And it's official

NaNoWriMo: the home stretch

Well, friends, I've got 47182 words to my name this month, which means I have less than two days to crank out the remaining 2818. Impossible? I think not. The best part is, I'm in the last chapter of my novel. THe worst part? I changed a lot of characters these past few days and I'm not sure how I feel about the effort it'll take to go back and rewrite them. Bleh. But that's what writing is all about, isn't it? You're never going to figure out where the story is supposed to go or even how it's supposed to begin if you don't at least try to get it out there. I'm also really sad that my story ends on a depressing note. But if Bracken doesn't have a ton of disappointment in his life now, then how will he be able to find redemption in the next novel? And that's the story that I am really excited to finish writing. I was distracted from writing Into the Flames while I was thinking about Bracken's backstory, but now that I"ve written it this month, I can focus my full attention back on Rahab. Yay!
And congratulations and thanks to Aaron Pogue, Becca Campbell, Courtney Cantrell, and all my other friends who participated in NaNoWriMo and helped me stay on track this month. They were truly an inspiration for me.

week 4 of NaNoWriMo

My main character may have the power to see the future, but I sure don't. Here's some recent story developments that I totally didn't see coming:

The wallet that was empty and did not carry the mark of Superman
The Pact of the Pop-Tart
The Skirt in the girls' locker room that was not Analiese
Two trips to Dean Sanders's office (named after Sean)
The admiration of Bracken by the elusive and desirable female character as well as the formerly grumpy and undesirable leader of the surfer tribe


Now I should be coasting into the final acts of the drama with approximately 16k words left to write before midnight on 30 November. 33,623 and counting!

Week 3 of NaNoWriMo

Into week three and now only four thousand words behind. What with some new characters I didn't see coming, an interesting rivalry between the surfers and the basketball players (I'm siding with the surfers, of course), and Analiese's new boyfriend Mercer (I know, you can tell from the name he's a jerk), things are starting to shape up.
Even with all these developments, though, I'm tempted to start from the end and work my way backward. I know where I want to end up, and sometimes I'm afraid that my character's personalities will keep me from getting there. Well, I've got two more weeks to see what they can come up with before I take matters into my own hands.

week 2 of NaNoWriMo

I hate to admit it, but I'm not doing so hot this year. I'm a week behind in writing (I'd have to write 8k tonight to be on the right track, and that's not happening) and Bracken's not being the great character driving force that my plot needs right now. He kind of just letting things happen to him, and that's not cool. :( And if that's not bad enough, I'm behind on my reading at work. Anyway, I'm hoping that I can get some writing done tonight to jump start me into tomorrow social writing event.
Random thought: Harry Potter 7 Part I next week. I hope it's good. And now back to the grindstone.

NaNoWriMo update--meet Jamison, the chauffer

"The cars were still lined up in their pristine condition—a 2000 Cadillac Eldorado taking the place of the wrecked Porsche, but every other vehicle still the same. Mr. Jamison still lived above the garage and polished the cars each day without fail, even in the middle of winter. Mr. Jamison kept mostly to himself; sometimes his work seemed that of a ghost. Bracken wasn’t really sure what Jamison did in the free hours of the afternoon when he wasn’t polishing the cars, tending the lawn, or chauffering the Carnagies to elaborate dinner parties, but he often pictured the elderly Brit sitting in a leather wingback with a thick cigar and a selection of Shakespeare’s poems, tapping his polished shoe to the crooning tones of Rosemary Clooney."

First post during NaNoWriMo 2010

Well, fellow writers, November is now upon us, and the writing frenzy is begun. Last night's writing party was very successful (in my opinion). I managed to crank out 1500 words, although who knows how terrible they may sound now in the daylight. Since I know my characters pretty well (although, who of us, even me, can say that we will ever truly know Bracken Carnegie?), I'm not too worried about him driving my plot forward toward the stunning final scene. My main concern right now is coming up with a working title so that I can stop referring to it as Bracken. While it does describe the book pretty well, being the main character's name and all, I am not as a general rule very happy about such mundane book titles.
Books that I formerly had called after their main characters, for example, are now pleasantly dubbed Into the Flames, Jumpin' Jehosephat!, and The Letter to Santa. See how much more intriguing those sound, as opposed to, for instance, Jane Eyre, David Copperfield, or Emma? Now don't get me wrong, those are all delightful books, but the titles don't really tell you that much about them except that their main characters have very common names.
Leaving you with these thoughts to ponder, I shall bid you adieu and make my way back the creative recourses of my brain where Bracken awaits his next move.