Writing & Rant (not related or sort of)

Rant first.

Seriously, if you're on a writing email list, which by the way has a membership of 2000+, please stop jabbering about your hormones and pregnancy sickness. I'm sorry but that's not why I joined; my reasons were to read about the writing process, how others are doing, good things that happen to them, the market - get the picture. Yes, I know about the hormone thing, been there, done that. Yes, I know about getting sick when pregnant, been there, done that, three times to be exact. Two or three members start going back and forth about this crap like their the only ones on some private list, well you're not. To be upfront, I have no problem with conversations like that at all, this just isn't the place to do it. And, I'm sure all the males on the list are having a ball. Not. So, please, go form your own email list and talk about all that stuff to your hearts content.

The fact that the owner seems to ignore these types of conversations that crop up from time to time irritates the hell out of me. Most he'll do is say something if others put up enough of a bitch about it. Sorry, guy, but that doesn't make you a very good owner/moderator. It's a shame you never want to make one or two other members moderators, but that's come up in the past and you declined. And, yes, I know a bit about your history, so have a pretty good idea why you chose to run it alone.
/rant

So, hanging around the NaNo forum board lately and it's nice to see some new people there getting ready for November. And some who are doing a few off season NaNos. I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to do, while working on two other projects that were started and now I'd like to get finished. Would love to have a more detailed outline than I've ever attempted before, not that I've done all that many.

Downloaded Liquid Story Binder last week (free for one day) and I keep looking and playing with that from time to time, but mostly end up feeling lost. I do think it would work quite well with the Phase System though, so may be doing some actual writing in it when the time comes. Oops, I'll have to set that up first, but before that I'll need to know where the hell my story is going. Right now I only have the beginning and a few scenes in my head. Maybe will try to hit the index cards first and hope that spits out something worth using.

Oh, and just downloaded ScribeFire to use so will see how this works and if it will help me keep up with blogging more often. It's a Firefox add-on and puts an icon on the Status Bar. Kinda nifty, if it works well.

Here's to writing, the rest of this summer and tons more in November!

NaNo 1 done; NaNo 2 started

NaNo novel made it to the 50K mark. I almost think this could be split about in half and made into two novels. Switched FMC a bit over halfway through and the plot changed somewhat, but all the characters stayed in and had parts to play. Choppy? Yes. Very. Will need to think on it later. For now I'm starting a new one.

Shadows and Dust is the working title of the new one. Plot bunny jumped up and bit me in the ass yesterday afternoon. Oh yeah, so it was What if? this and What if that? What? Generation ship? Ack! Okay, most of them are dead and only a few left alive. Those few still alive? The oldest one will probably be 19. Know how to run the ship? Nope. Know some things, but will be learning as they go, I guess. I hope they learn, because I know nothing about it.

I think I'm going to ignore TV tonight and try to get some more writing in. And if my computer keeps acting up I may toss it out the window! Not planning on writing on the damn thing but will be using the laptop and it better behave itself. Did nothing but fight with both of them yesterday. Both were cleaned just before November and the desktop twice again now. Laptop has had one more this month.

Oh, and have found a great program to write in. Q10. Full screen, which is nice, but Open Office does that too. What I really love is the word counter. It counts as you are typing. And also has a timer you can set, so it's nice to use for word wars with others or just by yourself. Can change the background color and the font color. Make it sound like a typewriter, which I didn't think I'd like but it's not bad. I felt like I was able to produce more words yesterday by being able to see my word count in real time. Might be a distraction to some but works for me.

Okay, the kids are starting to wake up. Um, that would be the kids on the ship. Guess I'd better get them all up and moving so they can start learning all those new things. Whoo! Let the complaining begin! I just know they will.

Widget

Now this is neat. NaNo widgets



Oh, yeah, I chucked the novel I was planning to do and went with one I have almost absolutely nothing on, other than in my head. Some character names, a short paragraph on them, which most have been changed as I write.

NaNo words wars have helped me bring the word count up to where it is now. Strange, because I've only done a couple of days worth of word wars. I really, really need to begin my writing earlier in the day and keep going with it to get to that, sometimes elusive, 50,000. I do if I want to still try doing 3 of these again this year. One isn't too far behind and would be easy to bring up to speed, but the 3rd one is sitting so far back on word count right now all you can see is dust.

I'd love to get some 10K days in. Managed 2 of those last year and one 11K. About three days of those and this one would be finished. Well, maybe not as far as "The End" but at least to 50K, then I could move on to one of the others. The second would be easy to bring up to the count it needs to be and then if I could do the same with the third one, then I'd only need to write 2,000 for each one per day. Very doable for me since I've been getting at least 5K a day on the one shown in the widget above.

15min word wars works for me. My average comes out to about 500 words each time, give or take, so 4 words wars and, boom! I've got my 2K written.

And that means I need to get my butt in gear and go do some of those, eat lunch, then jump right back into them today.