Tag: novel

Thoughts From The Winners Podium

Yesterday I finished my 50,000 word NaNoWriMo novel.  I am now officially a winner.  And I am not sure what I feel.  The last 5k was somewhat haggard as I hit the wall at the 45k mark.  Having quickly realised that I didn’t have time to be methodical I wrote a prologue and an epilogue to help me stagger over the finish line.  Today is the first morning where I don’t have to write, yet here I am, a literary crack head.

Every day for the last twenty-nine I have woken up and engaged myself in the life of others.  Today I shall not.  My plan for the next week is to submit my first novel to the next agent, write nothing and read a little.  First I shall re-read the excellent Dice Man by Luke Rhineheart, and then hopefully having grown some distance to myself will I start to look at if anything can come out of November’s madness.

My doubts are not due to the nature of NaNoWriMo but more due to the fact that I have written a novel which finishes in 50,000 words, which in my opinion is far to short for most publishers.  Ideally 80k is a minimum.  I am not convinced by the idea of increasing the size of the story by an extra 50%, as at 50k the story seems to evolve quite naturally.  Whether my opinion will change at some point I don’t know.

Another question is what I do with this blog.  Having initially promised myself that I would resign from it on my 31st birthday, here I am.  I will think that over through December and make a decision in the new year.

I suppose the biggest positive to come out of November is the fact that I can say that I have written two novels.  For the first time I find myself feeling like a novelist as opposed to someone who has written a novel.  The only question now is whether they will ever see the light of day.  For the time being I can remain confident in the fact that I am, and I probably will always remain a literary failure.

40k Day Tomorrow

It’s hard to believe that for some time I fell behind schedule with my novel.  Part of me was considering jacking it in, as  I had absolutely lost faith.  For the  last 15-20k I have been feeling like it was impossible, that my story would never stretch.  Today I have stopped on 38k, confidence that my 2k a day system will finally catch me back up.  Today was my fastest yet.  I can finally see the finish line and my compulsive nature is now in fifth gear.  I don’t want to go to work, I don’t want to sleep, I don’t want to eat, I just want to write.  I have to force myself to break my cycle.  I love this feeling.  And it only gets stronger between now and the end of a project.

One thing which I have enjoyed is watching the story evolve.  At the beginning I had a clear plan on the subjects I wanted to touch on, but no plan of how to approach them.  The fact that you have only 30 days to complete the story means that you cannot stop when your plot hits a pothole.  Whereas with my first novel I would take a few days off to get some distance from the story to think about how to get around a ‘plothole’, now I just have to push on.  It’s hard sometimes, however I am enjoying the fact that it feels like a somewhat more natural evolution.  Whether I will feel that way when I read the entire project I don’t know.

Initially I wanted to write a slightly fun novel about a man, religion and ninjas.  The plot does contain elements of all three, however somethings have taken back seat, whilst others have emerged.  Now I feel as if the story is more focused on the powers of grief, belief and human nature.  With some religious commentary, and a ninja.  I have started to read the first part of the novel and have been pleasantly surprised so far.

In the meantime I still have submitted my first novel to my next target as my attention is completely fixated on my NaNoWriMo project.  I will try to find time, alas I can’t see it happening before I write my 50,000th word.  In the meantime I will try to post something on Sunday about being old and miserable.

The Week That Was

I am continuing to beaver away on my novel, so much so that I haven’t had a great amount of time to post anything here.  Therefore this will merely be a small update plus a few words about remembrance day.

I have now passed 22,000 words and am certain to make 25k and quite probably 30k.  The story is progressing well, it is undoubtedly the saddest thing I have ever written.  That doesn’t mean its short of laughs or incredibly depressing.  The whole premise of the novel only works if I can make the reader feel an emotional attachment to the main character.  So far I believe I have done that.  The biggest worry is that I feel like the pace of the story has dropped.  Obviously I can try to rectify it at a later date.  It’s just strange to keep forcing yourself forward.  Since I typed my first word I have banned myself from deleting anything which isn’t in the sentence I am writing.  Therefore I am certain that at times I must have page after page of nonsense.  Nonetheless I shall keep moving forward.

Nowadays it seems that no remembrance day can go by without a protest and a counter protest and a counter-counter protest.  A large number of idiots in the world seem intent on politicizing a day which is meant to be about dignity and respect.  Participating in remembrance day has absolutely nothing to do with the righteousness of any given war it is about remembering those who have given their lives in defence or in an attempt to better the lives of others.  It saddens me to see the number of 21st century digital soldiers who are idiotic enough to believe that slandering the memory of the men who marched through hell on our behalf is okay.  These i-phone loving, kindle reading, latte-sipping, nike-wearing, shit-talking, soul-less cowards are the evidence that somewhere down the line we, the human race have got it massively wrong.

35,000 Words To Go

Today I passed the 15,o00 word mark and must confess that first time I can see problems looming on the horizon.   Perhaps I was slightly naive in believing that I could free write my way to 50,000 words using a concept I refused to develop before starting.  I wanted the evolution to be natural and unfortunately I am starting to suspect that I won’t make the 30,000 word mark using this idea as it stands.

For the first time I have sat down and actually tried to plot my story line in part to help me maintain a clear direction and also to help me roughly estimate how many words I can pull from this concept.  I do not want to pointlessly pad out the plot as  that would deem the last 9 days as a waste.  My plan of action for now is to write the remainder of the story and then worry after.

In the last post I declared that I wouldn’t read the novel until the 1st of December.  Unfortunately that is now clearly impossible and incredibly unrealistic.  In hindsight I can think of a number of places where I could add new scenes which would add something to the story quite naturally.  The irritating fact is that I have very specifically tried to write a pacey, punchy manuscript and I am certain that when it comes to writing additional scenes I am  sure to disrupt the flow.  Nevertheless I shall cross that bridge when I come to it.

In the meantime my better half has started to read through what I have already written.  Her first impression is that this is the clearest and most focused story I have written.  The best news is that the major twist on which the whole plot depends, caught her completely unaware.  Her opinion means a great deal to me, although I know she is too lovely to ever tell me get a grip, give up and get a life.  Which means one of two things, either we are both completely crazy or I am a very lucky man indeed.

10,000 Words

In 6 days of writing I have comfortably broken the 10,000 word barrier.  I can now say to myself that I am 20% finished.  It is a pretty awesome, awe-inspiring feeling as it makes be believe that writing a 50,000 word novel in a month is well within the reams of possibility.  The fact that NaNoWriMo gives you daily word targets gives you a greater sense of exactly where you are in regards to completing your novel which in turn helps you keep your feet on your ground, and keep you focused.

At the moment I feel this project is far removed, and so different from anything I have ever written in my life.  Whether it will end up as a failed experiment or something I can be proud of I don’t know.  It’s exciting to be working on something which is pushing me as a writer.  It is a million miles from my comfort zone.  I have banned myself from reading it, and I shall do my level best to resist the temptation until November is finished, this way I can be assured that there will be at least one person excited to read it.

In the last update I was talking about how unusual words can come up when you write and grab your attention.  The recent word which has fascinated me is ‘lambasted’.  When you read it with a southern english accent it sounds like it means ‘to break something with a young sheep’.