Done it

Finished. Wrote over 50 thousand words in a month. Validated it. It is official now: I did a challenge and very unlike me, I finished. Now I have a short, very very patchy and in a state of dire need of editing, but totally existing and developable novel. Whoa!!!
And, totally coincidentally, right now the song is playing I've chosen for title: December Flower, from the band In Flames. (Because I needed a title at registration... but the album was one of my main inspirations.)
So, as the little badge on the right hand corner says, 50136 words, as the NaNo validator counts. I deleted some date and time stamps and of course every text editor is different, but my official word count was 50466. I'll take the lower number though, still good enough :) Actually, got a bit cloudy eyed at the end, but what the heck, I finally did something quite impressive! Even if it's full with grammar mistakes, typos, word repetitions, and probably will be painful to read again all the blabbering I wrote when the only thing I was concentrating on was getting to the daily word count.
 That display might look quite checkered, but I was actually quite surprised how many times I could make myself sit down at around 8pm and write for two hours (after the full 8 hours work day).
Will be good to be back to regular schedule tho :)

Finish line

48209 words. Also, should be sleeping for an hour now.

Also another things are going on as well so had a pretty rough and nervous week. I will be happy to see November go :)

Marathon

I've hit 42K today. In words written. Actually, I did a bit of overtime and now I'm on 42997 words. At this rate, I will actually finish on time. wow. Feels good even if I know that I'll have to throw out a lot of the words later during editing and even some of the scenes as well, probably, but it doesn't feel a waste. I take it as "exploring the characters back-story and motivations" :)

7003 words to go.

On the 13th

So, I've missed two days of posting. Not that I had set out to do a NaBloPoMo or whajimacallit but it went well for 11 days - then I thought, hey, today, I'm gonna write up seventeen hundred earlier in the evening, not starting at 8 pm, and then blog too, right before going to bed. So I did, and totally forgot to post. Yesterday I remembered, did write earlier again because I had the Hunger Games movie to watch (finally) and again, forgot to blog. Anyways, it's not important really. And so far, I'm doing well on the writing front, at least concerning the quantity. But the goal is 50k words, not 50k quality words, so that's ok.

Time zones

Well, I've run over the clock. As in, I put down the pen at 00:02 GMT, which means it's saturday. Had to change the time-zone setting on the NaNo page so it counts my friday's work as such. And yes, I'll have to reschedule this too (if I can...)
Also: off to the weekend, yeee-haaa.

And the night owl mode starts here...

Wrote the daily amount of ~1667 words, then had another thought, opened a blank screen, and wrote another 1500. Just wondering, how much will be actually useful of these?

What definitely won't be: going to bed at half past 11 instead of half past 10. Well. Done. :P

Election Day

The USA is voting for president today (and for a bunch of congressmen, senators and other officials as well). One of the few positive parts of Sandy The Storm was that it took off the focus from the campaigns. I had enough of listening to all that beeeeep. Now I can only hope and cross my fingers that the outcome will be something similar than it was four years ago and not like twelve years ago. Would hate a recounting again.
And where is this concern me, a Hungarian-living-in-the-UK? Well it's the same planet. That country is one of the most influential, in multiple aspects. What they choose, the way they First Guy talks, has it's influence everywhere. And I hope we won't end up wishing Bush back.


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On the writing front: after not being able to write a word during the weekend - aside of a few texts... - I've written over 2300 words both today and yesterday. Took the decision and jumped from the start of the plot to a middle where i had scene almost ready in my head. It was the right choice; the beginning is a very delicate time as I know since I read Dune, both the books beginning and the beginning few things in this challenge, I think. While i was plodding away with the start, trying to figure out how to set up things so I'll end up at the story I wanted to tell, I was just working. Thinking, redoing, planning, going slowly. Now I'm just writing, pulling out the story I already thought through from my brain as I write. I think i will have to keep doing this: writing down the bits I have already planned out and not following the time line. After all, the 50k is the minimum amount, not the amount the story has to fit in.

About writing

Last week I've signed up for NaNoWriMo. I've heard about it before but never actually figured out what is about until i came across a link while browsing for language/expat blogs. Don't know if I can do it, partly because I work full time, and partly as i don't know i have enough ideas and enough stamina to keep on going. A couple years ago, or maybe ten and a half to be precise, I had a few months after dropping out of uni and finding any job or course so I was at home, doing the housework and writing and cross-stitching. I was so much into writing at that time that I actually did it in front of my mum and brother, and I'm usually keep the whole thing secret. I'd got a thick A4 notebook filled, every days entry written with a different coloured pen I picked depending on my mood.
Now, i should type it straight away on the laptop - don't think i will choose colours, but who knows. Another problem is, I have two days to figure out which one of my three ideas to use. Two is fantasy and the third utopistic. One of the fantasy plots I've always imagined as a manga so I don't know if I can or want to tie it down into a prose. The utopistic one might be too crazy and probably way too depressing to spend an entire month on it. And the other fantasy, well, it's fantasy, i might just get lost in my ideas and not get a proper story out of it. Also, none of them will be readable for the majority of my family and friends - probably my brother will have to be the guinea pig, on his own. But at least i know he will appreciate my effort!

How will I have time for all this writing and to continue studying Finnish (noun cases next - yee-ha!) and even to knit and do some Christmas-prep, I've no idea.