More on Nanowrimo

I've restructured my chapters and combined three chapters into one. The combined chapter is barely the size I hoped the original chapters would be. If I don't find a new thread to weave into the story, I may plateau at around 35,000 words.

I'd also like to take a moment to gripe about my keyboard. It's decided that now would be a good time to start dropping letters and missing strokes.

Time to Panic

My goal was to fit 7,000 to 8,000 words per chapter, but so far, the first two chapters are about 9,000 words (combined). I'm going to have to devise another plot twist to either fit some more scenes into my planned chapters, or to add new chapters while consolidating the smaller ones.

At my current rate, I will run out of words at 40,000 - 45,000 and fall short of the 50,000 minimum.

More on Nanowrimo

Day 3 comes to an end. I'm meeting the NanoWrimo official daily quota, but I'm falling behind my own quota slightly. I was hoping to average 2000 words per day, so I could have Thanksgiving off, more or less.

I'm also concerned, because I just wrapped up the first draft of my first chapter and it fell short about 1000 words of where I wanted it to be.

Concerned about NanoWrimo word count

With two days under my belt now, I find I am less concerned about meeting my daily quota, and more concerned that the story I outlined won't produce the full 50,000 words.

Congratulations San Francisco Giants

I want to congratulate the San Francisco Giants on their World Series Victory. And I want to thank them (sorry my many Texas friends) for making it short and sweet. I need to minimize as many distractions as possible for the month of November, so I can concentrate on my NanoWrimo project.

Nano Wrimo is almost upon us

I don't know if I can do this. I've never been that prolific, but I'm dropping everything else (except for job and Thanksgiving.) Travelling home for the holiday will be tough. I may gain some time during the trip (but not much, battery time is dismal.) So I can figure on losing four days of the month.

Up to this point, my style has been to write multiple parallel threads that constantly swap out in short bursts, but for this project, I'm going for more substantial chapters with less scenes.

Unless I have an epiphany during the weekend, I plan to write a book called The Beat of a Different Drummer. It's about an aging band that was big twenty years ago, and now finds themselves clinging to their waning fame, but they have a problem, the drummer is missing.

The book will explore the police investigation which includes in depth interviews with the band members and other associates. If I can pull it off, each chapter will provide a different members perspective, and some clues to his fate.

And since the show must go on, during all of this, they must audition replacement drummers, and they all have a different opinion on what they should be looking for. I'm saving the surprise ending for the actual book.

Struggling through a dry spell

I've taken a job in Denver. Keeping the bills paid is priority one. Between the ending of the last contract, which had a hard end date regardless of the preparedness of the project, and the anxiety of finding work out of town, I had little time and even less energy to write much.

I managed to make some contributions to some TaleBait, but not much progress on my own work. To make matters work, I've started a programming project too, writing a book keeping application that I hope will be easy for non-accountants to use.

It's not so much writers block, as it is a lack of ambition. I've contacted a nearby community college by email which was immediately replied. I may have found some resources here to network with and find some enthusiasm again.

There is a conference in New York this coming January which includes something called Pitch Slam. Pitch Slam puts you in a room where you can pitch your books to as many of the 50 agents as you can in the allotted time. You get 90 seconds to make your pitch, and 90 seconds for them to respond, then move on, like speed dating. I imagine a zillion authors in long lines. I'll have to think about this one.

Got a phone call from WL asking if I was ready to accept their joint venture offer. I told them that whatever my plans were, it didn't include them. It amazes me how a business with as bad a reputation as their's prefers to prey on people instead of cleaning up their act and going legitimate.