Maintaining Motivation

Now that NaNo is over and the rush to hit 50K has past, I find myself wondering: will I be able to maitain my motivation?

It’s sad really. The first draft of this book should have been completed a year ago…but December came and for some odd reason, I turned away from the book and didn’t work on it.

I have throughout the year submitted some of my written chapters for my weekly critique group, but I only ever worked on those chapters, rather than finishing the book.

Now I’m wondering if the same will happen this year.

I don’t want it to happen again. I need to get this finished…and I’m so much closer to that finish line that was elusive last year. It’s on the horizon–I can see it in the distance. Yet I can feel myself growing tired, desiring to stop and sit on the sidelines once again.

So, I need to keep myself motivated…somehow. I need to focus on that finish line, getting the first draft completed. I need to make every day like NaNo, even if I only get a thousand words written.

I am hoping to get my first draft completed by the end of the month. By midnight come the 31st of December, I want to have those words “the end” written.

It’s going to be difficult for me–more so than it was during NaNo. Perhaps I’m not what some would call a “true writer”; one who would have the discipline enough to keep writing every day. It’s that discipline that I know I am lacking–but something I have to find if I ever have the hopes of being a novelist.

So, I must still keep that inner editor locked away and search for that motivation to keep going–and finally type “the end” on this draft.

So, my question to writers out there: how do you keep yourself focused on the goal?

I Won!

NaNo Winner 2008

I won!! I rambled and wrote to my heart’s content today–probably the most I’ve written in a day at around 4,700 words. Of course that was partially done at work and then done the last hour here at home when I had to get about 500 more words done to hit the goal. I wanted to hit it before Thanksgiving and I did it!!

Now to keep moving on towards the end of the novel, which may have another 15K left. I’m not sure though…but it should be in the next 10-12 chapters.

Official word count: 51,233

To Reach 50K Tomorrow…Or Not?

I’m less than 4K away from being an official winner of NaNo.

I am hoping I can reach the 50K mark tomorrow,  but that means it’ll have to be a slow day at work, for I really won’t have time afterward to work on it. We’re going to the in-laws for dinner then off to the church to set up for Thanksgiving the following day. And then I have to come back and make brownies…but that may end up waiting until Thanksgiving morning depending on how late it is (I don’t really want to be making brownies at 10 o’clock at night…)

Apparently I wrote slightly more than 4K today, not realizing it. I hit the part where my MC was kidnapped and the scene got rather violent with people being stabbed through with swords, sliced in the side, and some fingers sliced off. I’ll probably need to expand the scene more since I’m really horrible at writing action scenes, but the basis of it is there.

The next part will be hard to write as my character is being held hostage. She won’t be kept in a hovel or anything–actually she’ll be kept hostage in rather luxurious surroundings–but it will be hard for me to write where she’s living in constant fear and possibly getting smacked around a bit.

Apparently my actual “historical” character, Mitsuru Toyama, is becoming more of a bad guy than I planned for. He’s slowly taking over my initial antagonist’s role…and may be the true bad guy in the story. My antagonist is still there, but I’m thinking he’s going to become more of a character to pity in the long run as he is pretty much selling his soul to be accepted by Mitsuru.

I should probably do my research and see if this Mitsuru Toyama guy is as bad as I’m making him…but considering he was the leader of an ultranationalist group that employed terrorist tactics and blackmail to gain power, I’m thinking I’m not far off base. Not to mention he was involved in nearly killing the prime minister in 1889… Oh and the fact that the guy was pretty much one of the key players in eventually turning the country towards World War II years down the line with his desire to take over the Asian continent.

So things are going well on the writing front and I’m thinking there’s probably another 15 or 20K before I type “The End.” Then comes the long process of editing…and researching. Oh, they profound joy.

Official Word Count: 46,509

I’ve Been Neglecting This

So, life got busy and I haven’t realized that it’s been so long since I last updated. It’s not much of an excuse really…I must admit that my inner “bum” sort of took a hold of me the last week or so. There were a few days I didn’t write at all and just sat around the house watching TV or a movie or old Gilmore Girls episodes instead of being productive.

Anyway, today Phil comes back from his business trip in Seattle, thus ending the ten days that we’ve been apart. Of course his flight doesn’t even come in until 10:30 tonight, but at least I know I don’t have to sleep alone any more 😛

On the writing front, I’m slowly but surely coming along with the NaNo novel. I’m still ahead of where we are supposed to be (despite the two days of not writing at all). Unfortunately it seems to be lacking in quality as the days go by. I didn’t think that it could get much worse–but it has 😛

Anyway, I’m getting to a major turning point in the novel, where the antagonist finds my MC and kidnaps her. I’m still uncertain if there’s going to be a death in the process (I’m unfortunately leaning towards yes…as much as I love the character that will probably die in defending her…). I suppose I’ll find out fairly soon as it will be in the next two chapters.

That’s pretty much it…I’m doubting the book will actually be finished by the end of the month, but it should be within a few chapters.

Official Word Count: 36,737

NaNo Update for the Last 3 Days

I realize I have temporarily slacked off in my daily word counts.

Anyway, on Monday, I didn’t do any writing, as writing over 4K pretty much zapped any sort of thinking from me, so I took a break.

Yesterday I fully expected to only write my normal 2K…and ended up almost doubling it again 😛 I didn’t realize I was caught up in the scene until my hands started to hurt and I checked the word count.

So I’m taking another break today; I may write a little more later tonight, but it probably won’t be much more than 1K.

Because of my two 4K days, I pulled ahead of my sister in word count, which has irked her 😛 However she’s catching up fairly quickly…

Perhaps I should not take that break…

Official word count: 28,170

(BTW, that word count is only the “second half” or so of the novel; I think total my novel would be right around 75K or so, but that’s a rough guess)

Monumental Amount of Writing–For Me, Anyway

I think my eyes are on the verge of falling out from all the typing I’ve done since Thursday.

Since the last entry I’ve written 7,435 words. In two days.

For some writers, that may seem like a small number but to me, who only averages about 2000 or so daily, that is a monumental amount.

I wrote slightly over 4,000 today alone. I don’t know how, but it happened 😛 And I was nearly all tapped out of creative juices.

I think tomorrow I may take a slight break; I’m going to at least write enough to get me to the 25 K mark, which is somewhere between 700-800 words.

But I think I’ve earned a tiny break 😛 Of course I believe my hands and my brain are screaming at me from spending too much time typing and staring at small print on a computer screen. So tomorrow will be mostly for recharging and refueling. 😛

Official word count: 24,241

So Much Time…But Not So Many Words

I went to a write-in tonight at this cute little cafe where we had an entire conference room to ourselves. Most of the night there were around five of us, with one or two there for an hour or so. I was there from 6 p.m. to nearly 11.

And only managed to get 2,732 written in that time. I should’ve easily hit 3 or 3.5 but of course when you get a bunch of writers together, we tend to talk a lot, and things go off on some wacky, wacky tangents (a good hour of this time was spent talking…probably more like an hour and a half throughout the night).

Still, the comraderie is good and I still managed to get a good chunk written. And of course the best part is I’m now ahead of my sister. MWAHAHA. (Can you tell I’m just the teensiest bit competitive?)

I may go to another write in tomorrow afternoon but I’m unsure because Phil’s leaving on a business trip to Seattle on Sunday afternoon and will be gone 10 days. But he insists I ought to make it to all the write ins I can, so we’ll see. It depends if I feel like driving the 30 plus minutes to get there 😛

Ok that’s it; time for the daily word count update:

Word count: 16,806

Another Word Count Update from Yours Truly

Ok I’m beginning to run out of creative titles for these posts 😛

Anyway, today seemed easier to get the word count out. I managed to get 2,505 more words written, which surpasses my goal of 2K a day. Today I wrote a scene where Kaiyo finds out about her father’s roots (that he too is also illegitmate, just like she is, which of course doesn’t sit well with her). That was an interesting scene, though I need to punch it up a bit later on.

And the first time since I’ve started NaNo, I wrote a chapter from the antagonist’s POV. It ended up flowing even better than the earlier stuff I’d written today, probably partially due to the fact I involved myself in a 30 minute word war with my sister. Anyway, I’m especially excited about the scene because I’m actually using a real person from history to be a part of it. The man Kaemon, my antagonist, goes to see is Mitsuru Toyama, the leader of the Dark Ocean Society or the Genyosha.

What really  makes me excited about it (I know, I’m a history geek) is that everything flows so well! He was known to have involvement with organized crime groups (like what Kaemon and Kanamoto, Kaiyo’s father, are a part of) and was seen as a very influential figure, as he was very ultranationalist. In fact, he was also implicated in the attempted assassination of the foreign minister Okuma Shigenobu in 1889. So of course I’m using that in my novel, as Kaemon’s gang/organization were the ones responsible for carrying it out (no one knows who actually threw the bomb, so this is where I get to really use my artistic license!).

So yeah…I get really pumped and excited when I find little tidbits of history that fall into place exactly where I need them to be 🙂

Ok that’s it for today!

Official Word Count: 14,074

Back to Your Regularly Scheduled Blog

Ok, so yesterday I just had to vent a bit, but now that Election Day has come and gone (praise the Lord!) I can now completely devote my mental energy to my NaNo novel.

Too bad the mental energy isn’t translating into gripping prose…

I seem to be rather down on my novel quite a bit earlier than I was last NaNo. It took me at least until the second week; it’s five days (almost six) into it and I’m already at that point.

I can’t seem to get the thoughts to flow correctly or add up coherently on the page. I’m fairly certain I repeated myself way too much already.  That and the story direction keeps changing, so it’s morphing into something that’s hard for even me the author to make sense of.

Whenever critique groups start up again, I am tempted to tell them that I’m scrapping the storyline they initially critiqued and starting over, since it’s already changed so much and they’re going to be utterly confused when they get back into it.

Bah. I hate this; I wish I didn’t feel this way so soon into NaNo. Hoping it will go away fairly quickly and that my prose doesn’t sound as stilted, forced and crappy like it does now. Sigh…

Official word count: 11,569

Slightly Depressed…Oh and My Word Count for Today

I must admit I’m nervous about the next four years now what with the results. Not too much of an Obama fan; don’t really agree with a thing the man stands for, especially on moral grounds (i.e. abortion, especially late term abortions…).

But what’s done is done. Yes, I’m going to be depressed tomorrow; yes, I’m even going to wear all black to show I’m in mourning 😛 Sure, it may be silly, but it’s how I cope 😛

I’m also comforted by the fact that at least Congress is not overrun by liberals, so not everything he wants to do will (hopefully) not go through. And perhaps…perhaps…things won’t be as bad as I think.

All I can do is hope.

Anyway…back to writing…I managed to hit 9,509 today. Just 491 shy of 10K. I was trying for that today but got too distracted 😛 Anyway I’ll definitely hit it tomorrow

That’s pretty much it; tomorrow…or sometime soon…I should break out of this election depression.