What can I say about today: I was walking all the way, but I did what I came to do. I think that pretty much sums it up. It’s been one of those days where I kept trying to tweak the little things to see whether they could get me flying, and found that of course they couldn’t. The story was rolling along well enough, but just not getting above walking pace.
Of course the upshot of trying to tweak everything is that my desk is now neater than it’s been at any time previously in the last six months at least, and that I got to enjoy some nice hot cocoa twice. None of which managed to get me above some 1250 words per hour on average. The only real sprint was the sprint for the finish, with over 1800 words between 23:00 and midnight.
One thing I was thankful for tonight was my mixer and ’studio’ headphones. I was particularly happy that they’re pretty much noise proof. There’s a somewhat noise party going on near here. But with my music coming in over those headphones I can’t hear it at all. That’s a huge bonus because it allows me to concentrate on the writing much better.
Story wise I’m also pretty happy about the day, all things considered. I’ve managed to close up a long-running subplot, so I can send my MCs back into the main espionage/politics story line. And on top of that I’ve managed to have one spy arrested, and my MCs put on a ’shoot on sight’ death list. So I’m pretty sure I’ve got some things for them to occupy themselves with during the rest of NaNo (or at least a good portion of it).
November 16th, 2008 at 00:17
You are really mean to your MC’s
Yeah, hark who’s talking, I just burned the apartment of my female MC down and everything in it.
Congrats on the word count, that makes 10K for you today! Awesome. I still have to get the feeling of having whole days to write. I guess I need the pressure of just a few hours every night.
November 16th, 2008 at 00:30
To be honest I tend to dawdle in the mornings on days like this as well. But one way I’ve found around that is to actually plan wordcounts hour by hour. Today I did pretty much the same thing I did last Saturday, setting myself hourly goals and keeping track of the score.
I won’t claim that’s the ideal way to write. And I’ve been doing this too long, and have talked to too many other writers to claim anything is ‘the only way’ to write, but for me having a set goal to reach by 14:00 can be what pushes me to really start writing after a morning of putting it off.
Of course there were stretches today where needing 1200 words by the next whole hour still didn’t seem to protect me from the urge to procrastinate, but for all the desk cleaning and other activities I never actually fell short of my target.
November 16th, 2008 at 01:12
I don’t think that’s a bad way to write. Today I didn’t set my dashboard timer (a widget) to alert me every 20 minutes so I had no feeling at all how I was progressing and I found that this unfocused writing doesn’t suit me. I did better in the past days using your method.
And since I just now had to think really hard if I should write ‘using’ with a ‘y’ or ‘j’ at the beginning, I will take this for the hint to call it a night and go bed. If you discover any mysterious typos – finders keepers!
November 16th, 2008 at 01:21
There are days when I can do unfocused writing. In fact outside of NaNoWriMo most of my writing is probably unfocused – possibly I’ve been a bit too unfocused lately but that’s another matter. During NaNo whoever I pretty much have to set goals too keep up the pace. I could probably get 50k even during a less focused NaNo, but getting 100k (which is definitely on the goal list for the near future) needs a more structured approach.
November 16th, 2008 at 21:16
Are you going to get 3 NaNo’s done this time Jarsto ?
Good to see you are progressing
November 16th, 2008 at 21:21
Well I’m certainly starting to get into position to beat my 120k record for the month. We’ll have to wait and see, but I have high hopes on that score right now, even though real life seems to be kicking and screaming as it tries to drag me away from the keyboard.
November 18th, 2008 at 00:45
Come on, Jarsto, get your priorities right. What could the real life offer you that is better or more important than NaNo? (And no, job, family, money, fun, food and such mundane things don’t count!)
November 18th, 2008 at 10:34
I only said real life was trying to drag me away, didn’t I. Not that it had any real hopes of success