So, at a first draft length of 98,159 words, Changeling's Fealty is complete. At just under four months in the writing, Changeling is definitely in the running for shortest time frame I've ever written a novel in (I think one other piece was finished in something similiar, years ago). Nanowrimo gave me a huge boost writing the book. Having that extra pressure to get the first 50,000 words out helped wonders, and once I had 50,000 words, I was good to go to finish the rest of the ... Read more »
General Writing
Milestones
Today, Changeling's Fealty hit 90,000 words. There have been some brutal scenes in the last 10,000 words - a lot of things have come out from under the shadows. Some cold blooded acts were taken by good guys. Some pretty explicitly evil things were done by bad guys. 90,000 words is a pretty important milestone in my mind though. This is the end game, the final pages of the book, the point at which I can definitely say that this book will get finished. Also the point where I start ... Read more »
Progress!
For the first time in a while, I broke a 1000 word writing day! A lot of my writing this month has been 'write 1500 word scene over a week,' but today I managed 1208 words. Seems kind of sad after November and December'st three to five thousand word days, but its better than most of this month has seen! I am 5,229/10,000 towards this months now reduced goal, and thinking about research. There is a location in Changeling's Fealty that is very specific and very real. I have taken some ... Read more »
Goals, Specific and General
So for December, I am at just under twelve thousand words of a twenty five thousand word goal. Slightly less than halfway there, with more than two-thirds of the time gone. Anemic as my progression towards my goal has been, I still think that it has been an essential motivating factor this month. I mentioned work business in my last post, and it didn't abate at any point. I'm now away on my christmas break, and I intend to catch up quickly. And, because I have a goal, I know where I ... Read more »
NaNoWriMo Finish Line Retrospective
As of now, Changeling's Fealty stands at 50,141 words. I've met my NaNoWriMo goal. What comes next? Well, accounting exams. But first, some retrospective. When I started NaNoWriMo, I hadn't written anything significant in about nine months. Despite having story ideas I wanted to work on, I never quite around to sitting down, firing up the word processor, and writing. My one attempt faded at literally about 400 words. I don't think it was so much the goal, but the encouragement ... Read more »
NaNoWriMo; and the scene that’s hard to write
2,098 words today, 47,082 total. Less than three thousand words to the goal for the month, though a LOT more than that to finish the story. One of the scenes I wrote this week was difficult. It was something I knew was going to happen from the moment I started the story, but as I wrote I got to know one of the characters involved better and became somewhat attached to him. Getting to know him better also made the scene harsher than originally planned, as he turned out to be a much better ... Read more »