The Rogue's Scribe: Continuing NaNo

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Continuing NaNo

NOVEMBER 5TH – DAY FIVE
For a decade the graves of my father-in-law’s parents were unmarked in a family cemetery. A few weeks ago everyone FINALLY got their inheritance and the siblings all chipped in to finally get a joint headstone for the parents. Yesterday was the family “ceremony” where they finally placed the headstone. My in-laws and one of Hubby’s cousins were all at the site yesterday.
Everyone was there but me and Hubby.
I was exhausted and slept when I wasn’t writing. Besides, I was supposed to be at work when everyone else was at the cemetery. There really was no way I’d be able to attend. Hubby was just as exhausted – if not more so since I at least had about three or four hours of sleep before work and he only had a little more than one. So he was beyond zonked out and didn’t really wake up until I got home at 8:30.
Even though his parents KNOW about his overnights on Sundays and KNOW that I go in to work every Sunday at 3:30, they STILL scheduled this dedication on a Sunday and then were kinda ticked off that we weren’t there.
So after a long day at work today – in which I was again faint and mentally chanting “don’t throw up” while working through a headache – all I wanted to do was shower, sleep, and then get to writing. What I ACTUALLY did was quickly change so Hubby and I could go with his parents to his grandparents’ graves so we could see the headstones….. And then we got a mini-tour of the cemetery and shown where all the other family members were buried and yada-yada.
I know, I’m sounding really rude, but I don’t even visit my FATHER’S gravesite. And I was feeling kinda sick.
Anyway, when we finally got home I went to write my second chapter. I cranked about 200words out before passing out. So now I’m 4167 words behind. Sheesh.
By the way, has anyone read the first chapter? Is it as craptastic as I think it is? One of the things about NaNo is that you just write. You don’t take time to go back and read. So I honestly have no clue how that first chapter turned out. :-P

NOVEMBER 6TH – DAY SIX
Election day!
I had to work first thing in the morning, and then I brought Hubby in to work at 2. I had the house to myself until 7:30, and so I was originally going to use that time to catch up on my word count. Unfortunately, celestialTyrant was having a bit of an emotional crisis so I talked to him for almost two hours. Between that, showering, and checking my Social Media stuff another hour went out the window. I also was aiming to head out at about 7 so I could get some shopping done before picking Hubby up. So my time was quickly shrinking down to about three hours to write.
I then came upon the same snafu that I had when writing the third chapter of my story. I just couldn’t properly picture my male lead Connor in my head. I knew he was a sort of compilation of the hero of Fable, Link from Legend of Zelda, Sesshomaru from the show InuYasha, Van from the show Vision of Escaflowne, and Tamahome from the show Fushigi Yuugi. But what do all these guys look like when mushed together? What elements of each of their looks am I stealing?
And thus two hours were spent grabbing pictures and trying to compile them in to one person. I’m so horrible at this! :-P Perhaps one day I’ll attempt to draw Natalie and Connor, but anyone who reads my story and wants to draw fanart of them I’d be more than happy to see how you see them.
So now I’m down to an hour to write before going to shop before picking up my husband and then going to vote. Even though a normal person would think this is ample time to at least punch out the word count needed to describe Connor, I fell in to my normal “I won’t have time to write! I’ll either get caught up in what I’m doing and run late with everything else or I’ll have to stop before my thought is complete and I’ll lose where I’m going with it” panic. And then I spent an hour on Facebook….
No writing was done that day….

NOVEMBER 7TH – DAY SEVEN
Obama won the election. I’m personally happy with this result, but I can understand how the other half of the country feels this is a sign that bad times are going to come/continue. However, I just can’t stand all of the people who voted for Romney going on and on about how the United States is now “doomed” and “on the road to Socialism” now that we have “four more years of Obama”. I mean, I was ticked off that Bush won re-election in 2004; I thought there was really no way he could improve enough to make up for what he already did to the country, and yet I don’t recall ever calling the United States “Doomed”… It’s a childish, extremist outlook and I can’t properly appreciate the lack of political ads the day after Election Day when I’m seeing this BS all over Facebook.
Anyway, enough of that. You guys don’t care about that.
What you do care about is how brilliant my husband is. I got done with work at 12:30 today, stuck around until 1 for Hubby to have his break, and then I had every intention of going home until I had to pick him up at 5. Hubby then suggested that I just stick around in the break room since I had everything I needed to continue with my NaNo writing. Most of the time the room would be empty, so I wouldn’t have to worry about being distracted by people wishing to socialize. There’s also no internet access, so I won’t have to worry about being distracted by that either! I spent $1 on a frozen dinner, another buck on a box of strawberry Moon Pies, refilled my water bottle, and set up camp. 2100+ words and a second completed chapter later it was time to head home. At least I’m slowly chipping away at that “Words Behind” count. Plus I have at least that one chapter for you guys to read this week.

NOVEMBER 8TH – DAY EIGHT
My first day off in a week. I was lazy the first half of the day. Well, mostly lazy. I did go online and do some more research on the game “Fable” so I had more to work with while writing.
When I got back from dropping Hubby off at work and running errands I grabbed some chocolate, made a cup of coffee with about ½ cup of sugar in it. And I got to plowing through some more word counts. I’m not entirely sure, but perhaps I’m ½ way through my third chapter. I’ll have to just keep going until I feel a natural stopping point.
By the time I had to pick up Hubby I had over 2600 words. Not amazing numbers, but it was just a little over two hours of work and it means I surpassed the 1667 daily word goal two days in a row. Now, if I could just hit a few more 3000 word days like I did on Sunday I should be able to catch up to where I’m supposed to be easily enough.
I also finally got around to hopping on the forums over on the NaNo website. I was excited to see one of my favorite thread topics was already started: “Your Last Sentence”. At the end of every day participants post the last sentence they wrote. It’s so funny to read these lines out of context and try to envision what the story is about. For instance, the first “last sentence” listed is “Never before had he heard anyone laugh while fighting a dragon..”
I had to laugh when I went through all of my last sentences…. Out of context, the places I stop for the day all feel like lines from a smutty romance novel! Here, check out what I have so far!

Shaking, she fell in to his chest and sobbed, “I just want to go home,” before fainting.

She was both scared and comforted with the idea of being alone with him.

She shyly looked away as Connor finally exited the room.

“Alright, that was amazing,” Natalie breathed with a nervous laugh.

NOVEMBER 9TH – DAY NINE
I thought I’d have the same opportunities today as I did on Wednesday in regards to writing in the break room at work. Hubby had to go in an hour before my shift started, and he finished two hours after I was done. I figured I’d again set up camp and just write in the break room while bookending my shifts.
What actually happened is I used some of the time to work on the Wellness items I have to do as the store’s Wellness Champion. The rest of the time was spent talking to people since of course TODAY the break room is all abuzz with employees. *sigh*
So it kept until 5:30ish – when we were both home again – for me to start writing. Only to be stopped a mere half-hour later for dinner prep/eating purposes. I didn’t crack my netbook back open until 10. Thankfully, this week I actually had Saturday off for the first time since April or May, plus Hubby always has Saturdays off because of his Sunday overnight shifts, so I took full advantage of my ability to just stay up as late as I wanted since I could just sleep in the next day.
I stayed up until 11:15 in order to write! Aren’t I such a night owl!? *sigh* Well, I didn’t hit the needed daily count, but I still cranked out about 900 words, so I’m not falling terribly too far behind.

NOVEMBER 10TH – DAY TEN
Alright, so today was my day off. I had from 3pm yesterday until 4pm tomorrow to just write. I should have easily plowed through and at least caught up to the 16,666 words I was supposed to have by the end of the night, correct?
Yeah…. No…..
So I woke up and did the whole Social Media thing before hiding upstairs to finish off my third chapter. I decided to take a bit of a break after completing the chapter. Seemed natural to do so. I went back downstairs and had something to eat, hung out with Hubby a little, and had a strong desire to play some more “Fable” today.
Although it seems logical and natural for me to want to play the game that my story is based on – you know, since I’m constantly thinking about it – I’ve been resisting the urge since I could use that playing time for either writing or actually doing some ignored chores around the house. But since I hadn’t played since September I decided to cave in, under the excuse of “reinspiring” myself for the next chapter.
My INTENTION was to play for about two hours or so and then either get back to writing to try to chew up some more of that “Words Behind” count or do some cleaning….. What HAPPENED was I played “Fable” while Hubby played “League of Legends” on the computer, Hubby’s BFF randomly stopped by, and that’s when I realized that Hubby and I had been playing our respective games for over six hours straight!!!!! HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN!?
So we did the Socializing thing for a little bit while BFF was waiting in town for his roommate to get off of work. He headed home at around eight and I got back to writing. Hubby helped me out with a few things while snuggled next to me playing Pokémon. About an hour later he decided to call it a night in an attempt to actually get a decent amount of sleep in before going in to work tonight. I stayed up for another half-hour to finish off my thought before joining him.
I had a full day to myself to either write like the wind, clean, or have a happy combo of the two. What I actually accomplish is just barely making my daily word count goal and six straight hours of playing a video game. Sheesh!

NOVEMBER 11TH – DAY ELEVEN
I caved. My eyes were still so sore from staring at a computer screen for so long that even though I had an unusually high amount of sleep this week I still passed out again once I got home. So there goes my ability to use my exuberant amount of free time in order to catch up with my writing. On the upside, though, according to the NaNo website, if I change to writing at least 1800 words a day I could still reach the 50,000 words goal by the end of the month. A lot of the days that I actually did write I ended up writing at least 1900 words, so I’m not terribly too nervous yet.
I did forget to mention that a few days ago that I put up a call for help on Facebook. I’m horrendous when it comes to naming anything – I mean, check out these blog titles! I couldn’t just keep my NaNo story title as “Massive Hybrid Crossover”. Granted, I’m not terribly sure I even want people to read this story – I’m only posting my chapters to keep me accountable. I mean, I’m almost positive that I’m rambling through a lot of the story, giving far too much unneeded description to help readers see the world portrayed in “Fable”, and I noticed I use the words “blush”, “gentle”, and “nod” a lot. Regardless, who would even bother clicking on a story titled “Massive Hybrid Crossover”? So I asked for help naming my story.
The synopsis of the story consists of Natalie’s and Connor’s destinies being intertwined with both each other and the country of Albion, plus they’re racing to get to the sword "Destiny" in order to defeat the antagonist. Therefore, most of the title suggestions included the word “Destiny”.
Although most of the title suggestions were really good, they sparked a title from myself. When that happens I almost feel obligated to use the title I came up with. So thank you, everyone. I’m currently using the working title of “The Race For Destiny”… it might have the wrong connotation, however, and once the overall story is finally played out I might find a better title.
Unless you, my readers – some of whom already through their suggestions in the ring :-D – prefer one of the following suggested titles: