National Novel Writing Month

[dwanollah]

I'm there under BetsyRay, my other alias.

[girlnamedcarl]

I'm ccantieri.

I'm at a little over 9,000 words now, so I just have to knock out a thousand or so tonight and I'll still be on par. Yippee!

10,369! Hot-cha!

[GirlyGhoul]

I'm just girlyghoul where ever I go. But I'm adding Kootuk, Betsy Ray, ccanteri and any other Greecie who shouts out their NaNo name to my buddies list!

7697 words so far. I'm happy with it. I had such an abysmal start, but now have worked my way up to around 2200 words a night (Eerily it's very close to the same word count each night). I also managed to knock off almost 500 words in between going to vote and then waiting to take my cat to the vet (Can't put him in the cage TOO soon before it's time to leave, ya know). So that was a pretty good start for the day.

As the novel's coming along, I have gotten better at resisting the urge to go back and correct things I did earlier. That's for the second draft. But sometimes the perfect and obvious solution to any strained scenes that came earlier will pop into my head as I'm working on a different scene. So I'm allowing myself as an omniscient editor to pop in and interject a bit about the previous scene so it connects better to the current one.

As a result my novel is starting to read a little like Homer Simpson's Halloween story:

HOMER: ... And then his wife came through the front door!
BART: So?
HOMER: Did I mention she was dead?
BART: No!
HOMER: Well she was! And she hit him in the head with a golf club!
LISA: So?
HOMER: You know. He went golfing all the time and it always drove her crazy!
LISA: You said he went BOWLING all the time!
HOMER: D'oh!

But again. First draft. Just a first draft!

ETA: GirlNamedCarl!: "The Corpse Wore Bunny Slippers!" BWAH!! *SNIFF* I love you guys! I've found my people!

[girlnamedcarl]

Yippee! I'm past the 1/4 way mark! My main character has just found the body (after it's been picked over by vultures, eww!), and the killer is near the crime scene too. How did she know who it was? Because (say it with me) the corpse wore bunny slippers.

[goggle]

If anyone's still creating characters, I made a Name Generator that you could use to name them. Not all of the combinations are great, because it's random, but there's bound to be some gold in there. I think it has a good mixture of common and unusual names.

[Benni]

Thanks Goggle! Fabian Wolfe is going into my novel. I have been having trouble coming up with names. The other night I was up at the high school for a grad meeting and the library was giving away tables of old books. I found a Name your baby book so I grabbed it and carried it around all night . (I can hear the whispers and see the looks now wherever I go! God I love small towns)

I am just so jealous of The Corpse who wore Bunny Slippers!
Well at least we can all say we knew her when.

Some snot nose little red headed brat who wasn't even in my novel to begin with is starting to take the whole thing over.

[GirlyGhoul]

Most excellent Google! I don't know it'll wind up in this current novel, but some day I'll have to find a literary home for Wat Liberty Richard!

I started collecting interesting names at work where I was processing some old files from the 1950's and 60's. I just realized I must have left that list at home but just from memory some of my favorite names were Junious; Ooary; Colgate (as a first name); Earleene; Lurtie (a man's name); Dimitrois (as a first name); Anzolette; and for a last name Goodwillie... because I am 12.

My plot is racing along even though my word count is still lagging behind most folks (9755 last I checked). I'm already into the second half of the story, which is probably normal for the genre. My book is intended for kids and I'm realizing that there is a possibility I might run out of story before I reach 50,000 words. If and when that happens, I've already decided that I can pad it by filling in the backstories of seemingly minor characters.

All of that material may get exorcised from the final draft, but I figure it can't hurt to go to town fleshing these little players out. Whatever gets written might find it's way into a whole new story (One with Wat Liberty Richard perhaps). Already in the current story there is a disgruntled Ice Cream Man who's just begging for his own spin off! ;D

[Deleted]

What is the buddies list on the nano site for? I've never figured it out, and thus never bothered using it. Anyway, I'm randomcyn over there.

I couldn't figure out what should happen next in my story, so I started writing about the creation of the universe. Right now God is pissed off because he planted some chocolate and it didn't grow into a chocolate tree. He's all, "I'm God, dammit, this will not do!"

"The Corpse Wore Bunny Slippers" may be the best novel title EVER.

[venusdiva429]

I'm Jayelynn over there.

Help! I'm already stuck!!! What do I do?

[girlnamedcarl]

Hmmm. It says there's no author with the name "Jayelynn," but I might be searching wrong.

Okay, you're stuck. Here's a quick exercise that might never enter your novel, but might get your creativity unstuck: Pick two characters in your novel (ideally, two characters in conflict or in competition). Now imagine that their positions were reversed. What might they say to each other, do differently, etc.? Go!

Update: I've added an excerpt to my profile[/color]. Feel free to critique it, but be kind.