And All That Jazz…

Had a lovely time going out to dinner at Tula’s Jazz club with some of my Clarion classmates. We got to meet up with Paul Park, who is in town to teach a one-day workshop through Hugo House. Sadly I can’t make it to the workshop today, seeing as I’m leaving for Whistler sometime in the next hour or two. Still it was nice to see everyone and catch up a bit.

Post-JaNo I haven’t generated a whole lot of new words, which is okay. I did manage to get the (very) short story I wrote mid-JaNo revised, so all …

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All’s well that ends.

Done!! Yay!! I now leave the ranks of ‘people-who-want-to-write-a-novel-someday,’ and join the ranks of ‘people-who-have-a-novel-sitting-around-in-a-drawer.’

Day 24 of JaNo – 4004 words today, 54097 total

Pushed through 2 days worth of writing today, as I wasn’t so keen on stopping once the very end of it was in sight. I can’t say that I’m thrilled with the ending, but I got to a point where I felt comfortable writing “THE END,” so that’s it for my JaNoing experience. Overall, it was really good. I learned some things about what works, and a lot about what doesn’t work, both of which …

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Wordcount complete!

Day 23 of JaNo – 2370 words today, 50093 total

Well, the novel isn’t finished yet, but I’ve crossed the 50k mark. And I’ve got a climax scene started in today’s words, so I think this is all going to work out. I’m guessing I’ll be finished on Thursday. Purely a practice novel, of course, but at least it will be a complete practice novel. Then I can jot myself some notes about what I’d do differently for next time, and my JaNo educational experience will be complete :)

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Day 22 of JaNo – 2248 words today, 47723 words total

In all likelihood, I’ll hit 50k tomorrow, though I don’t think the story will have reached any sort of resolution by then. I am shooting to wrap up by Friday though, which means sometime in the next 8k or so I’ll hopefully be writing the words: THE END. I think this means I’ll be abandoning at least 2 of the minor threads, which I’m okay with. If I can get the major storyline into relatively coherent shape, I’ll consider it to be a successful ending.

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Productive Day

Day 21 of JaNo – 3807 words today (2203 novel words), 45475 total

I had a short story in my head that demanded to come out, so I scrawled out a very rough draft this morning at 1.6k words. Since they’re not part of my novel, they don’t go into the grand wordcount…but I went ahead and tossed them into today’s word total, mainly because I’m pleased with myself for getting so many words down today. Yay!

Since this is the end of week 3, I’ll go ahead and do a weekly wordcount too: 14830 words for the novel this …

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T-minus 7 days

Day 20 of JaNo – 2322 words today, 43272 total

After having a terrible time generating words earlier this week (can’t quite remember when, but I was definitely frustrated with the whole project at one point), the words have been flowing the last few days. The various threads seem to know what they need to do, at least for now, and I’m hoping everything will get tied together in some sort of climax. I have exactly one week left to pull it off, with January 27th being my last possible writing day before I leave for Whistler. At this point, …

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Missed a couple posts. . .

. . .because my left wrist has been a little bit titchy the last couple days (nothing major, but given my history of wrist problems, I’ve been trying to lay off the computer for non-writing activities). So I’m still writing, but more ice, more breaks, and less LJ posting.

To sum up the JaNo days I didn’t post:
Day 17 – zero words (skiing), 34958 total
Day 18 – 3098 words, 38056 total
Day 19 – 2894 words, 40950 total

Less than 10k to go…yay! And now I’m off to ice my wrist.

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Words words words words…

Day 16 of JaNo – 2153 words today, 34958 total

Decided that today was a good time to split my posse of 5 into two groups. The dynamic of five people travelling together was getting to be a bit much for me to deal with, so I’m hoping that a group of 3 and a group of 2 will be easier to handle. Besides, it gives me that much more flexibility as to which storyline I want to follow – up until now I had 4 main POV characters, 2 of which were travelling together. So I think this will …

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Novel in a Nutshell

Day 15 of JaNo – 2160 words today, 32805 total

I had the good fortune to have someone ask what my novel was about, in a nutshell, which really helped me sort out what was really central, and gave me lots to think about. Basically, my novel is set in the world of the mori birds, and is an exploration of how people react when the basic rules of life and death no longer apply. On a more plot-ish level, the story involves a posse of five setting out on a quest to find and save the stolen mori birds. …

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Two weeks down, two more to go…

Day 14 of JaNo – 1516 words today, 15072 this week, 30645 total

Well, I wrote 501 fewer words this week than I wrote last week, mainly due to having 2 days (including today) where I let myself off easy and reduced my quota. Still, I’m averaging 2188 words per day, so I’m feeling pretty happy with my progress. If I continue at this pace, I should hit 50k on January 23rd!

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