The Green Bar

I hit it. The mythical green bar. And I even got it two days early.

I'm not done yet. Still a couple of chapters left to go before I validate.

I started the process of moving the blog last night, but it's not going very well. Something about DNS pages that I can't access, and my blogger address belonging "to another user." Who is me. But apparently Wordpress doesn't understand that and I can't figure out how to clear it up. But 11pm is really not the time to be worrying about that. It's a recipe for disaster. Suffice to say that I'm fighting with not just Google now, but also Wordpress. I just want a blog that works. Is that so much to ask?

I hope that those in the US had a good Thanksgiving, full of good food and companionship. I did actual baking for mine. From scratch. Which I don't think has happened...ever. And it turned out surprisingly well. I think I might go have seconds to celebrate my success.

Nano Progress

I blame Nanowrimo for the semi-erratic blog schedule. I've been shooting for 2,000 words a day. I haven't made it every day, but most days. If I don't think that I can hit 2k, then I go for the 1,667 that the website lists as a goal, and if I'm really not feeling it then I do whatever the number under the "you need to write this many words to finish on time" heading. Usually by the time I've hit that number, I'm on a roll and it isn't too hard to keep the momentum going long enough to reach one of the higher goals.

I haven't managed to take one of the typewriters out to a write in yet. I keep trying to, and it hasn't worked out yet. It doesn't help that the character I'm working with right now seems to be the only one who doesn't like to be written on the typewriter.

The goal of Nanowrimo is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. I suspect, however, that this story won't wrap up until around the 70,000 marker. Last year I made the mistake of stopping after I hit 50k, and that story remains unfinished on my hard drive. I want to keep this one going beyond December 1, keep it rolling until it's actually done this time. If I'm lucky, it'll be finished before Christmas.

Anticipation and a Half

If all goes well, I'll be hitting the 50% marker on my Nano draft this afternoon when I get off of work. I thought about forcing myself to write the 4,000 necessary words all in one go last night, but then my Amazon package arrived, including two books that I've been dying to get my hands on for the past month. The timing was perfect, since I finished my last read before I left work yesterday (and no, the third book in the Virals series did not disappoint. It's left me clamoring for another book, but it looks like I'll be waiting at least a year for it. In the mean time, I'll be downloading the companion short story once I get my next paycheck).

House of Hades has been all over Tumblr since it's release last month, and I've been actively trying to avoid spoilers, with little success. But now my copy is here. I might not come up for air until it's done!

Another thing that arrived yesterday that I've been looking forward to is my Netflix of the Great Gatsby--the new one. I'll be watching that on our big screen, rather than on the laptop like I usually do. Even if the story sucks as much as I remember, it should be stunning to watch. I can always put it on mute, right?

Things I've learned about Nano this week

1. The first 500 words are the hardest, at least for me. But once I get past that, get the ball rolling, it just becomes easier.

2. Cats are terrible at taking dictation.

3. If I can't have Storyist, then Scrivener is a passable substitute.

4. I can't write and watch TV anymore. And writing with music is now a distraction as well. When did I get so old that I can only concentrate on one task at a time?

5. I Write Like is highly addictive. And when it tells me that I write like an author I dislike, it gives me motivation to up my word count and change up my dialogue and writing style to try to get a different response.

6. I've forgotten what sleep is. 

The Weekends, Where Do They Go?

If the typewriter forum is any indication, it's a miracle that anyone is getting any actual writing done this weekend.

So far I'm ahead of the curve, but I'm not getting cocky yet, especially since I'd planned to DO THINGS this weekend, and they went down the drain rather quickly.

I did get a little cleaning done though--you can see the top of my desk now! It's very exciting. Of course, the fact that it is now relatively clear means that the cat has claimed it for his own, specifically that spot between the Sterling and the laptop where my blank paper and outlines are laid out.

I had planned on doing a typecast for today's post (that's the paper, rolled into the platen and waiting), but then Missouri came home and I decided to be nice and not use the typewriter since the noise bothers her (I do not understand this phenomenon. I find it soothing, personally).

So, how was your first weekend of Nano?

Three days and counting

Only three days left until Nano gets into full swing. Do you have your outlines? Your notebooks? Extra ribbons? A backup drive?

I've been woefully lax in my typewriter repairs. I've set the Woodstock aside for the moment, since I don't plan on using it as my primary machine. Mostly I'll be using the laptop since I type faster on it than anything else, but the Sterling is still on my desk ready for drafting and problem solving and outlines. It's my goal that before Nov. 1 I'll pull out the Skyriter and finally wrestle that draw band into place, since I'd love to take it to Nano meetups and it's slightly easier to carry around than the Sterling (though Carffrey may still get a field trip or two if the Skyriter doesn't behave) And no, the Woodstock and the Royal aren't going anywhere. My back will not allow it, and carrying a 40lb behemoth into Panera is slightly ridiculous.

Besides, Henry is very touchy when it comes to being moved.

Nano Training

I mentioned last week that I set up a training schedule. It’s nothing too fancy, but after writing sporadically over the summer, I knew that I needed to work up to 1,667 words, seven days a week.

This is what I came up with:

As you can see, I broke it up into blocks, each between 7-12 days long. I started with 100 words a day, before I made this list. I did that for three days, then realized how easily 500 words were coming, so I jumped right into that. I know that 1,000 words is a bit of a hurdle for me, so I gave myself longer to practice.

Within each block, I gave myself challenges. The first block is “freestyle,” which meant I could write on anything, or everything, so long as it added up to 500 words at the end of the day. My 1,000 and 1,500 word blocks are also freestyle. And yes, I count blog posts towards my totals.

My 700 and 1,200 word weeks were “short story sprints.” For the first one, I worked on an existing short story. For the second, I plan on writing a new one, which will (with luck) be the final installment of the Post Club.

The final stretch before November is 1,667 words a day on a dedicated project. I don’t have to finish the project, I just have to work on the same one every day.

I'm not doing so well on my training. Not horrible, but I've missed a few days. I think it'll be easier once Nano actually starts, and I can work on the project that I'm actually excited about at the moment, instead of whatever is mildly interesting at the time. And this week I haven't much wanted to write, because of the whole "I'm not longer getting published" thing. I'm starting to get back into the swing of things now, though.

I like crossing things off my list. Having a schedule is satisfying, I think, and I’m finding it useful since I’m writing two books and knitting a bunch of samples this month.

What kind of training do you do for Nano? How early do you start?

P.S. Posted this on the typewriter thread in the Nano forums. I'm just going to leave it here. :)

Whew.

You know what kind of stinks? Moving during the last week of NaNoWriMo.

You know what stinks more? Finding out less than a weeks before you move that the house won't be ready or even livable.

But, somehow (I'm still not sure how) I managed to knock out my 50k. 50,005 words, to be exact, and then I called it quits because I needed to put the computer in a box. The computer with my latest draft, no less, which means that I had to copy/paste a section of an older draft that was on the laptop and validate that, instead, which made my dad give me funny  looks because I was playing on the computer instead of helping clean/paint/fix stuff (because the one thing we made sure worked at the new house before moving in was the internet, nevermind that we didn't have computers to hook up to it yet).

Through luck, skill, and the goodness of friends we managed to get out of our apartment in time, turning in the keys just 45 minutes before the deadline. My dad has been the one doing all of the work on the house, but he took time out with a friend to get our furniture moved from the apartment. Luckily, we were only moving 2.5 miles down the road, and into a ranch house rather than another second floor apartment.

Next week I'll share some before and after photos, and the story of the house. Right now were still in the "in between" stage. Our stuff is here, but not all of the furniture. Most of the rooms are painted, but there's still a lot of cleaning going on and one of the showers doesn't work. And don't even get me started on the basement. I'm pretty sure there are Racnoss living down there.

But back to the story. I squeezed out my 50k, but I still have about four chapters I haven't touched and I think two more that are only about halfway done. I'm going to set that one on hold for a little while, however, because I have some patterns that are long, long overdue. I'll be focusing on those for my December projects. I was hoping to have them done by the beginning of the month at the latest, but that was a bit over ambitious on my part, I'm afraid (so if you're one of my test knitters, I'm very sorry about the delay).

Now I just need to figure out which box my knitting is in.

Urg.

I'm in the home stretch for NaNo, and it's not going as well as I would like. I've been working long hours (thank you, Black Friday) so for the pas few days my routine has been work nine hours, come home, change clothes, go to the new place and clean for three hours, come home, eat something, pack, and then around nine pm I can start writing. At that point, I'm so tired that I've caught myself nodding off at the computer multiple times. I'm missed my target word count two days in a row, but I'm not panicked yet since I'm still on target to finish in time (barely). I will be so glad when this move is over.

It doesn't help that I've gotten to the tricky part of the story--the part that *wasn't* floating around in my  head before NaNo began, so I don't know what I'm doing. And for some reason my characters this time around are all Chatty Cathy's, bent on sitting around talking rather get getting up and getting things done. I think I need to blow something up. You know, just to give them something to do.

And now, it's off to work I go.

Storyist Review

I don't normally get very technical on this blog. Mainly because when it comes to technology and electronics, I'm proably the last person you want to ask for advice (we've all seen my repeated mechanical failures). That being said, however, I did want to share a fun piece of kit that I picked up for NaNoWriMo.

Storyist is a Mac-only word processing program. They're running a free trial for NaNo participants, and are offering a discount towards the purchase of the software, too.

Storyist is different from other word processors I've tried in that it doesn't just create a document, it creates a notebook. All of your notes--outlines, character profiles, world building information, even pictures and reference material--are all in the same file, and conveniently organized on the sidebar. There's even a split-screen option, so you can have your manuscript open at the top, bottom, or side of the page, and your notes on the other. No more flipping back and forth between different windows or programs, because it's all right there. There's even a drop down menu so you can skip to different chapters or scenes within a document. It makes it really easy to go back and check your timeline, without losing your place, particularly since there is a "bookmark" option.

If you hit the inspector button, you'll find a target-tracking tool, which will let you track your total word count, your word count or time per session, and set goals for yourself (like 1,667 words per day, with a chime of your choice to sound when you reach your goal. There are also a few preferences that you can change under that tab, but the real bonus about this program is that it's simple. It's just for writing. No fancy fonts, no colors or margins or other things to deal with. Just writing, plain and simple.

Manuscripts are automatically formatted to "industry standard"--looking at it, I think that their version of industry standard MIGHT be a little outdated, but don't quote me on it. Either way, I like the 12 pt double spaced courier font. Page numbers, titles, and author's name are automatically put in the header, so you don't have to worry about forgetting to put your name on things. Storyist also exports into .doc, .txt, and .pdf formats, so you have plenty of options for sharing and additional formating/extras if you so desire, and you can chose to export everything, or just part--just your notes, just the character profiles, or just the manuscript. Your choice. According to the site, it also "works seamlessly with the Cloud" but I have not tried this yet.

There are just a couple of things that I don't like about it: While it's designed for Mac, .pages is not an option for exporting, even though that is the Mac word processor. If you decided that you don't like 12 pt courier double spaced, you don't get a lot of options for alternatives, if any. The formatting is pretty concrete, and you'd have to export it into Word to change it. This can make things difficult, if, say, you have an excerpt from a letter, or you want to add images into your manuscript.

It was not designed for writers of nonfiction. If you're going to include images, citations, quotes, or other fancy stuff, stick to Word or Pages and save yourself the headache. A little tweaking to some of the chapter outline templates, and it might be a good place to store research, however. But if you write fiction, screenplays, or scripts, then this is software designed with you in mind.

The general layout of the program is very similar to Pages, so it's an easy transition for anyone used to that program (and Pages, in turn, is relatively easy to use if you know Word). Overall, I found this to be a very streamlined program, free of distractions and hassles. It does what it says on the tin, and it does it well.

As I said, they are running a promo right now. The free demo expires on Dec. 12, so if you want to try it out now is the time. In addition, they are offering 25% off with the NaNo promo code through Dec. 14.

I have every intention of downloading the full version at the end of November (provided moving doesn't destroy my pocketbook). So, if you're looking for a new way to organize your thoughts, this might be a good option.

Nano Progress

Such an uncreative title, I know. But most of my energy has been sucked into NaNoWriMo. The counts are in, and in the past two weeks I've cranked out just over 24,000 words. People, I never write this much consistently in one go. I might write 5k one day, then 3 the next, and then I might not write anything other than blog posts and journal entries for a month.

Obviously, I'm not 100% satisfied with all of the words I've written, but the point is, they are down on the page now, where they belong, instead of floating around in my head where it's so easy for them to get lost. I've written an average of 2k every day for the past two weeks, and have only taken one day off (NaNo thinks it was two, but it wasn't. I just forgot to update my word count until after midnight).

There are a couple of problems with this: 1) it's taking away time normally spent knitting and designing, which is delaying the next pattern release and my Giftmas knitting. For those who have anxiously been awaiting the next pattern/the book I promised, fear not, it is still in the works. Realistically, though, I knew it would be a major challenge to get it out before Christmas, and now I see that it's pretty much impossible. The [Censored] pattern book shall have to wait until after New Years (this probably would have been the case even without NaNo, but this is just making it clear that there is NO POSSIBLE WAY for me to write the book, transcribe the patterns, create the charts, and do all of the necessary formatting--which is extremely fiddly, by the way--for 8-12 patterns in six weeks. Not on my own, at least.)

2) I am just shy of 25k, which marks the halfway point in the 50k that is NaNo. The problem is that I am 2/3 of the way through the book. I sense some serious word padding in my future.

Much as I would love to do NaNo on a typewriter, it is not practical for me to do so this year. I did, however, manage to resurrect my very first laptop (the one I got ages ago when I started college). It's slower than mollassas, but it gets me on NaNo, Google, and all of those other writerly time-sinks, and is just barely within the requirements for Storyist, which is the software I downloaded to write on (more on that next week).

It feels good to be this productive. I've struggled in a few paces, but I've discovered that I work best right after I wake up and right before bed. I usually do about 900-1200 words either before work or as soon as I get home. Then I hit a wall, start pulling my hair out, and go play Threads of Mystery on Facebook for a while. Then I'll come back, and tell myself, "You're only 400 words away from your daily goal," or "Another hundred words, and you'll break 24k" or whatever the next benchmark is, and I'll force myself to hit that target, even if the words are crap. And then I usually keep going and wind up with something close to 2,000 or 2,500 words when all is said and done.

The rampaging Rhino might still decide to scrap everything I've written, or to run down a completely different path. Or he might abandon me completely (he seems to be spending an awful lot of time with Theanab from the Typewriter brigade thread). But in the mean time, I'm going to ride this wave while I've got it, however small it is.

Baby steps. It's all in the baby steps. 

Inspiration Shots

What are you watching during NaNoWriMo? Here are a few of my top picks:

Anime:
R.O.D (Read or Die)
R.O.D the TV
Comic Party

Television:
Castle
The Book Group
Copper
Once Upon a Time

Movies:
The Dead Poet's Society
Miss Potter
The Secret of Moonacre

Is there a show/movie that you're finding particularly inspiring? Or do you eschew television altogether in November?