Well well well, 2/3rds of the way through the month, are we? I applaud you! 

For those that aren’t innit, think of all the words you could be writing by switching to NPI. And that’s not such a bad thing, is it? Like … free fish n’ chips or something. Only they’re not free, but they’re easy. As easy as standing up, some blokes might say. Or sitting down and typing, as it were. Others might even say ‘laid back’.

The break-down:

1. A “Knock-out” is 0-249 words. (After the three Days of Reprieve are exhausted!)
2. An “Update” is 250-999 words.
3. A “Session” is 1,000-1,667 words.
4. A “Tougher-than-NaNo” is anything greater than 1,667.
5. A “THE END!” is when you’ve completed your WIP and type ‘THE END’.

1st: Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome back. It’s impressive you’ve made it this far. But I must warn you– the month’s only a third of the way through. And, outside in the wintery winter,  it grows ever colder.

/begin out-of-sync lips/

Your laid-back-fu is good.

But mine is better.

/end out-of-sync lips/

• 10 days in, guys! Grats!!
  Let’s see how we did…
• The break-down:

1. A “Knock-out” is 0-249 words. (After the three Days of Reprieve are exhausted!)
2. An “Update” is 250-999 words.
3. A  “Session” is 1,000-1,667 words.
4. A “Tougher-than-NaNo” is anything greater than 1,667.
5. A “THE END!” is when you’ve completed your WIP and type ‘THE END’.

1st:

These past five days have been some of the most writerly days I’ve ever experienced. And– Holy gravy, I’m first?!? And you know what? It wasn’t too bad. I didn’t feel too stretched out; still worked each day, and still spent lots of time at the hospital with Max.

Yep, NPI Laid-back Edition: So easy, even a caveman can do it. ;)

2nd:

Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, I’m watching each and every one of you, just like the Geico money.

(for those not familiar.)

And so far everyone’s doing an excellent job– OR ARE THEY??? Well, everybody’s still innit at least.

With the first five days done, let’s see where we stand.

• The break-down:

1. A “Knock-out” is 0-249 words. (After the three Days of Reprieve are exhausted!)
2. An “Update” is 250-999 words.
3. A  “Session” is 1,000-1,667 words.
4. A “Tougher-than-NaNo” is anything greater than 1,667.
5. A “THE END!” is when you’ve completed your WIP and type ‘THE END’.

1st:

Merrilee, as usual, is a fierce opponent! But ouch, two Days of Reprieve already. Five days in and this is getting verrrry interesting. Laid-back, but iiiinteresting. Yep, she’s kicking our laid-back butts.

2nd: Read the rest of this entry »

I try to remind myself that I can say something today that I couldn’t say last year, and honestly wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to say: I’m done with my first draft! I’m in the editing/revision step. How would me-one-year-ago feel if I could go into the future and read this post?

I have-to-have-to-have-to keep editing if I ever want to finish this novel, seek publication, go to places like Worldcon and World Fantasy, network and meet people, and have fun writing more novels.  And I intend to do just that. But I can’t just write ‘I need to get scene X done by date Y’. It’s never been that simple for me; conventional methods never seem to work. Read the rest of this entry »

I know I haven’t posted in a moon or two, and I wish I could tell you I’ve been editing this whole time. But let’s just say slow and not-so-steady isn’t working very well.

I’ve gone through the conceptualization of Five Rings and two sequel novels, designed outlines, wrote the entire first book, and now all that’s left is the editing/re-writing.

I thought things would be easy from here. I have the weight of all those steps behind me just crushing me to get finished… but…

What I need is a way to inspire myself to commit to sitting down and editing more often. It’s harder for me to sit down and edit than it has been for me to write. I didn’t expect it to be so difficult. Maybe it’s because the changes I make feel more permanent this time around. I more or less have to get it right this time, you know? Or maybe it’s because a few of my author friends seem to have stopped writing altogether, which is a thought that has depressed me quite a bit.

It’s not that I haven’t been working on Five Rings at all, but, too regularly, I’ve been letting other things distract me. My usual method is to try and get distractions out of my system through oversaturation, but this time I’m starting to feel guilty.

I know there’s a lot of great writers sitting down right now editing. Some of which conceptualized, outlined, wrote, edited, and rewrote all in the time it took me to write my first draft. And that’s what I’ve been telling myself lately to keep my damn butt in this chair. Maybe if I can channel the energies of all these wonderfully dedicated writers and feel some sort of virtual kinship to them, it’ll encourage me to sit down and edit, too. 

But any further advice is welcome.

How do you make the fantastic elements of your stories seem real?

Read the rest of this entry »

I picked up a 3-ring binder (with subject dividers and paper) which has become an invaluable tool as I edit.

The subjects I have inside->

Language:

For different sayings, language patterns, and full-blown languages.

Religion:

To keep track of the cultures and sayings associated with each religion.

Calendar:

To keep track of the date, timelines, open threads, celebrations, etc.

Chapters:

Where I keep track of the goals and changes I make as I edit each chapter.

Maps:

As I edit, every new location gets a quick hand-drawn map to be sure I’ve got everything straight.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s making keeping track of everything much easier; the binder sits open in my lap as a reference as I type.

Can you think of any other subject I overlooked that I can stick in the binder?

In an effort to get through my first draft, I put a few worldbuilding projects on the backburner. And I’m glad I did.

One of those projects was to develop a calendar. Now that I’m in the editing phase, it needs done now. Or else making fixes during later revisions will be a pain.

I first mentioned the madcap idea of creating my own calendar for Five Rings and went into detail with the actual days of the week here. Read the rest of this entry »

So it turns out books on editing and revising are mostly for speeches, dissertations, and essays.

If there’s a book out there solely on the revision process for a novel, I had trouble finding it. Maybe it’s too narrow a market—maybe too few people actually finish their first novel and then need help revising it?

None-the-less, there’s plenty of online articles to find. And most books on writing have a chapter or two devoted to revision. So I’ve been reading some of those, and I’ve found: Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to the finish line—You’ve made it!

Without further ado, the final statistics:

1.

Joseph Lewis:

Read the rest of this entry »

Just two words today.

The & End.

^__^

Yes, the ‘End of the Book’ I’ve been craving since the beginning is upon us!

It feels so good to be done. I’ve been working on this thing since … September 2007.

But it’s just a first draft. To be honest, you couldn’t pay me to show this fuzzy-logic, missing-scene-ridden, poor dialogue version to anybody. I guess that’s what a revision is for, right? :)

I have the option to start a new project for NPI and continue on for the next 6 days, or to stop here. I think at this point I’m going to stop here, keep my mind focused on Five Rings, & read a few books on how to properly tackle a first revision.

I’ll post the final word count when I get Total Assistant working (my free trial expired).

Ahoy thar, mateys. Ye be crossin’ the gangplank to yet another tally fer the Novel-Push Initiative. And this one be massive, includin’ average wordcounts and goin’ from the 15th all the way to the 24th. I’ll spare ye the exposition and let the numbers speak fer themselves.

NPI, says I. Yarr. 

1.

Joseph Lewis:

Tally:

Previous Total WC: 14,479. Read the rest of this entry »

Yo, yo, yo peeps. Not only is it FRIDAY, (yeah, it’s freaking Friday, party people!) but you’ve managed click on another wondrous (read: long-winded) pseudo-weekly progress report of the Novel-Push Initiative.

N

P

I

YEAH BABY!!! Read the rest of this entry »

A few days ago, I was heavily discouraged by certain recent books and movies that are socially embraced and loved even though they have what I may consider bad writing.

In the end, I decided to just move on and be a little upset. And after packsister’s comments, I think we both agreed that we can only write for ourselves and not sweat the luck some of those authors seem to have.

But…I’m going to reiterate something I’ve heard recently that strikes the very core of the issue I’m having.

Gimmicks ultimately can’t compensate for bad writing.

And, with that, I’m at peace with all of this.

But what does that mean, exactly? Read the rest of this entry »

I hope everyone had a lovely Mother’s Day! It’s time to tally again. I decided to wait until day 11 to have an even 10 days to look at.

1.

Joseph Lewis:

A big part of NPI is to aspire to be more like Mr. Lewis. Joseph’s experience with writing and completing novels really shows in his daily word counts. He religiously sits down at the keyboard and writes a sizable amount every day, all while posting insightful blog posts and keeping a busy schedule.

Your diligence has been an inspiration for me to try harder this month.

Tally:

Read the rest of this entry »

This is what I was trying to post yesterday. But thanks to some glitchcraft, it wouldn’t post. :P

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s time to tally. Let’s see how everyone’s doing. (This will not be including Day 5 because not everybody’s posted today’s WC yet.)

1.

Merrilee Faber:

Read the rest of this entry »

Okay! Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve crossed the finish line! The checkered flags have been waved, we’re less moody, our wives are happier, we’ve officially got all the word-counts, and boy, does it feel great~!

Now for the fun part: Taking a day off (And seeing how many words we’ve  produced).  Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to March 20th. Here we are, surprised it’s already this far into the month. I think the next eleven days should be the easiest.  Once you get past a certain point, there’s a momentum that you achieve, making it much harder to quit.

1.

packsister:

Packsister decided to go about continuing her werewolf novel in her own way. She willingly took a knock-out on the fifteenth, which—as RG so eloquently put it—anybody would’ve done the same if they felt like an event was compromising the quality of their work. 

Tally: Read the rest of this entry »

Here we are at March 15th already. Great job!

This is the moment of truth. Can we continue to write each day beyond the two-week point? It gets tougher and tougher from here on out. … Can we go the full thirty-one days?

I know that if I can write my quota today, I’ll have broken my own personal record.

With that in mind, today is that special day—the threshold which must be broken!

1.
packsister:

Packsister is still in it, plugging away at her werewolf novel. In fact, she’s broken the 10k mark! Let’s see how she’s doing:

Tally: Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to March 10th! Glad you’re still here :)

The past five days have definitely had their share of highs and lows for us all.

1.
packsister:

Still coming in strong at first place, packsister has been an inspiration. Last time we checked in, she’d written 3,316 words in a mere four days for her werewolf novel. Let’s see how she’s doing now:

Tally:

Previous Total WC: 3,316.
March… Read the rest of this entry »