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Last jitters, shout-outs, cries for help, plans for writing

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NewMexicoKid
50564 words so far Winner!

As I *cough* scramble to pull my plot into shape (still not happy with all of it, but it is closer now than it was yesterday), I thought: I can't be the only one who is nervously looking at tomorrow's start of NaNoWriMo. And here I am, entering my tenth NaNoWriMo season with nine victories under my belt; still, I am feeling some last minute jitters, looking at the weekend's write-ins with excitement, anticipation and maybe a touch of fear.

Writing is, after all, a means of exercising the part of me that receives hardly any exercise at work: the creative side. I heard a story on NPR today where a child psychologist was interviewed about nightmares. He said that writers and artists are more prone to nightmares than others. They tend to be more sensitive and imaginative.

POLL: How frequently do you have nightmares?

I think I may have them 2-3 times a year, max.

Creation is hard (well, maybe not as hard as editing). In a way, it sometimes feels like giving blood; it can be a draining (albeit rewarding) experience. Creating takes giving something of yourself; and you have to have some time to recharge for the next session. Writing a novel is more difficult; and trying to do it in a month is even more challenging. To balance the equation we have local and virtual writing events, the support of the NaNoWriMo community and forums, and the comfort that we are not alone in this.

I am trying hard to make the seven point story structure work, but the ideas are difficult to pin down--I can feel them skittering away from the light of my mind map like a mess of cockroaches (ugh).

Ok, now my characters are protesting that analogy (and I have to sheepishly withdraw it).

Sigh--I'm probably just procrastinating. Will return to my preparations...

What are you feeling? How are your preparations? I love the advice folks are leaving in our regional graph thread.

--Tim

Anobi
54273 words so far Winner!

I have bad dreams, but not nightmares. The last thing that came close was two nights ago, when I dreamt that my teeth fell out and couldn't be put back in. (I'm pretty sure that was my subconscience panicking because I sill wear a retainer at night.)

I'm still searching for character names. I have the main characters, at least, but the names of their significant others? Parents? Friends? No idea... I don't have a cohesive, over-arching plot for my story. I tried to pull one together using first FreeMind, then XMind and Excel. I still don't have one. I may have to discover the common thread between my stories as I go...

Also, the biggest question on my mind right now is: Should I kill one of my main characters? If I do, which one should it be?

TypesetJez
25636 words so far

My preparations are minimal this year. I have my characters and today at work between patients I drew up a little table on their motivations & conflicts, but that's about it. I'm nervous because I can't start at midnight this year (I have to work early tomorrow), a friend will be in town for dinner tomorrow, and after that I have Italian class, so I'll have about an hour tomorrow at best. And Friday I'm driving to Chicago right after work, so there's another 4 hours gone. BUT I will be at the write-in on Sunday and write-ins have always been my best days (I had an 8k day last year!).

As for nightmares, I think I get maybe 1 a year. Nightmares are really rare for me. My friend & I boiled this down to my being confident and very creative. Whatever problem there is in the nightmare, I solve it. I always find a way to conquer whatever it is and so it doesn't scare me.

TeenWriter
52359 words so far Winner!

This is the first year that I've done a really, really intensive outline for my novel. I've got a journal/sketchbook and each chapter of my novel has a page in the journal dedicated to it. I also have a list of characters, where they begin, and where they end up. I don't know if it was the fact that I had lots of break time at my new job or what, but I really went all out with planning! And I think it's going to pay off, I feel like I have a really clear trajectory. Now I just need to find time to write!

Do you guys have any advice for writing after a work day? This is the first year I won't have a real chunk of free time in which to write, just evenings. So...any advice?

As for the nightmares question, I actually don't have them that often. Maybe once every six months? I have really weird and incomprehensible dreams, but I wouldn't call them nightmares. :P

NewMexicoKid
50564 words so far Winner!

TeenWriter wrote:
Do you guys have any advice for writing after a work day? This is the first year I won't have a real chunk of free time in which to write, just evenings. So...any advice?


I mostly write after a work day in the evenings; but even then I find myself more productive on the weekends. I think the key thing is to prepare as much in advance as you can so you can focus on the craft of writing out the creative thoughts when your energy might be lower. So during the day (for me this happens when I am stopped at a red light on my commute), I jot down notes of things to use in the story.

--Tim

tomster
31024 words so far

I once dreamed of being on the bridge of the starship Enterprise with Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the musician Neil Young. To some, that's a nightmare, to me however - it was Heaven. It's very rare that I remember any dream much less a nightmare so when I remember any dream it's significant.

I do most of my writing in the evening. My most successful method was on my way home from work, stop at a Starbucks or Panera, grab a cup of Joe and write for an hour. That kick started the creativity. After getting home and getting settled in, there was enough creativity (and caffeine) to keep me going for a while. I'll try that again this year.

PBJ63010
53153 words so far Winner!

I'm so excited!!!!
As I have said it is my first year doing NaNo and I haven't written anything in years. I have tons of fears going into this but mostly at this point I'm excited and ready to get going.

I'm also concerned because most of my writing time will be at night ... after my 2 year old goes to bed. Unfortunately October - March is our busy season at work and my husband will be working late many nights and unable to help with bedtime routine. (Or be home with her while I go to a write-in.) I just hope that I can force myself to stay away long enough to get my word counts in for the day.

I don't know how well prepared I am but I feel that I'm mostly ready to just dive in and go.

As for bad dreams/nightmares.... I have them ALL.THE.TIME. Probably one every couple of weeks. All of my dreams are extremely vivid though. I have always been a crazy dreamer.

Sapphire
56476 words so far Winner!

Nightmares? I've had 'em. They play out like movies in my head, terrifying sometimes, other times keeping me on edge, both afraid and curious about what's going to happen next. They lean more towards making me curious, so much where if I wake up in the middle I force myself back asleep to continue the hellish adventure. My nightmares are, on the whole, pretty cool. I've sort of trained myself into lucid dreaming the past few years, so I can hop right back into dreams without anything changing. Wake up from a good bad dream and need to pee? Lumber to the bathroom, think sleepy thoughts, and get back in time to jump back in. It's great.

Night terrors, though? They're terrible, as the name might imply, and both times they've come with sleep paralysis. I've had two of those in my life. I was really young--maybe four or five--when I had the first one and was still sharing my bedroom with my older sister. I "woke up" to see this hulking, ghostly white figure standing over the bed. It had sunken holes for eyes and leaned over in front of my face and whispered, "Die." I couldn't move, but apparently I was screaming.

The second time was more recently, maybe a few years ago. I "woke up", laying on my side, only to have SOMETHING pounding all along the side of me--as if someone was using me as a drum and just rapping away. I was terrified. I then "woke up" again, this time laying on my back, unable to move. As soon as my eyes opened, there was this dark thing made of shadows that swept itself from the foot of the bed right up into my face and just stared at me for a split second. I must have gasped so hard that Joe woke up beside me.

Nightmares are child's play.

But yes! Novel!

I've got a rough outline going so far. It's missing a bit towards the end, but my beginning, middle, and end are all solid. I struggle most with proper endings, and this year I think it will be my strongest. My beginning is likely my strongest, too--the setting requires a lot of worldbuilding, but I've got it planned so I don't need to do an info dump.

The hardest thing is going to be having to wait to write my favorite scenes, because they're a bit deeper in the novel.

catatone1
2104 words so far

My main worry right now kinda came true today. I will be having surgery durning nano to get my gallbladder removed. Which is good and bad. i'll lose at least a day for the actual surgery, but I'll have at least one additional day off of school to recover where I can write!

Sapphire
56476 words so far Winner!

catatone1 wrote:
My main worry right now kinda came true today. I will be having surgery durning nano to get my gallbladder removed. Which is good and bad. i'll lose at least a day for the actual surgery, but I'll have at least one additional day off of school to recover where I can write!


Hey, if I can get married and take a week off (PLUS extra time for Thanksgiving) during NaNo and write a book and a half, you can be out a day or two and still win with flying colors!

Best of luck, I'm sure you're looking forward to eating normal foods again after surgery. :)

TogetherAgain
52161 words so far Winner!

Mom's been asking me all day today if I'm okay. "You just look really... I don't know, like, baffled, and confused, today." Well yes, Mommy, that's because it's the night before NaNo and I've spent most of today trying to name one of my three main characters, and this particular character has been ESPECIALLY hard to name because she's from a really big family, and by the time she was born, her parents were all out of names... But I finally found one for her. It's Bunny. (Her five-year-old sister named her. She was almost Thumper, and she's very lucky not to be Baby or Bambi. They're older now, and her sister has apologized for the name...)

The problem is that in the first scene, we only know one character's name. He's an incredibly unimportant character, and he doesn't even survive the scene... But I realized about an hour ago that I have no idea what his name is. And that's a problem, because I REALLY need his name to be able to start writing tomorrow. (Or in just over an hour... AHHHHH!!!) So I need a random guy's name that fits with the last name Troy. Just so I can kill him, really. With his twelve-year-old-daughter watching. ...Huh... you know, LAST year's NaNo started with a father dying, too... Huh. Well, what can I say? I'm evil.

AHHHHHHHH I NEED TO NAME THIS GUY! AHHHH!

I'm fine.

I don't really have nightmares very often... I think I've only had MAYBE three or four dreams in my life that I would consider to be nightmares. But coincidentally, I had one last night. (Or was it the night before?) I'm not sure if I was in Normal, IL or Halifax, Nova Scotia... but I was trying to run somewhere, and I was naked except for a blanket, and every time I went inside a place and came out again it was suddenly the OPPOSITE time of day--from high noon to the middle of the night to noon again and then the next morning. I think one of the places I ran into was a mall--yeah, definitely a nightmare, then--and at some point I had to try to free a pegasus from some sort of arcade machine... And it ended with something really dangerous having to do with the fact that everyone outside was listening to iPods, which kind of distracted me from the really pretty sunrise and skyline...

...Yeah. My dreams get REALLY messed up and complicated, when I actually remember them. Although come to think of it, my dreams were exceptionally strange and scarier than usual all through November last year, starting with a nightmare the night before last year's kick off event... In THAT one, a school bus turned right on red, and I had to dive between the wheels to avoid getting hit, and meanwhile the town was flooding and Dad was saving people and things (including a plastic Fisher Price dollhouse and several rolls of butcher paper) from some gun-slinging looters in the midst of evacuating...

Still, I'll take nightmares over insomnia any day of the week. Unfortunately, I usually don't get a choice, and insomnia is a painfully frequent occurrence in my life. And in college, it was even worse.

My main concern? Well, I was all excited marking down all the write-ins on my calendar earlier today, but with Mom and Dad leaving town tomorrow... "Maybe if you're bored on Sunday, you could go visit Grandma. Or better yet, you could see her on FRIDAY, and take your big sister with you!" ...But... but... awwww... Oh fine, I'll be a good granddaughter... But I REALLY don't want to fall behind right away, and I can't make tomorrow's write-in because I'll be working, and... IT'S NANOWRIMO IN 42 MINUTES AND I STILL DON'T KNOW THE FIRST CHARACTER'S NAME! AHHH!

TeenWriter
52359 words so far Winner!

That's a good idea! I'm sure by the end of the day, my desk will be littered with post-it notes full of ideas for what to include in my writing that evening. Thanks for the tip! :)

TeenWriter
52359 words so far Winner!

I'm sure you can do it! Good luck this year! :D

tregina12000
51644 words so far Winner!

By all means, do it. One of them must die. You'll know who it is when it's time to happen. Last year, I suddenly killed off the character I had been developing as my main murder suspect just because I suddenly got very tired of him. It allowed me to make another character that I had been developing in the background into the real murderer without anyone suspecting her, even me.

tregina12000
51644 words so far Winner!

Did you pick a name yet? How about Raymond?

TypesetJez
25636 words so far

How about Daniel Troy?

NewMexicoKid
50564 words so far Winner!

catatone1 wrote:
My main worry right now kinda came true today. I will be having surgery durning nano to get my gallbladder removed. Which is good and bad. i'll lose at least a day for the actual surgery, but I'll have at least one additional day off of school to recover where I can write!

Paula, we'll be thinking of you. Let us know how your surgery goes.
--Tim

KatherineWriting
201228 words so far Winner!


catatone1 wrote:
My main worry right now kinda came true today. I will be having surgery durning nano to get my gallbladder removed. Which is good and bad. i'll lose at least a day for the actual surgery, but I'll have at least one additional day off of school to recover where I can write!


This is too weird. Part of what I wrote this morning (before I read your post) is: "Oh, right, Andy wasn't in Edinburgh. He was still in Illinois taking care of Cindy after her operation."
And my outline has it as gallbladder surgery.

Hope everything goes smoothly and you can soon eat yummy foods.

TogetherAgain
52161 words so far Winner!

I DID name him last night, in the easiest way possible. I went to my favorite baby name website, found the twenty most popular boy names for a year he COULD have possibly been born in, and rolled a twenty-sided die. His name is Michael. And he died on the ninth page of my notebook. YAY! ...Er... Not that I'm insensitive about character death, or anything...

Anobi
54273 words so far Winner!

I think I have decided to kill one of my main characters, and I think I know exactly which one. Though, I may take your advice and let a secondary character die an unplanned death. After all, my novel takes place during a war, so why would everyone survive, right?

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