When I was 15, I stumbled across an intriguing project: NaNoWriMo.  The idea caught my attention.  50,000 words of a novel in the 30 days of November? It was a writer’s dream come true.  After spending the last days of October mulling over it, I jumped in during the first week of November, 2007.  On November 30th, I had the first 50,000 words of a novel that’s giving me grief to this day.

In 2008, I did it again.  This time historical fiction took the place of fantasy, and everything was a bit less planned than the year before.  It was still a worthwhile experience, and my number of NaNo successes rose to 2.

In 2009…well, I did it again.

Today is November 30th, 2010.  I can’t help but feel that right about now, I should be coming down the home stretch: counting down the words to 50,000.

But this year, I am wordless.

With a host of other activities and responsibilities vying for my attention, NaNoWriMo somehow slipped through the cracks.  I hope next year will be different–November without NaNo is just a little sad.

But for all of you writers keeping your eye on 50k, know that I’m cheering from the sidelines.  50,000 will be worth it–and you’ll have 11 months to survey your work and wonder how so much less-than-perfect writing could have ever escaped your pen.  Er, keyboard.

You have a few hours left, Wrimos.  Write on!

And with that, consider yourself up-to-speed.  More to come!

Hope is simply amazing, and I am pretty much amazingly blessed to have her for three weeks.  I have a feeling we’ll enjoy ourselves…but maybe that’s just me?

]]> http://bethmaisano.com/2009/12/two-together/feed/ 13 http://bethmaisano.com/2009/11/nanowrimo-day-21/ http://bethmaisano.com/2009/11/nanowrimo-day-21/#comments Sun, 22 Nov 2009 05:29:41 +0000 Beth http://bethmaisano.com/2009/11/21/nanowrimo-day-21/ Wow.  How did that number get so big?  Apparently November is slipping by as fast as the rest of the year.

Yesterday, I wrote a little bit for the first time in…seven or eight days.  Yes, I’ve done it again and saved all the work for the last week and a half.  I don’t know why I can’t just be normal and write a little every day like everyone else.

Current word count is 22,079.  About 4,000 from the past 24 hours.

The story itself is absolutely laughable.  I don’t think I have enough plot to believably fill the 50,000 words, so it’s become almost a character study—getting into the brains of multiple characters, playing around with dialogue, and realizing that the main character I intended to write about is by far the most boring one in the story.  Bummer.

I guess that’s NaNoWriMo for you.

Happy debaters—and a happy debate coach!

Former partners, turned LDers.

These guys…well, they had lots of fun.  Maybe more fun than should be humanly possible.

Danielle and Christina, two loverly ladies.

It’s just kinda fun to scare people with the Maisano/Morgan name.  (The initial fear doesn’t usually last long, but oh well.)

Afterward, we went out for dinner and checked out ballots.  Fun stuff.

So, it was a good day.  Full of friends and debates and candy and pizza and all sorts of awesome things.  What could be better?

(For those of you wondering about NaNoWriMo…no, I’m not giving up just yet.  Yes, the word count widget on the right is accurate.  It’s so much more fun to make an epic comeback in the last week…right?)

Yes!  I wrote 56 words over the past three days!

But I also went to the lake with wonderful friends, had a fun orchestra practice, worked on essays for school, and edited and (almost) memorized a speech for competition on Saturday.  It’s been a good week.

Just wanted to post that, because it makes me rather happy.  Week one of NaNoWriMo has come to a close!

Yes, I wrote practically nothing today and yesterday.

This is what comes about when you toss two characters together just for the sake of dialogue, and then try to coax some life out of them.  It’s fun in the sense that I threw historical accuracy out the window and just played with it.  Not so fun in the fact that it’s hard to coax life out of two rather flat characters.

For those of you who were so kind as to comment on the last excerpt…well, I won’t even try to give a disclaimer.

All you who are embarking on your first NaNoWriMo, or considering it for next time: read and understand the absolute truth of the statement “quantity, not quality.”

—

Lilly paused a moment, and then decided that he had no right to treat her thus.  She ran a few steps and stood to face him again.  He didn’t appear surprised.

“What’s your name?” she demanded.

“Joel Delaney.  Second lieutenant.”

“Lilly Maloch.”  She paused.  “Laundress.”  She tried hard to keep any insincerity out of her voice, and was satisfied upon seeing the corner of Joel’s mouth turn up in a crooked smile.

“You do laundry?” he asked after a moment, as if giving in to her small-talk.  “From the looks of it, the boys in here need it.”

“Of course they do.  That’s why I do it.”  She tossed her hair over her shoulder.  “You said your name’s Delaney?  It sounds familiar.”

He shrugged.

Lilly brightened suddenly.  She always appreciated it when she remembered something important—or not so important.

“It’s in Erasmus’s book!” she said triumphantly, and he raised an eyebrow.  “He’s writing a story.”

“Erasmus?  Can’t say I know the man.”

“You do too.  He counts heads three times a day.”  She grinned.

“Ah.  The clerk.  What’s this about the story?”

“He likes to write, and he borrows his names from his lists.  Congratulations, Mr. Delaney.  You’re his main character.”

Joel blinked.  “He doesn’t even know me.”

“Well, he does now.  Or he knows the paper version, anyway.”

“That’s ridiculous.  What’s he writing about?”

“A prison escape.”

She saw him start, and his eyes shifted toward the floorboards.

“A prison escape?”

“Yes.  It’s positively ingenious.”

Lilly eyed him sideways, wondering whether he’d continue to press for more.  He didn’t appear too interested, regardless of his featured position in the tale.  How rude of him.  He ought to at least pretend to show interest.

She sighed a little and turned to leave.

“Well, I don’t suppose you find that terribly fascinating, Mr. Delaney, regardless of the pains I took to tell you.”

He didn’t appear to take that bait, either.  “Well, I hope the pains will leave you shortly.”

She frowned darkly.  “Good day, Mr. Delaney!”

He tipped his hat to her as she left.

—

At the risk of sounding much the same as yesterday and discouraging any further visits to this uninteresting blog…today’s writing was quite uneventful.  My one small victory was in scribbling out a short-term outline in a notebook.  I now have at least a few thousand words planned out.  Who knows where it’ll go after that?

One-fifth of the way there.  That makes me happy.

Today, I managed to put on paper a few pointless rambles that would have been best off remaining in a character’s brain.  Then I stuck another character in solitary confinement when he ought to be meeting people and getting the plot moving.  Hard to meet people in solitary confinement.  Another character, the delightful Erasmus Ross, has discovered that he enjoys writing and is overcoming his addiction to cliches.  Hey, don’t laugh.  It’s a big deal for him.

So, 9,000 words into this story, there’s really not much of a story at all—it would better be described as a rather uninteresting narrative of three rather uninteresting lives.  Here’s hoping they’ll do something interesting sometime soon.