Before I have written a word today, I have hit 10,007 words. That’s the expected minimum on day six and it felt good to get that done last night. The goal is to get today’s word count again so that I will only be one day behind when I get back from my little weekend getaway.

That said, I’m up stupidly, annoyingly early. Since 5:00am, more or less. We dropped off the cat last night in hope of getting a full nights sleep but it’s backfired, at least for me. So here I sit, groggily sipping peach and mango white tea while I clean off my desk and get ready for today’s session.

What’s been a pleasant surprise has been the book itself.

As I think I’ve mentioned else-post, every NaNoWriMo that I’ve participated in has been with, at the very least, a sensible outline. Specifically:

1st NaNo — I had characters and cultures and maps and magic and a beginning, middle and end. Sure, I deviated, but the bones of it were there.
2nd NaNo — I had characters and world building a beginning, middle and end. This one sort of plays out like a horror flick in my head. I should have been able to complete it, but I had a massive two-week trip in the middle of November and I couldn’t get past that.
3rd NaNo — I used NaNo to work on the WIP, again with characters and detailed world building and a beginning, middle and end.

This year? Not so much.

Before NaNo, I sat down with a notebook and listed all the ideas I could recall off the top of my head that I’d had that had novel-size potential. I was about seven or eight down, going from the most outlined to the least outlined, when a setting more than a plot scampered through my grey matter. It was a just a single image in my head, conjured up years ago when I was coming up with a Big Eyes, Small Mouth (BESM) RPG setting for a corner of the world I wasn’t going to use right away. Essentially — gothic church, dangerous wood, stained glass, running girl. There was slightly more to it than that for the RPG setting, spun from that image then, but that initial picture came back to me very strongly.

And then the image stood up and down, waving like a spaz. Didn’t really give me much choice.

A few things came quickly after that. I did some mind mapping and decided on three characters. My protagonist cast herself right away, like she’d been hiding behind a curtain waiting for the right time to come out. Same with her father. Her love interest/co-protagonist followed, though casting him visually took a bit of doing. I brainstormed on the words gothic and wolf and found myself with several conflicts that would blend well together. I also decided, early on, that unlike the first two novel-length works I’ve managed to finish (at least in draft form), this story would have the romance be a primary element. I dashed down about ten scenes that came to me, including the opening scene, which was a gift.

I have no idea how it ends, but that’s not bothering me. That has gotten me in trouble before with previous unfinished novels; I didn’t know where I was going, so I stopped writing. But I’ve gotten much better at asking why and how and who hurts, so I feel confident that I can figure it out with enough elbow grease. And little surprises keep popping up, like a severed hand. I love when that happens. (When writing fiction, of course!)

Since I’ve started, the rest of the main cast has revealed itself and I am dutifully taking notes. I’ve transferred all that initial brainstorming work into a notebook dedicated for the NaNo Novel, which I have lamely code-named Blood and Roses. (Please refer to “I am shit at titles.”) I’m also letting myself sprawl in each scene. On tap for today is a big confrontation that should set a lot of the primary conflicts in motion.

So, I suppose I can say I’m half-pantsing it. I certainly don’t have an outline, or an ending, but that’s okay. In fact, not knowing exactly just yet makes me more eager to get to the writing to see what happens. This is new for me. I’m kinda excited and I’m enjoying the buzz.

Anywho, back to it, eh?

For the next thirty days, one of two things will happen here on my blog.

1.  Things go fantastically, stupendously well with NaNoWriMo, and I easily mount ever higher word counts in the quest to reach 50,000 words of new prose by the end of the month.  If I succeed in reaching that goal before November 30th, I’m treating myself to an all-you-can-eat sushi night.   If this happens, I’ll be way too busy to be updating here regularly.

2.  Things go wretchedly, dismally poorly with NaNoWriMo, and I never reach the goal.  Not only will I be deprived of all-you-can-eat sushi celebration, I will be denied sushi until 2010 and a more horrible punishment I cannot imagine.  As a result, more time will be spent here on the blog instead of  writing the novel.

I feel really good about this NaNo.  Really good.  Even though my plot is somewhat nebulous, I feel like I can get these 50,000 words.  Sushi will be mine — oh yes, it will be mine.

However, removing distractions are a must, and one big one for me is keeping up with the blogs about town, many of which are also covering, if not outright participating, in NaNoWriMo.  And one of the non-writing blogs I read, Merlin Mann’s 43 Folders, made a very salient point:

When I’m reading about writing, I’m not writing.

Read the rest of the article.  Just the one.  He summarizes the plethora of writing advice that will run the web-gamit this month — or at least all the advice that’s worth a damn.

Then get back to writing!

(And that goes for me, too.  I’m outie!)

With the first draft of my second novel done, I looked forward to spending the week before NaNoWriMo prepping for the next one. “I have a week,” I gleefully told myself. “Plenty of time. AGES.” I laughed heartily, smug and satisfied that everything would fall into place without much effort.

Silly, silly girl.

Sunday? Spent mucking around with Notebook.

Monday? Some more mucking around, before I realized that to get Notebook completely (and satisfyingly) set up would involve a great deal of time that I really didn’t have. So, a project for down the road. I will likely end up dropping some coin for a license, just bad timing that I won’t get a chance to really put it through its paces before I do.

Tuesday? Well, I still have a lot of time, I figure at this point. I try returning to the well reviewed Princess of Roumania but still find it a bit of a slog. But I’m halfway through. Shame to give up. I really like the antagonist’s P.O.V. but find the main character, and her passages, dull by comparison. Maybe I can finish it before NaNo?

Wednesday? By this point, my morning hours that are supposed to be dedicated to writing, which were so productive the two weeks prior, become a bleak, unproductive blemish on the day. I’m cranky at work, and because I’m carting notepaper and pens for the scant bits of actual NaNoWriMo work I’m doing, I’ve left Princess… at home. I turn to the e-book edition of Club Dead by Charlaine Harris and found myself caught up in it.

Thursday? Let’s not talk about mornings. I’m sleeping in. At this point I wonder if it’s just post novel laziness or if the new schedule has finally caught up to me. I certain seem better able to stay up later to write (last weekend being a great example) than getting up early to write. Problematic. Even at the writing group night I am wholly unproductive. In the course of two hours, I manage to type in about ten Post Its of scene ideas and do a smidgen of web research. Once home, I finish off Club Dead. I try going back to Princess… but know that it won’t happen.

Friday? Put Princess… aside, and pick up Naomi Novik’s Black Powder War, one that’s been in my to-read pile a while. Went out that night after my shift ended, but then turned in early. Sleeeeep ….

I was starting to get anxious about this, but then I figured, “Hey, you just finished a big ol’ draft with a huge word count push at the end. Give your bobble-headed brain a few days to come up for air and don’t kick yourself over this. At least, not yet.”

Where does that leave me for NaNoWriMo?

(hahahahaha)

I have my log line. I have the two main characters. Sorta. I have the supporting cast. Sorta. I know it will be 3rd Person P.O.V. limited, possibly alternating between two characters. I have a mosaic of images in my head that visualize the setting. I have the conflicts fuzzily arranged on the periphery. I have about ten concrete scenes in mind, one of which is my starting point. I have an iTunes playlist, which is slow low on the To Do List, it’s embarrassing. Yet done.

This afternoon is wide open for NaNo prep, but the truth is I’m still procrastinating, not least of which is blogging instead of brainstorming. I’m trying to at least type in the notes I’ve made by hand in hopes of sparking new work. But all I can think of is that I’m cold, that I’m sleepy, and that tonight my folks are coming over after the Halloween candy’s all been given out to either give the new telescope a spin or watch scary movies if the clouds roll back into town.

The only think that’s stopping me from going into a full-blown panic is that tomorrow a few of us are getting together to start NaNoWriMo at a private write-in at someone’s cottage. It will be five hours or so of do-or-die NaNoing, and my procrastinator’s brain keeps saying, “Ah, you’re going to get so far ahead tomorrow. Don’t worry about being ready. Ready will come the moment you start.”

GOD I hope she’s right.

I pushed through the first draft last weekend, after a very late Friday night and the bulk of Saturday. I even left the NaNoWriMo Meet ‘n’ Greet party to get back and home and write the ending.

No editing. At least, not yet. November is given over wholly to NaNoWriMo and I have a week to prepare. Well, less than a week now. Only a few days.

Of course, as soon as I was finished, I then launched into converting my MacJournal idea files into Notebook files. This … this may end up being a mistake. There appears to be no seamless way to import the documents en masse, so I have spent the last two days painstakingly, and I do not use the term loosely, copying and pasting it over. It’s going to be such a time sink to do it, but the program is so pretty. The sticky note functions make me squee as if I was actually buying a pack of multi-colored Post-its at the local Staples.

In order to not lose my mind, I’ve decided that I am going to divide the usage along two lines; MacJournal for notes that I’ve made about stuff (like my Blog) and Notebook for notes that I’ve found on the web (like my idea folders). This seems sensible.

But here I am, two days later, and I am thinking that while this will be a useful thing, I’m two days closer to NaNoWriMo with, frankly, very little to get me started.

I’ve also been moody. Sure, I had some intense, stupid-grin going on for at least parts of Sunday, but this morning, after puttering around with Notebook and the Interwebs, I got off to work slightly cranky, unfocused. Probably because I didn’t do any writing.

Wow. What a boring post! Where are the fireworks, the wa-hoos? I finished the draft! It’s my second novel, and it’s done!

On to the third!

I just talked about this topic over on the Underground Writers blog, but I’m going to go over it in more detail here. (’Cause I wanna.)

So it’s the end of my first two weeks on the new schedule, the one with me working 11:30 am to 8:00 pm and setting the mornings aside for writing. Using the handy-dandy iPhone application Write Chain, I’ve been keeping an ongoing tally of the words written per day (since I appear to be too lazy to update the actual Excel document that’s supposed to house that information) and I have hit 10,000 words during these two weeks.

That’s fantastic for me. I’m terribly pleased but realize this isn’t enough. I have had a few mornings where the output was low. To be honest, I am taking this morning off and doing more computer-puttering and blogging with the intention of writing tonight when I get home.

Things I’ve learned so far? If I get ready before I sit down to write, if I have my shower and get dressed and all that, I write a whole lot less. Once I’m ready my body goes into waiting-to-go-to-work mode and I start puttering, killing time, full stop. I got ready first that one day and my productivity dropped like a stone. I think getting dressed just signals to my brain that my time isn’t mine anymore. It’s the world’s now, on its schedule and pursuing its interests so it’s all housecoats and slippers and tea for me.

(The reverse isn’t true, though. I don’t doubt that if I got home after work and got into pajamas that I’d get anything done. It’s time for bed at that point, more so now because I come home so late. Nothing a pot of jasmine tea served at 9:30pm won’t cure, of course, as I learned the other night.)

What I have noticed, as a delicious side effect, is that I am more productive in my quiet moments at work after a morning writing session. Even the other day, when I was stuck and got no where in the morning, I ended up hand writing out a page and a half of the scene that I typed in the next morning. I’ve done phase outlining at work and significant brainstorming on the upcoming NaNoWriMo novel.

I still need to get my tail in gear. I have two and a half scenes left for the WIP. I plan to put some hours in this weekend, maybe even pull an all-nighter tonight if Todd heads out. Tomorrow is the NaNoWriMo Meet’n’Greet at the local pub, so I will be getting my drink on then.

I’m also being unfaithful. Again. I’m trying out Circus Ponies’ Notebook program to see if it would help organize my clippings and research. I will never switch from Scrivener for the actual bulk of the writing, I need Word in order to (more easily) create the manuscripts for submission, and MacJournal allows me to write and upload my blog entries while keeping a local copy, so all three are safe. But the rest of the clippings, ideas for stories and writing advice culled from the blogs I read, are becoming a bit of a mess. I do use tags (extensively) in MacJournal to help, but I’m finding now that when I go back to look for something I know should be in there it’s a bit of a trick to find it. There are some formatting issues, placement of images and that sort of thing, that this Notebook program may assist with, so I’m giving it the trial run. If I do make the leap I’ll still be using MacJournal, just not for everything.

I have approximately … *does some rough math* … 2,000 entries of all kinds, over 700 of which are for this blog in all its incarnations since its inception in 2002. Oh, dear god. No wonder I can’t find anything!

Well, enough babbling. On to less pleasant tasks, but not without my notebook. At least, the physical one.

I am sipping ginger-peach tea, wearing pajamas, and discussing favored styles of gun-based gameplay while Todd explores the first areas of Borderlands for the Xbox 360. The fussy dog is remembering that she actually likes her kibble and the cat is being cattish, waiting for an opportunity to sneak-snuggle. Which is about all I have the energy for these days.

I’m coming home quite tired after my new end time of 8:00pm. I managed to fumble my way through dinner, leftovers every night, partake in some limited social interaction, and then find myself in bed by 10:00pm. This would ordinarily make me quite glum, but I’m not thanks to my morning writing sessions.

I’m on to week two. Except for the 12th, where I mostly took it easy because Todd was off for the Thanksgiving holiday, I have showed up to the blank page and I have written every work day. All but two days were above 1,000 words (one was at 500 words, one at the oh-so-close-but-had-to-go 900 words). I did finish the “non-scene” and I am now at work on Chapter 30. That leaves me eight days to write the next three scenes/chapters, all of which will run longer rather than shorter. If I can keep my pace, I will hit about 8,000 words and the first draft of my second novel will be done.

I’m at 68,700 words right now — a little short for a novel, but part of the trend I’m noticing in my work. When I write short stories, I write long and always need to cut back. When I write novel-length stuff, I tend to write lean, and need to go back and build up muscle on top of the skeleton of the story. I don’t know if that’s normal (or even a productive) way to be writing, but it’s starting to concern me. The last novel-length project was at the 85,000 mark and the current WIP may hit 75,000 words — both a little low for a proper novel.

But here’s where the Phase Outlining may be changing that.

When I started the current WIP, I had preliminary scenes drafted by hand that I typed up and then used as my guide points to create the basic outline. And I mean basic, like A visits B for the first time and learns C, but there’s a twist, D! Every time I sat down to write the next scene, a lot of keyboard time was spent trying to figure out the details of how all that happens. Since I’d had success in the beginning with drafting first longhand and then adding to it when I typed it up, I thought that was the way to go. And that worked, mostly. (I have about a third or more of the novel written out by hand, actually.) Even then, though, I’d get stuck every so often and spin my wheels. To get over that, or really, just to warm up my fingers, I started every hand-written page with mini entries: Where were we? and What’s next? I’d summarize what just happened and then brainstorm the details of what was to come.

And this helped. A lot. I was making real progress again.

Then it got too busy at work to write anything coherent. As soon as that happened, my progress at the keyboard back home ground to a halt. I wasn’t writing at all, even on my days off, and I was starting to feel miserable. I also felt that as close as I was to the end of the book, I wasn’t able to picture it in my head, not all the details and events that flesh out the story.

So I tried Phase Outlining. Not the whole rest of the novel, just the scene/chapter up ahead. I sit down and Phase Outline by hand the whole of the next chapter, all the main points, and any notes along the way, and then I use it as my guide when I sit down at the keyboard. And it’s something I can do while I’m at work, no matter how busy it is. It’s helped so much in the last two weeks. I sit down, I know exactly what I am going to write, and I find I’m writing more in each scene because I already have the skeleton to build on.

Would I phase outline the whole book before starting? Now that I don’t know. Not for NaNoWriMo. I’ll probably use it to outline the scenes ahead, but not too far ahead. I would really like to get the draft finished before the end of the week if possible so I can spend a couple of mornings working on the prep work for NaNoWriMo before November 1st.

Maybe I can sneak in a Sunday morning or something.

It’s coming along nicely.

Granted, it’s weighing in at over 2,800 words — all of which cannot be in the book. It’s amusing mostly, only a little annoying. But I’m not really surprised. I’m writing from the point of view of the “villain”, not that he sees himself as that, and it’s in third person restricted, a viewpoint that comes naturally to me. I can slip in whatever he may or may not be thinking at the time. I can describe the world through his eyes, his views, his biases. It’s fun. Not that I’m not enjoying writing the main character’s 1st person point of view, it’s just easier to be just off the shoulder instead of right inside.

Besides the non-scene, the new writing schedule is working out fantastically. The least I’ve written is 500 words so far, but the other two days I hit over 1,000. So long as I can handle the ongoing weirdness at work, the next seven weeks (soon to be six weeks) will be productive.

And, hey, it’s the writing group night! Time for cheese and tea and … oh yeah, writing!

In lounge wear at the moment, on my first morning of the new schedule. I should be upstairs in my office, clicking away at the keyboard on Chapter 30 (which I did, incidentally, phase outline last night). But I’m cheating. Slightly. It’s Canadian Thanksgiving today, and for most folks, it’s a day off work. Felt a little guilty about heading upstairs while he’s home, so I am downstairs on the couch with the headphones.

I have 14 work days, not counting today, before NaNoWriMo. Rough work on the NaNo novel will be done at work during downtime between calls while the mornings will be focused on finishing the draft of the WIP. I’m going to start slow, expecting about 1,000 words per session from myself and ratcheting it up as I get closer to the end of the month. That’s a cushion of 14,000 words in which to finish the novel. Plenty. As long as I keep plugging forward, I should be done well before then.

What I realized last night, though, while phase outlining the next scenes, is that I was having trouble picturing the order of events exactly. It’s a reaction to events that happened when the P.O.V. character was somewhere else entirely. This has been a problem looming for a while and one I haven’t found a satisfactory solution to yet. The novel is entirely 1st person. My M.C. cannot be there, but what happens sets the final scenes of the book in action. So I’m trying to write the scenes around that time frame and I’m realizing that I am going to have to write a scene that can’t possibly be in the book so that I can write the rest of it.

Which is a new problem for me, but not a bad problem to have.

In which I describe the last three days.

And plan the fourth.

Thursday

The writing meeting that night was small, only the three of us, but for me productive. Once all my victuals had been consumed, I slipped on the head phones and got down to business, cranking out over 1,400 words and finishing off the chapter. My writing buddies didn’t fair so well, but had a good time. Great practice for NaNoWriMo, too.

I’ve noticed a pattern emerging for my really good writing sessions. In the beginning, it’s tough of course. It takes a while the chase out the “no” voices and to just trust the flow. I feel it, and can sometimes see it afterwards when I’m reading back what I’ve written, when I switch from trying to write to just writing. I’m stop being self-conscious about it. And then the roll keeps on rolling, until I hit around 1,000 words or so. By then I’m getting all bouncy but at the same time a voice comes back, whispering, “You’ve done enough now. End it here for tonight.”

When it happened on Thursday, I was so close to the end of the chapter. I started to get fidgety and nearly did stop, but pushed through to finish. Happy I did, too, because finishing the chapter felt better than the little high I get from the flow. Part of that bad habit of procrastination, of imagining the work being done during some perfect later session. Definitely a habit to break. And I think I’m making progress!

Friday

A terrible day at work, one that started out well and then after an afternoon of computer troubles and frustrations I came home fired up and in need of comfort. Half a bottle of white wine and some killer chorizo and pancetta risotto later, I was rather pleased with the universe. That was, until, about 2:30 in the morning when I became violently ill. There was no writing done that night.

But before the day got really bad, I’d meant to work on phase-outlining Chapter 30. Left my notes at home, though, so I ended up starting to brainstorm the NaNoWriMo project. Poor modern werewolf story — shelved again! Instead of it, I’m playing with some gothic-medieval-werewolf-romance-thing. It’s all very, very rough right now. I have the barest hint of a character, I have the big pieces of the setting, and not much else. But it’s tugging at my brain louder than the others so it wins based on tenacity alone.

Saturday

Spent far too long at work debating whether or not to go home. No writing. A few pages read here and there. Dragged myself home, dragged myself through the motions of cooking a pork tenderloin and, so far, so good, I’ve kept it down. Still not feeling fantastic, but I expect sleep will help with that.

Looking Forward

Tomorrow is the Canadian Thanksgiving Sunday, which I have off from work. I won’t be making all of dinner, but I am whipping up a peach and blackberry pie to go along with the turkey trimmings served Chez Parents. Besides pie, though, I will be settling in to do a little writing-related office work. There are stories to print out for critiques, NaNoWriMo flyers to print out for bulletin boards around downtown, photocopies of some of my favorite writers to do some studying from, a phase-outline for Chapter 30 and more planning work for the NaNo project.

Here’s hoping I can keep this pork stir fry down.

Things are about to get interesting.

At least, for me personally. (I don’t doubt it will be as boring as cleaning out your tea-maker to read, but hey!)

I am a day short of doing a nine-day stretch on the phones and a shift change. After several of us affected pointed out that nine days straight of talking to customers might be a stress situation we could do without, most of us (I’m assuming) got a day off in there. The Sunday, no less, of the Canadian Thanksgiving holiday. So I have three days of my old schedule, a day off that will be mostly taken up with pie-making, paint-ball, and turkey, in that order, and then five days at my shiny new 11:30 am to 8:00 pm shift with weekends off. (!!!)

Now, the down-side is that I won’t be cooking for the majority of the week. And I can’t live off of cold sandwiches for dinner. It’s going to be … complicated … trying to manage what I eat and when. The upside is weekends off, meaning that we can properly clean the house together and even go on the odd road-trip. Luxury!

But the real upside, the one I’m actually excited about?

I have weekday mornings to write, uninterrupted, for the next month and a half. If I can get myself organized and ready by 8:30 am, I can write from then to 11:00 am and then be out the door and at work for 11:30 am. And with NaNoWriMo right around the corner, this is perfect.

I have three weeks on this schedule before November 1st rolls around. I’ve also had allowances made for my weekly writing group meeting every Thursday. While I won’t make it out to most of the weekday NaNo events, I can make the weekend ones. So that’s three weeks of, let’s say, 2 hours a day, five days a week to get Spirit Cat/Last Witch finished — that’s 30 hours of writing, not including any time I write on weekends or at the weekly meetings. I’m going to play with the math, today, plan out what I think the last bits of the book will take, and then figure out my schedule.

And as for NaNoWriMo, that would be 40 hours, not including weekends. That will be trickier, but I can squeeze more time for it; it’s NaNoWriMo after all, and Todd won’t begrudge me that.

As for me, time to scoot! I do have to work today, but tonight, writing and cheese and tea and good talk.