It is finished, and I have been bled dry. NaNoWriMo 2014 is officially over for me. Hallelujah! Amen! *plop*
NaNoWriMo 2014: Bled dry
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Author Archives: Joe Hinojosa
NaNoWriMo 2014: Day 30 – Limping towards the finish line
It is day thirty of this madness and I’m limping towards the finish line. I slept only a few hours last night and now I’m wide awake, exhausted, and I think…, I don’t know what I think. Right now, I’m don’t know how to think.
I’ll give you a few facts first. It’s a little after nine in the morning and I have a total of 46,799 words written. I need to write 3201 words to finish. Then factoring in the loss of words due to trying to validate, I probably need to pad my word count by at least a thousand words.
I also had the great idea that we needed to have lasagna for dinner, which since it was my idea, I get to make. From scratch. No store-bought frozen crap. I’ll even make the sauce from scratch. The lasagna noodle will be from a box. I’m not so committed that I’m going to make that from scratch. Also, I don’t own a pasta maker.
Damn I’m tired. I should have written yesterday, and I had originally planned on making it to a write-in, but I went with my brother, my sister, and her two daughters to see Mockingjay Part 1. I’ll review it later, maybe. Then I bought some shoes. Then we went to eat at Fuddruckers.
But I surely can write about 4K words by midnight, even with my stupid idea to make dinner tonight. I’ll have to postpone my book review a few days, which bums me out. I wonder if any of this is coherent. It seems so in my sleep-deprived state.
Also I’m hungry, and exhausted. I want to sleep. I also want someone to hold me.
It’s almost over….
God help me
NaNoWriMo 2014: Day 29 – Oh crap, oh crap
Two more days of this madness: where do you stand? I’ve seen many of my fellow Wrimos already surpass the 50K mark, and some others are way behind. Myself, I’m behind as well, but not too bad. I’m at 44,481, which means I lack only 5519 until I cross the finish line. That’s only 2759 words per day, though I could conceivably cross the finish line today.
Happily, I have today and tomorrow off. I’m going to spend as much time as possible writing towards the goal line. There’s a write-in in Lubbock that I hope to join, but that depends on me getting some sleep first and then waking up on time. Also, I promised my sister and brother that I would go see Mockingjay Part 1 later today. I really can’t wait!
So for now I’m off to bed, even though it’s only 7:20 in the morning. Until later this morning, have a great day. For my fellow Wrimos, you can do it!
NaNoWriMo 2014: Day 23 – Catching Up
Idea for a book cover. I’m sure I can find someone to do better.
You’re not going to believe what happened this week. Yep, I fell behind yet again. This time I was two a little more than 4K behind, and I got within 600 words of par. All it took was me jumping into the car, driving an hour, and parking my rear end in a chair in a coffee house in the great city of Lubbock. And also coffee, delicious coffee. Why am I shaking? Co-co-coffee! Whee!
The trouble I’m running into, in addition to working nights, is trying to advance the story forward. I get to the end of a scene and I’m left wondering, what now? It can be a little frustrating. I know the ultimate destination, but I’m having trouble steering myself that way. I’ll get there eventually. I’m taking the extended scenic route.
A problem I found was that I had a character that did nothing, but is the one that started Giada on her journey. Francesco Manfredo needed to be introduced as more than a place holder character. I wish I would have realized that sooner, but I brought him in, and he’s giving me a wealth of information. Another character is proving to be a surprise, which I’m enjoying. He went from White Hat to crazed stalker.
For now, I’m going to take a nap and start on Sunday’s writing. I hope to get ahead today and tomorrow. Only one week left. I don’t want to lose it now.
NaNoWriMo 2014: Day 17
Since midnight last night, according to my stats on the NaNoWriMo website, I have written 3516 words, bringing me up to a total of 28,541, and on par for the first time since day 11. I have no illusions that I will stay on par at this point. It’s been hell just trying to stay in the running, but I have. I will come out victorious!
Thankfully the last two days of NaNo will be on a weekend, and I currently have weekends off. As long as I don’t fall too far behind, I’ll be okay. Work is killing me. I like to write at night, and working the night shift is seriously killing my writing mojo. But it’s okay. It will be okay.
Breathe…
I went back earlier today and started reading from the beginning. I do that from time to time, just to measure how far I’ve come. There’s no way now for me to read the whole thing quickly, but it’s a way I can get a sense of where I started and where I plan to go. Here’s what I found so far.
- Character motivations have shifted since the beginning. That’s not so unusual for me. Once I get to know the characters, they tell me their secrets and then I know that I will have to make some revisions.
- The cast of good and bad guys is pretty fluid. What I mean, and this goes back to character motivations, that being good or bad is not cut and dry. One who I thought was a good guy revealed to me that he really has nefarious intentions. Another one, a baddie who committed an atrocious act against my MC, did so due to a misguided feeling of love towards her.
- No one person is wholly one or the other. Even my MC is not a total white hat. Sure she’s a woman who sleeps around for money, but she’s mostly a genuinely good person. Except that a desire for revenge has been awoken in her, a desire she’s starting to act on.
- The title of the book is The First Love of Giada Esposito. I know who she’s going to fall in love with, and they’ve already met briefly already, I just don’t know how I’m going to steer her to seek his help. There’s a vague idea, but nothing concrete. It scares me.
- Apparently I’m going to write a sex scene with Giada acting as a dominatrix. What the hell do I know about that? Maybe I need to find a dom to teach me a few things…. Or not.
I have to go now. Work beacons. So excited, or so exhausted? I don’t know. I just want to write!
Joe Hinojosa 