Tomorrow

Tomorrow (well... technically tonight at midnight) is the start of NaNoWriMo... November 1st is almost upon us, my friends.

Which means this - in other parts of the world, NaNoWriMo has already started, and hundreds (if not thousands) are pounding their keyboards in hopes of producing a novel in thirty days... a novel of at least 50,000 words. Everyone I say that to who isn't a writer and has never heard of NaNo thinks 50,000 is a lot of words. I'm thinking it doesn't sound quite so tough when I really break it down.

50K words/30 Days = 1667 words/1 day
750 Words = 3 Pages (double spaced, 1 in. margins)
Cat's word count = (abt) 50 words/minute

If I aim for an average of 8 pages (or 2,000 words) a day, I should reach 50K by November 25th. If I can keep my inner editor in check, that means 40 minutes a day at 50 words/minute. If I can't, then I should count on doubling the time, which means about an hour and a half a day.

Heck, with that time frame, I should be able to get through more than 2,000 words a day.

This is starting to sound like a cake walk, but I know that's the optimism talking. I'll only be able to sustain that kind of a pace for so long before the inner editor decides to rebel, or something else happens. It usually does.

But the number break down (besides giving me an awful headache) does let me know this is doable. For that, I am very happy.

NaNoWriMo Countdown: 8 hours, 10 minutes and counting.

The Playlist

After much deliberation, I am attempting to create a playlist of musical goodness to both sustain me through NaNoWriMo and send off to a few of my fellow NaNoers in other parts of the country. So far, I have a grand total of five songs. It is frustrating because I have so much music, and so little time to figure out what I really want to share.

The songs thusfar:

1. Paper Thin Hymn - Anberlin
2. I'm Not Who I Was - Brandon Heath
3. Set the Fire to the Third Bar - Snow Patrol
4. Savior - Skillet
5. Eileen's Song - Burlap to Cashmere
   

Currently, I am listening to what my mp3 player says is the 25 songs I listen to most to see what is there and if anything is good enough. You would think this would be a good starting place, but the only reason why so many of these songs are at the top is because one of my characters at one time or another would not talk to me without multiple repeats of whatever song they want to hear.

I'd like to give up on this particular project. There are so many other things I could be doing, or blogging about. Finishing character bios. Chasing them down and beating the plot of this novel out of them. All the usual pre-writing stuff I've been neglecting for whatever excuse happens to come into my head.

This is what I get for signing up to do this. Now, I have no way of backing out... now that I have addresses to send to and audio file preferences.

NaNoWriMo Countdown: (including today) 2 days! Well, time to get on the stick!!!

Past Characters

I said yesterday that I would elaborate further on the reasons why I love and hate writing with characters I've written with in the past, so this is my attempt.

Reasons why I love it:

1. I don't have to spend time getting to know the characters.
2. Because I already know them, I know how to make them talk to me.
3. Because I know how to make them talk to me, writer's block is not much of a concern.

All of this should bode well for NaNoWriMo. But, as you may have guessed, it does not always do so.

Reasons why I hate it:

1. Because I know the characters, my brain assumes details are not necessary.
2. Because of above stated assumption, I forget to add details about the characters, and sometimes their surroundings, too.
3. Because I forget to add these details, I end up with a less than stellar story.

Which equates to lesser word counts for NaNoWriMo. Lesser word counts = no 50K. No 50K = no win. No win =...

I think you get the idea.

But why does any of this matter if NaNoWriMo is about getting everything out without letting the inner editor that will be screaming take control (besides the obvious word count issue)? I'm not sure. What I do know is that the inner editor is already having a fit at the idea of not being allowed more than surface grammar and spelling errors for a month. Everything that comes out is going to be interesting.

NaNoWriMo Countdown: (including today) 3 days

Name Generators

So my abhorence of character name generators might have come to an end.

Because I am a glutton for punishment, I decided to do another Google™ search for character name generators (you never know what is going to turn up, right?). After sifting through the usual culprits for such a thing - a fantasy name generator, an RPG generator, an article on how to pick good character names... ugh - why do I always fall for you, and when will I learn that you're an article, not a generator - I was surprised to come out the victor in this ever bloody battle. Check it out!

http://www.adammaxwell.com/writing/extras/character-name-generator.html

The site also has a writing prompt generator that looks promising, but that is far from the point. The point is that I found a character name generator with interesting names. Let's start in the surname category (last name, folks... c'mon).

A Sampling of Typical Surnames to pop up in a generator:

• Sanford
• Nelson
• Ball
• McDonald

A Sampling of Surnames in Mr. Maxwell's generator:

• Zysett
• Javis
• Horseford
• Brog

I mean, seriously... you probably couldn't find these last names in a list of the 1000 most common surnames in America, could you? Yet they exist, and should be acknowledged in literature for existing. What's the fun in everyone always having the surname Smith, Jones, Johnson, Martin, etc?

I have to say that this generator has greatly energized my pre-NaNoWriMo planning for this novel. The plot is coming together nicely, around characters I have written about in the past... which I love, and hate all at once for a number of reasons I'll explain later. Even a sub-plot or two is starting to emerge because of these characters and their past interactions in my writing. I'm excited to finally have a sense of direction for this project.

NaNoWriMo Countdown: (including today) 4 days... whoa.

To Do List Before NaNoWriMo

Someone started a topic on the NaNoWriMo boards recently asking people to post their list of things to do before NaNoWriMo that are unrelated to it. Obviously, I thought it was a good idea, as I am writing a blog about it now. Below is a list of things that I put together in my head at the time, and a note as to whether or not I've gotten them done).

1. Sit down and plan budget for month of November. (done)
   
2. Decide on costume for Holyween (yeah, I said Holyween… suck it up and deal with it).
   
3. Unnamed Trib issues (in progress, probably incomplete before start of NaNo)
   
4. Write apologies to a few of the people I owe them to.
   
5. Go to Sonic at least once (done)
   

Now, back to the task at hand. Next blog? Probably my to-do list of NaNo related things.

On a Day Like Today

On a day like today, I really wish I had bothered to keep up with computer programming.

You can laugh all you want at the fact that I spent many hours in high school sitting at a computer, programming my life away. Bet you didn't know I got a 3 on the Computer Science AP for C++ (because saying something like that makes me feel like an uber-genius, when in all honesty… I'm just an uber-dork who wasted two and a half years of high school on something I barely understood instead of two and a half years of college, thousands of dollars, and GPA points).

But, in all seriousness, today is one of those days.

I wanted to get a start on my NaNoWriMo preplanning. Some people start this process December 1^st (the day after NaNo ends). Some never preplan. I'm starting about ten days early because I want some idea of where I need to go with my story, but I don't want the rigid outline I know I would break if I spent months ahead of time planning it.

My pre-NaNo planning stages:

• Characters:
  
  • Biographic info
    
    • As extensive as the character will allow it to be, plus the effort it will take to pull teeth to get the rest of it
      
  • Relationships
    
  • Identify MC (Male or female)
    
  • Establish POV characters
    
• Plot
  
  • What personal catastrophe is going to hit the MC? How will he/she deal with it?
    
  • POV characters – how are they going to take how the MC is dealing with this?
    
  • What kind of an ending do I want to see it have?
    
• Research
  
  • Maps
    
    • Familiarize myself with the place where this is supposed to be taking place.
      
    • Possibly create a map if I end up making up a place
      
  • History (if location is real)
    
    • What has happened here? What kind of history does this place have, and how do the people here treat it?
      
• Etc., etc…
  

I think you get the point.

However, in my pursuit of pre-planning, I ran into the one snafu that I always get caught up in when creating a character. The name.

Almost anyone I have collaborated on a writing project with can tell you I am great when it comes to developing plot twists. I chew them up and spit them out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, at the same time. Chuck Norris is the only one who can do any better, and that's because he's Chuck Norris. My fatal flaw, my Achilles heel, my poorest showing is in generating character names. I cringe to think about anyone reading my Left Behind fan fiction stories, or Flyboy Club RPG posts, because I have had as many as three or four characters with the same first name.

We'll talk about the fact that I used to write fan fiction about the Left Behind series another time… right now, focus on the character name issue.

I have found tools on different websites which randomly generate names. For a while, they worked – but eventually the same names came popping back up, and I was stuck in the same boat as before.

So I started searching for computer programs whose sole purpose was to generate character names. Multiple exist. However, the freeware versions (the only ones I can afford) suck… because you can't get to the full features without buying the program, which I am apparently too cheap to do.

Picture starting to come clear?

Basically, I would love to be able to write my own random name generator program, but because I focused on other things besides programming in college (i.e. history, creative writing), I couldn't write a program to save my life. I wouldn't even remember where to start. Thus, the reason why today is a day like today.

NaNoWriMo!!!

Maybe I've gone off the deep end on this one, folks, but it has been a long time coming. I signed up this year for NaNoWriMo.

NaNo-wha?

National Novel Writing Month.

Yeah, it's held every November, and thousands of people make it their goal to write a novel of at least 50,000 words between November 1st and November 30th (an average of about 2,000 words a day). I've been wanting to this for years now (try 4 or 5), but either didn't have the courage, or did have too many creative writing classes to consider it. Since this is a November where I am not in school, and will in all likelihood still be jobless, I figure... why not give it a try? What do I have to lose? Right? Right.

I will attempt to document my journey through NaNoWriMo here, with word counts, what kinds of issues I am running into, and maybe a small excerpt or two here and there. It's not that I won't blog about other things, but this is a big deal, and (I think) it deserves some attention here.

Wish me incredible luck (and the ability to reach my daily word count goals)! But remember it doesn't start until November 1st...