Camp NaNoWriMo: Week 2 Update

Target Word Count: 25,806
Current Word Count: 18,552
Current Chapter: 9/10

I'm now starting to rely more on my outline instead of feeling that it is holding me back. I have been using YWriter5 more this week which I have found to be very helpful, especially when looking for details; I've been writing using FocusWriter and then copying and pasting each scene into YWriter5, which is very useful for keeping track of what happens in which scene, and also makes tracking that little bit of writing down much easier.

That isn't to say though that writing this novel is getting much easier. It feels like it's all happening rather slowly, and like I still haven't got into it yet. Each scene in my outline is a stepping stone, but they're all very stable stepping stones; there doesn't seem to be much danger or excitement, and although my plot confuses me sometimes, it all seems quite straightforward. I'm just sending my characters from scene to scene at the moment, like a military operation. And it's going to need a lot of cleaning up when I've finished.

As you can see, I'm still very behind with my word count, but I don't think I'm much further behind than I was last week. However, I am starting to feel the amount of work I need to do to finish this novel. I do not think it will be complete within 50,000 words, and I think I will be continuing to work on this draft after the end of July. It is starting to feel a little hopeless. I have a long way to go.

Camp NaNoWriMo Update: Week One

Target word count by the end of week one: 11290
My current word count: 6089
Currently writing Chapter 5 (started writing from halfway through chapter 4)

I like to think I have good excuses for being behind: I spent most of my weekend working and on Friday had to have a pet put down. Also, I'm trying to learn driving theory, and occasionally do some actual driving.

It has taken me a while to feel like I'm writing a novel; previous NaNoWriMos have felt full of excitement, and I have basically spent my month thinking of nothing but my novel. This time around, writing feels pretty slow (except for at almost-midnight - because it seems that I'm finding writing easiest when I'd really like to go to bed) and I'm not really feeling the NaNoWriMo atmosphere.

I think a possible explanation for this is that I'm following my plan; in the NaNoWriMo that I completed in 2010, I didn't outline my novel and instead went by the vague idea of what was going to happen that I had in my head, and in the Camp NaNoWriMo that I completed in 2011, I threw the vague idea that I formulated on the day I started writing completely out of the window. The inspiration for this novel came to me while I was planning, and jotting down random bits and pieces, but that same inspiration and motivation isn't here now that I'm actually writing. I feel a little like I'm just going through the motions to get from A to B and from chapter to chapter.

However, I have only properly planned up to partway through Chapter 7, which includes an important plot point, but it's a plot point that I can't work out how to go through with - I have my start point, I know vaguely what the situation is, and I know what the outcome needs to be for the story to move forward, but I'm not sure how to make the situation cause the outcome - so it is at this point that I will be able to start just writing to see where it takes me. The further we go along my storyline, the sketchier and more vague the plot becomes, so in theory, writing should get easier as I go.

Anyway, not counting the 164 words I wrote after midnight before I went to bed, I haven't written anything yet today. Therefore: onwards we go!

Let the writing begin!

Today is the 1st of July, which to me means only one thing - Camp NaNoWriMo is beginning!

This month I will finally finish a draft of Barnabus' Balloons and I can't wait. Because I've already started writing, I'll only start aiming for my goal of 50,000 words partway through chapter 4; originally I planned to write up to the end of chapter 3 and begin Camp NaNoWriMo at the beginning of chapter 4, but last night I found a beginning for chapter 4 that I'd already written, and that I plan to type up and use.

Linking back to the post I wrote rather a while ago about the technicalities of writing, I'll be using FocusWriter to write my novel in, and I'll also try to use Storybook and another piece of novel planning software called YWriter5, so that I can compare them. However, in the meantime, I've blu-tacked some paper on the wall next to my desk so that I can stick post-it notes on it detailing my novel's outline. So far, I like the idea that when the entire outline is up there, I'll be able to see it all at once - I just wish the post-it notes stuck to the paper a bit better.

Additionally, I lied when I said I had no more exams. Apparently what I thought was a holiday in which to devote all my time to writing is actually just time in which I do not have school to, in part, do a few more hours working (which is fine), but mostly learn driving theory, and a lot of it. I'm not a happy bunny about it.

No more exams for me!

With my exams over, I've taken my revision posters down. I'm rather fond of this replacement already:

The Dragon Story

I have been reminded quite a lot about my love of dragons recently; I found a rather addictive game on my

phone the point of which is to raise dragons, I found a video on making origami dragons, and I have been promised to be lent Eragon once exams are over, because it came to light that I still haven't read it.

I fell in love with dragons when I read Cornelia Funke's Dragon Rider in year 5 or 6; I got it from the school library, and tried to read it fast so that I'd have finished it by the time I had to give it back (it was a big book), and cried after I did give it back. I believe it is the one book, or one of the very few books, I class as one of my favourites that I have not reread (that's another addition to my post-exams reading list, methinks).

So, I thought I'd talk a little about my one novel idea that actually has a dragon in it, albeit not very much. You'd think that a writer who likes dragons would have a dragon in like every single story, but apparently not. My lack of dragons makes me sad. I need to write about more dragons.

Anyway, this story started out life in a small black and red notebook with squared paper at my grandma's house when I was about twelve or thirteen. I believe it was the first project I ever took seriously (though of course, between the ages of six and ten I took my badly illustrated, badly handwritten, badly stapled together books very seriously - until I got bored of them a couple of hours after starting them).

What will from here on in be referred to as The Dragon Story was a fantasy story (naturally), though it didn't have a name and still doesn't now. I remember reading an extract out at my school's creative writing club (which I had only just joined), thinking it was brilliant - and looking back, I completely understand why the older students struggled to compliment me. It began completely unplanned - even as I wrote the first lines at my grandma's house I'd hardly even thought about it - and when I did start planning it partway through, the plot was over-the-top, carried by weak characters with few motives, who lived in a world that had no history (although it did have a map that I slaved over for hours and hours and have since lost the original of, so I only have bad photocopies).

The map shrank in the wash.

I recall one particularly melodramatic scene inspired by my favourite song (I Was Only Dreamin' by Bryan Adams - no longer my favourite song, but still close to my heart), in which my character fell asleep on the beach and woke up to find his lover gone - and he comes to the conclusion that she was merely part of his dream, and falls into despair until she reappears a few minutes later, much to his delight. Does that portray the levels of bad we're talking about here?

Naturally, my protagonists were going to win against the bad guys (who had a stupid, and stupidly long, name made up of a load of French words stuck together), and the two characters mentioned previously were going to get married and live happily ever after.

Good start.

So where does the dragon come into this? And why am I writing about this story that I abandoned when I was thirteen?

To answer the first question, I shall have to tell you a little about the plot. The first part of the story involved my characters fleeing literally to the other side of the world from the bad guys, until they found help in the form of an elf friend of one of theirs, who advised them to go to Wise Dragon (creative name, I know), who lived in a cave under a mountain which he never left (nice to know that my one dragon is an awesome, fearsome dragon). I'm not even sure my characters ever got as far as Wise Dragon except for in my plan, but Wise Dragon was going to reveal a few secrets about my characters' identities and send them off on their noble quest - he was rather an important plot point.

To answer the second question - I have a bit of a habit of merging numerous story ideas; so, this story has become embroiled in a rather large network of sequels and companion novels to Barnabus' Balloons which incorporates a great number of previously-thought-of, sometimes abandoned ideas, and a few new ones. Therefore, this story now takes place in the same world - and in some parts, the same queendom - as Barnabus' Balloons, but some years after the end of it, and also involves the same enemies as it, which no longer have a ridiculous group name. Basically, this particular link to the companion novel network (which may perhaps one day be something akin to Terry Pratchett's many, many Discworld novels) stemmed from my desire to replace these evil-for-the-sake-of-being-evil antagonists, and "hey look, I already have some more realistic villains with more plausible motives, why not just borrow those?" 

As I am mostly focussing on Barnabus' Balloons at the moment (apparently my concentration levels have increased from my days of badly illustrated, badly handwritten "books"), The Dragon Story is currently little more than a couple of initial chapters and a vague plan, but I do know that it will still involve Wise Dragon (who, unlike the antagonists, will keep his name, I imagine) and the plot will still revolve around a journey however the ending will not be as happy as my thirteen-year-old self intended. :)

Writing Gets You Cats

I have just read a blog post by Kristin Cashore in which she recommends a basic online word processor called Written? Kitten! which will reward you for every 100/200/500/1000 words you write (depending on which you pick) with a picture of a kitten. I have a feeling I will be using this more often. :)

LOOK AT THIS LITTLE FELLOW WHO CONGRATULATED ME FOR WRITING 100 WORDS OF NONSENSE!

Revision Procrastination

A little light bedtime reading, methinks...

It's difficult to write a writing blog when you're not writing anything.

Having said that, though, if I'm going to be completely honest, saying that I haven't been writing anything is a lie, it's just that what I've been writing is only really bits and pieces. However, what I have been doing that is actually helping towards a bigger project is making a scrapbook in a notebook my friend bought me for my birthday, comprising random bits of writing (or, at the moment, one random bit) and sketches of characters (which is a great way to spend the few days running up to an exam...). I later plan to include a sort of mood board of places for my setting, as well as sketches of my imagined setting itself, other random notes concerning the plot and the fantasy world Barnabus' Balloons is set in (you know, law, medicine, fashion etc - general world-building). I'm very excited for when I have enough time to put more effort into this. :)

Also, an email I just got reminded me that April's Camp NaNoWriMo finished a few days ago, and apparently the winners can get free proof copies of their book. When I took part in Camp NaNoWriMo, this opportunity was not available, and when I was a winner of November NaNoWriMo in 2010, I didn't finish revising my first draft before the deadline for the offer. Hopefully, though, free proof copies will still be a prize for Camp NaNoWriMo winners in July, when I will finally have time to write. :)