Tuesday, November 30, 2010

I even FEEL like a Winner

At the beginning of the night, around 6pm, I had 41,311 words of my nanowrimo novel done. I contemplated cheating. There's a word counter, but it doesn't take much to cheat, so it's really a word of honor type thing. You don't win anything other than a banner to put on your blog or web site, and of course bragging rights.

But I didn't cheat. I also didn't really want to give up my Tuesday night game again. I wanted to finish. I wanted to get the damn thing done.

So I did. My fingers ache. There are tears of joy streaming down my face. I can't really believe it.

8,739 words, and a great deal of sex, death gigantic battles, bloody vengeance and a zombie apocalypse later... I have completed my third National Novel Writing Month. I am a Wei-nar!

The very very very rough draft of The Necromancer's Apprentice has been born. Some day, it might even be ready for someone else to read. lol

Monday, November 15, 2010

Half Way...

Great day for writing. Reached the halfway point, after being a couple of days behind for a while. I was home sick today and spent a lot of time sleeping/dreaming about the characters and events to come. That sort of thing is essential to my process, as I write mainly to set up and create the scenes I've imagined in my head.

The big romantic plot is now established. The last piece I wrote was the main character's proposal to his lover, the prostitute Celestina. I'm pretty pleased with it. Celestina is a bit two-dimensional, a hooker with a heart of gold. But there's time to fix that. Severo, the main character, is more interesting than I first thought he'd be and that is a good thing. He's kind of an ass at first, but he's a kid with a huge religious and military responsibility. It's only after his powers are gone and he's faced with spending the rest of his life as a monk that he gets more interesting.

All good. Now the hammer falls and I start breaking down everything I've built, and Severo goes to the dark side. Muhahahahahaha.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

A Big Nanowrimo Night

It's been a good damned day. Got to play Savage Worlds with some of my favorite gamers during the day at the Sacramento Area Gaming Enthusiasts meetup.

Then tonight I had a 4000 word writing session, lasting just over 3 hours. Blammo! Now I am only a day behind in my average word count, with a total of a hair over 20,000 words. Almost half way there. Now, this isn't deathless prose by any means. I am a big proponent of getting the ideas on the page, so I just dump a bunch of roughly formed clay onto empty pages of Scrivener. I wouldn't show this crap to my worst enemy, but at least its there.

I wasn't really enthusiastic about the next chapter when I began the night, so I skipped ahead to the first big battle, put on Seven Kingdoms and let it rip. I just love their newest album, and it was perfect for the epic battle of knights vs. zombies that I wanted to created. Now I'm psyching up to write the big romance scene tomorrow. Mmm boobies.

Not sure how it will all work out, but I have no patience with forcing myself to write transition scenes or really anything. I figure, if its a chore to me, a reader surely won't find it interesting. If there is boring shit that needs to be communicated, I either need to liven it up, or slip it in to some cooler scene. Anyway, it was a great night, even if the image is still lumpy and misshapen.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Back in to the Fire

Well it's been a long time. I lost my job. I was unemployed for nearly a year and now I've been employed for over a year. Too long.

In any case. I'm writing again. This year's Nanowrimo novel is The Necromancer's Apprentice. It's going pretty well so far. Building up a lot of tension and expectation. Soon the zombies will really start hitting the fan. The story concerns the rise and fall of a religious prodigy, the chosen one of a deity, who finds himself at odds with everything he has believed in, and throws away everything for love... with a dead woman. Well, he wants to bring her back from the dead, and ends up allying himself with his mortal enemy to make it happen.

We'll see how it goes.