Its Over...for now

I done finishered dat der Nanowreeeemo with all 65458 words.

In newer news, the manuscript is hereby relegated to the TBE file drawer until March, when NaNoEditingMonth will drive me to spend 50 hours editing and rewriting in a mere 30 days.

Until there, aloha and so long-a.

I not am drunk, twas the keyboard that were loaded.

Nano Update and T-day Harmony

Current word count: 43,928
NaNoWriMo goal: 50,000
Days left: 4

Novel goal: 85,000
Days left for rough draft: 20


And now for something cutesy. Its as photoshopped as the larvae boob (don't click the link unless you want something nasty BURNED into your brain. You have been warned!)
but way more amusing.

Nano update

I've been rather lax in my daily goal of 1,667 words. I should have over 25,000 at this point but currently my word count stands at 23,848.

Getting rid of the blackmail that had me hosting Turkey day helped. I should get a few thousand words done tonight and tomorrow at the write-in. If only life had such a guarantee!

Politics and NaNo Update

I have made my previous post private. The words were as I believed at the time. I know them no longer to be true. Barack Obama is a natural-born citizen of the USA through a biological parent confering citizenship.

I didn't delete it because that would mean I had something to hide. Ironically, it was because I was so vocal and public that I was given access to a file which proved my concerns [that Obama was not a citizen] incorrect.

Barack Obama will be my President. I hope he didn't just say whatever he had to in order to not be Bush or McCain and still get elected. I want to believe, but I stopped being naive about politics during the Carter administration.

Now to something more pressing: my Nano word count. It is currently 20,645 of the 50,000 (but I'm aiming for 80k by December 15 as that is a more accurate word count for a typical novel and I would still need to edit and rewrite).

That reads like a big number but as I read the last computer page back (a big no-no, especially in write-as-you-go Nanowrimo), it seems like filler to me. Of course I've spend the day running between toilet and chair so I could just be crabby and spoiling for something 'wrong'. Having to miss my local write-in today sucked.

By the schedule of 1,667 words a day, I should be at just over 15,000. Obviously with halfway over 20k, I'm doing better than that, but I feel worse. There are no hard-and-fast rules so I think I'm going to take tomorrow (Monday) off and get stuff done in order to be ready for the family Thanksgiving I'm being blackmailed into hosting.

*deep breath* I love my family. Murder doesn't solve anything. *breath*

I wonder if I typed that over and over ...? Nah, not a fair word count.

NaNo Count: 6182 Election Coverage Hours: 999999

I thought of the first line while I was en route to the Kick-Off party. I think its killer (pun intended as the story is a suspense thriller with a body count) and I'm reticent to publish it until I've had a few dozen agents laugh at it--or find an editor who will pay me for publishing it.

I've been doing pretty good keeping near the 1,667 words a day goal. I'm better when I can write at my peak of midnight or after a good sleep and big brunch around noon. But then I'm a 24-hour-information junkie. "Normal" is well, for the 'normies'. Those who maintain a more 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. lifestyle will just wonder how I function, let alone write!

The ONLY story today

I'm glued to the election coverage with four t.v.s running left, right, and left news channels plus one on the channel that airs various judge shows for four hours straight as a 'distraction'. I also have three laptops running different live maps and auto-updating a host of blogs and result pages. In 24 hours I'm either going to be 'passed out' sleeping because of exhaustion due to election overload or frantically incorporating the chaos into my Nano while shot-gunning expressos with energy drink chasers. The latter will crash me into a 30-hour nap, so perhaps I'll rethink it...tune in tomorrow and read somewhat about it.

Its NaNoWriMo again!

The servers are overloaded because of the huge sign-up and response this year. Ironically even the separate area to contribute to getting new servers is down.

Still, I start because these are my hours and its time for my words.

NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth is every November. During the 30 days, each participant tries to write 50,000 words or about a small novel. It works out to 1,667 words a day. Even typing "all work and no play got Stephen King a contract" will give you a start of 10.

This is my eighth year to participate, hopefully seventh year to finish and sixth year as an ML (Municipal Liaison) a sort-of local moderator (with online moderation 'powers'). If anyone in my local Tri-State area of Sioux City Iowa, South Sioux City Nebraska, North Sioux City South Dakota or all the cities in and around there would like to join in the Kick-Off and TGIO parties and/or weekly write-ins, I will list the information at the bottom of this post.

I also do NaNoEdMo which is in March. The goal is to spend at least 50 hours during the month editing your manuscript. It was born of the idea that every writer needs time away from material in order to be more objective when cleaning it up for submission to be published.

Spending November writing, then putting it away until March is a decent time frame. My rule-of-thumb is to put the ms. away for at least half as long as it took to write.
If I start in November, get 50k and then get it 'finished' at 90k in December, thats 60 days. Leaving it alone for January and February while I work on other projects clears my head and after those second 60 days, the Nano ms. is almost foreign enough to me that I can be ruthless with the blue pen. I get scrap paper thats been printed on one side already which makes for less waste as I need to have a physical copy to edit on. But everyone's mileage varies; this is what works for me.


Its already 5 1/2 hours into the month and I still haven't picked my idea. I like to use something that is completely 'new', meaning I haven't already outlined or worked on it in any way. But I want to be sure its one worthy of the focus and won't write itself into a wall by next week. As I have time until the servers come back up, I'm going to put my insomnia (normally I go to bed by now to arise at the crack of noon when my phoneline goes live but I've been working on political stuff near 'round-the-clock for over a week. I'm hoping for a big nap the afternoon of the 5th.) to use and go through some older notebooks and see what dabble I should pursue.

Happy and productive writing to all participants. Add Alphabeter as a writing buddy either on the nano forums or just drop a line in the comments. I'm a good nag. *neigh*

TriState NaNo Events
All events held at the cafe in the Barnes & Noble bookstore at the Southern Hills Mall in Sioux City. There is free wireless available.

Kick-Off Party
Saturday November 1
6 pm to 10 pm

Weekly Write-ins
Sundays November 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd
2 pm to 6 pm

TGIO Party
Sunday November 30th
5 pm to 7 pm
The store closes at 7 so anyone wanting to verify after that will have to do so elsewhere.
However the party may continue to a local restaurant, depending upon interest.

Like a Phoenix Sinking

So its been a few months since I last posted here. I got into a snit about the new controls and took my words elsewhere (I have 11 other blogs to blather).

All was well until I decided to move. I still haven't sold my old house, the new house is complete chaos and the only computer I was using up and killed its motherboard right before the start of NaNoWriMo.

Which meant I wasn't blathering to anyone but my over-stressed doctorate-candidate friend, who had their own problems.

Lots of scrambling later, I have a working computer to hopefully finish NaNo and be a good ML. Which means I can also go online and blather wherever will have me. Hence the new post on here.

Between here and my LJ, I will catch up-- but I don't expect anyone to be as interested as I once was.

The title of this post refers to my favorite mythological creature. Only instead of rising from the ashes, I'm sinking in a pool of frenzied chaos. Maybe I can rise in the New Year.