NaNoWriMo - Week 1

Well I've survived the first week of NaNo madness. I've been steadily keeping my 3k-a-day wordcount and I've just surpassed the 15k mark. Today's wordsprints at our weekly write-in should be great. I feel more productive when I'm writing around other writers.

As for the story, things started out slow and rocky because I was trying to pace myself so I don't end up finishing the story too soon. Added a lot of fluff that will most likely be axed during the editing phase. I wonder how much fluff is written during NaNoWriMo? I think that's sort of the key to victory. It's not really considered cheating if the fluff is relevant to the story, right?

I'm staying patient. There are some parts in the novel im anxious to write but I'm going to wait until I get to it.

NaNoWriMo 2011

Here we go again for another round of NaNoWriMo! I'm an ML again this year for my region, and it looks like there's going to be a large turnout -- perhaps larger than last year! Our kickoff party is this Sunday. I'm really looking forward to meeting old and new WriMos.

As for me, I'll be writing Flameseeker, which is book 3 of my trilogy. I've already outlined and I'm very excited to write it. This will be my first-ever trilogy. I can honestly say that I didn't think I'd make it this far in my writing. I never thought I'd be sticking with it for so long. There are so many stories I want to tell, and so many that have already been written, they're just waiting to be edited. That's always the painful and tedious part of things. I really have NaNoWriMo to thank for all of this. I don't think I'd be writing now if not for the opportunity.

Good luck, everyone on their NaNoveling!

~10k Left

I feel myself nearing the 50k finish line, and yet, I'm feeling myself slowing down. It's becoming harder to write. I've felt this way for a few days, now. I feel as though the story is winding down prematurely, which is what I was afraid of. I ended up creating a battle scene just to draw out the inevitable. Whether or not it'll see the final version is a different story. I  have about 10k words left (according to the chart, I should finish by Aug. 15th), and now I have to figure out what to do with it. I hate adding filler. Especially when it requires me to ramble on about minor things about the story. I think all the 'fillers' will end up being battle scenes -- or enhancements to existing ones. I have to do something soon. I predict the story will be finished in 45k words, which was about the same amount as Firebrand. There is so much story I do want to tell, however; especially since I have a larger cast of characters.

I guess we'll have to see how things go. I'm getting nervous about this! But a little nervousness is good, right?

Halfway Point!

Well, just a little over halfway done (26,762). I've also reached the mid-point of my story. Things are going very well. Did I mention how much I really love the cabin feature? It's been one of the high points of my NaNoing adventures. It's very motivating to have others around you, bouncing ideas and motivating each other to keep going. I really hope something like this will be implemented during November's session, as well.
Onward to 30k!

Summer Camping Madness

I can't believe August is already here and so is round 2 of Camp NaNoWriMo! I have to say, I'm loving the bells and whistles OLL added to the website. The cabin feature is really awesome and fun! I chose to be around people who write in the same genre (fantasy). It's been really motivating and fun to write alongside fellow NaNoers in my cabin. The bugs are still being worked out of the system, but so far it's been nothing to major that it rendered the feature unusable.

Currently, I'm a little over 17k words. I've been writing this story like crazy because I've been so excited and eager to start on it. Firebrand is still being beta-read, so I've had to push back the release date till sometime near the end of August, perhaps. I will be relieved once the first book of the trilogy is finally released and I'll be hard at work with the edits of book 2 by then. I plan to write Book 3 in November's session. After Camp NaNoWrimo, the next big writing event will be GothNoWriMo in October, in which I plan to write a prequel to The Necromancer's Apprentice which will be told from Daggax'iylion's point of view. These are the planned projects for the remainder of 2011. Who knows what I'm going to write in 2012!

Ready for August

Well, I finally made time to validate my novel (again) so I can collect the winner goodies, and wouldn't you know, it made my wordcount go down a thousand words! I don't understand it... Did they change the validator since I used it before? I didn't add or delete any words. Anyway, it made me a little nervous to see that, but I still got over 50k words -- 50,342 is the grand, final total.

In the meantime, I'm hard at work planning out my next novel for August's session. The excitement is happening all over again. I hope to see more participants in my area, and maybe we can do a little more this time around.

I'm also hard at work trying to get my book published before the end of the month. The book will be available in paperback format, first, then I will be spending some time converting it to eBook format.

Good luck to the rest of the NaNoers! Only 5 days left to go!

Camp NaNoWriMo July 2011 - 51,483!

These past few weeks have been pretty busy between writing and real life happenings. But I'm glad to say that I managed to still get my 3,000+ words-per-day goal, regardless. I love maintaining this steady discipline. It's helped me a lot with my writing and working towards a worthy goal. Well, as of today, I've finally reached the goal (and then some!) of 51,483, according to the wordcount validator. This is actually the most words I've written in a NaNoWriMo event since I began in 2009, so I think it's a huge accomplishment for me! Now I have a few weeks to clear my mind and get ready to do it all over again in August. I've already decided on the story I want to tell for the August one -- it's going to be book 2 of Firebrand. I am planning on releasing book 1 towards the end of July, so look for the announcement on the website!

Now, I think I'll take a nice, long, well-deserved nap...

Weekend Camp Wrap-Up

It's been such an awesome and productive four days. As of today, after reaching my daily wordcount, I'm currently up to 12,105 words. I have 37,895 words remaining according to my Camp NaNoWriMo stats. At this rate, if I keep this steady pace, I should be done in about 20 days or so. That's usually around the time I've been finishing my previous NaNoWriMo challenges. On Saturday, I hosted our first Camp NaNoWriMo write-in. Only one person was able to come out, but we made a lot of progress doing 15-minute wordsprints. If you're ever falling behind in wordcounts, I've found that doing 15-minute wordsprints for an hour will get you back on track faster than you realize it. If you write at least 250 words every 15 minutes, you will get at least 1000 words in an hour. Sometimes it's good to set a goal to help you stay focused and on track with your writing. That's one of the things I love about NaNoWriMo -- the competition makes you commit to a goal and stick with it.

I've been reading other blogs and tweets from other NaNoers. Some people already have over 20,000 words! It's amazing that they can write so much in so few days. It's definitely great and inspiring to see everyone's progress through this event. And just think, in less than a month, I'll be doing it all over again for August's session (yes, I'm that insane)!

Thanks and welcome to the new followers of my blog as well as Twitter. Here's to hoping for a successful week 2 of Camp NaNoWriMo!

Camp NaNoWriMo July - Day 1

Camp NaNoWriMo has officially begun! I'm happy and proud to say that I started it off with a bang! Like my previous NaNoWrimo experiences, I've devoted my daily wordcounts to be at least 3,000 words. It's certainly more than the suggested wordcount, but I like to go the extra mile and have a little extra buffer in case life decides to through a monkey wrench in the mix. Furthermore, when I'm on a roll with my writing, I really don't feel like stopping. I started writing at 12 Midnight, July 1st. I will admit, starting that first sentence was actually really hard! I knew what I wanted to write, but I didn't know how to explain it in words. I just closed my eyes, thought of the scene and began writing what I saw. Admittedly, the result made me cringe, but at least I managed to get the words out on paper (or in my case, computer screen).

I'm using FocusWriter to do my NaNoing. I spent the longest time looking for a suitable program that was compatible for both Windows and Linux. The one thing I love about FocusWriter is the 'Daily Wordcount Goal' at the bottom of the screen to let you know how many words you typed for the day. This is all I really wanted in a word processor, and I'm glad I stumbled across this. Moreover, it works on both Windows and Linux, so I can use my eeePC as well as my Windows laptop. I have my NaNoWriMo stuff synched to Dropbox, so I can easily access my project anywhere at any time with any computer. What I also like about FocusWriter is the fact that it's a no-distraction program. That means, once you open up the program, you're presented with a blank screen and that's it. So there's no excuse for procrastinating at that point.

I've been so excited for Camp NaNoWriMo to start, I think I literally wore myself out when I began writing at midnight. I was only a little over 1000 words in when I felt myself drifting off to sleep. All that excitement just caught up with me and I ended up paying for it in the end. All this week, I've been exercising my creative mind, as well as keeping my hands busy so I'd be ready to write on July 1st. not only did I end up cleaning my workspace, I also made a NaNoWriMo advent calendar (special thanks to Leofair). Then, only a few hours before Camp officially started, I got my Camp Care Package in the mail! That was the definite highlight of my day. The care package is so awesome! I especially love the 'twig pen.' It was well-worth the investment. I love The Office of Letters and Light and I will definitely try to donate again when I have the funds to do so.

Tomorrow is our region's first official write-in for Camp NaNoWriMo and I'm excited to meet some new and old folks. It should be a fun experience!

For those who wish to follow me, here's my Camp NaNoWriMo page: www.campnanowrimo.org/campers/knuxchan

Camp NaNoWriMo!

It's been a long while. I'm already excited about Camp NaNoWriMo starting up July 1st. I'll be updating my blog as often as I can during the event. I am strongly considering doing both of the NaNoWriMo events in July and August. It will be the ultimate challenge, but I have plenty of stories that need telling, and what better way to do it than with a motivating event like NaNoWriMo?

My care package has been ordered, and my workspace will be cleaned and ready for my two months' worth of literary abandon. I look forward to reading some of the other fellow NaNoWriMo blogs out there. That's always the most fun and interesting aspects of the event!

See you in 4 days!

My New Website

In lieu of releasing my gothic fantasy novella this spring, I will be launching a new website, www.rmprioleau.com. The majority of my blogging will be taking place there, and you can also find me on Twitter @rmprioleau, as well as Facebook, so please add me! :) I will still be using this blog for all my WriMo adventures; however, it will most likely not be updated as frequently except during those times. I'm hoping to have the website launched this weekend. Thanks for checking me out! :D

Gothic Novel Progress

It's been a while since I updated -- mainly due to the fact that I've been spending quality time revising my GothNoWriMo and NaNoWriMo novels. My gothic one, "The Necromancer's Apprentice," is practically done. I'm letting other people read and critique it, as well as commissioning an artist to do the cover. I've made up my mind to go all out on my gothic novella -- and who would've thought this story would be the one to inspire me? I've never written a gothic-themed novel before; and yet, I felt the story was told exactly the way I wanted from start to finish -- a rare thing, indeed.

My NaNoWriMo novel is a different story (in more ways than one). I've still not finished revising the raw November writing. This story will be considerably longer -- to the point that I will most likely end up making this story into a trilogy of sorts. Editing this thing has been a slow and painful endeavor, and I will eventually find myself writing entire chapters from scratch since I skimmed over tons of information during the November rush.

I can now understand why writers are always working on more than one novel simultaneously. Sometimes I just need a change in mood in order to get my motivation back. Lucky for me, I'm working on two novels whose genres are practically opposite from one another. It's been making the editing process much easier as a result.

"The Necromancer's Apprentice" will most likely be publshed first; I'm already working on an author's website and looking for a way to get it published. I want to avoid self-publishing, if I can; however, I'm not going to completely dismiss that option.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Last Day!

Well, today marks the last day of NaNoWriMo 2010. It's been an awesome month for me and many others in my region. Several have reached 50k and beyond, however there have been some who were struggling for one reason or another. It's hard trying to find ways to keep everyone motivated. I'm hoping that I will see everyone participate again next year.

Since finishing my own novel, I've gone back to fill in the blanks of several parts of the story that I felt needed to be fleshed out. I'm already getting a head start on the editing. I was even considering what I want to do for a cover. I still haven't really figured out a title for the book yet. I've already gone through the first three chapters (well, I had to break up the story as best I can into chapters), trying to revise and enhance some weak spots. This is my first time ever editing a novel, so all of this is a learning experience for me. I'm learning a lot of new things when it comes to writing in manuscript format. A lot of this stuff I've forgotten since grade school English class. It's a nice refresher.
I actually find editing my novel pretty fun to do. I get to envision my story and the characters even clearer now that the words are all out on the paper. It definitely helps me to figure out what might be missing. Doing a little each day is helping me find new things in the story. So far, with the current manuscript format I've done, I have over 200 pages. Not bad for a 50k novel. It's amazing what margins, spacing and 12-point Courier really does.

50k Goodness

I finally hit 50k as of yesterday afternoon. It was a very long and tiresome road the entire way through. I'm not going to stop writing, though. I feel as though I left a lot of things out of the story that I wanted to tell/retell. I'm not going to delete the words I've written, though. I'm going to be adding new words in red letters. December will be the time for deletions :)
At least now I can really relax on my 3k wordcount and just concentrate on getting the recommended 1667. The main bulk of my story has been told, so now, it's just time to go back and fill in those details (or rewrite them in red). This will sort of be my pre-editing to December's editing. Won't that be fun...

Part of me regrets not having a full-blown outline. There were times I was stuck as to what I should be writing next. I wanted to tell everything, but I kept getting overwhelmed to the point I just get writer's block. I can understand why people outline, but it seems almost 99.999% of the time, they end up pretty much deviating from the intended outline and writing something complete different than intended. That's certainly not a bad thing, but I think it's good to have that outline there for reference, at least -- just in case you get those sudden moments of writer's block of trying to figure out what sequence to tell next.

NaNoWriMo 2010 has been a success so far hitting 50k, but I'm going to enjoy every day of it all the way to the very last day and continue writing to my heart's content!

NaNoWriMo 2010 - Week 2

I can't believe it's still only week 2 of the NaNo madness. It really seems like it's been longer. I suppose that's both a good and bad thing. So far, things have been going well with my story. I'm meeting and exceeding my daily wordcount quota. At this rate, according to the website, I will finish approximately on November 16th. I think this time I will keep writing even after I've met the 50k goal. I will just relax on the daily wordcouts a bit. The words are starting to flow more easy now since I've reached one of the exciting points that I've been anxious to write. Now that I'm at the 30k mark, I can lay off the extra "fluff" and actually start writing the rest of the story with ease without the fear of finishing the story before I reach the 50k mark. I only have about 13k words left to go before I hit 50k, so I can definitely start revealing more exciting things quickly now.
As for the story itself, it's taken a completely different turn from what I originally planned. I noticed this was a common thing for everyone in my writing group, also. It's funny how after all those long hours of planning, you end up writing something totally different! I suppose that's a good thing. In my case, the story got flipped upside down and sideways. One of the main characters of my story is now blind. I never even planned to have a blind character in this story, but it seemed to work out perfectly and really make him my most favorite character in the story now!

Being an ML has been great, also! I'm not as nervous as I was in the beginning. Planning the write-ins have been smooth for the most part. My only concern was figuring out where to have them. People have made some great suggestions, and it's really hard to pick one. We ended up having two writing sessions per week: one on Sundays and another (shorter) one on Tuesdays, where we do wordsprints. The write-ins and wordsprints have been extremely helpful for everyone. I'm trying to be a good motivator for everyone who might be lagging behind in their wordcounts. I'm really glad to see that everyone's progressing. Best of all, there have been some great friendships that have come out of these meetings! It would be great to do these sort of write-ins all year round, even after NaNoWriMo is over.

I've been considering trying out Script Frenzy in April. It would be a great opportunity to finally write out those scripts for some graphic novels I've been putting off on drawing these past few years.

Onward to week 3!

Progress Update

Day 4 has been a success so far. So far I have 13,336 words so far. I've been keeping up with my daily 3k+ wordcount, which is a good thing, though I've found it difficult at times to really get into a good writing flow. I've been cutting it pretty close to meet the goals each day, but I've had to force myself to stay disciplined in that aspect. I hope the upcoming write-in will get me a little more creative and motivated.

My problem is that I know the story I want to tell, however, I know that if I tell it too fast, then it will be well below 50k when I'm done, and I would rather have the story unfinished at 50k than tell the whole thing and try to think of 'fillers'  just to meet the wordcount. I did something similar to last year's story whenI managed to meet the wordcount then just finished it with a 'summary' on how it ended. Of course, I intend to go back and fill in the details of that later once I get the time.

Overall, things are going smooth enough for me to keep up with this sturdy trend of wordcounts and story pace that I won't fall behind, nor will I run out of things to write about. I am eager to tell certain parts of the story, but I want to spend enough time building up for it first. I'm sure I will be doing a lot of trimming when it's all said and done, though.

Onward to day 5 and beyond!

The Final Hours!

NaNoWriMo is quickly approaching in a few hours. Today's kickoff party at Barnes & Noble went very well. There were six of us in total who showed up, but there are more people in the region who are participating. I will be going out tonight to partake in some midnight NaNoWriMo as I meet and greet another fellow writer in the area. I think this will be a fun adventure! This will be my first-ever NaNoWriMo in which I actually wrote on November 1st. Last year, I started about 12 days into it.
As I await the final few hours, I'm doing some last-minute preparations and outlining for when the madness begins. I'm so nervous and excited! Good luck, everyone on NaNo 2010!

Last Week

So now we've arrived at the home-stretch for when NaNoWriMo officially begins in less than a week. I'm really not too nervous about writing my project. What I am nervous about is me possibly undertaking this ML position head-on. This year our region has a few newcomers to the scene, and I want to make sure their first experience is enjoyable so that they would be inclined to want to do it again next year. My greatest challenge so far has been trying to coordinate with everyone's schedules so that these meet-ups will cater to as many as possible. Of course, I would also like to schedule more than one meetings per week if possible to cater to those who have weird schedules but really want to participate. It's a difficult endeavor to tackle alone, especially when you have your own schedule to keep up with, as well, but I will just hold my breath and hope for success next month!

Outline Revisited

It's about time I revisit my NaNo outline again. I was looking around for some Novel writing/outling software to see if any of them would be of use to me, but it's taking me quite a bit of time to play with the different software and learn how to even use the things! I'm not sure if I even need one. I just wanted to try and see if it makes the writing process that much smoother, or does it cause more harm than good. My idea of 'outlining' has been writing down notes in Notepad/Wordpad. I know that's probably a horrible way of doing things, but then again I'm a weird person with a weird way of organizing my thoughts. I like to venture out every so often and see if there are ways to make things easier.

So far, the two programs I've tried have been yWriter and Storybox. I wanted to try and get yWriter on my eeePC since it uses a Linux environment, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to install software on that computer. Despite me having my eeePC for almost 2 years now, I am still Linux-challenged. The Windows version of yWriter looks very intimidating. There's just so many places to put information, it almost looks a little too organized for me. Storybox looked like a neat little program to try, but again, I was left with the same thing. So many places to fill in the blanks and not really sure how to fill them in properly so I don't get confused.

I would like to check out LiftLift and FocusWriter (though I think the latter is more for when NaNoWrMo actually starts) next and see how those are. It would be really good if these programs came with a sample file with the information filled in so I can get a general idea of how to do things. I tend to learn things faster when there are templates/samples so the program interface doesn't seem so intimidating.

NaNo Prepping and ML training

Since finishing GothNoWriMo, I've been getting focused on my NaNoWriMo story again. I have to refresh myself with the plot and characters so that I won't run into blocks along the way. I'm also trying to figure out what would be the most effective (and less stressful) way to go about writing 50,000 words. Last year, I wrote everything in OpenOffice with little to no pre-planning done. Not only that, I started NaNoWriMo when it was nearly 12 days into it! I spent many long nights trying to write 3k words just to catch up. I actually enjoyed writing that much in a day, and I tried to do it again for GothNoWriMo. It defintely takes a lot out of you in the end, though. I know 30 days seems like more than enough time to shell out 50,000 words at the pace I go (I mean, I managed to write 20k in about 8 days, after all, even though I really didn't meet my 3k word counts per day at times).

In addition to the Thanksgiving holiday, so many other things are happening in November that's going to distract me. I'm still trying to figure out how I managed to do it last year. I think it was the motivation I got from the write-ins. This is my first year as a ML for my region and I'm hoping to be abel to schedule more write-ins because I think that's what really kept me motivated to keep writing and make my daily 3k wordcount, no matter what.

Unfortunately, I've not seen or heard from any other MLs in my area, so I might be the only one. I'm very nervous about that because I was hoping to learn some things from the veteran MLs, but it seems I'll be on my own for now.

On a lighter note, I went on a shopping spree for my swag in celebration fo finishing my GothNoWriMo story! I still have to get No Plot? No Problem! and will get all my ML gear in order in time for the kickoff party and beyond.