The Mysterious Amalgam

Good advice

nospam@example.com (Daniel Brunk) — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 12:57:10 -0700

45090 / 50000 words. 90% done!

Today I woke up in a panic. The more I thought about the dreams I had, the more I would unconsciously hold my breath. This isn't news to me, I've been told I do it a lot. I found this stop and breathe..., to be timely advice.

Perhaps, you can use the advice too. The lecturer wanted to help people who have chronic and life-ending illnesses. But in our own mind, don't we all have something we deem as chronic and life-ending? Most of the time these feelings are misplaced, it won't be the end of life as we know it. I found comfort in the advice. I'm grateful to the blog author, for taking the time to summarize it for me.

The climax equals 8%

nospam@example.com (Daniel Brunk) — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 21:49:53 -0700

43077 / 50000 words. 86% done!

I wrote the climax tonight. Now I have about 15-6% of the resolution and work down and then I'm pretty much done. There wasn't that much to do tonight and it went pretty smoothly once I made it clear there weren't to be many interruptions. The interruptions were pretty light, and the flow went well. I was able to knock it out in about two hours maybe two hours and a half. There was ton of noise since I was sitting in with my wife as she worked the photo lab shift at the university she'll be graduating from in december, if everything goes right.

close to the 40k mark

nospam@example.com (Daniel Brunk) — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 21:03:40 -0700

39522 / 50000 words. 79% done!

Oh boy! Well I fell behind. I fell behind and then I caught up and if you looked at the nice and pretty chart which NaNoWriMo provides in their my NaNo tab. today was the first day I was able to pull up and over just doing the minimum. I would usually get in an extra hundred or so words, but it wasn't enough to even get close to pulling over one day or more ahead.

Then there was today. Today was pretty much all devoted to writing on the project. Sadly, this means I've missed a church meeting. No one seemed to miss me too much. My wife spent almost 9 hours in the photography darkroom at the university working on the projects that are due on Monday. So even as I'm working on that, she's working on finishing up mats and doing framing for the assignment.

New furthest point

nospam@example.com (Daniel Brunk) — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 21:55:39 -0700

30070 / 50000 words. 60% done!

OK. Here it is folks, the furthest I've ever gotten in Nanowrimo in the four years which I've participated. Still I've never won, but I've gotten a new furthest point. This might be the year that I actually pull it off. That would be awesome, seeing that there's a 50% off coupon for Scrivener at the finish line.

I have to admit, I do like what I'm seeing in Scrivener. I like it's format and its outlining tools.

Check In and Check Out

nospam@example.com (Daniel Brunk) — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 12:27:55 -0700

18273 / 50000 words. 37% done!

Things are still going. We survived the time change and apparently the servers at Nanowrimo didn't get changed over. They called the word count an hour early on me, so I'm typing more today to make up for the stats. I'm really digging the little stat chart with the line, I do my best to stay above it, even if I forget/choose to type on Sunday.

I got some odd looks last night. I showed up at a Diddam's party supply store and asked them if they sold plastic babies. I learned that asking over the phone if they sold babies was way too general for the sales associates. After explaining that I was looking for a party favor sized babies, I was directed to a place where they had three different types. I received more strange looks when I explained that, most likely some of them, would end up spray-painted gray. There's never a dull moment when you're hunting supplies down for one of my wife's photo-projects.

One quarter of the way

nospam@example.com (Daniel Brunk) — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 18:43:08 -0600

12854 / 50000 words. 26% done!

Well, I must be doing something right. Not because I've past up the quarter mark, but I'm feeling general disgust for the topic. I admit it is something that's normal. The hate and the burn-out for the topic. it's perfectly normal. I've made it out of the beginnings; The long middle is where I'm at currently.

"Standing on the shoulders of giants"

nospam@example.com (Daniel Brunk) — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 14:20:51 -0600

8819 / 50000 words. 18% done!

Today the entry is about the inner editor.

Yesterday, the message at the Procrastination station on Nanowrimo's official website was, "Permission to Suck, Granted!" I've been thinking about that. I've been thinking about what I'm writing and at the same time that little pessimistic voice in my head is saying things like, "you could have written that better..." or "don't you think you've just about exhausted all the ideas in your head?"

Now, I'm not perfect. Ask my wife. But I do know that what I'm writing is a draft. Drafts are allowed to suck. Why? Because no one is grading my draft. There isn't a teacher somewhere looking to give me credit for what I'm doing. I'm in the the school of personal integrity. This means that getting it down is exactly that. Getting it down. I'm taking a moment to "stand on the shoulders of giants" to look into the wisdom of veteran Nanowrimo winners of the past and to do my best to ignore the inner editor.

On the occasion that I do slip up. I don't delete words. I run strike-through through them and then i do my best to reform that thought. This way I preserve the word count. I keep moving forward... If I run out of ideas, well I'll cross that when I get there. Luckily I've enough direction to keep writing, so that's what I'm going to do.

Its too early to feel like Week 2 in Nano

nospam@example.com (Daniel Brunk) — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 16:37:22 -0600

5120 / 50000 words. 10% done!

I still have material which I've planned out in my head. I know that there needs to be some embellishment some fluff given to it. Its hard as I've always struggled with writing things in way that shows rather than tells. Its easy to say for example, Young Filian wants to be free of responsibility, meets dangerous stranger. To stretch that sentence out into a thousand words or more, for me that's difficult. I'm getting a better feel for the normal time restraints. it seems it takes me about an hour and a half of uninterrupted time to make the daily quota.