet my goal for today, I need to write 10k.
Yikes.
:(
There's a math test and a bio test tomorrow, too. Ugh.

 

[Cryssie]

Posting to draw attention to today's speaker, because it was fiddly and took ages, dammit. ;; It's not even particularly funny, but bleh.

Also, re: my chances of winning NaNo this year? Gone. Maybe next year, when hopefully I won't feel like crawling into a corner and dying. I can but hope.

EDIT: SURE, XS.TO. CHOOSE TODAY TO BREAK MY IMAGES FOR ME. UGH. *Fix.*

 

[Phoenixsong]

To those of you who are feeling down about your NaNos and are thinking of switching: I hope you give today's pep talk a thorough look-see. :P

Still behind, still behind, but I've started writing the bar fight, the interview with the rabid druggie and the great escape of the French. It's a steaming pile of crap, but it's fun.

Have an excerpt?

Schrödinger was on her fourth bowl of beer when the Aerodactyl attacked her.

She had been out late at the scene of another Feral attack. This latest one was a Lickitung who had come from somewhere out of town sputtering and braying about how he’d found religion with the human worshippers, waving crudely painted cardboard signs about salvation, fire, brimstone and ‘will shoe U the light of Rellijin for food’ at every Pokémon that passed him on the street. So few of the Liberated remembered or cared to remember their own religion, let alone were interested in any gods or prophets shoved in their faces by humans or vagrant Pokémen, that he’d been chased off by just about everyone he’d met. Until, of course, he met the Feral, who welcomed him with open jaws and empty stomachs. All that the Restoration Committee trash collector who’d called the police had found in the alleyway were little bits of tongue and tail and scraps of skin, all scattered on the ground with what few shreds were left of the Lickitung’s simple signage.

The first sentence is currently crazy out of context until I get further into the scene, but isn't it great that way?

 

[Negrek]

To those of you who are feeling down about your NaNos and are thinking of switching: I hope you give today's pep talk a thorough look-see. :P

Ugh, it's so true, too. There's a piece of new fanfiction that's been wooing me for the past few days, and it's really distracting. It's claiming to be no more than a long one-shot but I know you really want to become chaptered don't you I can see through your lies!!

In other news, I think I might go for 5,000 a day for the next three days so that I can finish by the end of the weekend. Apparently I can't do math or I managed to fall way behind my schedule somewhere, because I was supposed to be done Saturday with no such exertion. =/

 

[Phoenixsong]

Ugh, it's so true, too. There's a piece of new fanfiction that's been wooing me for the past few days, and it's really distracting. It's claiming to be no more than a long one-shot but I know you really want to become chaptered don't you I can see through your lies!!

In other news, I think I might go for 5,000 a day for the next three days so that I can finish by the end of the weekend. Apparently I can't do math or I managed to fall way behind my schedule somewhere, because I was supposed to be done Saturday with no such exertion. =/

I know, I know. I have had no less than three seemingly brilliant new ideas (one of which is original fiction that I really wish I'd tried instead since they're doing that free manuscript thing again this year), as well as revelations that would make some of my old projects less retarded, and I've had to constrain myself to quick notes on the Sticky Note widget on my iGoogle page. I just know that if I tried adding just a little more detail, doing a little more research, asking the question I wanted to ask you guys, etc., I'd do exactly what Cabot was talking about and that would suck. :|

...I thought I remembered you saying you were shooting for 2000 a day, although if that was really what you were intending to do then your math is way off, because not only would you not reach 50000 by Saturday, you're also about 10000 ahead of where you should be.

 

[Sandstone-Shadow]

Ohh, that email is so true... there's been an idea nagging at me, too. I do have a lot of half-started stories... I'm determined to finish this one. Grah. I shall. Maybe not for NaNo, but I will finish it before I work on anything else. ^^

 

[Shiny Grimer]

I just realized my plot has disappeared. I don't even know what I'm going to write. So far, it's basically "Ooh will those two fall in THE LOVE", but there was supposed to be an important other plot which was "ooh will this guy kill/harm this other girl?" which only happens late in the book.
I am determined to finish this book, though. I want to finish it.

 

[Autumn]

I'm still finding it odd that I'm staying perfectly on schedule where the majority of the rest of TCoD is falling behind.

I seriously never had much motivation for writing stories.

And I'm writing two stories at the moment. :3

 

[Shiny Grimer]

Just hit 12k! I'm quite glad. :3 I do have to write 11k to stay on schedule, though.

If anyone cares, one of my characters now has an ear infection.

“Ear infection…” whispered Jem. He reached for the bottle. “I was driving back from work, and then it hit me.” He managed to get one of the pills and popped it into his mouth. “I stopped by the pharmacy for painkillers.”
Sergio reached for a blanket and turned a knob on the faucet. He ran the blanket under the now-warm water and then turned the faucet off. He handed the blanket to Jem. “I’ve heard this is useful for quelling earach-“ Jem grabbed the towel and pressed it to the left side of his face before Sergio could finish.
“Funny, I thought you’d think it was part of a conspiracy designed to make people deaf or something,” said the blond jokingly. “Want me to fetch the onions?”
“No,” whispered Jem. “That’s not a conspiracy. Some things are too cruel to be planned.”
“…What?”
“Forget it. You wouldn’t understand.”
Sergio sighed heavily. “I’m going back to sleep then, okay?”
“Whatever.”
“Good night.” Sergio walked back into Jem’s room, leaving Jem sprawled out on the floor.
“Aiiiie… the pain…” He whimpered.

He will end up vomitting over a plate of spicy burritos and a british girl, embarassing himself, his coworkers, and his boss. I'm quite mean to him for some reason.

 

[Negrek]

Just realized that novel completion is going to have go get pushed back to next weekend, as I realized just how much crap I need to have done by Monday. These things, perhaps I should look at the requirements for them more than four days before they are due. In any case, my sprint-writing is going to be of a rather different nature this weekend, I fear. After my sprint-researching. -_-;

 

[Sandstone-Shadow]

I'm at 15464 for tonight. Right now, I'm satisfied; I've gotten past a very difficult turning point. I'm still some 7600 words behind schedule, and tomorrow it will be 9300 behind, so I guess I really have the same amount of catching up to do... though I'm hoping it gets easier soon.

I'm amazed at how much I've written for this story. <3 I need to set up wordcount challenges like this for my other stories, once I'm finished with this one.

 

[Shiny Grimer]

I want to reach 13k and perhaps a little more and then I'll be able to sleep. Why? Because then I will only be 12133 words behind schedule. Wh-hoo.

“Ahh but it burns. It is a hammer banging a naaaaaail in my heeead and the sickle ch-chops my eearr off and aaah bags of mooooney… Bags of money… fall on me and make me flat… ooh…”
The blond sighed and looked up. “Jem, you should take your phone with you. Go for a while and then if you need to, call me and I’ll come. I know for certain you’re not driving with an ear infection.”
“Ahh draaaaved beee’orre-aaaaAAAAH!”
“Jem, stop screaming and get over it. You’re going.”
“Aat herts herts herts ay ay ay-“
“Stop that.” Sergio put his forehead to his palm and stormed out of the room while Jem continued to moan.

 

[Sandstone-Shadow]

Grr. I'm just over 10K behind right now. And it's becoming a struggle to still write. My plot is just now beginning to unfold, and there's so much that should happen now. But I keep slowing down; I've been so busy, and I try to write and I'm finding myself stopping really quickly after I've started. This is problematic. v_v

 

[Phoenixsong]

I was going to get caught up by the end of this weekend. But then Friday didn't happen due to computer issues, I don't know what the heck happened to Saturday, and although today was relatively productive I ended up watching a whole mess of stand-up comics and puppets on TV, and... apparently puppets are not helpful things to have. No they are not. :/

But I'm only like 5000 words behind now! \o/ That's pretty much the closest I've been to being on schedule in days.

 

[Leviathan]

In reference to the last post I made:

What if I start and don't finish? Or hit 50,000 words but I'm only halfway through my novel?

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

And the 50,000-word goal is a threshold, not necessarily a stopping place. Reaching 50k and realizing you still have a lot of wrapping up to do is a good thing---it gives you something to come back and work on later.

I suppose I took this to mean that one had to finish their novel in order for it to count. Somehow. Guess I was wrong.

So I'm still behind a few hundred words now - had some massive writer's block at an awkward section of the plot - but it's still by a lot less so than I was on Friday, so yay for me. Although I'm probably going to have give up my hopes of the 2000 words per day strategy at this rate, unfortunately. :/

 

[Jetx]

The latest email was so discouraging. I've been wondering whether just to give up, seeing as I have officially written less than half of what I should have written by now, and along comes this email saying "so yeah guys let's all be at 30,000 by the end of Wednesday! we can do this :D!" and for me it's just saying "you're screwed".

(currently at 15,000. I quite like my story, but I've been distracted for the last couple of weeks)

 

[Sandstone-Shadow]

@Jetx: Yes, that was rather discouraging... not my favorite email so far. =(


Ugh, I'm officially 12K behind. The good news, though, is that I'm very into my story, and if I can't reach 50K, I'm still writing it, and I know that one day I'll finish it. And I've made myself promise that I won't write anything else until I've finished it, so that "one day" isn't some dream that I'm using to justify not working. xD I will finish this story, whether it be in November or not. By the end of December, I hope to have this story completely written. <3

 

[Autumn]

They got the word-count validator up early, and um. I put my novel in, and it claims I have 30211 words. Which is all fine and dandy, except Pages claims I have 30110.

Um. How can something fudge a word-count by one hundred.

 

[Phoenixsong]

No two word count programs use the same method of calculating words. Things vary. Such as:

-Are you counting words that are purely numerals: (e.g. 2008, 12)
-Words containing numbers and letters? (34A, etc.)
-Are hyphenated words one word or two? What about words separated by other punctuation, like slashes or apostrophes?
-If there are headers/footers/footnotes in your work, are those counted? Are they counted more than once?

and more besides. Some word counters have options you can turn on and off, so if for example you don't want to count pure numerals as words you can tell it not to.

I've checked my word count in several different things, and they've all been different. Word, for example, does not count words separated by a slash (so blue-green is two words in Word, but blue/green is only one). Word has the lowest count out of everything I'd checked; this currently has the highest count and is what I'm using. I mean, I don't know all of the different considerations that go into word count in each program, and it might seem as though I'm "artificially inflating my word count", but quite honestly it's stupid that "blue/green" is not considered two words and I want credit for everything I write, thanks. In one or two places I have things like "Kratos/Thorn/Schrodinger/Jenkins/Forrest/Vesper/Shuriken/Twenty-seven/Yadon/Piper/whichever damn officer it was, I don't care" and that whole long string is not one word, dammit.

Still behind, but at least I've been able to stay at a fairly consistent ~6000 behind instead of a helluvalot more.

EDIT: Yeah, NaNo's official validator has a lower count than the one I'm using. No thank you, I don't need that kick to the confidence while I'm behind. :/

EDIT2: Now that I think about it, it looks like it's the same total as Word. Now I know I don't like the official validator. You are not counting my slashthings, aaah D:

 

[Autumn]

No two word count programs use the same method of calculating words. Things vary. Such as:

-Are you counting words that are purely numerals: (e.g. 2008, 12)
-Words containing numbers and letters? (34A, etc.)
-Are hyphenated words one word or two? What about words separated by other punctuation, like slashes or apostrophes?
-If there are headers/footers/footnotes in your work, are those counted? Are they counted more than once?

and more besides. Some word counters have options you can turn on and off, so if for example you don't want to count pure numerals as words you can tell it not to.

I just didn't think it would be able to fudge my count by a hundred. o.o;

Um... I'll check with my document.
- Pure-numerals count as full words. And I do have a good number of those in the fic.
- Don't have any number-letter combos.
- Words separated by a hyphen do count as multiple words, and I don't have any slashed-words in it.

... well if that's the case what in the world did I do that makes it rise by a hundred? o.o It looks like my document's actually more biased in my favor.