Category: 100k in 40d

Categories
100k in 40d NaNoWriMo

Recap Time

Well, I sort of went radio-silent after claiming that I was going to beat the odds and still hit my goal on November 30th. The reason? I was kind of busy doing it.

You need to see my stats to appreciate what happened in November. I have created a graph for you to observe.

No, I’m not kidding. This is actually how I work. What you are observing is a numerical depiction of what it means to have energy-spikes. This really worried some of my professors in college.

This graph only spans from Day 7 forward. I got the brilliant idea of creating a word-count log in my writing notebook at that point, so that’s where we start. Yes, you are reading it right, I had a zero-word day on the 14th. My brain went on strike. I also had an 8,245-word day on the 23rd.  Not claiming that was particularly healthy, either, honestly.

I hit my 100k on day 39 of the proposed 40. My average word count per day was 2,982. But as you can see, I rarely did anything like that. Overall, I like to think I was pretty unstoppable, considering that I was way behind where I wanted to be until the last two days. I kind of decided not to worry and to just embrace my talent for uh…total inconsistancy.

In this way, Dronefall III was born. Book three is called Rainchill, for those who haven’t heard. There’s been a great deal of action and suspense and some big reveals. If you get through the first two books, you will hopefully be rewarded by this one. But you still haven’t gotten the chance to read Lightwaste.

That will be rectified soon enough. Hold on!

Categories
100k in 40d NaNoWriMo

Watch This

100k/40d day: 15

NaNoWriMo day: 5

Total word count: 21,525

Status: lagging 15,975 words

I have just finished drawing 290 little circles.

I’m alright.

I organized the 290 little circles in rows of ten. Each circle represents 100 words. Every 100 words, I plan to fill in one of the circles with a yellow colored pencil I have here with me. I’ve sectioned the rows off into 5 groups of 5 and 1 group of 4. The sections represent the six days I’ve given myself to catch up.

It almost looks possible. Especially with a cup of coconut almond bark tea—both of which will likely be gone before I’m finished writing this. I’m going to attack this thing. You probably won’t hear from me until Monday or later. I refuse to report until I’m caught up.

So, until then, good luck on whatever your own daring and dangerous adventures are this week. And I kind of hope you’re not as impractical and over-ambitious as some of us. I expected to do more tutorial and how-to post along the way here…but mainly I’ve been doing things wrong. So, here’s my tip for the day: don’t do things the way I do things.

Be back when I’m caught up. What, you don’t think I can do it? Let me show you something. Hold my tea.

Categories
100k in 40d NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo Begins

100k/40d day: 12

NaNoWriMo day: 2

Total word count: 13,662

Status: lagging 16,338

Well, I’m not sure that I calculated that quite right. I counted today’s minimum required word-count as missing. I have not yet begun to write! Not today. I just got off work.

The books is going very well. The plot moves very fast but there’s still time for jokes and stuff, which is important. This entry is going to be quite short, I think. I don’t have much to say here, but I definitely need to get back to the book.

Happy NaNoWriMo to all. If you want to “buddy” me on the official NaNo site, my user name is TheLaughingVulcan

Categories
100k in 40d

Still Alive After Nine Days

100k/40d day: 9

Total word count: 10,038

Status: lagging 12,462 words

Well, to my credit, this is how you’re supposed to start a story—a comfortable while after its actual beginning and with the protagonist already in major trouble. 12,462 words behind? Do you know what that would do to some people’s blood pressure?

I’ve heard people on NaNoWriMo forums freak out about lagging by 1,000 words—just for scale.

Luckily, I have naturally low blood-pressure to start with, and am not particularly concerned. Here’s a little math.  Even if I wrote no more today, and nothing at all tomorrow, when November hit, I would still only need to write 2,998.7 words a day to clear 100k by 11/30. That, for me is still only about 2.9 hours a day at the keyboard.

Okay, somebody take this calculator away from me. I have the nasty habit of mathematically justifying procrastination.

But that’s the numbers. So, how’s the actual book going? Not horribly. I’m in chapter three. I’m busy foreshadowing plot point one, which is due in chapter five. It is, by far, going to be the most intense first plot point I have ever used in the series so far. It’s going to have dramatic effect on the whole rest of the series. I’m very excited.

So, don’t pretend you don’t know me yet. If you keep watching, you will see me catch up. I’ll try to keep you better posted than I did for the first 9 days, as well.

Signing off.

Categories
100k in 40d My Books NaNoWriMo

I’ve Got an Even Worse Idea Than Usual

Well, time to shoot the moon again.

For those of you who don’t know me as well, I have a reputation for taking on projects that may or may not be possible and driving myself crazy. It’s funny because when I have some practical task to undertake, I prefer to find some clever way to shirk it. I’m not a deadlines person. I’m not a checklist person. But I like to prove things to myself now and then.

And it’s just about that time of year.

In November of 2016, I was in the first semester of my senior year of college. It wasn’t an ideal time to attack my first National Novel Writing Month marathon. But, you know, I didn’t relish college life and I took the opportunity to distract myself. I kept my grades up, but otherwise…well, it went better than I expected. I exceeded the 50,000 word goal of NaNoWriMo, and passed all my classes.

So, basically, I’ve decided that was too easy and have built on to the 50k words in 30-days challenge. I’ve given myself a timeframe and a wordcount. 100k words in 40 days.

The project begins 10/22/18

The manuscript will be the complete first draft of Dronefall III, entitled Rainchill. My daily minimum wordcount will need to be 2,500. Slightly more demanding than the traditional NaNoWrimo itinerary of 1,666.666666666667 words….

Shout-out to the crazy people who actually know how to write .666666666667 of a word.

I invite you to gawk at my bizarre antics throughout this 40-day period through the window of Stardrift Nights. Hopefully about twice a week I will be logging my progress and increasing panic here on my blog. I’ll be keeping you updated on total wordcount, where I am in my plot (sans any spoilers), challenges I’ve tackled, weird typos, snippets, records and anything else broken.

I wish you all the very best of luck on your own NaNoWriMo challenges this year. And whenever you need to assure yourself someone is suffering more than you are, feel free to come over to Stardrift Nights.  

The race is on.

Privacy Policy