Update: Woggy #24

Yes folks, after four years of repeated perseverance, and thirty days of trials and tribulations, I have at last succeeded at achieving the previously elusive goal of achieving the NaNo challenge of writing a full 50,000 words within one month. I began my month not expecting I would reach it, then after a week of steady on-par progress, I became excited that I would actually be achieving it.

Then halfway through the month, I allowed life's duties to overtake the writing and fell behind. The week after that I grew despondent and was sure I would never, ever be able to finish a NaNo challenge, but from the depths of this pit I decided to just start writing anyway, little by little, hour after hour, day after day. And before I knew it I was not only on par but well above par for completing at the end of the month. Then, to my surprise, several days ahead from the end with just a mere 2000 words to go, I began fearing my success.

I stopped cold for a day and a half, afraid of what succeeding at this goal might mean. In the face of this I decided to use the same strategy that had got me through my mid-month slump, and just sat down to write with no thoughts of specific expectation. Before I knew it, I was looking at the NaNo "Congratulations, Winner" page, with two days to spare on the calendar. In shock at my success at first, I've slowly been learning to accept it (strange as that may sound), and I now look ahead to the next horizon for my book, which is finishing the novel.

By my calculations plot-wise, I am about half-way through the book, and therefore should have about 50,000 words to go. But if I managed that many words in under one month flat, I figure competing the first draft of my novel within another 6 months should be no trouble at all. All I need to do is get writing!!

Things Left to Complete This Woggy Project:

• determine a new more moderate daily and/or weekly word count goal
• create a chart for logging progress
• begin writing
• repeat, repeat, repeat until draft 1 is complete
• devise plan for revision process
  

Woggy #24: Moon Walk Novel

Yes, people, November is here again and that can mean only one thing (besides decomposing pumpkins and constant robocalls to all American voters, of course) and that is, novel writing time! I've begun my novel for this year on a good note if you consider the amount I wrote yesterday, or a bad one if you consider here I am on day two procrastinating my novel by making this blog entry instead.

In any case, for those interested in the subject of my novel: it is set on the moon, which instantly makes it "science fiction" even if it's really something else, because well, in case you hadn't noticed, we are not yet living on the moon in real life. One might think the normal definition of "writing what is not exactly the same as real life" could just be called "fiction", but seeing as all space-related imaginings have been deemed by some cosmic entity to be "scientific", I guess that leaves me with my "science fiction" novel.

For those interested in my day-to-day progress (as I do not plan on providing day to day updates here...) you can check my NaNo page, or (hopefully, if I get it working properly) you can check this nifty widget here:



Things Left to Complete This Woggy Project:

• write 1667 words
  
• repeat each day for every day in November
• after Dec 1, devise plan for continuing and completing the remainder of the novel
• etc., etc., to be determined after Dec 1
  

Update: Woggy #11

In pure woggy style, my best laid plans for writing 50,000 words of a high-seas adventure novel within the month of November (otherwise known as Woggy #11) did not pan out exactly as planned. However, as you can see above, I did in fact get 7413 words of that novel written, and now have a whole host of very interesting characters who now are developed enough to be quietly but insistently requesting completion of their story.

Therefore, while I was unable to complete the immediate goal of NaNo competition completion, this woggy project will now transform itself into a new set of goals directed at completion of the novel in general.

Things Left To Complete This Woggy Project:

• begin writing my sea novel again
  
• write 1,000 words of my story
• repeat, repeat, repeat
  
• dance a salty seamen's jig when I reach 50K
• write 1,000 more words of my story
• repeat, repeat, repeat until novel rough draft is complete
  
• begin novel revisions
• set new goal: getting novel published
  

Woggy #11: NaNo High-Seas Adventure Novel!

As I mentioned previously with Woggy #5, being a participant in National Novel Writing Month means that my entire month of November is devoted to the attempt to begin a new novel and complete 50,000 words of said novel. Well folks, the month is November and that means the day of commencement is today!!

In discussions with other Wrimos (yes, that's what we call ourselves), I have noticed that most others participating in this event seem to like to do alot of preparation and planning ahead of time. Most have a title, main character, plot outline, etcetera, ready to go by the time the day of actual novel writeage rolls around. I, on the other hand, prefer to dive headfirst into this adventure every November not knowing which way the wind will take me. I intentionally did no preparation whatsoever. My first serious thoughts to my novel's topic were this morning, when my muse informed me that this month, we would be writing another fabulous novel in the adventure genre, this time with a socially dysfunctional crew aboard a ship far asea. I have some character names, and just hours ago came up with the ship's name itself, but other than what I've previously said I know little else about this novel other than it will involve alot of fear and somewhere will involve some rubber ducks (as is the custom for Wrimos from Seattle to always include this last somewhere in their stories). Being a water-based adventure, it seems including the ducks should be a rather easy task this year.

So, it is true, I have thus far written a mere 143 words of my novel. (But, as I add to my goal, the above widget will change to reflect my current updated total.) Much of the rest of my "novel" time today has been spent doing my planning, updating my NaNo page with my plans, setting up my whiteboard wordcount tracker, choosing my fabulous novel's cover photo (you see it above), and creating a sea shanty radio station on Pandora to inspire me while I write. My last bit of non-novelesque activity lies in this very blog post you read right now. I expect the intense novelage should be commencing within an hour or so, as that should be just about the time I run out of believable distractions.

Things Left To Complete This Woggy Project:

• write 1,667 words of my story
• repeat above each day of November
  
• dance a salty seamen's jig when I reach 50K
• set a new goal, post-November -- complete the novel
  

Woggy Project #5: '07 NaNo Monkey Novel

Two years ago, about this time of year, I found out about this great yearly event for adventurous writerly types called National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWriMo. In November of every year, people with writer-like aspirations, of all ages, genres, geographical locations, and level of professionalism gather together to pursue one crazy goal: to complete the task, within the confines of one month, of writing at least 50,000 words of a novel.

Now, while I am a person who considers myself a writer, and even have a degree from a prestigious university to that affect, I must admit that sitting down to write that many words of the same piece of writing, let alone within one month, is actually something I had never done before. I've written plenty of poems, short stories, articles, essays, a one-act play, and even the whole first act of a screenplay (which trust me, is alot of pages), but a novel is not something I had ever attempted (let alone succeeded) in doing. I have had (of course yet another woggy project) a novel concept which I for years have been nibbling away at, doing research for, creating characters, writing chapters here and there (in no particular order), but the actual full complete writing part, with large volumes of pages to show for it, was a goal so far off on the horizon I wasn't even really sure how one would really go about doing it. I had read novels of course, and knew how to write of course, but putting the two together to actually reach a finished product, well that was something I have to say was not only intimidating but really a completely mystifying process.

Anyway, the actual place where I heard about this NaNo was an online forum that consisted largely of people who were probably young enough to be my own children. When I started hearing so many of them talking about how they not only planned to try this crazy endeavor, but actually complete it, and in fact that many of them mentioned having already completed the endeavor successfully in past years, well, lets just say I had finally run out of excuses. Especially considering I had no pesky obligations like a job or school getting in my way like probably many of the others did, I realized well, what did I have to lose? I signed myself up and began plugging away like I had never done before. I had no idea what I was doing, and ultimately I finished the month no where near the intended goal of 50,000 words, but I have to say the freedom of just sitting down with no purpose other than to see what might happen after I wrote a few words, and then a few more, and then some more after that, was incredibly liberating, and left me at the end of the month with more written content than I had generated in probably the past five years of my life put together. I was decidedly hooked!

But that was 2006, and the NaNo project I am nominating for woggification number 5 is actually the one from last year, which is one that unlike the first strange project, actually has some chance of someday seeing the light of the outside world as a finished and published novel. As you might imagine, I did much better last year, as I this time had an actual plan of attack, and actually gave myself a schedule, and participated regularly in that, succeeding in surpassing several personal best goals I had set for myself. I ended up with over 20,000 words, and a story interesting enough for me to want to see through to the end of complete novel-age. I call it my monkey novel because the main character of the novel is a monkey. My novel even has a mascot, which is the picture you see above.

While I don't know when I will finish this novel, I have high hopes that this is one woggy project that will live to tell tales in its elder frogitude of its good old woggy days.

Since every NaNo novel is to be a new project you do not begin writing until November first, I for sure will not be completing this woggy project next month, as that of course will be set aside for a brand new NaNo-related woggy project. But someday, somehow, I believe my monkey will have his day in the sun.

Things left to complete this woggy project:

• set aside an afternoon to begin writing again
• begin writing my monkey novel again
• monitor progress and continue to make appointments for future writing days/times
• repeat, repeat, repeat!