Greg's NaNoWriMo

Total Word Count: 50,265

45,025

Yes, I've got less than 5,000 words to write to finish this beast. That's fewer words than I've already written today, and I've still got ten hours to go before the deadline. Which should be twice as long as I need.

I'm actually going to make it. And I'm going to do so without resorting to including huge portions of Scripture.

Sorry that I haven't been updating with the chapters the past few days. I've been writing so furiously, I just don't have time to format the posts for that. It looks like there will be a total of forty chapters. I'm currently about to start writing Chapter Thirty Four. Once I'm done, I'll likely resume posting the chapters again, even though much of what I've written in the past few days is extremely low quality, even for my low standards for this project.

But in a few more hours, I'll actually be a novelist.

It is extremely liberating to write a novel when you completely throw out any hope of writing something good. I thought that that the stuff I was writing before was terrible. The 4,000+ words that I've written today have sunk to lower levels. Quantity, not quality! This is my new rallying cry.

I'm sitting at 37,404 words right now and am completely confident that I will finish my novel by tomorrow at midnight. I may even be able to do so without quoting large passages of Scripture, which was a word count device Mrs. Mellow suggested to me yesterday.

Imagine the following scene, for example:

"Jeremiah opened his Bible and spoke to the congregation. Today's Scripture lesson comes from the book of John. In fact, today's Scripture lesson is the book of John. In its entirety. [insert text to the book of John here.]"

I'm feeling a little ill today, but I managed to get back on my writing horse and pound some words out. They're not very good words, but they're 2600 words that I didn't even expect to exist. I skipped a chapter -- the one on sermon preparation, because I don't even know what the sermon is about yet. I was also going to skip the chapter on the actual delivery of the sermon and skip right to the after church part of the story. I decided to write a few words about the before church part, and ended up writing 2600 instead of just a few. It worked out pretty well. Well, it worked out well for the word count, anyway. This is a chapter that could use some heavy editing, although I did actually find myself supporting a potentially important plot point in this chapter, so at least that's something.

Still, I'm 10,000 words behind schedule.

Words written today: 2619
Total words written: 24,069
Goal for today: Lots of words
Goal for tomorrow: I'm so far behind schedule, goals are laughable
Where I should be: 32,300
Chapters written today: 1
Total chapters written: 19

If you'd like to be able to read the novel itself, you need to be added to the list of "LJ friends" who have access to the protected entries in this journal. If you'd like such access, reply to this comment or let me know via email, and I'll hook you up.

I'm behind schedule. I didn't write Thursday or Friday, and only did a little writing on Saturday. Now, it's Wednesday, and I'm just getting back to writing again. I'm 10,000 words behind. I can still make it up.

Words written today: 976
Total words written: 21,450
Goal for today: 20,400
Goal for tomorrow: I'm so far behind schedule, goals are laughable
Chapters written today: 1
Total chapters written: 18

If you'd like to be able to read the novel itself, you need to be added to the list of "LJ friends" who have access to the protected entries in this journal. If you'd like such access, reply to this comment or let me know via email, and I'll hook you up.

Well, I skipped writing yesterday, after getting slightly ahead of schedule. So I had a tall order to fulfill in order to get back on track today. I barely made it -- I'm 74 words over where I should be considering being on the thirty-day plan. I've already got most of the next chapter written in my head, but I'm too tired to try to do it now.

And today's writing has come to re-emphasize that the stuff I'm writing for this really is not very good. But, hey, at the end of the month, I should be able to legitimately say "Greg Cohoon, Novelist."

Words written today: 2790
Total words written: 20,474
Goal for today: 20,400
Goal for tomorrow: 22,200
Chapters written today: 1
Total chapters written: 17

If you'd like to be able to read the novel itself, you need to be added to the list of "LJ friends" who have access to the protected entries in this journal. If you'd like such access, reply to this comment or let me know

I'm still behind where I want to be, but I'm pretty much on track. I'm sure I'll fall behind again late in the week. Perhaps I'll be able to build a buffer beforehand. Anyway, I've already got chapter seventeen written in my head, but I'm going to go to bed instead of writing it now. There's a chapter coming up soon that I'm not looking forward to writing -- the chapter where Jeremiah delivers his sermon. Do I actually write the sermon that he delivers, or do I just sketch it out?

Words written today: 2123
Total words written: 17,684
Goal for today: 17,600
Goal for tomorrow: 19,700
Chapters written today: 2
Total chapters written: 16

If you'd like to be able to read the novel itself, you need to be added to the list of "LJ friends" who have access to the protected entries in this journal. If you'd like such access, reply to this comment or let me know via email, and I'll hook you up.

I got back in the groove a little bit. I'm still not caught up with what my 2000 wpd goal, but I've at least got back on track with the word count for 1700 wpd. I expect to get a bit farther tomorrow. I'm also going to dispense with my parenthetical goal-keeping. As I continue to have days where I slip, It's just going to be more and more difficult to keep up with what my parenthetical goal would be. From now on, my goal is going to be the greater of 2000 words added to the previous day's final word count or the product of 1700 words and the day of the month. If I keep to that, then at the worst case, I'll finish my novel on the thirtieth of the month.

Words written today: 2622
Total words written: 15,561
Goal for today: 16,000
Goal for tomorrow: 17,600
Chapters written today: 2
Total chapters written: 14

Silly me with my character names. I even wrote myself a cheat sheet with my list of characters, yet I still managed to mix them up a little. Part of this is a byproduct of naming as many of my characters with double names as possible.

Anyway, the little girl's name is Laura Anne. Anytime you've seen me refer to her as Laura Elizabeth, please ignore that. Her mother's name is Mary Elizabeth. I'm not going to bother going back and fix it in the chapters I've already posted. Hopefully, I'll not slip like this again.

I didn't write anything on November 8. I thought about where I wanted the story to go a little bit, at least. I hope to be able to catch back up. I'm a little more than two days behind, but I think I should be OK.

Words written today: 0
Total words written: 12,939
Goal for today: 16,00 (18,500)
Goal for tomorrow: 16,000 (20,500)
Chapters written today: 0
Total chapters written: 12

Today was another tough day, but the weekend is just around the corner. In other good news, I have now passed the 25% mark. I guess my novel feels like it's a quarter over. I'm sleep, so I'm going to bed.

Words written today: 1235
Total words written: 12,939
Goal for today: 14,000 (16,500)
Goal for tomorrow: 16,00 (18,500)
Chapters written today: 1
Total chapters written: 12

It was another tough day. I did come home at lunch today and work on the novel, but didn't even get to my 12,500 goal before going back to work. Never mind getting up to 13,200 or 14,500. I thought yesterday was a low word-count day, but today was even lower.

I don't feel too bad about it -- I'm close to my original schedule, so that's not too bad. With the weekend coming up, I hope to get a lot written then. At least I finished out another chapter today.

Words written today: 534
Total words written: 11,704
Goal for today: 13,200 (14,500)
Goal for tomorrow: 14,000 (16,500)
Chapters written today: less than one
Total chapters written: 11

November 5 was a tough day. I was tired most of the day, and I had several activities after work to attend to. That, plus wanting to watch "Smallville" (which jumped the shark multiple times last night) and the CMA Awards Show last night kept my word count down. I only got about a quarter of the words I was hoping for. I'll need to have a 3300 word day in order to get back on track with my schedule.

Words written today: 659
Total words written: 11,170
Goal for today: 12,500
Goal for tomorrow: 13,200 (14,500)
Chapters written today: less than one
Total chapters written: 10+

My (still untitled) novel is a cruel mistress. At least I met my aggressive goal today and I'm over 10,500 words. That's more than 20% done, which excites me some. I'm not entirely happy with some of the stuff I cranked out tonight, so I'll just have to wait until December to start editing. I'm not sure if my story is going to go where it needs to go. And if it does, I'm not sure if it'll be able to last 50,000 words on the way to getting there.

I'm not really at a good stopping point, but I've been forcing myself to keep writing in order to get over 10,500 before going to bed. At least the advantage of not being at a good stopping point is that I'll be able to jump right on tomorrow and get a lot accomplished. That's the theory, anyway. I'm part way into Chapter Eleven. Soon, I think my novel will start to get where I want it to move plot-wise. I ended up with a little more character development (most of it unnecessary, no doubt) than I anticipated.

At this point, I think I'd rather watch the movie version of this story than read about it. Enough chit-chat -- now for the day's stats:

Words written today: 2493
Total words written: 10,511
Goal for today: 10,000 (10,500)
Goal for tomorrow: 12,500
Chapters written today: 3+
Total chapters written: 10+

If you'd like to be able to read the novel itself, you need to be added to the list of "LJ friends" who have access to the protected entries in this journal. If you'd like such access, reply to this comment or let me know via email, and I'll hook you up.

Today was a good day for my novel. I finally advanced the plot to where I wanted it to be at the end of chapter one. I managed to make that take 8000 words instead of 2000. I'm a lot wordier than I thought I would be -- but I'm not complaining! I've been able to flush out my main character and the town a little more than I had anticipated, for which I'm thankful. I'm also thankful that the extra word count will allow me to completely throw away some terrible scenes I had outlined for the middle of the story. I really need to sit down with my index cards and re-work some of the plot outline so I don't get mired in a bunch of unnecessary muck.

The 8300 goal in parenthesis represents what my goal would have been if I hadn't fallen behind in my daily goal yesterday. I might be able to catch up with that goal tomorrow, but I'm not too worried. It was a goal I gave myself by adding 2000 to the total count from Saturday, when I was already ahead of the game.

If I keep to it, I'll actually be 20% finished by tomorrow evening!

Words written today: 2204
Total words written: 8018
Goal for today: 8000 (8300)
Goal for tomorrow: 10,000 (10,500)
Chapters written today: 2
Total chapters written: 7

If you'd like to be able to read the novel itself, you need to be added to the list of "LJ friends" who have access to the protected entries in this journal. If you'd like such access, let me know, and I'll hook you up.

I wrote a chapter today. I was hoping to write at least two. In addition to my daily chapter goal, i fell short of my daily word goal by a little more than four hundred words. I could remedy that by working on Chapter Six, but I'm just too tired to go on right now. I'm written slightly over ten percent of my required word count and I'm almost a full day's worth of word count ahead of schedule, so I'm not going to push myself too hard this early in the game.

In the next chapter, Jeremiah's finally going to get a good night's sleep. I'm hoping to do that in real life in a few minutes myself.

Words written today: 1572
Total words written: 5814
Goal for today: 6300
Goal for tomorrow: 8000 (8300)
Chapters written today: 1
Total chapters written: 5

It's only the second day of NaNoWriMo and I'm already finding creative ways to procrastinate! I've decided to keep a running total of daily word count, total word count, and number of chapters written (daily and total). Originally, I was anticipating writing a chapter a day, but I ended up writing four chapters on the first day. I've got a good start into the fifth chapter right now, and I'll finish it and perhaps another chapter before I go to bed tonight.

I'll also use these public entries to muse out loud on the progress of my novel. So far, I'm pretty happy. I've had help from my family already -- I'm terrible at coming up with names. I was away for the weekend with Mrs. Mellow and some of her family. I got some great suggestions from them. For example, Mrs. Mellow came up with a three word town name (Nickel Creek Falls) that I'm using.

The sheriff still needs a name. I like "Little Bill," but that was the name of the sheriff in "Unforgiven," and I'm probably already borrowing enough from Clint Eastwood movies. No need to take the names, too. Besides, the sheriff of Nickel Creek Falls isn't detestable like the Gene Hackman character was.... So, "Little XXXX" but "XXXX" is still undetermined. Once I got "Bill" in my head, everything else sounded dumb. Perhaps I need to give up on "Little."

Comments and suggestions, BTW, are always welcome.

Anyway, here are my stats for November 1. I need to get back to Chapter Five.

Words written today: 4242
Total words written: 4242
Goal for today: 2000
Goal for tomorrow: 6300
Chapters written today: 4
Total chapters written: 4

I had a productive weekend. I've set a goal of 2000 words per day instead of the 1700 that will just barely get me to the finish line (50,000 words) by the end of November. If I can keep on track with 2000 words per day, I'll finish my novel with five days to spare. Even better, today's goal was to be at 4000 and I'm already at 4490. Even better than that is I plan to have a couple more hours of writing before I go to bed this evening. That'll put me over a day ahead of schedulle, which will be a nice place to be.

Before midnight came around on Friday night, and I could start writing, I actually managed to plot out thirty days worth of writing. (Hrmmm, with a 2000 words per day goal, that should have been twenty-five days worth. Oh well, I'll restructure. Some of the last things I was sketching out were pretty bad.) A few minutes after midnight, I started typing away. I still haven't progressed the story to the point I was hoping to be at 2000 words.

Like I said, I think I'm off to a good start.

I'll be posting the first four chapters of my (still untitled) novel later this evening. If you'd like to read them, you must be listed as a LiveJournal "friend" of drmellow_novel. If you want access, let me know and I'll add you.

Prompted by some good advice, I've decided to make the posts in this journal friends-only. No, I don't really intend on ever getting my novel published, but it won't hurt to protect myself some. If you'd like to read my novel in-progress, let me know and I'll add you to the list of people who can read it.

Hi, this is drmellow and this is my journal for NaNoWriMo. I intend to post my novel here as I write it. I may post other things (like this note, e.g.) as I go along, too.

I welcome comments about my novel. I may or may not act on them. My main goal is producing lots and lots of words. I don't care if the novel isn't very good. I can always edit it in December if I want. I just want to be able to say "Greg Cohoon, Novelist" by the time the end of November rolls around.