Mac Mode

Current Word Count: 26,670 / 50,000

Yes, a rather pathetic output over this last week. Basically, I wrote half of one new scene this morning. To be on track I should be at 41,666 words as of today and as you can see, I’m nearly 15,000 words behind. I haven’t given up on making it to the goal, but it’s certainly starting to look grim. I know I’m capable of pulling off a 10,000 word writing day, but I don’t want to put myself up against that type of wall if at all possible.

Happy Thanksgiving to all those who celebrate. Going to be spending time with the family today so not expecting to write any more for today.

Current page: 143 / chapter 15

Current Word Count:
26,564 / 50,000

I guess I’m rustier than I thought. This book I’m working on is interesting, it isn’t the content, it’s my drive to get my buns in the chair, in front of the PC, and get writing.

Well, now I’m better than halfway to the 50k but this last week hasn’t gone well from a progress on word count perspective. I didn’t even talk about my progress on the radio show I host yesterday as was planned. I guess it must have been my subconcious mind telling me how much I sucked for falling off the pace and not writing every day, as I had hoped. I set myself up for disappointment though by my preconceived notion that week #3 was going to be the hardest week for me. Big surprise: it has been!

But then I saw some encouraging words in the comments last night from Matt, a fellow NaNoWriMo:

And I read your excerpts, and I must say your novel idea sounds fascinating… will you ever post some longer excerpts for us to read? You’ve written tens of thousands of words… can’t you give us the first couple thousand?

Matt, firstly thank you for taking time to comment. I responded to the first part of your comments (not quoted above) with the answer to the Gmail notifier for the Mac, but the quoted comments above I wanted to answer more fully here after dragging my butt up this morning (it’s 5:50 AM as I write this) to work on the book.

I’m not really sure I want to post the first couple thousand words because the beginning of the novel is not fully explained (even though I’m at page 143) and I’m not sure if it’s the one that I’ll ultimately stay with. I may go back and rewrite the first couple thousand words once I reach the novel end … but then again, maybe the beginning is solid and my concerns at the midpoint are totally unjustified.

The bottom line is the story continues to be shaping and taking some rather compelling twists and turns and I’m not completely sure where it’s taking me. I have some ideas, but I don’t really know. I’ve never written about the experience of writing a novel before. With my other books I didn’t tell anybody anything and here I’m trying to adjust to sharing mode because I do want to share at least some part of this story as it’s unfolding and yet at the same time I don’t want to post parts of the story that might not actually be part of the completed novel.

At this point, I am much more confident of the chapters that follow the beginning, though, so maybe I could share one or two of those as an excerpt. This last week has had me so busy with work that I only wrote just the one day, and then today (Saturday). So here I am, now a good 6,000+ words behind the 50k pace, but is certainly not out of reach (I’ve written over 10k words in a single day in the past, but that was long before NaNoWriMo and I’m definitely feeling some ring rust). I think the next week will leave me with more time to work on the book. Or rather, me doing a better job of getting up in the morning to write.

Anyway, there’s most of the explanation why I haven’t shared more of this story and again, thank you for asking It offered some necessary inspiration for me to stop procrastinating and get back to working on the book this morning. I do have an idea taking shape for using the framework of this novel which is much, much larger in scope than a single novel, but first I need to finish this novel and then see if the loose ends come together. Here’s a an excerpt from today’s writing session:

Rutger removed the picture, which had changed a bit as far as what she was wearing, but her face was the same. The faces never significantly changed for the disrupters. Appearance could be changed with piercings, tattoos and even plastic surgery, but the faces - the eyes particularly - could not be altered. Yes, there were contacts, glasses and other ways of changing the way someone’s eyes looked, but the eyes themselves never changed, no matter what color contacts or glasses.

Current page: 143 / chapter 15

Current Word Count:
24,510 / 50,000 words

I had planned on taking off Sunday, but not Saturday again and certainly not Monday too. This puts me back behind again, though today I had a good writing session putting together just under 4,000 words. I’m going to need another day or two with output like today to get caught back up. Lots of work to do this week, so not sure how that’s going to go. If I can get up at 3-4AM, it should be possible. I was worried about this week being the tough week to keep this going.

Current page: 131 / chapter 13

Current Word Count:
20,927 / 50,000

Moving towards the mid-point of the NaNoWriMo challenge (25k words). I don’t have much to say about today’s output. Starting to get more into the groove and after 12 days I’m feeling a rhythm. I still think next week is going to be the hardest week to work on this. I think the last week will come easiest. Writing endings have always been easier and faster than middle or beginnings for me. We’ll see how it goes.

Currently at page 113 / chapter 12.

Current Word Count:
18,671 / 50,000

A semi-productive setting. Gaining a little extra ground, I need about 5000 words between now and Sunday so I don’t get behind when I take some time off. I have much other work to do, it’s starting to pile up. I am hoping to get to a point in the story where I can bust loose with 10,000 or so words in one setting, which will help me next week where things I think are going to be the toughest.

Currently at page 102 / chapter 11

Current Word Count:
17,015 / 50,000 words

Whew! Finally got back on track with this morning’s writing output. The story has come together nicely and a lot of things that were happening to the protagonist have been explained as well as a big problem the protagonist has to solve, somehow, some way. I’m starting to really get into where this story is going, though it isn’t a place I expected I’d be at 93 pages later. It’s very satisfying in a story when all the subplots start to roll together and some cohesive unit for the novel begins to appear. It’s been a long time, well at least a half dozen years since I’ve been at this point in a fictional universe.

I haven’t really gotten into the whole NaNoWriMo community support thing yet, although I did encourage another NaNoer to get back on track with his word count. That he could do it. He responded positively, so I think I was helpful. As I get closer to the goal, maybe I’ll jump more into the messageboard community at NaNoWriMo. I have posted over there a few times.

Currently at: page 93, chapter 10.

Current word count:
13,794 / 50,000

A new excerpt:

But that was Microsoft, past tense, and today Microsoft didn’t exist. A Google search had reduced their flagship product: Windows to the homepage of a disheveled man who shared Gates last name but bore no other similarities.

More on Rutger along with a couple of plot twists. A new character, who isn’t really that new (appeared earlier) has come onto the scene. I think maybe one more important character might be left, but that’s it. I hope so, as it’s page 77 and chapter 9 and it’s getting a bit late to introduce any new characters.

I’m still behind the pace, but I made up a little ground. This morning when the alarm clock went off at 4:30 I went back to sleep. Fortunately, I woke an hour later and came in and wrote for a good two hours. It seems like my routine is to write 1-2 hours per day, which has been enough to generate 2,000+ words a day. That puts me on pace for 52,000 words, assuming I take every Sunday off and write the other six days of the week for the rest of the month. Going to be close, but my guess is that as I close in on the ending of this story, my output will increase significantly. The toughest part of novel writing for me has been the middle — the guts — not the beginning or ending. And that’s where I’m going to be for the next couple weeks: the middle. The story is starting to come together and I can see where it’s going so I’m at least 80% confident that I won’t lose the story over the next 100 pages or so. I am interested to see where this new character is going to take the story (again, not really a new character, as this character had a scene that was memorable earlier in the novel).

Haven’t written any words in the evening or day time, only the early morning so far. Will be interesting to see if that holds true for the rest of the novel so far.

Current Word Count:
11405 / 50000 words

To be on track I should be at 13,333, so I’m about 2000 words down, but I’m not discouraged. I need to take at least one day off each week and that day will probably be Sundays, so I just need to spend the next couple days catching up and putting a little distance ahead of the current pace.

The story progresses as we learn more about some of the characters, including Squeeze, Rutger, Will and Jane. I should have an excerpt to share in the next couple days.

I can see the next 20 or 30 pages, at least. I like some of the subplots, particularly the one about just how Will got into the situation he got into.

I’m at page 62.

I dug myself a bit of a hole over the weekend, opting to take some time off from writing. Saturday, I did sit down (Day 6) and wrote a dozen or so words bringing my word count to 9,376. Sunday, Day 7, I didn’t do any writing.

The first real summary of the story today as the protagonist is starting to ponder what has happened and is happening to him. I’m starting to feel the story coming together. The characters so far: Jane Southwell, Will Bios, “Squeeze”, Rutger and Senator Wright. It feels like maybe 1 or 2 more characters are necessary to fully round out the cast. I’ve written 9,358 / 50,000 words (53 pages) and am looking forward to see if Will finds what he is searching for. Will is a likeable protagonist. This story is unfolding a bit like a mystery, but since it is in the future and has the technology background it could loosely be deemed sci-fi as well.

Definitely I’m wondering where this story is taking me and readers. It is starting to get the feel of one of the past novels I’ve written. This novel: Twisted, comes to mind. It is interesting to see after some six years that I’m still pretty comfortable writing fiction. That familiar writing groove, which I must admit I was a bit worried about losing, hasn’t been lost. It is definitely different, though, writing to a clock each morning. I don’t remember ever doing that. I used to write until I could write no more, think about the story for awhile and then come back and write more in the following days. This time around I’m writing to the clock, trying to roughly maintain two hour sessions each day, so that I can meet or exceed the goal of 50,000 words in one month. It’s an interesting experiment.

A new character, the Democratic party’s nominee for President in 2008, Senator Wright made his first appearance in the story. Also there was a humorous demonstrator. National Novel Writing Month — Day 4. Got caught back up with the pace (see below), but not sure about tomorrow because it is radio show day and I usually have lots to do to prepare for that. If possible in the next writing session I’d like to get over 10,000 words. Getting to 12,500 will be particularly satisfying as that will be the 25% done mark. Here’s an excerpt:

In the distance the building once known as B-5, up on the fourth floor, her office awaited. That was where Jane worked. Where she used to work. Will closed his eyes and tried to imagine the dark green fern he’d sent her weeks ago, hanging there as hungry and desperate for sunlight as Will Bios was for yesterday.

.Current word count:

7358 / 50000 words

I got up this morning and my plan was not to write anything because I had some extra work that I was behind on, but I wrote a little bit anyway.

Not a lot of new words, but two new characters: Chuckers and Muffin. Chuckers is a wannabe rock star and Muffin is his groupie.

Current wordcount:

4992 / 50000 words

Here’s where I’m at after two writing sessions:

4133 / 50000 words

This morning there wasn’t as many words when I sat to write, but an antagonist who enjoys squashing bugs introduced himself to the story. My National Novel Writing Month profile. I’m going to go back to bed. I think tomorrow — or whenever I pickup this story again — the love interest character will begin to emerge in the story. It seems like it is going in that direction, anyway.

The alarm went off this morning and briefly I thought about sleeping in and saying forget it. My wife kept nudging me. Finally I figured out what that was.

So I got up, came into the room with the Mac, started Open Office and waited to see what came out.

Apparently there is enough fire in this novel-length idea to tell at least 2,977 words of itself this morning.

Here’s an excerpt:

As he corrected himself Will became acutely aware how wrong almost everything had seemed since he’d woken up - actually, since he’d had the weird nightmare. Something had changed all around him. One seemingly huge part of his life was just … gone.

He had awoken in a world without Windows.

Will Bios is having a really bad start to his day … where any of this goes, I do not really know, but I do have a grounded perspective. I’m going to have fun with it and let the story tell itself. If it becomes a trunk novel, then so be it, but I won’t know that until the journey is over.

This blog will continue to be updated on writing days throughout November for all of NaNoWriMo and whomever is interested and/or wants to help motivate or inspire me to get to that goal in time.

I’ll create a separate category called NaNoWriMo 2004 as well and categorize these posts there for easy finding.

The first draft of this novel will be written entirely on the Mac.

Here’s a real time counter I created yesterday to show whether I’m on pace or not for the 50,000 (it will continue to be updated throughout the month, as my progress continues):