2011 Week 3 - Entering the Final Curve

Okay, so we've survived to week three. Things should start looking up.
Perhaps you killed a character last week. Or found that missing description that takes three pages of text. Maybe a plotbunny nuzzled your hands. Eitehr way, the book is moving.

I got a new shipment of IV caffeine in, so feel free to ask.
Coffee pots are percolating.
Red Bull is on ice.

Extra masseuses are on staff for those needing hand massages or shoulder massages.

So how things going with your book?

closing in on 30K, week 2 is always difficult and i'm glad to be done with it. Looking forward to 50K and then resting a bit before finishing the draft and (gasp) editing.

I'm at 44k and change. on the downward stretch! of course the story is no where near finished but that's okay!

Hitting the daily totals but can't seem to get that little lead on it that I wanted as a buffer. Ah well - fingers crossed nothing bad happens (kids getting sick etc)!

Unintentional things keep happening to people and throwing me for a loop - still, a lot better off than this time last week when it felt like pulling teeth. Not looking forward to editing the 3/4 day work - it was rank bad in places.

#1 Any chance I can get vodka in my litre of red bull?

Moment of silence for the occupy wall street library, everyone.

MGP

Losing that many books is a real shame.

Yesterday I had pain in my hip (I think from sitting in one position for too long) so every chance I had I was doing any bizarre stretch I could manage out of sight of others. I guess I did well since I don't have a stitch of pain today!

I'm building the tension and animosity between my character and her antagonist. I still have a lot to fill up before the final show down, however. I don't think I'll kill anyone off though I'm thinking of maiming the antagonist. A shark bite would be perfect justice. He's such a weasel!

My son is a barrista and promised me a pound of their finest coffee but he keeps forgetting to bring it home! I'll text him to remind him now.

Vodka... vodka... Da, everything better with enough vodka.
I think I have some stashed in the winner's lounge...

I'd be in that winners lounge wanting to share that vodka with. ... well Sokolov from Reamde but I'm now so swept up in the ending of that novel, I can't finish NaNo!

Things are going very nicely, thank you. I am no way going to make 50,000, probably not even close. But I've never written a novel before, and as I've mentioned elsewhere, was developing the firm conviction that all I had was an idea and some notes and there was no story in it. This despite a detailed outline, plot threads, blah, blah.

I have not only found my story but have demonstrated to myself than I can indeed write this thing.

Just not in one month!

Week 3 is when, traditionally anyway, the panic sets in. I either quit or get writing frantically and at all hours. Hoping this is one of the frantic writing years. I'm writing steadily but not meeting the daily word counts. Still, every 889 words counts, right? Right!

I'm heading for 52k and still going strong, with the novel right on track where it's supposed to be.

You go, C_S_! I'll cheer you when you get to the Winners' Lounge (http://www.librarything.com/topic/126852) which sounds like it won't be long now! I'm not allowed in, yet, but I like to stand by the door and cheer as all the Green Bar winners stroll in.

Should be done by Sunday, word count and story. Most of my experience with writing in the past has been Thundercats short stories, so I am used to tight writing. After the dust settles, maybe in March, I will look over the new novel, which is a sequel to last year's work, and whip it into shape for self-publishing. But this year, I am not in the hurry I was last year.

MGP

I love this poster! I realized I hadn't done much with similes so started to put them in. I found myself putting in random alliterations without meaning to (must be my inner poet).

14 Guilty of everything ;) Great poster!

MGP

Dare y'all to use this word in a sentence in NaNoveling! (From A Word A Day)

scrobiculate

PRONUNCIATION:
(skroh-BIK-yuh-layt)

MEANING:
adjective:
Having many small grooves; furrowed.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin scrobiculus (small planting hole), diminutive of scrobis (trench). Ultimately from the Indo-European root sker- (to cut), which is also the source of skirt, curt, screw, shard, shears, carnage, carnivorous, carnation, sharp, and scrape. Earliest documented use: 1806.

USAGE:
"The stalk is scrobiculate and at first slightly sticky."
Alexander Smith and Nancy Weber; The Mushroom Hunter's Field Guide; University of Michigan Press; 1980.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The path of least resistance makes all rivers, and some men, crooked. -Napoleon Hill, author (1883-1970)

#14 Thanks for the wonderful graphic. I'm saving it. Looks like a little tribute to Pixar in "Personification Press."

#12 Thanks Storeetllr. Hope that peeking in the door inspires you to great heights. Wouldn't want you to wind up with a scrobiculate brow.

Reminds me of another word I like (well, not exactly "like" but it's one of those fun Onomatopoeiaic words): scrofulous. I can so use that word in my novel. Also, it makes me feel itchy all over.

From www.thefreedictionary.com:

Adj. 1. scrofulous - afflicted with scrofula; ill, sick - affected by an impairment of normal physical or mental function; "ill from the monotony of his suffering"
2. scrofulous - morally contaminated; "denounce the scrofulous wealth of the times"- J.D.Hart; immoral - deliberately violating accepted principles of right and wrong
3. scrofulous - having a diseased appearance resembling scrofula; "our canoe...lay with her scrofulous sides on the shore"- Farley Mowat; ugly - displeasing to the senses; "an ugly face"; "ugly furniture"

*scratches newly scrofulous shoulders*

LOL Right?!?

I think we should all throw in a Lovecraftian word today, like stygian and cyclopean :)

MGP

quisle

PRONUNCIATION:
(KWIZ-uhl)

MEANING:
verb intr.: To betray, especially by collaborating with an enemy.

ETYMOLOGY:
Back-formation from quisling (traitor), after Norwegian army officer Vidkun Quisling, who collaborated with the German occupying forces during World War II. Earliest documented use: 1940.

USAGE:
"The AK and subordinate units made ... 5700 attempts on officers of different police formations, soldiers, and volksdeutschs (Polish citizens of German origin that volunteered to quisle with Germans)."
Polish Contribution to the Allied Victory in Second World War; Business Recorder (Karachi, Pakistan); Jun 11, 2005.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other. -Jane Austen, novelist (1775-1817)

---Or if that's not Lovecraftian enough, how about

darkle

PRONUNCIATION:
(DAHR-kuhl)

MEANING:
verb tr., intr.: To make or become dark, indistinct, or gloomy.

ETYMOLOGY:
Back-formation from darkling (in the dark), from Middle English derkeling. Earliest documented use: 1819.

USAGE:
"The silhouettes of builders and road-construction equipment darkled against the sky."
Dovletmurad Orazkuliev; New Roads in Country; Neitralnii Turkmenistan; Jul 6, 2010.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
To read is to translate, for no two persons' experiences are the same. A bad reader is like a bad translator: he interprets literally when he ought to paraphrase and paraphrases when he ought to interpret literally. -W.H. Auden, poet (1907-1973)

I could so use stygian and darkle, being as my novel is set in the Victorian era.

As the sun dropped below the rooftops, the shadows in the alleyway darkled to stygian impenetrability.

Hah! Both in one sentence!

24 Excellent!

MGP

I want to edit my sentence in 24^. BAD Inner Editor.

26 Kill the Inner Editor! Takes it treasure! AAARRRRGGGGHHHH! ;)

MGP

Favorite line from my NaNoWriMo so far:

“Hello, Jae. Please stop trying to kill your doctor. He’s doing his best.”

Said quite deadpan, of course.

^28 Cool! Makes me interested to know more.

I finally finally FINALLY passed the 20k mark just now after trying all day without success to write. I finally decided to pretend I had written nothing before today and to start with a scene that I was just dying to write ~ it's at a party where a tarot card reader does a reading for my mfc and for my mmc on the day they first meet. I wrote all 2k words about the reading that was done for the mmc's best male friend. Haven't even gotten to the mmc and the mfc yet. I can so finish another 5k this weekend! lol

yay! Stroreetllr. Go!

>29 Storeetllr: Love that device! Never occurred to me to use Tarot readings as a means of explication. And I've read the cards since 1974! *headdesk*

29 and 31 have used the tarot maneuver in last year's novel as well as in this in year's work :) Very effective way to get info passed along ;)

MGP

31 & 32^ Yes, the tarot reading scene helped me get past my NaNo block but even more importantly, after I finished writing, I "read" the cards for my two main protagonists and got a much clearer picture of what they are all about. I had never before thought of using tarot cards to do character sketches, either, Richard, but it really worked. (Disclaimer: I did not deal blindly but chose cards I felt matched their agenda and their roles in my little NaNo drama.)

Thanks, majkia!

I just wrote 8,000 words today and passed the 40k mark! I am feelin' good! And my brain is melted.

Storeetllr... gogogogogogogogogo!