Robust McManlyPants on Average Display » NaNoWriMo

NaNoWrimo Thus Far: 54,000+ Words

Michael — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 05:43:13 +0000

Done, at long last.

NaNoWriMo Thus Far: 43,000+ Words

Michael — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 03:23:41 +0000

I’ve had a really productive weekend and tonight I’ve been cranking out the word count like nobody’s business so that my NaNo is just shy of 43,500. Who knew sticking my two favorite characters in a room and making one spill his secrets would be fun to write, eh? Sheesh. Sometimes I wonder why I make this so hard for myself, why I spend so much time spinning my wheels on the story, but whatever. Now is not the time to question myself; now is the time to be grateful for my success.

I’ve added a couple of chapters and I’ve also added a Chapter Zero at the beginning in which Our Hero closes an earlier case as a way to observe what it is he does in his school. It’s an idea stolen from James Bond novels and films and I’m sure Sir Ian Fleming stole it from someone else. I want to say it happens at the beginning of The Maltese Falcon but now I honestly can’t remember. Chandler starts all the Marlowe novels at the commencement of a fresh case but I can’t do that and Chandler was a genius anyway. I mean, seriously, people say they’re trying to write the Great American Novel but guess what: Chandler already did it and saved us all the trouble. The Long Goodbye is simply the best novel written in America in the 20th century as far as I’m concerned. No, I have not read all novels written in America in the 20th century, or even very many of them, but it’s hard as hell for me to imagine one that does a better job.

NaNoWriMo Thus Far: 27,000+ Words

Michael — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 03:58:34 +0000

I update the PDF linked in the post below every day, as that’s one of my backup locations for total oh-shit-just-in-case scenarios, but I’ve been told that there are persons who do not realize that the link below does not point to a stale, 10K-word version of my NaNo for this year so here’s another link just in case: Tricks Up My Sleeve at 27,000 words and counting.

By the normal math I should be at 21,671 words, so I’m ahead of the game. I’ve also managed to stay on top of my homework and the gym and my walking/running schedule, more or less. Things I have not stayed on top of include anything else in the universe, but such is life in November. I’m mostly impressed with myself for having more or less managed this whole school-work-life-writing balance thing and only burning five days of leave to do it. So far.

NaNoWriMo Thus Far: 10,000+ Words

Michael — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 20:13:54 +0000

My goal for today was to cross the 10K word mark, which I did with relative aplomb. My story so far has already undergone a number of changes. I was going for a slightly campy “gay boy Nancy Drew meets Brick” thing and instead it’s turned out to be slightly more hard-boiled than I had thought it would be but that does not mean it’s actually hard-boiled; that means that my main character’s campy qualities are more unconscious. He likes to think of himself as a hard-boiled adventure hero and that is, itself, campy. I’ve also added some elements – the love interest is a second-string quarterback playing the role of well-muscled femme fatale – and deleted some. Originally he was going to have these minor magic powers and I still kinda sorta want those? Maybe? But I’ve decided that if he’s going to have them then he doesn’t know he has them yet. I’m leaving the door open to them manifesting halfway through if I need them but overall I’m actually enjoying writing something more “realistic” than usual for all that it’s at all realistic, which is to say that it isn’t at all realistic in the least.

I’m having a lot of fun this year, already. I’m having as much fun as I had last year and about ten million times as much fun as I had the year before that, the only year I refuse to link or to show to anyone because it was such an unrelentingly awful pain to write much less to read.

NaNoWriMo Update

Michael — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 04:55:42 +0000

All done.

Sleep now.

NaNoWriMo So Far

Michael — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 22:44:48 +0000

This year I’m writing a novel called Deal With the Devil, about a vampire and a vigilante hero and a self-styled super villain in Durham, NC. It’s sort of a sequel to Tooth and Nail, in that it stars Withrow. He shows up in lots of things I write, though, so really I guess it’s just part of the overall continuum of that fictional world.

Today I hit the 25,000 word mark. I was going to walk to the coffee shop to do my writing but I lazed around and didn’t have time and felt guilty about it because I haven’t worked out for jack in the last two weeks as the weather has turned and NaNo has eaten into my free time. Hitting the halfway point on a six thousand word writing spree, though, is worth it.

I’ve Written Like…

Michael — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 19:38:44 +0000

I am a sucker for Internet narcissism and thus I went through “I Write Like” with the first pages of all my NaNo’s:

My brain-destroyingly terrible sci-fi entry from 2009:

I write like
Chuck Palahniuk

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

My trashy gay noir 2008 NaNoWriMo, Particular People:

I write like
Kurt Vonnegut

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

2007′s redneck vampire-centric Tooth and Nail:

I write like
Kurt Vonnegut

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

In the Fuck Yes department, 2006′s horror fantasy noir The Palanquin Cat:

I write like
H. P. Lovecraft

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

2005′s sci-fi sequel Root Shell:

I write like
Chuck Palahniuk

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

2004′s sci-fi adventure Shell Access:

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

2003′s poli-sci-fi Life, Liberty And…:

I write like
Stephen King

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Given that one’s about a Libertarian governor who completely fucks things up, that’s pretty satisfying.

Finally

Michael — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 00:15:26 +0000

51,600 words and finished in a hurry. I hated it. I’m not linking it. Maybe in a year or two. Bascha or Josh can ask me for a copy via email but dear gods, no one wants to read this. No one good should ever want to read this. Still, digital schwag:

35,000 Words

Michael — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:13:06 +0000

Weekend travels and an overwhelming hate of the book so far have slowed me down. I am determined to finish before Thursday, though, which may have me up half the night on Wednesday but it will be worth it. The Boyf has been insanely patient with my short fuse as I have slogged this far. Things are going to be so nice come Thursday.

Interesting to me is the fact that when I switched perspective characters at 35,000 words, for what I thought would just be a scene, I was instantly more engaged. I can’t make him the perspective character the whole time, but I am going to try to make him the perspective character for as much as I can of what remains. The words, like spice, must flow.

Halfway

Michael — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 06:27:11 +0000

Just over 25,000 words as of today and almost entirely unrelentingly awful. Seriously, fantasy? Never. Again.