Writing (general) – Page 6

NaNoWriMo 2011 – From Week Two to the End

NaNoWriMo 2011 week two, or as I shall hereby refer to the 45th week of 2011, ‘ The week that won it’.

I’m sure you can guess why, if you can’t, or even if you can because I want to show off, as of Sunday 13th November I hit 50,000 words (50,443 to be precise). Can’t validate until the 25th November, but still after falling short two years running, to hit a second week finish feels great.

I can tell you, it was quite a buzz to hit the 50,000 mark, and I didn’t stop there. Week three saw me push on with the aim of hitting 75,000 words, including “The end.” Want to know how that went? Well I did that too. Though, it was a bittersweet second victory, someone I loved dearly passed away on the Saturday, and I contemplated on just stopping with 8,846 words still to go. That wasn’t the memory I wanted to have of someone I love passing, and though it was a slog, I finished at 75,114 on day 21.

So, the last step of the immediate NaNoWriMo process is to validate your win. And I did.

So there you go – I officially win this year’s NaNoWriMo. I have a badge to prove it.

However, I have decided that there is more to NaNoWriMo than simply writing 50,000 words though – that’s goal number one, with a couple of sub-goals that are worth noting. Below I’ve listed important steps in the writing process as I see them right now, (I reserve the right to grow as a writer and evolve these later*).

Continue reading “NaNoWriMo 2011 – From Week Two to the End”

NaNoWriMo 2011 – Week One

So this time last year was an unmitigated disaster, and it’s telling there weren’t any more weekly posts after week one last year. This year I’m singing a different tune.

I’ll go into stats and numbers later on in this posts, however right now day six has just finished, and I finished it at 22,056. I’m not starting with any other number than that purely because I just want to take a moment to enjoy it. To bask in it.

Why because by Thursday, though I was over performing the 1,667 daily weird count by a few hundred our so each day I didn’t think I’d do it. I was behind on my pre-NaNoWriMo schedule that I’d set. Now I’m a tough scheduler, when setting them, but I do my best to make them easy to adjust when inevitably underachieve, which I was doing.

So what changed? Friday I went into the #NaNoYorks chatroom and met some lovely fellow participants, and we challenged and encouraged each other. As a result Friday I hit the 10k mark, and that felt great, I was start to build some steam, and have a buffer against a bad day.

Saturday was even better, had a great write-in in Leeds city centre, meeting many of the people I’d been in chat with the night before, and some familiar faces from previous years. Drank lots of tea, and wore a lot of words. That wasn’t enough though, so I was back in chat Saturday night, and when I was struggling to motivate myself and get started again I was given a prod or two and made it to 16k, and that felt great too.

Carried on after midnight too with some hardcore NaNoWriMo’ers still doing word wars until 3am. Wasn’t quite as much written in those hours, but it did nicely.

Sunday evening it was a similar tale until midnight, it’s with their help that achieved my 22k.

It’s a genuine pleasure to be part of a community of writers all working towards the same goals, even if we all do so at faster and/or slower paces than myself. We all enjoy writing, talking about our writing, and other topics when we need a break.

I’ll be spending a lot more time in chat and won’t be skimping in write-ins, after payday will be going to more than just Leeds ones, I’d like to goto a Huddersfield one, and one in Scarborough (as post of a weekend writing by the sea).

So anyway, I’m feeling positive, and am hoping to get to 50k by mid-month so I can enjoy the pleasure of writing with less pressure for the rest of the month. The more I write the more options i’ll have in editing in January, and hopefully I can carry the form in December and redo the works in progress I mentioned in previous posts.

Anyway, six days in I’m getting good stats now from my tracking spreadsheet:

Words so far: 22,056
Total hours writing: 26
Avg Words Per Day: 3676
Avg Hours Per Day: 3.12

Avg Words Writing Per Minute: 15.25
Avg Words Per Hour: 915
Max Words Per Minute in a Single Session: 49.3

Avg Morale Per Day: 7 (a qualifiable number based on how I feel each writing period, or out of 10)

Number of Words Remaining: 27,944
Number of Days Remaining: 23
Number of Hours Remaining: 28.00

Those stats may not mean much to most people, but to me they’re a story that is unfolding as I do this project. For instance the average words per minute has risen by five since Friday which tells me that when I suit down and write I’ve been more focused and am starting to spend less time looking at a blinking cursor. Which is a very good story if you’re me.

I’ll stop feeling now and get on with writing. Here’s hoping for continued successes.

Tools for NaNoWriMo 2011 (Planning)

So I’ve talked about the planning I’ve done and am still doing for NaNoWriMo but not about how I’m going to be working.

First of there’s how I’ve done the planning. There are obvious tools such as the browser I’ve done online research from (Firefox on my PC, and Dolphin Browser on my phone), and then sites such as Wikipedia, space.about.com, and news websites (for the latest science and technological developments and theories). Nothing ground breaking there, I’ve been using a lot of science based sites to flush out details I can populate my universe with, but some sites on the history of piracy, and 16th, 17th, and 18th century naval life.

That’s all great but once I’ve got it, whether it’s snippets or whole articles I need to store it so that I can access it again, preferably offline so I’m not distracted by the internet later on. For this I use Microsoft Office OneNote – something I’ve had for ages but never gotten round to exploring for writing. It’s good, I’ve two projects on there, one for all that juicy research, the other for character bio’s and scene/locales.

I’m also using an app on my phone called Thinking Space (I’m using the pro version, but the free version doesn’t restrict you other than listing some screen retail to ads). This is a mind mapping (or brain storming if you want to call a spade a spade) tool, it’s a lot lower on detail than one note but has the advantage of quickly summarising thoughts and ideas and showing how things are interconnected. It’s in Thinking Space I’ve also mapped out the structure of the story, so I can clearly see what each chapter needs to include to feed events four or five chapters further into the story, and ultimately the end. Hopefully it means no loose ends at the end, and if I can keep it up to date it gives me a to-do list of changes I need to make in editing if things happen later in the story that weren’t originally part of the plan and need supporting events.

Other basics in the planning stage include Microsoft Word, Notepad, and a calculator. Then there’s my Kindle, where I’ve been reading plenty of similar sci-fi, and piracy novels. They’d also a few travel guides on there as this is an interplanetary novel each location needs to be distinct but something that can be related to by the Earth found denizens of today’s earth. It helps to borrow from out countries, cities, and cultures to enrich my fictional universe, lest everything in the universe somehow looks and feels like Leeds.

Add into that Google Sky Maps, Google Translate, and we’ve pretty much got everything I need for a space based science fiction story.

These are the tools I’ve used fire the planning, and they’ll be reused in the writing stage, but added to by things that are geared to better improve my writing, speed me up, andkeep me going. I’ll cover those in a subsequent post dedicated to that subject. I’ll do one in January to show the tools I’ll use to edit this story. For other novels I’ll try different tools and review them.

Nanowrimo Day One

Day one… is done.
I’m not going to bore you and me with daily NaNoWriMo updates – I’ll keep it weekly. However as the first day is over, I thought I’d give it a start.
So my thoughts on my NaNoWriMo project so far – I suck. Okay, it’s not that bad, I’m well past the 1,667 word standard target for day one, however I wanted to blast it. My personal schedule called for 6,000 words. In the end, when I finished last night I was at 3,062 words. I should be happy with that, but I’m not.
See the problem is, I got home from work, (and I’d been successfully writing on my phone on the way home), and just went pfft. I got distracted by the interwebs, television, food, reading the news. So what I need tonight is a digital coccoon to stop this happening again. Going to need it to, as I’d really like to make the Herculean effort to get back on track, (according to my schedule for the early push by the end of today I need to be pushing 10l to 11k). However, that’s probably not reasonable, so if I write 6,000 words today, I will allow myself to get back online. Though from this point onwards I’ll only be recording the shows I like, I’ll wait until I hit 50k to watch them, (I actually prefer watching multiple episodes back to back anyway, you get to to see arcs developing better than if watching them one by one.
After today the schedule, aside from weekends, becomes a lot less punishing – that’s why a good strong early push is so important.
Okay, aside from my crap ability to focus after a days work, and my inability to resist the temptation of other forms of entertainment, the story itself is going pretty good. I’ve got a pretty good idea where I’m going still, we’ve not gone completely off plan (though I used more words than I anticipated in the first section – I can easily see in editing that the word count in that chapter alone will drop 25-50% but I’m not too worried about that now). I’m now on the second chapter, and I’m pushing hard at the world building, because chapter one was too limiting an environment to build up the world the story takes place. Chapter two is a little cruise, several meet and greets, and just a tinge of excitement, as a preview of what is to come as the story progresses to the thirdhalf way point.
That’s actually a little bit of an issue, but again I’m pusing it aside until the editing process – I think the plan I have flows pretty well, but it does trouble me that the main events of the story line don’t happen till late on – with feeder events earlier on building up to it. However, if it doesn’t work I’ll worry about it in editing, because it’s too late to go back now, and if I go off plan I’ll probably lose the thread in my head.
This of course makes sense to me, but I offer no guarentees anyone else will understand a word of this.
So, do I feel confident after just one day? Despite not being where I want to be, the likelihood is I will finish this year, I do have a plan, I’ve got a cast of characters, yet still there’s plenty of room for my own creativity.
I was going to throw in all sorts of random stats, such as I’ve spent around 4 hours 37 minutes writing, currently averaging 15 words per minute (including the time I’m sat looking at the screen trying to motivate myself to put words down), at my current rate there’s 59 hours writing to go, and as things stand now (with only a part day done on the second day), should finish on or around the 27th November), however I just could find a seemless way to fit them into this post, so you’ll have to wait till I’ve got a few days worth of stats.

And we’re off…

Right now, this very moment I’m opening up my laptop putting my fingers to the keys and getting started on the actual writing of my NaNoWriMo novel.

I’m only going to do an hour’s writing, I have to go to work in the morning afterall. After work the aim is three to four hours solid writing while the passion is there. All being well I can clear 10% on the first day, get off to a great start and ride out the rest at a fairly comfortable rate. Or panic write over half the word count in the last weekend, (though hopefully not).

I’ve also got a new spreadsheet which is based on spreadsheet that Erik Benson created (I found out via Google at http://erikbenson.com/nanowrimo-report-card.xls). I’ve modified it with a few macro’s to create a more accurate log of my time and writing style. Hey, what can I say, I’m a stats geek, and honestly believe the better I understand how I write, the better I’ll be as a writer.

I need to fix a few things, but I’ll post it up when it’s done.

I’ve set myself a gruelling schedule, but it’s designed to slip and be rescheduled, though I’m going to really push the early word count.

So if anyone is hoping for any sense from me for the next thirty days, good luck with that.

Planning a novel

I’m no expert on planning a novel, actually I am precisely not an expert. I write by the seat of my pants. Disorganisation is my stock in trade.

So why am I writing a post on planning? I quite often organise myself in the work place, so I don’t completely live life in a disorganised mess, I am perfectly capable of organising myself. As a writer I just don’t, or haven’t until now. As I mentioned in my previous post for NaNoWriMo this year I’m all about the planning, so much so I’m dying to get going now so much is planned out.

Why stop there though. For NaNoWriMo I’m following the advice of Roz Morris in her book How to Nail Your Novel, which was a birthday present. It’s a great book and makes a lot of sense, however there are other books, other techniques out there for planning and writing. So for December this year and upto next year’s NaNoWriMo I’m going to experiment with them. See which matches me best, and gets the best results.

Of course that means I’ll have to dedicate more time to writing, I’ll need to be firm on making time everyday a priority. Of course it might help that not every month is a writing month, between every project there’s the planning to do, so it’s not twelve months of hardcore fingers to keys.

I’ll also experiment with software, and services.

As to ideas for all these short stories and novels, well I’ve a treasure trove of ideas, false starts, and aborted projects to make my way through.

I’ll review each method, book, and software our tool as I make my way through and post it here, what may not work for me, may help a fellow aspiring writer on their quest for successful story telling.

Aspiring.org it’s coming back to life

I must be the worlds worst blogger – well okay with 7 billion people on the world as of the 31st October 2011, it seems so unlikely that I’m that unique in my lack of blogging.

It’s been the biggest part of a year since I posted here. As years go, it’s been pretty crap to be honest, but it there have been some pretty good moments, and a few game changers.

One of those game changers hasn’t been writing unfortunately, but as the year isn’t over yet I’m going to change that next month. Next month because it is National Novel Writing Month, and I’m going to end my NaNoWriMo listing streak, (previous form WLL). I’m well under way to making this year different to the disappointing last two years, as for the first time I’m making a serious effort to plan a novel.

Usually I have a great idea and I run with it until I run or if steam, and I enjoy writing by the seat of my pants. To be honest though, I rarely ever finish, because between energy draining BAU of the daily grind, and the distraction of often not great extraordinary events, my steam runs out far easier than I would like. Still just because I run out of steam with a project doesn’t mean that project is at an end. I have plenty of projects at various stages ready to go again when I’m in the mood. Indeed my plan for December is to rework two fantastic ideas for short stories I had from the past couple of years. Also though my NaNoWriMo project is a do over of the Space Corsair project I started last year.

Anyway, Aspiring is back, and between all the writing I’m going to aim to at least hit fortnightly posts from now until the end of the year.

Good luck to all my friends old and new taking part in NaNoWriMo this year.

Another year

As I mentioned before, I failed NaNoWriMo again. I feel a touch bitter, but I just never truly got going. I had a fantastic idea (and one I’ll keep on the back burner – till I’m feeling like writing again), I just never felt the writing bug.

So, I do feel kind of ashamed, but that’s life. The benefit of writing as a hobby is the only person who can be disappointed in me for not finishing, is me. At least I didn’t have something important riding on this, such as a contract, or reputation. Though maybe that would help – maybe part of the problem there isn’t enough pressure on.

Regardless, there never will be that kind of pressure unless I learn to be a better writer, and to deal with deadlines however lax, or under pressured they are.

In the meantime (between where I am now, and being that fabulous writer I want to be), I’m going to get back to blogging, and working on my space pirates serial. I’m in editing mode with the first few chapters, because there were too many mistakes. At the moment, I’m rewriting, as I’m going to move away from an autobiographical story, to a biographical one. It may not sound much of a change, but it changes the whole complexion of the story. I have a new character, some kind of historian, or person with a special interest in the subject at least that can introduce each section, and write areas in a story format. Which removes the problem of being stuck to writing only what the character sees, and or hears about. However, since most of it is still based on the writings of my main character, now supported with writings and accounts of other major characters, I can still practice with that style. It actually gives me a multitude of styles to chose from, and practice with – yet it shouldn’t be as disjointed as it sounds it could. If it were a single novel, it might be a bit tough to read if not handled really well – as its a serial its still important that it fits together nicely, but people are less likely to be reading it all in one go anyway.

So major re-write under way, not just to add in the new character introducing each bit, but to fix all the mistakes.

NaNoWriMo 2010 – End of Week 1

Well week one has come and gone, and what a tough week it has been. I had a sudden and complete lack of inspiration for the start of the week. So I spent three days casting about for ideas, and had some great ones, but none I could get into. Very frustrating.

All was not lost, Wednesday I finally had a breakthrough, and got some notes written about a new idea. Thursday I finally started writing, and off we go. Except it didn’t turn out that way as life kept interfering. All was not lost, went to the NaNoWriMo Leeds Write-In on Saturday, and churned out a few thousands words. Great stuff… and then the next obstacle, I came down with an horrendous headache on Saturday night, which progressed into a slight case of death Sunday (aka manflu – aka a head and chest cold).

So the truth is, week one is an unmitigated disaster, and i’m still ill. However if I can get to 20,000 words by Saturday night, I reckon I’ll still be in with a chance.

It does feel a bit like last year though, but all I can do is perservere. Its another great idea for a story, though possibly given the plethora of superhero origin stories and such, maybe slighlty redundant, but I trust as the story unfolds it will give a new perspective on that kind of universe.

I’ll talk a bit more about NaNoWriMo, just wanted to get my first official post done, and concentrate on my story a bit.

Quarks of Love

Quarks of Love
Up, Down, Charm,
Forces attracting you and me,
Fundamental interactions,
Fades in the distance.

It’s been a while since I did much poetry, however I was going to be writing a poem today (and still will be). However, I got started early yesterday.

Once again I’m on holiday, this time not in Prague, but in Birmingham. I’m down for the British Science Festival, which is brilliant. So far I’ve been to the following talks and events:

New Psychology of Leadership,
Discovering Dyslexia
Planets Outside the Solar System
So What’s New in Particle Physics
What Yeast Can Do For You

The other event I’ve been to, and this is where the poem comes in, was “There’s Science in my Fiction (And Poetry)”, which was an open mic for writers and poets who use science in their writing. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean science fiction, whereby future technologies are emphasised, but current science, and historic science that exists.

It was a really good event, there were poems on one of the first morticians, (his rise to fame, and subsequent fall), short stories set in a lab, a piece aimed at children which was all about how earth got its moon (which was really interesting), and a poem about horses.

I umm’d and ahh’d about entering, but a friend convinced me (@maryrperkins), and so yesterday afternoon I sat down and cobbled together a piece inspired by the particle physics talk earlier that day.

Here’s the great thing – I went, and I stood and I read my poem out. Shitting bricks I was, I’m not exactly a public speaker kind of person, and I know my voice, and accent (when I acknowledge I have one), don’t lend themselves to the job either. I came third in the competition, and have one a year’s subscription to BBC Focus magazine, (which I’ve never read before, but apparently is all about science, technology, and the future, so I’ll bet it’ll be interesting).

Now, we’re on to what this post is for, here’s the poem that did me proud:

Quarks of Love

Continue reading “Quarks of Love”