Reality Game - Day 58

I'll keep this short, as I need to get to bed, but wanted to update my readers.

I've worked on the novel three days in a row. Thanks to getting an extra hour Sunday morning, and starting around 12:30 am on writing, in 5.5 hours I wrote 2265 words.

This morning, less time. Started writing at 3 am, and ended 3 hours later at 6 am. Wrote 1447 words in that time.

I also decided I might as well do NaNo officially, though I don't know if I'll hit the 50K mark or not. I know there are commitments that will get in the way. Like tonight, I'll need to write a article for my Tuesday column at SpecFaith blog. That usually takes  a good hunk of the night, so not sure if I'll get any writing done on the novel. If I do, it won't likely be enough to keep me caught up..

But at least at the moment I'm on track to make 50K. Since I type so slow now, I have to find around 5 hours a day on the novel, at least 4, to stay on track. We'll see how it goes. For now, a decent start and the novel is progressing along though I'm still not sure where it is all going. Or how they are going to get out of the mess I'm putting them all in.

I asked for prayers for Natalie last time. Now all four of them need it. Jeremy, Mickey, Bridget and Natalie if you want to pray by name. :)

Here's the summary:

---------------

Day 1: 444 words
Day 14: 456 words
Day 18: 687 words
Day 20: 1041 words
Day 33: 652 words
Day 56: 1162 words
Day 57: 2265 words
Day 58: 1447 words

----

Novel total: 9925 words

Reality Game - Day 56

Been a while since I've worked on the novel. Just so much going on. But I wanted to commemorate the first day of National Novel Writing Month. I'm not officially doing NaNo this year, but I'm still going to make an attempt to do as much as possible on this novel, amidst my other commitments. Maybe it will inspire me to get this done so I can point to one major accomplishment this year.

Anyhow, woke up this "morning" at 1:30 pm. Did morning routine, checked email, snail mail, couple of forums. Then helped my wife get Halloween decorations up in the yard. Then fixed dinner, as it was my night (stir fry pizza). Then sat with her handing out candy until after 9 pm. After hauling in the electrical decorations, I messed around for a while. Then she went to bed and I did a little bookkeeping on her business. Then around 2:30 am, I sat down with some candy to work on the novel.

Typed until a little before 5 am after getting my bearings on the story. During that 2.25 hours, got 1162 words written. So sat down to type this up. A little more progress. We'll see if the NaNo spirit will inspire me.

I'm writing more into the dark than usual on this one. Vague idea where it is going, but no idea where it will end up. Last scene I wrote, I've already got one of the characters  into some hot water that I'm not sure how she'll get out of it. Pray for Natalie. No telling how this will turn out.

You know you're a writer when you ask people to pray for your characters. lol.

---------------

Day 1: 444 words
Day 14: 456 words
Day 18: 687 words
Day 20: 1041 words
Day 33: 652 words
Day 56: 1162 words

----

Novel total: 6213 words

Reality Game - Day 33

I've done some writing since the last post. I wrote  a blog post for my infidelity blog, and one for SpecFaith (which went live yesterday). As most readers of this blog are aware, I finished writing and editing my short story for the anthology.  Posted that on the blog Monday. Additionally, I rewrote the first devotional to my Christmas book. It was too esoteric for kids and most adults. So I took a different approach.

So despite lots of other things going on, have got a decent amount of writing done.

Tonight, I returned to the novel. Didn't get a lot of time in on it. Added another 652 words in almost one and a half hours. Decided I needed to get the bookkeeping done and get to bed. So I'm keeping this short. Hopefully have more to report in the days ahead.

---------------

Day 1: 444 words
Day 14: 456 words
Day 18: 687 words
Day 20: 1041 words
Day 33: 652 words

----

Novel total: 5051 words

Reality Game - Day 26

As I mentioned last week, I didn't expect to do much writing on the novel. On two different days I'd done some writing on a short story, and clocked in around 400 words on it. I found two words I threw together as a title, "Orion's Integration." Until today, I didn't know where I was going with this story, but the end revealed itself today.

I had awaken shortly after 1 pm. Had a "day off" from working with my wife, but had to run to the bank after taking care of bookkeeping another errand, and make dinner: fried fish, mac and cheese, and steamed broccoli. Still had some time to work on the short story this afternoon, and was able to add another 500 words in an hour and a half.

Spent the evening with the wife after cooking. Watched a movie, ordered some products she needed, she went to bed around 1 am. After I finished some bookkeeping, fixing the front door knob, I grabbed some snacks and sat back down to write.

From about 2 am until 6 am, I typed away. Finished the short story, adding another 1550 words during that time. The short story clocked in at almost 2500 words. Not a speed demon, but that makes my total word count for today around 2000. Not bad. If I could do that every night, I'd finish that novel within a month.

Orion's Integration I'm writing for our local writers' club anthology. But I'll probably post it here when I get it edited. More on that later.

Today was when I'd hoped I would have finished the Reality Game novel. As it is, I'm just under 5000 words on it. For October, I need to edit my Christmas devotional so it will be updated and ready for the Christmas season. I don't expect that to take all my time this month, so I hope to continue to plug away at the novel too. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Until next time.

Reality Game: Day 1

I've been slow to get started back on this book. Will take some doing to finish it by the end of the month. We'll see how it goes. Lots of stuff going on in my life right now. But figured I'd document the progress both for accountability and encouragement.

Didn't get to writing until around 3:15 am. Woke at noon, then started a vegetable and shrimp stew in the crock pot. Then it was off to clean a house and a business with my wife. Arrived back home around 9:30 pm. Ate dinner while watching an episode of Star Trek, TNG. Season 3, Episode 1. After a some task and getting my wife to sleep, I did the cleaning business bookkeeping. That brought me up to 3:15 when I opened up my manuscript and the database.

Spent a little time reacquainting myself with the story. Had written 1771 words on the first chapter last November before shifting gears to something else. In my outline, I don't have anything written for the climax. I recall the general direction I was taking this, but obviously there is much left to discover.

By way of reminder, I generally create an outline of the major plot points for a novel. It helps me to have a clue where I'm going, but I like to fill in the details as I write. So I don't do a scene by scene outline. That evolves as the story progresses. But I find having the major plot points and any sub-plots tying into it helpful so I'm not wandering in the novel wilderness much. But rarely has one of my outlined climaxes happened exactly as I had envisioned it.

The only exception to that are my episodic novels like Reality's Dawn. I had a general progression in my head, but didn't know what each story was going to be about until I sat down to write it, or how it would resolve. My science fiction novel, Revolution, is such a novel as well. I've written five chapters/episodes on that one. Hope to do more on it by next year.

For normal novels, I've only written one by the seat of my pants fully. My first novel which remains unpublished. I'm about 2/3rd of the way done on a rewrite of it. All the rest I had the major plot points mapped out before I dug in to writing it.

This time I decided to forgo finishing the outline and see where the story takes me. I know some of the direction I had intended to go and the main conflicts and plot twist I was going to throw into the mix. No idea how they'll get out of the hot water I'm going to put them into, though.

So around 3:30, after getting my bearings, I started writing. Getting back into the characters came easy enough. Spent one hour and ten minutes, until 4:40, to write 444 words. For my Parkinson's slowed hands, not too bad actually. As you can tell, this isn't going to be Mr. Speedy. I need to find more time to work on it if I'm going to finish it this month.

But it is past my bedtime, so I'm calling it a night, writing this blog, and heading to bed by 5:30. Ha. The funny thing is I've written more words on this blog post than I did on the story. But I finished chapter 1, got back into writing it, and it is great to be back at it. We'll see if I can make more progress in the days to come.

---------------

Day 1: 444 word

----

Novel total: 2215 words

10 Day Novel Challenge: Day 1

On starting day of this challenge, awoke at 1 pm. Would have been a solid seven hours of sleep save a nurse call I was expecting woke me around 10 am. Had trouble getting back to sleep, so closer to six hours of sleep. Anyway, went through my morning routine. Grits for breakfast, went through email, started a pot of beans cooking in the slow cooker for dinner. Finished most of the emails but none of the blogs when 3 pm arrived. The time my wife was supposed to be picking me up to go clean a vacation house. But she was running behind which gave me an extra 30 minutes to finish up a reply to an email.

Wife picked me up around 3:40 in the rain. We had to stop at another house first to take care of a couple of items before taking the 20 minute drive to the house we were to clean. At least it was supposed to take 20 minutes, save for the two wrecks we had to snake our way around at 10 mph. But we got there around 4:45, and finished the job a little before 8. Returned home around 8:30.

We promptly partook of pinto beans and a salad while I recaught up on emails and scanned the blogs. Jumped on Facebook to respond to a couple of people and quickly scanned the feeds. Called my son after doing some phone research to find out what he wanted for a phone. We're on a family plan and he's not happy with his android phone. Oh well.

After some time with my wife, she fell asleep early, but she'd have to wake up to get ready for bed. I let her nap while I finally turned my attention to the novel at hand around 10:45 pm. First order of business was to review the outline to orient myself to the proposed plot and the characters. I spent about 30 minutes doing that, changing the names of my two MCs (used them in the novel I did instead of this one some years ago) that gave me opportunity to make them more interesting. Named the two counties where the story takes place, along with three cities I knew I'd need. More will come, but I'll come up with those as I go.

By 11:15, I started writing. I wrote most of the first 1022 words in 1.75 hours, stopping at 1 am. I actually at one point had started the book, and wrote the first two chapters some years ago. I recall most of what I did, but didn't go back and read them. I wanted what I wrote now to be as unencumbered with what I did before as possible. After all, I've hopefully learned a thing or two since then.

Took a break, woke my wife up. We got some ice cream and I made some hot blueberry tea. Returned to writing at 1:26 am. Wife went on Facebook in the meantime. Worked another half hour until 2:06, putting in another 479 words. Took another break to officially put my wife to bed, then grabbed a bowl of prunes and cashews and went back at it at 2:57. I wrote until 4:18, at which point I called it quits. That added another 780 words to the count.

Totals are 2281 words in 3.5 hours of writing, averaging out to 652 words an hour. Better than I did last night. Good NaNo day, but not going to make it in ten days at this pace.

I've mentioned my bad left hand. I suppose I should explain. Last October, and all through NaNo November, I noticed my left hand didn't want to work smoothly. My mind would tell a finger to press a key, and it would do one of three things: press the key once, twice, or not at all. Since then about half the words I'm either pausing to type, or backspacing to erase letters that aren't supposed to be there. It has cut my typing speed in about half of what it used to be, and takes a bit more work to do. I'm thinking I may need to try a voice recognition program. Anyway, finally went to the doctor this past June, and he believes it may be Parkinson's Disease. I've been referred to a neurologist that I'll see in December for a fuller diagnosis. Meanwhile, I am on meds to help control the tremors that developed earlier this year, but my speed has only marginally increased.

I don't say this to gain your pity, just to let you know why my word count per hour is so low to what most people's is. That said, as I've proved last November, have proved the last two days, and will undoubtedly prove again this coming Nov, I can still crank out a novel in a month. If I could put enough hours into it now, I could write one in ten days. But my wife has me on a heavy schedule next week with few, if any, days off. So this will really be a test if I can pull this off. So far, I'm behind. Will take some good writing days to make it. If not, I'll keep going until it is done, and take everyone here with me. Time to get to bed so I can tackle it tomorrow.

10 Day Novel Challenge Totals:

Day 1: 2281

----------------

Total: 2281