NoNaNo? PseudoWriMo?

[dr_pretentious]

I won't be assaying National Novel Writing Month (also known as NaNoWriMo) this year. Not properly, anyway. It's not just that keeping up with a toddler would make producing 50,000 words in 30 days an even crazier goal than it already is. It's that I owe my editor a polished 25,000 word novella that's not even in complete first draft yet, and the mad mass pact that is NaNoWriMo calls on all its cultists to start a Brand New Project on November 1st.

But NaNoWriMo has been very, very good to me in past years, and I'll pine for it if I don't have any involvement at all. Maybe if the local NaNo cultists do any write-ins, I'll show up and write along in solidarity.

Okay, how about this? I commit to the goal of having a complete rough draft of the Ria story by the end of November. I'll break out all the old NaNoWriMo tools and tricks, and post progress bars, the works.

Meanwhile, thanks to oaktavia for the pages from the 2004 astrological calendar. Now I know exactly how many days the plot will take to run from start to finish, and I have some dates to hang the incidents on.

Comments

[jasminewind.livejournal.com]

Can't wait for you to need a beta reader - are you allowed to get help from friends when you have an editor waiting?

I love the Rugosa coven stuff!

Sounds like you have a good plan for how to use this crazed month to your benefit!

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I do still need my beta readers. My editor is crazy busy, and she has really appreciated that the mss for Closing Arguments and Atlantis Cranks were already in a pretty high state of polish. I didn't get them that way alone.

Wordmage

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Sarah,
great to hear from you. Good luck with your novella. I have an interesting challenge this nano month as I am having surgery tommorow and this will require me to write my novel lying on my side. I can't wait to see what pain killer medicine induced plot I'll come up with.

Re: Wordmage

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

It worked for Coleridge. Maybe you can pick up where he left off with the damsel playing on the dulcimer.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Cool.

[criada.livejournal.com]

Pfft. Screw starting a new project. Who's going to know any different? I'm working on something I'm 20,000 words into (I do NOT need a new project) and San's rewriting something old, old, old.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I know, but to rob Robert Frost, I feel like I'm playing tennis with the net down.

[shakti-lemaris.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on PseudoWriMo. Going to try to produce 50k words, but not necessarily a cohesive and brand new novel. Good luck with Ria! Can't wait to see!

[violet-moon25.livejournal.com]

Yes, I want to see the rest of Ria's story. Will begging or nagging help? I've already emailed comments.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

The good thing about being an extrovert is that begging and nagging will definitely help. The bad thing about being an extrovert is that it's hard to protect my the solitary time for writing unless somebody is begging and nagging for the product.

Thanks for the comments. Fragmentary as it is, the story feels so much more real to me now that it has its first readers.

[violet-moon25.livejournal.com]

Well fragmentary seems to fit since Ria doesn't seem to be feeling very together in the opening bits.

The is me begging very politely for another scene or two in the next couple of weeks. Please?

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

If PseudoWriMo goes well, I should certainly have more scenes roughed out over the next two weeks.

Ria's troubles are just beginning. I'm considering giving her a run-in with the Jersey Devil. A literal run-in, as in, hitting it with her car at night in the Pine Barrens.