Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Day 10

I will post the chart tomorrow, but Halloween got in the way today.

The total today was just 31 words, bringing the total to 31 more than it was yesterday. (Organization is not my top skill at the moment.) Chapter 9 was completed with yesterday's work and Chapter 10 was begun today. I'm not expecting it to be a very long chapter, maybe 1500 words, which probably means that it will come out somewhere around 7000.

That's what we'll find out over the next several days.

Monday, October 30, 2006

Day 9



In one sense, not so good today: I only wrote 37 words today, bringing the current total to 20,158.

In another sense, it went okay. Those 37 words finished off Chapter 9.

There will be a Chapter 10, and it will concern Drayton taking Alan home and then going home himself. I'll try to get at least 37 words on it tomorrow.

Days 7 & 8

We went out-of-town on an overnight trip this past weekend, and I'm afraid that my word total was a big goose egg. Nada. Zilch. Zero.

That, of course, means that there's no point in posting the chart today, because it looks exactly the same. I'm hoping for a good week this week, though, so that I can make up for words lost.

In other news, I'm not completely certain at this moment, but I think I'm about to add yet another brand new chapter to the fold. The one I'm currently working on takes place in a restaurant in which Drayton and Alan have dinner. Originally, I was going to take it through Drayton dropping off Alan at home and heading home himself, but I feel that I should just make that part into its own chapter. The current chapter, nine, is giving off an "I want to be done with" vibe that I think I will honor. I should have a better sense of this by tonight.

Stay tuned for details as they develop.

Friday, October 27, 2006

Day Six

Here's the chart, at long last:



Today, I added 193 words, bringing the new total to 20,121. That's right, I finally crossed the 20,000 word barrier. They said it couldn't be done, but I did it.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Day 5

I had a good day today: 317 words. The grand total now stands at 19,928. This means I have now passed the total for the previous draft, which stood at 19,865. And I haven't quite reached the same point in the story yet, either. And they're 19,000 better words, too, arranged in a more pleasing and effective fashion.

But five days in a row. Not bad. I'm averaging just over 200 words per day, which was my goal.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Day 4

The word total for today was 296 and the grand total is up to 19,611. And just for the record, yesterday's total should have been 28, not 25.

It went well today. I'm getting back the feel of the story, and I'm starting to think about it when I don't have to. I guess my real goal through this NaNoWriMo experiment is to get myself in the habit of adding a couple of hundred words, on average, every day until the draft is drafted. At that rate, I would be done in three or four months.

My first big test of this system is coming up this weekend because we'll be away from home overnight. However, I pledge that I will add a couple of hundred words, even if I am in an entirely different county.

Day 3

I did write yesterday--a whopping 25 words--but I just forgot to post this monumental addition. But you just wait. Today will be better! Yeah! You just wait!

The streak continues. Only 53 days behind Joe DiMaggio.

Monday, October 23, 2006

Day 2

Today I did 225 words bringing the grand total to 19,287.

Due to a series of circumstances beyond the control of anyone other than the DeKalb County School Department and the dunderheads at Comcast, it looked for a short time as though I would end up breaking my streak at one. However, rugged discipline won out over the vicissitudes of life, and I managed the 200 word minimum I've arbitrarily assigned myself.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Day 1

Today's total was 206 words, bringing me to a total thus far of 19,062.

I'm still figuring out how to paste in the chart.

Stay tuned.

Good Intentions

The dreaded NaNoWriMo month, November, is fast arriving. The point of this activity is supposedly to encourage writers to complete a full-length manuscript in 30 days. Well, this will be my third NaNoWriMo while working on Drayton. I think it's been worth the effort.

So, I won't be trying to write a novel from start-to-finish this year, however, I will try to participate in my own crummy little way.

It is my intention to try to work on the manuscript every day for all 30 days of the month of November. I'm not going to try to finish it in that time or anything like that. I'm just going to try to add a little to it every day. In fact, I'd be happy if I could finish a decent draft of Chapter 9 by then.

Anyway, I'm going to try to get a running start by beginning the streak either later today or sometime tomorrow. I will try to post updates, however brief, here as I do. I'll get my word count up-to-date and post that as I go along. Who knows, maybe I'll even do something mildly nifty with a bar graph. I mean, you know how rowdy those bar graphs can be.

Let the countdown begin.

Monday, October 16, 2006

Catching Up

It has been much too long since I've kept up with this blog, and so I intend to remedy that with occassional updates starting with this one.

I am now working on Chapter 9 and have written over 18,000 words. The current chapter, in which Drayton gets taken out to dinner by Alan Worth, has not appeared in any previous version of the Drayton story, except by inference. This was previously something that happened offstage, like Medea poinoning her children or Oedipus performing do-it-yourself lasik surgery.

However, it seemed like a good idea to bring it out into the open and to find out just what did happen at dinner that evening. We'll see how it works out.

Also, I realized that there was another scene never previously considered that I ought to add to this version: I never had anybody going to Briarbrook's funeral, even though there must have been one. I'm going to let this one percolate for a couple of chapters before trying to work it in.

that's all for now, but I promise to be a better corresponent in these matters from here on out.