The Trials and Tribulations of Writing

Writing, Writing, Writing....

nynaeve@cuendillar.org — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 01:36:20 GMT

My NaNoWriMo progress hates me, but then again I was moving this month so I have a good excuse for failing miserably. At least I got some additional text on the page.

12569 / 50000 words. 25% done!

NaNoWriMo

nynaeve@cuendillar.org — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 23:06:43 GMT

I'm cheating. Same story. Marking it with a counter:

11969 / 50000 words. 24% done!

Google Docs...

nynaeve@cuendillar.org — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 15:40:40 GMT

Oh. And, I'm keeping the story on Google Docs. If you are interested in reading what I've written, please post your email here, the comments are screened so only I can see it, and I'll go ahead and send you an invitation to be able to read it.

Day One: (For Me)

nynaeve@cuendillar.org — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 15:38:18 GMT

Yesterday, November 5th, was Day One for me officially.

Yesterday I went through the 4,970 words of text, and edited what was there. I know, I know, don't edit! However, my inner editor was on at full force. I also added approximately (*peers*) 507 new words to what was already written.

Looking over yesterday's text has also made me realize that while the very beginning is kinda crap, the rest of it isn't so bad, at least not to my own mind -- and not especially after the additions I made. Some things were filled in, and clarified a bit.

So, now I am prepared to move on, fully. I'm excited, once more, to be working on this project. I'm not sure I intend for it to go anywhere, other than my own desk, but at least I can officially say that I completed something, for a change. I seriously do not want to be my father in that aspect, starting a project and never seeing it through to the end.

NaNoWriMo Has Begun...

nynaeve@cuendillar.org — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 19:23:51 GMT

The first few days I did not do any writing. I am currently cheating with NaNoWriMo. I need to get a better start on this book, and I seriously need to see it through, for my own peace of mind. So, I'm going to use it, despite having been 5000 words in. The plan is to do at least 55,000 words, rather than just 50,000, since I am already 5000 up. Plus, I need to finish up my 50 pages for Mindky Klasky, and I cannot think of any better way to do this than simply write for NaNoWriMO, and quickly edit it when I'm done. And I'm sure I'll have lots of stuff that needs to be added or put on the chopping block, or have plenty of grammatical errors.

So, my Day 1 -- November 5th -- will involve adding material to what I've already written, and then going from there. We'll see what I manage to get done tonight.

Also, because I'm going on a cruise in 12 days, I need to get as much written down as I possibly can, so I might be scarce from other places I usually haunt, like Cuendillar, Firan, and World of Warcraft. Sorry folks! Scarce, but not completely absent. I think now is the best time for me to concentrate on this, with the death of my cat and all, anyway. I need something that will keep my mind entirely occupied and busy, and this will do it, and hopefully I'll enjoy it along the way.

Oh, and yes. It's the same pirate story from last year.

If you want to read excerpts, do please let me know and I'll create a filter where I'll post things. I promise to post them this time!

NaNoWriMo....

nynaeve@cuendillar.org — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 12:24:18 GMT

.... is around the corner. I figured I'd give my website a new look for the occasion. I’m still tossing around the 5,000 words from last year that I wrote. I also have a new sort of idea for another story. I’m not sure if I should continue to write the other book, or go with the new story. The first would be slightly cheating, but I really, really want to. We’ll see how things go!

Writing, Grace O'Malley, Pirates, Female Leaders, Oh MY...!

nynaeve@cuendillar.org — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 12:30:45 GMT

Writing, Grace O'Malley, Pirates, Female Leaders, Oh MY...!

As some of you know, I’ve been working on writing a book. The book will have something to do with pirates, and will have a strong female leading figure. This story is something that has been brewing for a long time, and I actually managed to write something on it, though briefly, in NaNoWriMo last year. I didn’t get very far, partially because I didn’t push myself, but also because I felt ill prepared to write the book. I also was concerned about the concept of having a strong female lead, in charge of a group of mishap pirates, in the setting that I was seeking to put her in. I’m no longer concerned about that.

I’ve been doing more and more research into female pirates, particularly Grace O’Malley, or Grannuile, of Ireland. I was first introduced to her through one of the research books that I picked up on pirates, and while I only received a brief glimpse into her life in that book, I’ve since done some more research. Grace O’Malley was a particular wonder for her time, and the stuff that stories are quite often written about; so it is no wonder that she’s likely going to be a big influence, of sorts, within my book. She was a strong female figure in Irish history, who managed things not only militaristically, but also politically. She’s someone to be admired, I think, for the accomplishments she made during a time when men were particularly dominant in the world, and women had no rights.

I find myself wanting to know more about her, and to learn more about her exploits with Richard Bingham and Elizabeth I; not only that, but any other strong female figures that might have been known in history. Got any suggestions of where to look? Post here!

Small Update...

nynaeve@cuendillar.org — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 17:13:10 GMT

No progress...

See? Small. I've been thinking of ways to motivate myself to get back on track and into the story again. I'm thinking one of the things I might have to do is go to the local library, away from distractions, and just write. Not that also requires motivation.

We'll see if I can manage it.

December 31st for editing will come too fast.

I'll need to set some definite goals and deadlines to get this done, so I can send it off to mindyklasky, a D.C published author I enjoy reading very much.

Her latest book, a paranormal romance, A Girl's Guide to Witchcraft, has a scary crazy character who's life situation is all too similar to mine (at least characterwise) in the beginning of the book.

Scary crazy, I tell ya!

But she's who I'll be sending the first fifty pages of my manuscript off to, er... when I complete it. Here's to having a toe in the door! (I don't count it as a foot)

Infection: PiratePlayers!

nynaeve@cuendillar.org — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 17:48:28 GMT


THIS CARD RELATES TO GAME # 2
my status

my team status

last known infection

game status

NaNoWriMo: Officially Done

nynaeve@cuendillar.org — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 14:42:53 GMT

I did not obviously meet the goal. I stopped at 5700 something words. I won't stop there. I just won't finish for the end of NaNoWriMo. The book wants to be written. It'll just be written at a much slower pace than 30 days. That's fine by me, so long as I actually work towards finishing it.

Synopsis of Day Fifteen

nynaeve@cuendillar.org — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 18:33:43 GMT

This scene involves chambermaids fluttering around Kristen, trying to get her all cleaned up after her voyage on the sea. Dirt, grime and other such unsavory business washed away by the nimble hands of tight-lipped maids. Kristen is desperately attempting to discover why she was taken to the palace rather than the jails, but so far is getting no information out of them, save for one maid tut-tutting at her for asking after her friends, who are also her crew, cheerfully informing her they’d be taken care of on the next day as all such unsavory people are.

Kristen was about to go off on the maids, but the writing time was up then. Sadness. The maids have named themselves Mel and Flo for the time being. Mel is short for Melisende. Flo is just Flo for right now, but may become Florine, or may change her name entirely. It’s hard to tell, since Kristen’s name has changed several times and will change yet again within the book as her true identity is revealed. Right now, Kristen a very confused, very scared young woman, when normally she’s cool and confident. She’s definitely a fish out of water. It’ll be interesting to see how her story progresses.

No questions today. Too many people running back and forth at work.

Day Fifteen: Progress Report

nynaeve@cuendillar.org — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 05:11:17 GMT

I decided to challenge myself yesterday (if you can't tell already from the time of this post) to work on the bookage. I started at 11:30 and managed within 30 minutes to write 1,291 words. Not bad. I started to even get into the story a bit more before I realized that time was up. Sad. Disappointed. Time up meant I had to stop writing to update my NaNoWriMo account. Oh, and go to bed. I tell you, 6:30 am comes way too early for me.

Perhaps it's better for me to challenge myself to write stuff right before I go to bed. I think it might make things better and easier for me to deal with. When it comes to large writing projects, I tend to procrastinate and thrive in getting things done at the last minute, Now, mind you, thriving does not mean the quality of the content is any good, it just means that the content gets down on paper and I can go back and edit it later. So. Woo! Go me! I'm at 4,730 words! There's oh.... by today... 20,000 or so more words to go to meet that goal!

Hee!

Old Word Count: 3439

New Words: : 1291

New Word Count: 4730

Synopsis of Day Fourteen

nynaeve@cuendillar.org — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 05:04:27 GMT

Kristen was transported through the city to the palace. Not much happened. I think the walk could have been more interesting. There was lots and lots of staring by the people, crowding around, feelings of uneasyness, but it was a scene without any real fire or passion or spunk or anything, It was dull and boring.

So, readers, what do you do in order to spice up your scenes a bit? Especially when things get particularly dull and boring? Talk!

Day Fourteen: Progress Report

nynaeve@cuendillar.org — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 13:55:31 GMT

Progress is slow, but at least there is some forward motion again. The scene felt forced and could probably have bore more dialog and description, but I just didn’t have it in me. The demons about how to proceed with first person and what not were plaguing me at the time.

Nothing that was scheduled on Firan last night interested me, so I managed to catch up on a few more episodes of TiVo’d programming and watched Heroes off of the internet because I’d missed it Monday night. I didn’t feel like waiting for Sci-Fi to replay it on Friday.

For those of you who want to read a tiny except, go to my NaNoWriMo page and click on the link to read. It has a long, long way to go yet and I’m still abysmally behind in word counts.

Old Word Count: 2679

New Words: : 760

New Word Count: 3439

Day Thirteen: Progress Report

nynaeve@cuendillar.org — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 13:53:05 GMT

Progress!

Well, deceptively it is progress. I fell into the trappings of editing, but more words were added as the result! 18 more words. Woo! 18 more words added to the dismal, abysmal excuse for the book I started writing.

I remain somewhat optimistic I could potentially catch up. I’m far, far behind now. I need to trick myself into thinking I have a deadline to meet, I think, like tomorrow or something. Yeah.

At least it was SOME forward motion, and not none at all :P

Old Word Count: 2661

New Words: : 18

New Word Count: : 2679

Day Twelve: Progress Report

nynaeve@cuendillar.org — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 13:48:34 GMT

No Progress.

Sunday was spent cleaning up my bedroom, and putting my pile of RPG books away in one of the Ikea under the bed containers I bought. Yay for organization! Doing laundry. Watching TiVo’d programs to catch up on the 30 or so episodes of As The World Turns and Guiding Light that I had pending. I’ve just been putting off watching it which was starting to threaten what other programs could be recorded. I love those two shows, grew up on them, so didn’t want to just kill them. So, I watched many, many hours worth of TV.

And yes, attended festival events on Firan. Some bonfire discussion thing on Dark Day.

Word Count: 0

Day Eleven: Progress Report

nynaeve@cuendillar.org — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 13:45:48 GMT

No Progress.

Saturday was spent participating in various festival events on Firan and catching up on TiVo. My alt attended two horse races, a kissing contest and a battle of the sexes battle royale. She had her butt handed to her in the BR. No writing done. Meh.

Word Count: 0

Day Ten: Progress Report

nynaeve@cuendillar.org — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 13:43:58 GMT

No Progress.

Friday night was spent participating in various festival events on Firan and catching up on TiVo. No writing got done.

Word Count: 0

Day Nine: Progress Report

nynaeve@cuendillar.org — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 18:09:20 GMT

No Progress. None. Nope. Nada.

Should have, but instead decided that since I've come down with something, I'm sick, I would take the day off from pretty much everything and rest. I was also having issues with my eyesight yesterday for some reason. Not sure what's up with that, but it was damned annoying. Meh.

Will write this weekend. I'm feeling particularly challenged with how bad I've been about things. So, I shall write.

Word Count: 0

Plot Summary

nynaeve@cuendillar.org — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 14:32:11 GMT

Alright, some of you have been asking for a summary of the book, and even been asking to read it. I’m not going to be letting anyone read it, and it may never be read by anyone but myself, but I’ll at least concede and give a short synopsis of what it’s about.

The Theme: Struggle To Find Identity

The Plot: A young girl raised by an unlikely gang of scallywags finds that she’s actually the missing heir to a nation by happenstance. She must struggle with her identity and discover who she really is, balancing her criminal life with her new life and come to terms with the new situations she’ll be facing. In many cases, her old life will seem more appealing and easier. It made sense. Court life will be trying and confusing for her. The people there will look down on her because of how she was raised. She won’t be accepted easily.

This is one of those rare cases where I pretty much know the entire story start to finish, without knowing all the details involved. Those details will be the itty bitty parts in between the key elements I want involved in the story itself. There will be plots of deception unfolding, conflict, and conspiracies. I’m very excited about this, really. I just need to be less lethargic about the actual writing part. I think once things get past the beginning introductions I’ll be much better.

So, what's your plot? What themes are in your book? What story do you want to tell? Share!

Day Eight: Progress Report

nynaeve@cuendillar.org — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 13:33:29 GMT

Ugh. I suck. No writing done at all yesterday. Well, I wrote, I just didn’t write on the book, which means I’m another 2,000 or so words behind. I suck. I lack motivation. I’m too easily distracted. S.U.C.K.

Meh.

Word Count: 0

Synopsis of Day Seven

nynaeve@cuendillar.org — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 15:33:21 GMT

Day seven was a progression of where I last left my heroine, Kristen. The admiral got a name, Marshall. Two of Kristen’s mates got a name, Silas and Thom. Silas is this tall, willowy man who can pretty much contort himself into tiny spaces like mice, but clearly not as tiny as a mouse could. Thom is this short, stocky man who always has a ready smile and has a love for the drink and the ladies. Right now, there are only short introductions to these two particular characters. Their significance in the story isn't exactly clear yet.

The scene seems disjointed, but I’ll worry about that later. I’m having a problem finding ways to include conversation, aside from internal dialogue which appears to be pretty prevalent so far. The book appears to want to be written from Kristen’s point of view, rather than any other particular narrative. That’s fine. It’s my first attempt at a real book, but it makes things feel off for some reason. I think once I find a happy medium in writing, as things progress, it won’t be so bad. This is her story after all, and so it should be from her perspective. It just feels weird. Thankfully, it’s not weird enough to be that distracting.

What perspective is your story from? Is it from a single character or the view of multiple characters? How easy does conversation flow in the story, or is it mostly internal dialogue?

Day Seven: Progress Report

nynaeve@cuendillar.org — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 15:03:39 GMT

I stayed home sick yesterday and took advantage of my time off to do some writing. I didn’t get as far as I would have liked, but I was also not feeling very well. I managed to proceed where I left off when we last met our fine heroine. I only managed to write approximately 1183 more words. But, some progress is better than no progress. I don’t like seeing my little word counter thing keep being in the negatives though, so I’ll have to put forth a better effort than I have been, me thinks.

Day Six: Setting a Goal

nynaeve@cuendillar.org — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 13:51:03 GMT

Given that I had absolutely no writing done over the weekend, I find myself in the precarious position of having to play catch up. That’s alright. I can catch up. Or, at least, I hope I can. I don’t want to get behind any further than I already am. Meh.

We’ll see what I can slog through today as far as word counts go. I still have the stuff I ended with at work last time, so I can go ahead and start hacking away at that. When I get home, though, I need to deal with some issues with my car. Apparently my insurance company is overcharging me after I took the jeep off. This is not kosher. I think wires got crossed somewhere. This needs to be worked out since they’re saying I owe another $225.00 when all I had to pay, with both cars on the insurance, was $277 for this month. Not sure how they’re figuring their math. Meh.

In any case, will write, and do insurance, and write some more, and do an event tonight and other sundry things tonight. It’s a jam packed, event filled evening.

My goal today is potentially 4,000 words. I need to make up for some lost time. Can I make it? We'll see!

Progress Report: Day Five

nynaeve@cuendillar.org — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 13:46:43 GMT

I made absolutely no progress on my writing on Sunday. I was pretty tired and exhausted from the weekend. Really I just wanted to curl under the covers and stay hidden there, but given I was still at stepdray and adamdray’s home that wasn’t entirely possible, though curling up on their futons was very comfy and I could have probably slept there all afternoon. We grabbed brunch and then afterwards I decided to finally make my way home.

Once home, I was distracted by catching up with Firan and other sundry things that have been going on around the house over the weekend. I decided to do some WoWing with a few friends from Firan, and then later I decided to join in on the Republic Brawl, which was the first event of the festival. I had a blast doing that. I spent some time watching Supernatural, and then I went to bed. Zzzz. Probably too late, but oh well. I’m up this morning and at least functional.

Word Count: 0