It is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything, TIMES ONE THOUSAND. Incidentally, when you google "answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything", Google calculator says "answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything = 42". Excellent.
To bed. I'm not tired, but my poor shoulder is shreaking in pain.
Insomnimaniacally,
Sorcha, day twelve, 42269 words.
- Mood:
insomnimanic
Year one, my Mr. Ian Woon was called by his full name and title, and was a radio personality who appeared in a couple of brief scenes.
Year two, my Mr. Ian Woon was referred to as Ian and was my grouchy main character who was motivated by the loss of his favorite pair of pants.
Year three, I had Ina Woon (I was writing too fast to think of Marni Woon, Rina W. Moon, or Naomi Worn), who was an arsonist, religious fanatic, and secretary with a tendency towards mood swings.
This year, my Mr. Ian Woon was introduced with his full name and title, but from then on forth referred to simply as Woon. I know that most of the precious few people who read this journal will also be among the first to get to read this year's NaNo when it's finished, so I'm not going to say much here, except that I'm not sure Ian Woon is even his real name. He says he has a sister called Marni, and I'm not sure if that's true but I'll go along with it.
In other news, I have been writing CRAZY FAST for the last three hours, and I just wrote a scene that made me laugh uncontrollably. THINGS ARE ONCE AGAIN LOOKING UP FOR OUR HERO.
Heroically,
Sorcha, day 11, 37851 words.
Most of the time I end up having to just force myself to write, and eventually the block has to collapse under the force of my rage.
I keep a list of things to write about that I don't need to think about the plot to write, where I can just spill the images and ideas out of my head, and when I'm blocked I'll pick one of those and force myself to write at least 500 words off of it.
Yesterday, after being too blocked to write for three days, I chose 'Description of the undercity from Rachel's POV' from the list, started writing, and ended up writing 5,500 words almost entirely unrelated to my prompt and making great strides in the plot, so it seems to work.
Music is amazingly helpful as well. If my brain is working properly I can live without it, but if I'm blocked I can't get any words out at all unless I have a constant supply of music. I have playlists organized by mood - sad songs, triumphent songs, angry songs - so I can pick one of those if I know what mood I want for a scene, or I can just set iTunes to shuffle and let fate decide the mood. I find that fast-paced and/or dramatic songs make the words flow quickest.
Other things that help me include taking a walk, taking a hot bath (although my tub faucet won't comply with that at the moment), pacing (this has always been what I do when I'm thinking about something I'm excited about, so I can get excited about things by doing it), consulting my character profiles that I made in October to remember things I've forgotten to mention about them, talking my plot out to myself or to a willing victim, sketching my characters, and drawing maps, cross-sections and diagrams of the locations in my novel.
Honestly, though, when it comes right down to it the thing that works best for me is to just write. Even if it's incredibly painful at first, after a while the plot always starts flowing again to keep up with my determination.
And also, I wrote this a few days ago in my mostest favoritest thread on the NaNo forums, the thread belonging to my old word count rival crabhooves, in response to Solunar who was procrastinating by watching Scrubs. People seemed to like it so I'll stick it here as well.
Scrubs will be there when you get back. NaNo will not, until next year. Think of NaNo as a rare butterfly that must be captured as it passes you during it's migration season. There is only a fleeting time in which you may hunt it down, and you must avoid becoming distracted by the gaudy but common butterflies that seem to flock to you just when you are hunting the NaNofly. These other butterflies are shiny and colorful, but remember that you can find them any day of the year, and do not lose sight of the NaNofly.
Right now, you are a butterfly enthusiast who seems to have left all of their field guides at home, and is fixating on one of the gaudy butterflies, forgetting that this is the time for the NaNofly. Do not be that person - they have cases full of butterflies and hard drives full of torrented Scrubs episodes, but they do not have any rare butterflies, and they have never written any novels.
Yeah.
Gaily,
Sorcha (35,111 words)
P.S. I accidentally unplugged my computer using my FOOT in the middle of a writing session that was up to 900 beautiful, perfect words, shrieked in anguish, plugged the cursed thing back in, paced, booted it up again, restarted Firefox and LO AND BEHOLD, WRITE OR DIE HAD KEPT MY WORDS, save but maybe five which were easily retyped. It was a beautiful thing, and I then proceeded to write another 800 words.
- Mood: gay
10:50 - Woke up. Longed to continue dream involving taking over a very small ship by means of a gentleman's duel. Rolled about in bed like a manatee caught in a shrimp net.
11:30 - dragged myself out of bed. In the absence of a Discworld novel, had to resort to reading aloud from This Is Your Brain on Music while my mother cooked lunch.
12:00 - Feasted. Intellectually discussed many and varied scholarly subjects.
13:00 - Sat down at computer. Gleefully wrote 600 words. Decided that today I would try to write 10,000 words in hopes of reaching 42k.
13:15 to 13:45 - Responded to NaNo mail from a NaNo friend
15:00 - stared at blank moniter, eyes glazed, drooling and accomplishing nothing. May or may not have added several hundred words to the Discworld wiki.
15:00 - got up unsteadily. Ate chocolate.
15:00 to 17:00 - Returned to bed and rolled about like a beached whale trying to make its way across the beach to steal a child's sandwhich. Picked up notebook and wrote five words which I soon scribbled out.
17:00 - made coffee. Returned to computer and discovered that cat had been sitting on keyboard, typing. Unfortunately cat had not pressed space and had only written one very long word. Removed cat. Composed this journal entry.
Brief summary: In a period of eight hours of wakefulness, I have written a grand total of 600 words.
Briefer summary: ARGH.
Summary of the last few days:
Five days ago, wrote just over 1000 words. Depressing in comparison to my average at the time of 5k/day. Four days ago, did not write. Three days ago, did not write. Two days ago, did not write and felt too ill to do anything at all. I thought that I had jumped this horrible wall when I wrote over 5000 words yesterday, making it to 32k. CLEARLY NOT.
Cursedly,
Sorcha (32,774 words)
- Mood:
cursed
2006 was Ketchup, after the name of the secret organization in it.
2007 was Toast, due to a character's obsession with trying to achieve the perfect slice of toast.
2008 was Smoothie, due to the plot's involvement with ice caves.
2009 is Tahini, due to a character's hatred for it.
Also, here is a summary I wrote for my profile on the NaNo site. It's not amazing but it's fairly accurate:
A corrupt government revolves around an auto mechanic who faked his own death, and the revolution around a severely autistic girl with an internet connection implanted in her brain. Rachel still calls herself a librarian, even though there are small children alive who have never seen a book, and her curiosity finally gets her into trouble when she gets sent down to the undercity. She's not to bothered by it - there's a lot to learn down there.
A tale of politics, Lebanese food, transgendered journalists, and falling in love with a female detective who just won't leave you alone.
Yeah.
- Mood:
complacent
I have yet to set anything on fire. Here are some excerpts.
After a while she fell asleep, and he kept on reading until something in the room stilled, as if something he had never noticed had stopped. Like if the world had stopped spinning, but without the unpleasant side effects caused by physics.
Rachel Kinborough led a strange life. She hadn't before, really, but she supposed she would have to get used to it. Come to terms with it, in one way or another. Right now, though, she just wanted a nap - a mantra shared by old people and kittens everywhere.
Now, though, someone had grudgingly put a rolled up blanket behind her head, and she sank into the soft warmth of that light sort of half - sleep that is known so well to the ill, and those who have been heavily sedated through injection by a police officer who used to come to their library to study for a law degree.
She let the tired eyes in the mirror stare at her one more time -- before realizing a split instant later that now, they weren't her eyes. Something tightened around her throat before she could turn around.
Rachel Kinborough led a strange life. She hadn't before, really, but she supposed she would have to get used to it. Come to terms with it, in one way or another. Right now, though, she just wanted a nap - a mantra shared by old people and kittens everywhere.
Now, though, someone had grudgingly put a rolled up blanket behind her head, and she sank into the soft warmth of that light sort of half - sleep that is known so well to the ill, and those who have been heavily sedated through injection by a police officer who used to come to their library to study for a law degree.
She let the tired eyes in the mirror stare at her one more time -- before realizing a split instant later that now, they weren't her eyes. Something tightened around her throat before she could turn around.
He sighed. He ate a dolma. Dolmas made life good.
Each word sounded more like a wordless skirr than a sound, a noise, grating against the back of her throat like the sound of the rush of pigeons wings. Perhaps more accurately, like the sound of pigeons flying through a paper shredder.
"People call ladies the fairer sex," Rachel pointed out. "Don't see why no one logically follows that and calls gents the uglier sex."
"Or the ... um ... the bruneter sex?"
As you can see, my novel is about sleep, sleep, sleep, getting ambushed in public bathrooms, food, shredded pigeons, and people talking.
That's actually fairly accurate.
Adverbally,
Sorcha, day five, 21,775 words
I was in a slump yesterday and wrote three thousand words which came out pathetically slowly and only after much prodding, but things are looking up with fingers crossed and toes stood upon. Things look rather silly, all in all.
Progress thus far:
Day 1: Wrote over 8000 words
Day 2: Wrote over 3,600 words
Day 3: Wrote around 3,300 words
Day 4: Wrote about 3,000 sad little words
Day 5: 2,400 words so far and it is quite early. Things are looking good for our hero.
Because obviously I am the hero.
Heroically,
Sorcha, day five, 20,400 words
- Mood: in the mood for some arson
Elatedly,
Sorcha, day two, 11,747 words.
- Mood: excellent
Slow day today. I was volunteering at the library from 12:00 to 2:00 and shelving books always makes me tired, so when I got home I just read (Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett) for a couple of hours. Then I saw that Hazel had 15,000 words. So, um, yeah. I ran to Google Docs, basically.
My goal for today is 11669 words - the wordcount for day 7 if I was writing just the minimum 1667 words/day. 'Tis a modest goal, and hence achievable.
I like what I'm writing. It's a new feeling. A few quotes:
It was a woman's voice, fairly young, smooth with a slight whine to it, like a mosquito slowly drowning in melted chocolate.
The lines of code slid across the screen like a serpent in an extremely repetetive maze, and he leaned his chair back onto it's hind legs, resting his feet on his desk and blowing bubbles out of his nose.
I mean, she thought as the circumnavigated puddles of unidentifiable liquid, that's the whole point of being a journalist, isn't it? You find things out, and then... and then you tell people those things. Trouble is, that's also apparently the exact criteria for criminality.
"I bet you don't even have a to do list."
"Guilty. We can't all be organized, cardigan-wearing librarians."
"I'm not wearing a cardigan."
"Your soul is."
Unsurprisingly, in highschool she had been voted 'most likely to be commited'. She had thought this was a compliment, until she realized they meant commited as a verb.
The lines of code slid across the screen like a serpent in an extremely repetetive maze, and he leaned his chair back onto it's hind legs, resting his feet on his desk and blowing bubbles out of his nose.
I mean, she thought as the circumnavigated puddles of unidentifiable liquid, that's the whole point of being a journalist, isn't it? You find things out, and then... and then you tell people those things. Trouble is, that's also apparently the exact criteria for criminality.
"I bet you don't even have a to do list."
"Guilty. We can't all be organized, cardigan-wearing librarians."
"I'm not wearing a cardigan."
"Your soul is."
Unsurprisingly, in highschool she had been voted 'most likely to be commited'. She had thought this was a compliment, until she realized they meant commited as a verb.
Yeah. It's pretty awesome.
Radly,
Sorcha, day two, 10119 words.
However, my main rival, damn her slightly, has already exceeded 5000 words. I want her power. Or at least, better power than she has.
See, only a day into NaNo and I'm already making less and less sense! Efficiency.
My goal for today is 8000, which would neatly break my record for words in one day (some hundreds over 7000), but I will settle for merely beating Hazel.
Bloodthirstily,
Sorcha, 1736 words, day one.
- Mood:
bloodthirsty
NaNo begins tomorrow. I'm trying to trick myself into thinking I'm prepared, as I do every year. I think having made it to 50,000 words last year, rather than making me feel secure, gives me more to live up to. I want to see if I can make it to 65k this year, which would be 2166 words per day. I know I can do that - I had a few 7k days last year, for goodness' sake - but I'm still worried that I'll be too busy or, worse yet, perendinate excessively.
I'm clearly ridiculously insecure.
- Mood:
anxious
The 21st century is incredible. You can embark on a journey without moving from your chair save but to prepare warm beverages.
Now, on to business. If you have never read this journal before - which you likely haven't, as no one ever does - you probably assume that I will continue to possess the same skillful syntax and immaculate grammar that you bask in now. However, one who has not done NaNo cannot possibly understand the havoc it wreaks on a normally composed person's mental facilities. Grammar tends to be the last thing I think about.
For example, during the month of November, rather than 'mental facilities' I am likely to choose the words,
mined I mean mind (lol that word looks fnny xDDD ^___^) did I mention im aty 32566 words!!
When this inevitably occurs, as it will many times, fear not. I will emerge into December barely less composed, and by March I
Yours,
Sorcha
- Mood:
dignified and intellectual
( PROGRESS: copypasta'd from my comment on the challenge check-in on the inkygirl blogsitething )
Ah, progress.
Banner links to fun and awesome!
STAY TUNED: If you (nobody) are very good I may post some of the more amusingly terrible 1000 word results later on. They are gory, sometimes, or have lots of swearing!
- Mood: challenged!
Here is what I have been/am doing lately/soon(er or later):
January: Told myself I would do JanNo, was incapacitated. 557 handwritten on a single sheet of 8.5x11 paper/50,000 words, woo hoo!
March: Did NaNoEdMo, failed completely, did not even meet last year's 35 hours. Continue to resolutely refuse to be dishonorable enough to blame last-minute computer crash.
June: Doing the 1000 word a day challenge on inkygirl.com; progress so far shortly. Outlining, at least mentally, for JulNoWriMo!!!11!!1. One.
July: OH MY GOSH, JULNOWRIMO YOU GUYS!!!!!
August: Hoping to brave the turgid waters of AugNo, if I am not at that point tripping over my own eyeballs, which fell under my desk at some point during JulNo.
October: OUTLINING, YOU GUYS (non-existant guys).
November: ...duh.
December: NaNoFiMo if I am not, as usual at that post-NaNo time of year, tripping over my own eyeballs.
January: I WILL DO NANOWRIYE NEXT YEAR, I WILL I WILL I WILL.
Literary_Gypsy = done and validated with 50,085
crabhooves = 46,101
Mysterious Shoe (me!) = done but not yet validated with 50,070 <3
...
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>>
SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
...perhaps more info on my OH SO AMAZING victory (I iz so rad, yus?) when I can stop squeeing long enough to type. Suffice it to say that I won a little after nine o'clock at a write in (my first write in ever) and have not yet validated because I have a good 5000 words in my notebook that I still have yet to type up, so Open Office is still clocking me in at 45-point-somethingorother-k.
... yay. owo :'3 :'D :'''}
I am currently past Gypsy and Crab by a somewhat safe amount for now, as long as I keep a steady stream of word count up for the rest of the day, so as not to allow either an opening with which to steal my thunder.
P.S. Current Music = sweetest song ever. :'D
- Location:living room, computer area, rocking chair
- Mood: premature jubilation (+ tired)
- Music:City Hall - Vienna Tang
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