Saturday, November 28, 2009
I WON!
What a great feeling it is to accomplish something like this - especially since I was so far behind and had to find the motivation and energy to keep trying.
Thanks to all of you who encouraged me and cheered me on throughout the month. Congratulations to all you winners, good luck and skill to all who are still writing and biggest congratulations to everyone who even attempted to do this at all this month no matter how far you got.
It's in the trying that we really alive - success is just an afterthought.
Shooting for the Top
Friday, November 27, 2009
Almost done!
Okay, so it wasn't really so glorious. In fact, I can barely still type. But I'm now actually AHEAD of word count for the first time since Day 2 and I can coast to sweet, sweet victory over the next few days with the last 3K.
No doubt I'll do that tomorrow just to be safe!!
Time to rest my brain...
30-minute word sprints
I know this is crazy, but I think I might actually be able to crank off the whole 13,000 words that I need to finish today. Lisa is at work and I have no distractions except what I create. I'm leaving the TV off and will only stop to eat (leftover turkey!!) at 5K intervals.
Having a HUGE goal is sometimes the only way to accomplish great things...
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Cruising!
I'm now even more amazed at the people who write the whole 50k in 24 hours. I mean, to write like I just did for 30 minutes to get 1,200 words and then to keep going and doing that over and over and over again almost seems super human. True, it does get the mind going and the words really start to flow but there's very little time to think about what come next or plot or conflict or any of that other noveling stuff so I don't know if I would want to try to do it.
Oh, who am I kidding, I know for sure that I'd like to try to do it just for the sheer act of doing it to see if I could push myself that much - like marathoning or doing triathlons.
Maybe I'll try that during next year's NaNoWriMo... For now, I have to finish the 50,000 in 30 days!!
Turkey is in the oven!
Okay, so the bird is cooking and I'm getting ready for another round of Write or Die!
I'm doing 30 minute word sprints aiming for 1,000 words each time. I think I'll make the goal harder each time to really push myself. Since I did 1,134 last time I'll aim for 1,200 in 30 minutes. I'd better get a tall glass of water and stretch my fingers first. I'll check in later to let you know how it's going.
LOT's of people are in the same boat as me and winners are popping up daily so the big push is on...
Thanksgiving is a day for increasing word count
For those of you in other countries - Thanksgiving is a traditional US holiday where families generally get together to have a huge meal. Usually we cook a big turkey (which we don't usually eat the rest of the year) and mashed potatoes and vegetables and lots of fruit pies for desert. The tradition comes from a story about the early settlers having a huge communal meal after the first big harvest to "give thanks" for their success after toiling so hard. Of course, this was right before half of them froze to death the following winter...
Anyway, it's a major state and federal holiday so practically everything is closed and since people tend to travel long distances fo be with their families the whole thing has evolved into a 5 day weekend starting Wednesday and ending Sunday.
Anyway, I'm free but Lisa has to work at the hospital tonight (sick people still need their care and medicines) so while she's working I'll be cooking our feast (we'll eat at about midnight tonight) and WRITING. I hope to surpass 40k and give myself a chance at finishing this thing over the weekend!
So, while all of the rest of you Americans are watching football this afternoon, I'll be clicking my computer keys and making words come out of my head. For THAT I'll be giving thanks!
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Nasty!
Write or Die!
Monday, November 23, 2009
After-burner time
Taking the "10,000 words in 5 hours challenge"
And here we go!
Sunday, November 22, 2009
25,014 and counting
The Night of Writing Dangerously!
We're doing 10 - 15 minute word wars. My spelling SUCKS (as you can see from all the red underlined text in Scrivener) and my writing is even worse. But my word count has been going up :)
Here's a screen shot:
Friday, November 20, 2009
20K milestone
Thursday, November 19, 2009
100,000 of something...
It seems that I'm appropriately writing for quantity over quality!
Monday, November 16, 2009
A great day at the beach
Oh- and we did get to see (unexpectedly) the launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis from where we were. That was VERY cool!!
Anyway, as soon as I opened my notebook my mind absolutely unloaded plot ideas. My hands could hardly keep up and I had a hard time later deciphering my handwriting (which is terrible anyway) but I managed to get most of it on paper. I have lots of scenes to write now and even know how the book is going to end! (Or at least how I think it's going to end...)
I had to do a bunch more prep than anticipated for classes tomorrow (my students come first) so I didn't get much writing done tonight but I'm including another screenshot of Scrivener below for you to see what my virtual work environment looks like.
I'm going to go to sleep and see what my characters do in my dreams!
Sunday, November 15, 2009
16,018
Tomorrow is a beach day; it's going to be sunny and warm so I'll be soaking up the sun and swimming and relaxing and reading and preparing for lecture on Tuesday. Now that I've done as much writing as I have I'll also be able to do some quality planning and be ready to write more specific scenes when I have a free hour or so.
Happy trails!
Taking a break for dinner
12,066
11,317
If I make 20k by the end of the day I'l be thrilled and will be able to catch the train later this week.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Broke 10k and still going
I hope to hit 12k before midnight and then have a marathon writing day tomorrow.
Cruisin'...
The weekend of catching up
I wrote 1,500 words last night and another 2,000 already today (in about an hour and a half of work). I have the rest of tonight and all day tomorrow to get as close to 25K as I can (I'm at 8K now). The best part is that my class lode is lighter than usual this week (I'm giving two exams, doing two fun labs and giving only one lecture on a topic that I know really well) so I will actually have time to write on a few of the weekdays.
This story is still trying to come out and I have to get out of its way.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Not giving in; not giving up
So, I put first things first but did record my idea so that I can crank out the text tomorrow.
14K by Monday night? Maybe not, but I'll try!
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Doubt?
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Life and its little curve balls
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Happy to have 4180
Monday, November 2, 2009
Day 2
Today was slow due to a long day at my second job and a lot of prep time (still more to do) for teaching this week. Tomorrow I'm hoping I can used a lot of the time between classes to write. I have to set up a lab practical for students in my 6 PM class so as long as that goes quickly I should have a couple of hours to crank out the text.
I just realized that I haven't posted any image yet! So, here's a quick screenshot of Scrivener and what I was working on today.
Happy writing!
Sunday, November 1, 2009
And We're Off!
So here's the opening line:
Doug Morris was enjoying a relaxing Sunday evening at work, which is why he would be dead in exactly 18 minutes.
My fingers are flying as I'm approaching 2K words. I had WAY more work to do prepping for classes than I thought and I spent more than half the day finishing that before I started writing. I decided that 1) the schoolwork should be my priority since it's my job and I want to do it well and 2) that I'd be less distracted writing if I finished the school work first. I'm glad I did, but because of that I won't make the 6K words that I wanted to tonight. Well, at least I'll have something on the board for the first day and I can dream about the story tonight!
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Happy 11th Hour!
Anyway, I have a ton of work to do this weekend to prep for classes this coming week so I'm going to try to get it all done on Saturday (later today after some sleep tonight) and then spend all Sunday writing. I still have no outline and only a few vague character ideas, but I'm hoping that once I get going all the pent-up energy from not planning will ignite like literary booster rockets for my mind and fingers. I guess we'll see. Whatever happens, I have a huge goal of 6K words for Sunday to give myself both a word-count buffer for the busy week and some good material to draw from as I dive in each time I start writing again.
Happy 11th hour!
Thursday, October 29, 2009
To Blog or Not To Blog (or, "Why am I doing this?")
Created a blog as a motivator: Win or face humiliation!
Taking a cue from a few other writers, I established a blog to chronicle the development of my novel. I wasn’t motivated as much by my desire to share my work as I was to motivate myself to write and thus avoid public humiliation.
My stream-of-consciousness reasoning is as follows:
If I create a blog and lots of people subscribe to it then I’ll have to have something to blog about so I’ll have to continue to make regular progress on my novel or face the embarrassment that comes from telling lots of people that I’m going to do something and then not doing it.
To push the cattle prod even further into my alimentary canal, I’m emailing the link to all my family members (even the ones who don’t like me). This way, win or lose I’m bound to receive some attention – even if it’s just from people reminding me that I still owe them money.
As a bonus, if I do rack up a sizeable word count, I may receive some quality feedback from some the procrastinating NaNoers who are reading about my novel instead of writing their own. Most likely this will come in the form of comments such as, “Don’t quit your day job!” or “Haven’t I read something like this before?” or the ever popular “You suck.”
In any case, please visit http://moravecthreshold.blogspot.com/ and share my progress as I VOW TO CONTRIBUTE CONTENT TO THE BLOG DAILY UNTIL NOVEMBER 30, 2009!
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Got a funny call from my Dad tonight
Well, tonight he called and said he done some math and figured out how many words he have to write every day to write 50,000 in a month and had decided there was no way he could do that. He said he couldn’t even read his own handwriting when he tried! I suggested that he type it into his computer but he said he types really slow. Personally, I think that’s okay. Even a hunt-and-pecker should be able to crank out 2,000 words in a few hours.
Anyway, he was thinking the idea was to write a real, finished product in one month. When I explained that this was just a very rough draft and that he could do whatever he wanted to with it after that, he started to rethink the idea. I think he might be on board now… I’m going to see if one of my other family members can help him set up his account at NaNoWriMo.org (Shelley - are you taking note??).
With less than 4 days to go I’m really getting anxious. Life is getting REALLY busy - but I’m okay with that. I’m more worried that I’m going to have a massive block when it comes time to start typing on November 1st.
Tomorrow is a jam-packed day at school but I’m still going to try to get a little outlining done so I have some scenes to work on in week I when I get stuck.
Happy 9th hour!
Monday, October 26, 2009
Pressure Builds (just to make it more fun!)
Well, we're deep into the material in all my classes and I watch carefully as my students teeter on the edge between understanding how everything they've learned to this point relates to the present topic and becoming hopelessly lost in a morass of new terminology and concepts. I really have to know the potential pitfalls in each lesson and stay alert to their expressions in class so that I know when to help them recall something from earlier in the semester (that might seem like years ago) or to keep pushing though material while helping them navigate the pitfalls of inane details while observing and synergizing the important concepts so they gain an overall understanding.
It's quite fun, really. But it does take a lot of preparation time and I'm feeling a pre-NaNo crunch already.
Man, am I looking forward to November and lots of sleepless nights!!!
TIck, tick, tick
Things are getting frenzied at the NaNoWriMo site. Lots of people are signing up and the forums have exploded with activity. There are only a few people participating (so far) in SE Georgia, but there’s a pretty good group in Jacksonville (about an hour away) so I may head there for the kick-off event and some of the write-ins if I have time. Sometimes it’s worth taking a little time to drive to get the benefits of sitting with a bunch of other people who are all typing frantically.
The one week countdown has begun!
Friday, October 23, 2009
What will they do?
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Life's Balance: More Work = Less Sleep
(By the way, do you use “noveling” or “novelling” when discussing the creation of a novel? There are good precedents for both constructions. I’ve seen both used regularly; both are listed in various (quality) dictionaries; and both are flagged as incorrectly spelled words by most spell-checking software! I use them interchangeably ‘cause I don’t want to use just one and then have it be the “wrong” one!)
Back to school…
I teach 3 different college Biology classes so I need a lot of prep time for lectures and labs (and tests and grading and student mentoring and all the other things that go along with teaching). Luckily I have gaps between classes so I have time to download presentations or photocopy handouts or whatever, but sometimes (like today) I’m lucky if I have enough time just to wolf down some food to keep myself going.
It’s now 9:15 PM and my last class just ended (I started teaching a little after 8:00 AM this morning) and I’m itching to work on my novel!! But now I’ve gotta’ drive home (40 miles in about 50 minutes) and by the time I get home I’m going to feel doing like little else than curling up with the cats and closing my eyes.
This is really going to cramp my writing style during November! I’m realizing that I’m either going to have to write really early in the morning (I am NOT a "morning person") or else stay on campus working at night and drive home in the wee hours of the morning. Either way I can pretty much kiss the idea of a good night’s sleep goodbye.
Well, it’s gonna’ be worth it!!!!!
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Do you need a REWARD for doing NaNoWriMo? (A RANT!)
What’s this whole obsession that our culture has seems to have with “getting something?”
When I tell people about National Novel Writing Month - that a couple hundred thousand people around the world set out to write a 50,000 word novel in the Month of November - the most common response I hear is the question, “What do you get if you finish?”
What do I get? I get the satisfaction of writing a 50,000 word novel! I get the joy of knowing that I took on an enormous task and completed it! I get fun and camaraderie and a huge sense of accomplishment! I get the bragging rights for the rest of my life that I wrote a novel!! Do I need more than that? Apparently, according to most people, I do - or at least I should. Apparently, according to some new rules of polite society that were invented when I wasn’t paying attention, I should be rewarded for my own participation - by my own free will in a program that lots of other people have volunteered to organize and produce - with something tangible like money or a car or a trip to Disney World. Really? Really?? Yep.
It’s like when I used to tell people that I volunteered for Habitat for Humanity. (You know - the organization that brings lots of eager volunteers who know practically nothing about building anything together with a few knowledgeable crafts-people who act as nervous foremen to build houses for low-income families.) People would look at me like my skin was made of green Jello. “You mean they don’t pay you anything? And somebody else lives in the house when you’re done? What the heck are you doing that for?” They just couldn’t understand the concept of doing something for the pure joy of helping someone else with no need for reward or recognition whatsoever.
I’m even seeing a similar behavior in my students. When they ask a question about something related to what we’re discussing in class, I’ll often refer them to resources where they can learn more about the topic and find the answers for themselves (so that they’ll actually remember what they learned past lunch). What do you suppose their response is invariably? “What do we get if we do? Extra credit?” Extra credit? Extra credit?? The sheer knowledge that they learn that may boost their grade on the next test or lead them to a great career or save their lives the next time they’re swimming in shark-infested waters isn’t enough; they want extra credit!!!
Listen up people: we NaNoers (that’s short for National Novel-ers) do this for FUN!! We don’t need anything else! Just participating is a reward in itself. Guess what - we don’t even need to WIN to have fun! Just being part of the whole thing is enough to make us come back year after year to PLAY. HA!! Take THAT you self-absorbed, materialistic world!!! HA!!!!
Okay, so I seem to have gone off on a bit of a rant… But my question still stands: where did this attitude come from?
Clearly I’m not the only one who thinks that the reward is in the doing and not the receiving. If I was, there’d be a lot fewer posts on the NaNoWriMo forums than there are already (11 days before the event even begins) and there would be a lot less that $75K in the bucket that supports the event itself and all the great programs that OLL sponsors (the bucket that will hopefully get much, MUCH fuller as our word counts grow larger).
Thanks Fellow NaNoers, thanks OLL staff and volunteers, thanks MLs, thanks supporters, sponsors and everyone else. It’s nice to leave that wacky externally-fulfilled world behind at the end of the day and come “home” to a community like this where the general feeling is that giving is better than receiving, that being part of something like this is just too much fun to miss and that we wouldn’t want it any other way.
Happy writing,
Bill
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
First Letter to My Main Character
Dear Lucy
I know we haven’t spent much time together, but I’m really looking forward to getting to know you better in November.
You seem like a really interesting woman. You’re smart, you enjoy being outdoors running and biking, and you still love the Red Sox! But it seems like these days you’re spending way too much time in the lab. I know you’re learning a lot and grad school is demanding, but you really need to learn to have some fun!
Let’s face it, you’ve been a nerd your whole life. You’ve been fascinated by animals and plants since you were a little girl catching fireflies and looking at leaves through a magnifying glass. You hardly ever dated in high school (even though you were really cute) and you always had your nose in some book. Then you graduated near the top of your class in Biology at Boston University and now you’re in graduate school studying Genetics at UNC-Chapel Hill. When are you going to start enjoying life instead of just studying it all the time?
By the way, congratulations – I understand you just published your first scientific paper as first author. You’ve obviously got a bright future ahead of you. I guess it must have helped having a genius father to help you learn to follow your passions.
Speaking of your parents, how’s your Mom? It must be tough being away from home while her Alzheimer’s is getting worse. At least your Dad is spending most of his time in Cambridge now so he can be home with her. It seems like you haven’t talked to him much lately; is everything okay? Maybe he’s just really busy…
November is going to be a really busy month for both of us. I’ll be spending more time with you, your friend Jack, and a few other people (that you’ll be getting to know soon) than I’ll be spending with my students or my own family - but it’s going to be worth it. We have a lot to learn from each other about what’s really important in life and in the end we’ll both be better people for it. That is, if we survive. I almost hate the thought of all the things that are going to happen to you in the next few weeks…
Well, I’ll talk to you again soon. Drop me a note if you get the chance!
Bill
Monday, October 19, 2009
My Muse Teases Me
The best ideas seem to come when I’m driving or on the phone or at times like tonight while I was out for a wonderful 6 mile run. By the time I finish with whatever I’m doing (get off the phone, find a place to pull off the road or get home and peel off my sweaty clothes), the idea seems to have evaporated. Now, I do keep a notebook with me for times when I can jot down any of the gems that pop into my mind under less-than-life-threatening circumstances, but it seems like the best ideas always come when I’m ill-prepared to record them.
Do they do that just to antagonize me? Grrr!!!
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Will They Bite?
I spent the bulk of today working on preparing lectures for the week (I teach 3 college Biology courses and 2 labs) so I didn't make much progress on the novel. But tomorrow I work for a few hours at a part time job where I'll have lots of time for novel work! ;)
Scrivener Software
I’ve been looking for a long time for a good application that would provide both a good writing environment and a means of keeping all the scenes, character outlines, research files, and other documents organized and provide methods for easily outlining and re-aranging material.
Scrivener does all that and more. I’ll likely show some screen shots of the software at work as November progresses.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Rules Clarification
So I’ve been kinda’ careful about how much pre-planning I’ve been doing for my novel before November 1st. In No Plot? No Problem! Chris Baty lays down the law that only one week is allowed for novel research prior to beginning the 30-day novel road trip. Yet so many NaNoWriMo participants seem to develop elaborate plot lines and character sketches (exhibited by the thousands of posts on the forums already in mid-October) that I knew I must have missed something. I did.
Dragonchilde (the forums moderator) answered the question about pre-WriMo planning like this:
"Planning isn't against the rules. No Plot? No Problem! is more about writing a book in a month, rather than NaNoWrimo - our rules are a bit different. It's a great guide nonetheless!"
So I checked the FAQ and here’s what I found:
“Outlines and plot notes are very much encouraged, and can be started months ahead of the actual novel-writing adventure. Previously written prose, though, is punishable by death.”
Woo Hoo! Now when my characters are bugging me with details about their lives I’ll feel free to jot them down on the nearest napkin or coworkers forehead before I forget them.
Friday, October 16, 2009
What is the value of eLife?
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Meet the Main Character(s)
Lucy Kendall (our main character) is a genetics graduate student at a major university where she investigates new ways to produce transgenic organisms. She has a wonderful relationship with her father who is the CEO of a small company that develops cybernetic prosthetic devices (thin: realistic versions of the Six Million Dollar Man’s limbs) but a strained relationship with her mother who is suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.
Henry Kendall is Lucy’s Father and the CEO of Cambridge Dynamics (though not necessarily in that order of importance). Though he would like to spend more time with his ailing wide, Henry is anxious to complete his own work in bionics as he knows that his own time is severely limited by the fatal illness that he has kept secret from his family.
Jack Taylor (main character of the novel Famine which will be a sequel to The Moravec Threshold) is a biology graduate student and one of Lucy’s labmates. He studies animal communication (like whale songs and frog calls) to understand social behavior in animal populations. Jack loves the outdoors and wants to do something meaningful with his life (if only he could figure out what that is).
I'll reveal more characters as they invent themselves.