Caroline M. Yoachim

Halfway done!

Day 11 of JaNo – 3124 words today, 25217 total

My brother’s in town tomorrow, so I wanted to get some extra words written today. I also wanted to get to the halfway point. Anyway, since I wrote extra today, tomorrow’s quota is 1k instead of 2k. Anything beyond that will be bonus.

After two days of struggling through exceedingly boring bits, I decided to try a different approach this morning: Instead of thinking about the plot and what should come next, I thought ‘what’s the most interesting thing I can think of to write about today’ and wrote that. …

Protecting the good guys

Day 10 of JaNo – 2018 words today, 22093 total

I’ve been finding lately that the scenes with my villain are more intersting than the scenes with my heroes, and I suspect it’s because at some level I’m trying to protect the ‘good’ characters. Tomorrow my goal will be to have something really nasty befall them. I don’t know what that will be, but hopefully whatever it is will make them more interesting. Or maybe I’ll kill some of them off. A band of five heroes may just be too many for me to devote sufficient attention to each of …

My brain is too tired to think of a good title…

Day 9 JaNo – 2027 words today, 20075 total

About the only good thing I can say about today’s writing is that I broke the 20k mark. I’ve gotten very bored with the original storyline, and I think it showed in what I wrote today. It didn’t help that I had to get them from one place to another, making most of today’s words a description of them going somewhere. To my credit, I did *try* to spice it up by having them stalked by demons for part of the way, and revving up some conflict between some of the …

Submission #19

The ducks are off to Strange Horizons, and presumably will be out of my hair until I’m done with JaNo. Thanks to everyone who gave me helpful advice in the comments of my previous post!

(Now, back to writing. After having a really easy day yesterday where the words flowed, this morning I’m struggling for every word.)

Rejection #15, first of the new year!

JJA found himself ungrabbed by the mechanical ducks. They’re slated to go to Strange Horizons next, but I’m toying with the idea of sending them to Cricket, since they might work well as a children’s story. That would mean trimming the story down substantially, but I think I could make it work. Problem is, I don’t want to deal with the story while I’m doing JaNo, and I don’t like the idea of having it sit around for the next 3 weeks when it could be out somewhere.

Fresh Characters

Day 8 JaNo – 2291 words today, 17864 total

Shifted my focus closer to the villain of the novel today, which means a whole new set of characters and a setting in a different part of the world. I tried to focus on working in tendrils to the outside world, and while I don’t think I’m doing a good job of it, today’s words seem a bit better. Practice, practice, practice. Perhaps by the end it will read like an actual novel.

Update: In a rare (but short) burst of afternoon productivity, 184 more words, which brings the grand total …

Tendrils

Day 7 JaNo – 2061 today, 15573 total

One full week of making quota!

I think that four of my six clarion instructors told me that my stories were too neat and tidy, and that what they lacked was little tendrils of things working their way in from the world outside the story. When they told me that I nodded my head. Great idea, having the outside world creeping in at the edges of the story. And, at some level, I understood what they were saying, but I couldn’t really wrap my mind around what was needed enough to do …

Why my novel isn’t as good as A Deepness in the Sky

Day 6 JaNo – 2458 today, 13512 total

Lots and lots of words, but it doesn’t read like a novel. Fortunately, this is practice, so I’m not too concerned that the end result isn’t quite right. I’m starting to get a feel for what sorts of mistakes I’m making. A lot of it boils down to insufficient worldbuilding and character development. I spend as much time as I would have liked ironing out the details of the world and the nitty-gritty of the characters, and so the novel thus far doesn’t feel real. It has a vague disconnected quality to …

Just barely…

Day 5 JaNo – 2037 words today, 11054 total

Even closer to hitting quota dead-on today than I was yesterday. I’m becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the plot that I’ve outlined for myself, but maybe that’s a good thing, as it might be a sign that my characters are asserting themselves. However, while they seem to be unhappy with the things *I’ve* outlined for them to do, they aren’t exactly coming up with alternatives. Lazy characters. In any case, I’ve made it most of the way through chapter 5 at this point, and I have a couple of story-lines going. Now …

Like pulling teeth. . .

Day 4 of JaNo – 2059 words today, 9017 total

Slow going today, and I think what I ended up with was mostly pretty nasty stuff. I did manage to come up with some new creatures though, towards the end of the day, and I think that saved it. Oddly enough, I’m having a much easier time writing the chapters that come from the POV of what I thought was the secondary character. I think, though that he might be the more interesting of the two main POV characters I’ve got so far, so I may have to think about …