Monday’s have a sacred purpose: Ruining the weekend. Oh, if only it were still the weekend, all the writing I’d do. Nevertheless, I persevere and attain my goals.
Today’s words: 1672
Total words: 3604
So…my story doesn’t reeeeaaaaalllly know what it wants to be yet. I’ve read all the Honor Harrington books several times which I’m stealing most of my “space navy” vibe from, but I don’t want it to be super serious like the Honorverse is. This is probably just a matter of finding my voice for this particular story. Ideally, what I’m going for will be a sort of Firefly / Honorverse matchup with a touch of Pirates of the Carribean…except no one is going to be Jack Sparrow. I don’t think I’ve got a role for Johnny Depp in my story. Still…maybe I can shoehorn in a sword fight in space. That would be fun. Avast!
So, I thought that I would do a little daily writing diary here during National Novel Writing Month. With luck, having to record that I did not, in fact, write anything for a day will keep me a little more honest.
I probably could have gotten a little more done today, had I done some proper outlining before the start of November, but whatcha gonna do? I made up for a little lost time and got an outline started that will hopefully save me time as I get into the month and also managed to write 1932 words.
No matter what else, I’m off to a decent start. I may write a bit more later on tonight, but honestly, I’ll probably play some video games or read.
In the beforetimes, there was National Novel Writing Month. A spectacular explosion of writing and creativity, it brought author to keyboard like nothing since the creation of the typewriter. When I first participated it was an interesting experiment to see if I could manage to write a full fifty thousand words in a single month. By some miracle I managed to do it! It was awesome! I felt invincible and was keen to keep using their mighty handy tools and graphs to continue on into December.
But then they disappeared: Gone until next November (or the camp event that’s in the summer but we all know that it isn’t as good.) This, I thought, shall not stand, for I have a need for those motivational tools. Thus was born the inspiration for WordKeeperAlpha. Now, just a couple short years after my first NaNoWriMo, its a thing that I created that people actually use. This is enough to blow my feeble mind.
Now, I would never want people to not participate in NaNoWriMo on their website. That’s where the magic really happens. You get together with your fellow authors and keep pushing the words out until you hit your goal. But, if you use WordKeeperAlpha too, and want to keep track of the words you write in November, here’s a quick and handy guide to getting your project set up.
First, if you don’t have one, sign up for an account on WordKeeperAlpha.com. Go on, I’ll wait until you’re up and running. … … Good? Eh, they’ll catch up.
Next, go to your Goals and Projects page, and click the “Add a project button.” Refer to the image below to add in the information then click “Create”.
Bam! You’re already ready to go! But wait, you probably want one of those nifty graphs like you see on NaNoWriMo.org. For that, you’ll need a goal, in fact, you’ll probably want two goals. First, we’re going to create a repeating monthly goal, which is what will create that nifty graph. Before we do that though, you’ll have to remove any other repeating monthly goals that you might have, or just edit one.
Use the information below.
Make sure you keep the project field blank. Due to a problem with the way I originally made the code you can’t have a project selected for that graph, but its something that will be fixed in time for next year’s NaNoWriMo. This means that all the words you log in November will be displayed on the graph…which is a short coming, I know…but if you’ve got time to write more than one thing in November you really have my respect.
Next, you’ll probably want a repeating daily graph. Use the information below to create it.
There! You’re done and ready to go for National Novel Writing Month!
Some people have asked me if there’s any way to support WordKeeperAlpha, (yes, they really have) and one of the best ways is to spread the word. The more users I have the better I feel about myself as a human being. It’s a sweet balm to my black soul. But, there’s no financial way to do that yet for reasons. While I will have something soon, this month, if you’d like to do something for WordKeeperAlpha, instead think about going over to NaNoWriMo.org and making a donation. Without them, this crazy project never would have happened.
In future years, once I’ve gotten better organized, I plan on doing an actual campaign for them, so for now I’ll just send people to donate to them directly. The good people at NaNoWriMo.org depend on the donations of all the authors they encourage every year. So if you’ve got five dollars to spare, go and drop it in their tip bucket, or give them a shout out on Twitter or Facebook. We want to keep them doing what they’re doing and supporting developing authors into the far future.
Ok, that’s enough chatter from me. I’m six hundred words into my day’s word count and I have much more left to do. Later, Keepers.
Wow. It’s been two months since I actually sat down and did any writing. I know. I know. For someone who, someday, wants to make my living writing this is not the way to go about things. I’ve got lots of excuses and reasons but really, it just comes down to a profound lack of responsibility. If I ever want Impervious to be done, I’ve got to sit down, focus, and glue my hands to the keyboard.
And so, that’s just what I’m going to do. Just… not with Impervious. November is mere days away, and I’m feeling like the perfect way to get my ass back in gear is to start something new and fresh. Let an idea that’s been bouncing around in my head for months out to play.
Last year, I tried making the second draft of Impervious my NaNoWriMo project, but it didn’t work out so well. The year before, I took a break to write something new and different, and it just worked great. I think that’s because during that first draft you can really give yourself permission to suck a little bit and just have fun with what you’re writing.
So far, I’ve stuck entirely to fantasy because, well, to be honest, I haven’t had to research much for it, so far. Why do certain things work? Magic, that’s why. Well, screw it. I’m going to write some science fiction for this years NaNoWriMo. I’ve got a fun story in mind that should let me have a lot of fun.
What’s it going to be about? I’m not telling you, random internet stranger. We’ll see how it goes during November. Then maybe I’ll share a few details.
Besides, I’m still working on the details myself. I’m sort of a hybrid pantser / outliner and I’ll be keeping with that this year. Right now I’m mapping out the story in broad strokes, figuring out what goes where, what characters I need, and what their names are. The more I can do to streamline the actual writing the better.
By the by, if anyone wants to join me as a writing buddy on the NaNoWriMo.org, I’m sswanson. Feel free to add me and I’ll add you back.
Any WordKeeperAlpha users should stay tuned here. Tomorrow night I’ll be posting a quick “How To” to set up a Project for National Novel Writing Month and keep track of your words. I know my system is different than NaNoWriMo.org’s, at least in terms of how you track your words, but I did make it to be complementary. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get the new Goals and Projects pages up and running before November, but I’m sure the current functionality will get you through the month.
Oif. I did not mean to go this long without an update. My wife and I purchased a house earlier this month and we’re just getting to the point where we can afford some time in the evening to relax. I only just got my desk into a state that I can use it… meaning that I still have to put the drawers together, and set up half a dozen other different things. This all means that I haven’t really done any work on WordKeeperAlpha since … August? I don’t really know… I’m still kind of exhausted from running around everywhere. This is the most I’ve written in the last month and I feel terrible about it.
Sigh.
So. Nothing has really changed on WordKeeperAlpha since last months update. I’m still getting reports of a bug on the Goals and Projects page. I kind of know what’s causing it…but I also don’t really know how I’m going to fix it yet. The bug manifests as the page throwing an error and not loading, which is bad. The good news is, if you come back the next day its worked itself out. So, if it happens to you, don’t fret! If you come back the next day you’ll be back in business. This isn’t saying that it isn’t a priority for me to fix, just give me another week or so to get back on my feet here.
Obviously, NaNoWriMo is coming up, and I want to participate this year. I have no idea what I’m going to be writing yet, but I’m leaning toward something new, since a month away from Impervious has killed my velocity on it anyway. We’ll see. October is starting and I want to get back into things with a 20,000 word month, get all warmed up for NaNo but given all the work around the house that probably isn’t going to happen. Still, I’m going to get writing again.
I’d like to have the new Goals and the new Projects page live before NaNoWriMo…but wisdom tells me that launching a major new feature right before I’m going to be super busy writing and the site will probably be seeing some of its highest traffic all year is not a smart thing to do. So, I’ll spend some time in October plugging the holes in the current functionality and maybe toss together that updated About and Home page that I’ve been wanting to do. Trust me, new stuff is coming and it’s coming soon. I’ve just been … busy is a woefully inadequate word…but busy. Now that I have my computer back and a modicum of time, I will be able to keep you better updated as to happenings as well.
So fear not! I’m not gone! WordKeeperAlpha is only going to keep getting better and better, only now I’m going to be working on it from the comfort of my very own house!
Phew! Writing all that was hard work. I think I need to go lie down for a while. Probably just go to bed. See you later, Keepers.
