NaNoWriMo 2011 - day 6

Word count: 14050

I'm ahead of schedule and having fun. It's been a busy weekend and I haven't gotten a chance to write as much as I wanted, but I did more than the minimum daily word count.

My story is growing into something darker and deeper than I imagined. It's going to be a long one too. I'm predicting 100,000 words. Though possibly 20,000 will be deleted in the editing process. As I said before, there's lots of dialogue.

I've seen a couple of people that have already made the 50,000 word mark. Wow. You guys are writing machines. And at least one of you is a parent! You're all amazing. For the rest of you, keep writing. You can do it!

I'm tired tonight. I didn't get an extra hour of sleep last night with the time change. We kept our son up an hour later, but he was still up at an early hour. I'm going to curl up on the couch with some ice cream and watch The Walking Dead. Have a good Sunday night!

Oh! And since I missed Snapshot Saturday yesterday, here's a picture of my backyard. The Japanese Maple is bright red and losing its leaves. I love all autumn colors even though I'll have to rake them up eventually.

NaNoWriMo 2011 - day 4

Word count: 10014

I'm surprising myself with how well it's going. Why did I find it so difficult last year when my son was an infant and sleeping more? I'm lucky he's been sleeping much at all this week because he's been sick. I was worried that I wouldn't write a lot any time again until he was in preschool, but yes! I can do it.

I've been writing a lot of dialogue. Kevin Smith length dialogue. My inner editor is trying to shake down her cell to delete those last four pages. They're staying. She can revise next year. I've always had a problem with my characters talking too much. Even the quiet ones chatter on too much. I wonder what would happen if I wrote a story where everyone was mute. There's an interesting challenge.

I've been looking at everyone's word counts. You're doing amazingly! And for the few of you who had a rough start, don't worry. It's only the fourth. You've got twenty-six more days. Go for it! You can do it!

The little things

I haven't gone back to writing my dark fantasy short story yet. I've been editing one of my novels this week. I found a few tips from an agent's blog. They have helped a lot in making my dialogue feel more natural. It's amazing how the little things that you think are helping your reader aren't. I'm guilty of having characters use each other's names too often in conversation. I thought I was helping the reader by letting them know who was being addressed, but in real life, we don't often use each other's names in conversation except to get the other person's attention or to be snarky. Pet names we use more frequently, but they're meant to endear. It's demeaning to use a person's name repeatedly while talking. You're treating them like a child. It's common sense now that I think about it.

I was happy to receive an email from Colette at A Buckeye Girl Reads today telling me that I won a giveaway. Yay! I won a copy of Misty Evans' book Witches Anonymous. I can't wait to read it.

To all of you who are going to see the new Harry Potter film this weekend, please know that I'm jealous. I might get a chance to see it next Friday if we can find a babysitter, but I'm sad that I won't be able to go during the big release weekend. Enjoy the movie!