VICTORY IS MINE!!!
So, I mentioned that I'm doing NaNoWriMo.
I just noticed that I haven't actually blogged at all since then, despite the fact that I have had things to write about. For instance, two weeks ago was the Pure Speculation Festival. Aside from presenting, as I always do, on something Harry Potter related, for a group that included a couple of new faces (yay!) I was also on the organizational committee this year. I did part of the layout for the program guide, and was on-hand for any kind of legwork required during the festival (which, admittedly, wasn't much).
I won a piece of art in this year's charity auction, which was an artist's rendering of Kermit the Frog, riding Mister Snuffleupagus from Sesame Street, and they were armoured like He-Man and Battlecat. It was a thing of beauty, but I have NO IDEA what I'm going to do with it! One of the Guests of Honour for this year was Joe Wos, who is the curator of the ToonSeum in Pittsburgh, which is now the ONLY reason I might EVER consider visiting Pittsburgh. Anyway, Joe does this thing where he tells stories and illustrates them live, and when he's done with them he sells off the drawings for whatever you're willing to pay for them as a donation to the ToonSeum. One of his stories involved a lot of barnyard creatures engaged in various pursuits, so I bought a drawing from him of Mister Horse the opera singer. Oh wait! I twitpicced it while he was drawing it! Here it is!
Anyway, I did bring the laptop with me during Pure Spec, and managed to find a bit of time to do some writing each day, but I think I only wrote about 1000 words all weekend, so that put me greatly behind schedule. Then I went out to one of Marty Chan's write-along events, which he was holding at different libraries around the city all month. This one was at Woodcroft, and other than Marty himself, I was the ONLY PERSON THERE! So, rather than being something like a write-in, this was more like my personal coaching session with Marty Chan! In the space of 2 1/2 hours, I wrote over 5000 words. I was back on track!
Last Friday, one of the hosts in the regional chatroom, where I had been spending FAR too much time this month, ran a wordcount bootcamp. She did everything for the evening in allcaps, and yelled at us a lot, but she also ran pretty constant wordwars for a good three hours. I had started the evening at about 35,500 words, and was given a goal of 4000 more for the evening, but then when I reached that goal, it was suggested that I continue for another 500, which would put me over 40K. I did that, but then my progress kind of ground to a halt.
I wrote very little on the weekend, and some of it was during a Grey Cup party, so it was probably of even less value than usual. By Monday night (when I was feeling too stressed and crappy to go to choir) I had only written about 2000 more words. I went to bed that night feeling like I wasn't going to finish. The problem was that my story was finished. It had a beginning, a middle, and an end; all of the events I wanted had occurred, and I just didn't know what else to add to it. But it wasn't long enough.
Then, on Tuesday, someone else in the chatroom decided to run an entire afternoon of wordwars. I started writing disjointed scenes. They were all part of the same timeline, somehow, but I had no idea WHERE in the story they were going to go. I just kept writing.
By the time My Sweetie got home from work at around 4:30, I had written 8500 words that day. My final wordcount was 50,209 and it was validated. I had won!
Tonight is the final official write-in of the month. I'm done, but I'm here, and I'm writing. Bearing in mind that this story was started as a prequel to a work-in-progress, I still have lots I can do with these characters, in this world. Also, since my story is done, I figure I can count my blogging words towards wordwars just as well, right?
Last night, in the chatroom, somebody posted a link to this video. Considering the month I'd just had, it seemed topical, and I think I'm going to try a few more monthly challenges. For December: Photo a day!
I just noticed that I haven't actually blogged at all since then, despite the fact that I have had things to write about. For instance, two weeks ago was the Pure Speculation Festival. Aside from presenting, as I always do, on something Harry Potter related, for a group that included a couple of new faces (yay!) I was also on the organizational committee this year. I did part of the layout for the program guide, and was on-hand for any kind of legwork required during the festival (which, admittedly, wasn't much).
I won a piece of art in this year's charity auction, which was an artist's rendering of Kermit the Frog, riding Mister Snuffleupagus from Sesame Street, and they were armoured like He-Man and Battlecat. It was a thing of beauty, but I have NO IDEA what I'm going to do with it! One of the Guests of Honour for this year was Joe Wos, who is the curator of the ToonSeum in Pittsburgh, which is now the ONLY reason I might EVER consider visiting Pittsburgh. Anyway, Joe does this thing where he tells stories and illustrates them live, and when he's done with them he sells off the drawings for whatever you're willing to pay for them as a donation to the ToonSeum. One of his stories involved a lot of barnyard creatures engaged in various pursuits, so I bought a drawing from him of Mister Horse the opera singer. Oh wait! I twitpicced it while he was drawing it! Here it is!
Anyway, I did bring the laptop with me during Pure Spec, and managed to find a bit of time to do some writing each day, but I think I only wrote about 1000 words all weekend, so that put me greatly behind schedule. Then I went out to one of Marty Chan's write-along events, which he was holding at different libraries around the city all month. This one was at Woodcroft, and other than Marty himself, I was the ONLY PERSON THERE! So, rather than being something like a write-in, this was more like my personal coaching session with Marty Chan! In the space of 2 1/2 hours, I wrote over 5000 words. I was back on track!
Last Friday, one of the hosts in the regional chatroom, where I had been spending FAR too much time this month, ran a wordcount bootcamp. She did everything for the evening in allcaps, and yelled at us a lot, but she also ran pretty constant wordwars for a good three hours. I had started the evening at about 35,500 words, and was given a goal of 4000 more for the evening, but then when I reached that goal, it was suggested that I continue for another 500, which would put me over 40K. I did that, but then my progress kind of ground to a halt.
I wrote very little on the weekend, and some of it was during a Grey Cup party, so it was probably of even less value than usual. By Monday night (when I was feeling too stressed and crappy to go to choir) I had only written about 2000 more words. I went to bed that night feeling like I wasn't going to finish. The problem was that my story was finished. It had a beginning, a middle, and an end; all of the events I wanted had occurred, and I just didn't know what else to add to it. But it wasn't long enough.
Then, on Tuesday, someone else in the chatroom decided to run an entire afternoon of wordwars. I started writing disjointed scenes. They were all part of the same timeline, somehow, but I had no idea WHERE in the story they were going to go. I just kept writing.
By the time My Sweetie got home from work at around 4:30, I had written 8500 words that day. My final wordcount was 50,209 and it was validated. I had won!
Tonight is the final official write-in of the month. I'm done, but I'm here, and I'm writing. Bearing in mind that this story was started as a prequel to a work-in-progress, I still have lots I can do with these characters, in this world. Also, since my story is done, I figure I can count my blogging words towards wordwars just as well, right?
Last night, in the chatroom, somebody posted a link to this video. Considering the month I'd just had, it seemed topical, and I think I'm going to try a few more monthly challenges. For December: Photo a day!