Sunday, November 30, 2014

NaNoWriMo Day 30: On Winning And Thanks

Current Day: 30
Current Page: 166
Winning Page: 166
Final Line: "Eva and Galen lived reasonably ever after."

I feel like that's a bit of a cliche ending. It could very well be too cliche of an ending. I don't really know. Right now, I'm just happy I won. I've validated, and I've written a story that concluded within a 30-day time frame. (By that, I mean that I finished it in 30 days. The last novel I finished took over a year, and that's partly because half of it was in my friend's trunk for six months). I'm excited, but I'm also terrified.
Why?
Now I have to type the whole thing up.
And then I have to edit.

Saturday, November 29, 2014

NaNoWriMo Day 29: Apologies and Nearing The End

Current Day: 29
Current Page: 154
Target Page: 160-1
Pages Until 50,000: 10-13 (Depending on how much I fudge my averages)
Place in Story: Goal has been achieved. After persuading, cajoling, bribing, pleading, stealing, and getting really mad at princesses; after Eva kicking Jasper in the ribs on purpose in an act that may or may not wind up being the real climax of the novel; after three days and three nights of Eva not sleeping and Ekito the Fairy staying up with Eva to make sure she finished the unicursal hexagram, the work is finally done.
My work isn't done, however. I still have around 3,000 words left to write. The trouble is, I don't know if I have 3,000 words left of story. I'll be able to wiggle a little with the word count averages (um... of COURSE I've been writing at an average of 305 words per page, not 300... that was just a miscalculation... obviously...), but that still gets me to the 3,000 remaining words instead of 4,200.
I've achieved several of the goals I set for the month, however (or I will by tomorrow, anyway). Firstly, I will probably write "THE END" before midnight tomorrow. I have surpassed last year's word count, and possibly the year before's as well. I'm pretty sure the story is concise, and it just needs to be edited for themes and consistency. (That's a whole different matter, though.)

I apologize for not posting at all this week - it was partly because I have been busy with school, but I've also been busy writing a lot. I had a twelve-page Tuesday this week (10k is not very achievable when writing by hand), and another 3,000 word day this week as well. My word count, in other words, has been climbing a lot thanks to Thanksgiving break. I'm very thankful I have such a good home to come back to and for the ability to create so much.
I'll post again tomorrow, hopefully, for the FINAL COUNTDOWN.

Saturday, November 22, 2014

NaNoWriMo Day 22: Relying A Lot on Thanksgiving Break

Current Day: 21
Current Page: 111
Target Page: 116
Page I Should Be On: 120
Place in Story: Still Looking for gemstones. Nothing new here.


I'm moving way more slowly than I should be, but that's college. I have to wake up early to work on homework tomorrow, which sucks, but I need to do work.
That's all for tonight.

Friday, November 21, 2014

NaNoWriMo Day 21: Winds of the End

Current Day: 21
Current Page: 109
Target Page: 114
Likelihood of Hitting That Page: 1/3
Place in Storyline: Three weeks since Eva entered the palace.  Three weeks until Winter Solstice/ New Year/ That Time When Eva And Jasper Must Be In The Same House And Not Try To Kill Each Other.  Four of the gems have been obtained, out of six that are needed.  I know Jasper's got one of them, and I just need to figure out how to get the other one without underdoing my word count.
HUZZAH!

Thursday, November 20, 2014

NaNoWriMo Day 20: Pushing On, Because Why Not?

Current Day: 20
Current Page: about to start 104
Target Page: at least 107, but hopefully 108-9
Likelihood of hitting that: 37:82.
Place in Story: 3 gems achieved, 4th in the process, 2 left to go.
This is starting to feel like a higher fantasy novel than I intended, but I like it.
My word count isn't what it needs to be - it's about 2,000 words behind - but I'm going to target 6-10 pages a day. I'm near the end of the Week of Terribleness, and I've got a strategy to work out my last two things. (Today: major things on Bible essay. Tomorrow: major things on Shakespeare proposal. Saturday: edit proposal. Sunday: edit Bible. DONE.)
Next week, I'm going to mostly focus on Really Big Targets. I have an entire list worked out:
Surviving The Weekend Sunday (write at least 1000 words)
More Words than Yesterday Monday (write 2000 words)
10k Tuesday (target 10,000 words or get carpal tunnel in the attempt)
Write A Lot Wednesday (target 2000-3000 words)
3k Thursday (target 3000 words, even though that might not happen)
5k Friday (because this is really the only day I'm going to write over break, so I'd better make it a good one)
6k Saturday (to compensate for the lack of writing over break)
Schooltime Sunday (in which I write a lot and validate)

I HOPE THIS WORKS.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

NaNoWriMo Day 19: On Revising Goals

Current Day: 19
Current Page: 100
Target Page: 104
Likelihood of Hitting That Number: 22/85
Place In Story: MORE RETRIEVAL OF GEMSTONES!  Also, fancy-dress shopping.  I'm not quite sure why Eva has consented to buying herself a fancy dress to impress a man.  She stopped growing a few years prior and has barely bought new clothing since then.  She's the sort of person who doesn't see the point in dresses, and walked out of three stores because she doesn't want to pay that much for a dress.

In reality, the situation is mostly that Eva's not really comfortable in dresses. It's not a bodily discomfort problem. Eva doesn't have a problem with discomfort; the only discomfort she feels is when other people are obviously uncomfortable with her body. Eva's main problem is that she doesn't see the point in dresses. As someone who lives in trousers on a daily basis and never goes to fancy parties (and she wears trousers when she does because it's normally cold out), Eva just doesn't need to buy fancy dresses. Also, she travels a lot. Though a fancy dress could come in handy in the off-chance you need to be acceptably dressed in front of a king, a fancy outfit is not necessarily part of the Average Adventurer's Checklist. Since "Make A Good Impression on a King" isn't on Eva's regular to-do list, she doesn't exactly carry around fancy clothing all the time.
This shopping trip should be interesting.

Right now, the title of "REVISING GOALS" comes at the time in the month when I'm getting really discouraged. I've barely written today, and I've got a long way to go if I want to catch up to the word count. I don't know if I'm going to make it to 50,000 words, but that doesn't mean I'm going to give up. I might revise my standards of success.
I'm currently at 30,000 or so words, and I've decided that if I get past 33,550 words - the word count I stopped at last year - then I will consider this year a Not Failure. (A "Not Failure" can also be "Not Necessarily Success," which it very well might be, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.)
Right now, I could run into the Not Failure becoming the Success.
Before I work myself into a loop, I'm going to go change and write and go to bed.

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

NaNoWriMo Day 18: Lagging, exhaustion, and discipline

Current Page: end of 95/ top of 96
Target Page: 100-101
Pages left: 4-5
Pages written: 3
Place in Story: retrieved the emerald from a princess who thought she deserved to have it because she spent six weeks NOT LIVING IN ABSOLUTE LUXURY (OMG THE HORROR!).  Now, Galen and Eva have split up (because Galen deserves more words).  I think he's going to another vain princess and she's going to one who died the year prior from venereal disease.

This morning, I woke up early to write.  I didn't write.  I am now very tired, sleep deprived, and running behind on writing and homework, and possibly coming down with something.
I know I need to push myself in order to get everything done on time; it's going to be a long road to Thanksgiving.  I'm looking forward to the break, but I'm also looking forward to the chance to write a lot and not get distracted by silly things like homework.  (That's not true.  Do your homework, kids!).  EVERYONE wants to assign things this week, though - I have a paper proposal due over the weekend, a paper due next Monday, and a test and a presentation in two different classes this past Monday.  Right now, I need sleep.  I can't get it until Friday night, though.  Probably not even then.
I know it's important to eat and sleep and go to the gym, but it's a difficult cycle to break, when you're exhausted and don't want to work, though you HAVE to work late into the night because you took so long to start the work in the first place.  I'm not trying to make excuses for the lousy work I've put forth so far with my writing.
On that note, TO WORK!

Monday, November 17, 2014

NaNoWriMo Day 17: On Vain Princesses and Sex

Day: 17
Current Page: 91
Target Page: 95
Place in Story: Eva is going to break into the palace/ mansion/ super nice house of one of the people who stole a gemstone from Galen, with the help of the princess's younger brother.
Favorite Quote from the Last 24 Hours: "She promised Judas a drink and hot sex the night after the break-in, with the intent to leave gold with the bartender for Judas to buy two rounds and hire a high-class hooker for one night."
I NEVER SAID EVA WAS THE ONE WHO WOULD HAVE SEX WITH HIM.  She wouldn't do that sort of thing.  She's not into drunk fifteen-year-olds.  (In other news, Judas probably has a problematic background that we don't now about yet.  I might have to write one up for him once NaNoWriMo is over.  Why else would a fifteen-year-old drink so much?)

Sunday, November 16, 2014

NaNoWriMo Day 16: On Apathy, Sleep Deprivation, and too much homework

Current Day: 16
Current Page: 86
Target Page: 92
Pages Written Today: 0
Place in story: getting people drunk to steal things. Yep.

I've finally figured out why my word count has started tanking halfway through NaNoWriMo.  This is a trend that started when I was in college, and it's because every professor wants us to do homework, take tests, turn in papers, write essays, and do projects before Thanksgiving.  (Why not after Thanksgiving?  You want us to take a break and then study a LOT MORE?  What's the point of seeing family if we're panicked about finals?).
Anyway, I know that I'm not getting much writing done today - I have a book report and a test tomorrow, and I procrastinated a lot this morning.  I really need to get my life in order, but this is Hell Week Part One, so it's not going to be easy.  Like, I should have started finishing my book 45 minutes ago, so I'm probably going to get a sandwich and eat in my room as I desperately try and read 100 pages.

Saturday, November 15, 2014

NaNoWriMo Day 15: Livin' on a Prayer (cuz we're halfway there and we'll make it I swear)

Current Day: 15
Current Page: 85
Target Page: 85-7
Location in Story: first gem retrieved. Second gem in the works. How? By persuading the drunken younger brother of a super vain princess to steal an emerald from his sister. I'm a little disappointed that Eva's established pickpocketing skills aren't going to come into play here, because Judas is the one who will actually do the stealing (yes, his name is Judas... don't judge me), but I might have her tag along and actually do the stealing. Drunk Judas is talking Judas, and talking Judas might wake sleeping sister who likes beauty sleep.



CAUTION: SLIGHT SWEARING AT THE END OF THIS POST. (I don't know if there are any actual readers who want a caution on that sort of thing, but it's worth it)



Now that we're halfway through November, the end is in sight. There are a finite number of days between now and the end of the month, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. It's a good thing because I'm over halfway to making a habit of writing more (what is it, three weeks to create a new habit?), but it's also less of a buffer zone - if my word count suddenly tanks, I have less time to make it up. That being said, I took the opportunity to look back over some of my old stats. Though my word count is nowhere near as good as it could be, and it's nowhere near where it was in 2011, it's definitely better than it was in 2013. Currently, my word count is approximately 25,200 words (or it will be by the end of page 85, since I'm not done with page 85 yet). The Wild Card Overachiever target would be 30k-31.5k words, but the NaNo Official Word Count is 25k; as long as I stay above that number, all will be okay. I hope.
The danger, of course, is that I reach the end but not the word count of 50k. If that happens, I'm going to count that as a win. I don't know if my word count is actually 300 words per page; though many of my pages have over 300 words on them, about 1/4 of them have less than a full page written (my chapters are about 4 pages each). My handwriting has gotten smaller than when I did the test page, but I'm also writing a lot of dialogue that might get edited out later, but there might be more than 300 words per page.

In the end, it's not about how much I write, but whether I write. I think that's true for a lot of people. There are a lot of quotes on Pinterest about WRITE BETTER, NOT MORE, and also DON'T STOP WRITING, but I would like to say to those people: GET IN THE HABIT OF WRITING AND MAKE IT SOUND PRETTY LATER.

I'm going to use a makeup metaphor. (I never thought I would say those words, but here we go).
Makeup is an attempt to make people look prettier. Sometimes it enhances a pretty feature. Sometimes it just makes that one zit less prominent. There is one thing that every makeup wearer has in common, though: THEY ALL HAVE A FACE (unless you are a faceless makeup wearer, in which case I apologize). Some have blue eyes and some have brown eyes and some people are Southeast Asian and some people are from Iceland and some people are some interesting mix of their Cherokee mother's cheekbones and their Turkish father's eyes. Not every face is the same, but everyone has a face on which to put makeup (again, my apologies to the faceless makeup gurus).
Similarly, there is one thing that every first draft has in common: words. Like makeup on a face, you can't pretty up the pretty stuff if there's no pretty stuff to begin with; you can't take out the shitty stuff if there's no shit in the first place. Blank pages are the things that go in the back of books whose page numbers aren't in a multiple of 8 or 12. Blank pages only go within the the novel if there is an artistic choice or a printing error.

I don't know where I'm going with this, so I'm just going to write about a drunk prince and then go to bed.

Friday, November 14, 2014

NaNoWriMo Day 14: where writing gets interrupted by boyfriends

Current Day: 14
Current Page: 75
Target Page: 80
Pages Written Today: 1
Pages Left to Go: at least 5
Place in Story: the first gem has been obtained. Now for all the rest.

I haven't had time to write much today because my boyfriend came to visit me and the rest of our friends, so that was... distracting.  Here's to trying to write more on Saturday!

Thursday, November 13, 2014

NaNoWriMo Day 13: When Early Mornings Turn Out To Be Beneficial (also, princesses)

Current Day: 13
Current Page: 72
Target Page: 73-5
Place in Story: so there are these gemstones, right?  Ekito the Priestess gave them to Galen when she gave him the materials to built the unicursal hexagram; she was sort of saying, "everything is here, now good luck finding someone to put it all together without magic!"  Galen captured princesses in an attempt to make them build the thing; when they left, they each took one of the gems with them.  Now Eva and Galen are on their way to track down the princesses and persuade/ cajole/ threaten/ steal from the princesses in order to get the gems back.

I was up really early this morning to work at a candlelight vigil for my fraternity; since nobody is doing much at 7:30 AM on a college campus, I was able to get a lot of writing done; aside from getting down a few pages, I was able to name and motivate each of the princesses.  I'm not putting those here, because now isn't the time for that, but I'm glad with the level of diversity there is.  Some are vain, some just did it for shits and giggles.  Anyway, I need to read a book for Greek so I can do a fiction report on Monday.  That's been taking up most of my time today.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

NaNoWriMo Day 12: Suddenly, a PLOT DEVIATION OCCURS!

Current Day: 12
Current Page: 64
Target Page: 70
Place in Story: Eva and Galen have gotten the center stone in place.  That's the most important stone to have in place.  The other stones that are supposed to make up the six corners of the icon are missing, probably stolen by Abducted Princesses of Days Gone By.  In the meantime, Eva found a weird box in a scene I might cut later.  (I NEED WORDS, OKAY).
So the plot deviation comes in the fact that the princesses stole the gems: I wasn't planning on that.  I want to keep it, because it gives Eva and Galen something to do that doesn't involve sitting and talking as Eva does some sort of mechanical labor.  I was running out of Character Building Conversations for them to have.  Also, I should have thought this through better when I decided to WRITE AN ENTIRE NOVEL WHERE THE MAIN ACTION WAS JUST TO BUILD A THING.  Seriously, that was kind of dumb.  There are only so many interrupting actions that can happen in the middle of building things, and I went with the one that I would think is most interesting (it's also the most convenient and the one that popped into my head first): that the valuable objects that are essential to the project got stolen by someone who isn't involved in any other way.   Of course, that means I have to figure out what their names are and when they stole the thing and which one they stole and why and how and where they are in the first place and who they ended up marrying.
You know, this might not be the most convenient answer to the NEED MORE WORDS problem.  Well, too late.  This is NaNoWriMo, and that means WORK WITH WHAT YOU WROTE.
Now, TO LAUNDRY AND WRITING!

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

NaNoWriMo Day 11: Sisters, Secrets, and Plot Slumps

Current Day: 11
Current Page: 59
Target Page: 63-5 (I don't actually know how far I'll get on that)
Current Place in Story: Eva's sister, Clara, turned out to be a pretty nice individual.  Eva also may or may not have some jealousy issues because of that.  If she does, it would stem from how people treat Clara in comparison to how they treat Eva.  They're very different - Eva is short, picked on, "less able than other people," and eternally angry because she's different.  There's a vicious cycle with Eva of people not treating her well because of her attitude, and she has a bit of an attitude because people don't treat her well.  (It has gotten better, since she's gotten to leave and earn a reputation instead of being given one based on how much of a left arm and magical ability she has).  Clara, on the other hand, is tall, conventionally pretty, fairly compassionate, kind, well-liked, and treated well in the community.  Eva might wonder why CLARA got treated so well and she herself didn't, despite all efforts to act like Clara.  (Eva probably would have wound up not doing anything like Clara, which is probably why Eva is on the road and Clara isn't.)
I think Clara might have envied the independence that Eva garnered when she left.  Eva had a really good reason to leave, and it wasn't as if the town really wanted to have her around in the first place, Eva could go wherever she chose.  Clara finished her training as a healer in her hometown, and stayed in her hometown because she was the only one trained in setting bones and doing surgeries.  Clara really likes what she does, but she probably regrets not going out and about before deciding to stay - if only because then she could have learned more about healing with and without magic, and maybe gotten certified in a few other things.
Also, as a subtle sub-plot, Jasper may be a manipulative butthead and hexed all of Clara's apprentices.  Clara had promised herself that, once another person completed the training to set bones and do surgeries, Clara herself would take a years' leave to go out and find out cool things with her sister.  When Clara and Eva interact for the first time in a long time, Clara mentions that the person she had been training dropped out suddenly.  This might truly be due to a family crisis, but I might make it due to the fact that Jasper is manipulative and mean and possibly a sociopath.  Or a psychopath.  I still need to look those things up.
Now, TO WRITING!

Monday, November 10, 2014

NaNoWriMo Day 10: Periods and Catchup

Day: 10
Current Page: 52
Target Page: 58
Place in Story: For some reason that may turn out to be important later, I'm including periods in my novel.  Like, menstrual cycles.  Like, the thing that people with vaginas get every month from their crotch.  (that was probably TMI.  Sorry about that.)
I think I'm including that just to get Eva out of the palace for a little while and possibly to have her run into her sister and establish the way they interact.  The way Clara and Eva talk to each other is very different from the way Jasper and Eva interact, simply because Clara was actually nice to Eva when they were kids and didn't try and transfigure her into anything, like Jasper did.  (Jasper claims that it's because he was curious about how beetles and newts and other small creatures act and also to practice human transfiguration, but in reality it's because he's mean and a bully and wanted to pick on someone smaller and weaker than him.  There's probably some degree of sociopathy/ psychopathy going on, but I'm not knowledgeable enough in the MAJOR FACTORS OF BEING A SOCIOPATH OR PSYCHOPATH to write Jasper explicitly as one of those.)
Since I've only written a page or two today, it's time to WRITE A LOT MORE!

Sunday, November 9, 2014

NaNoWriMo Day 9: Where I write about Judas and not Eva

Current Day: 9
Current Page: 48
Target Page: past 50
Current Location in Story: attempting to figure out construction details. Noelle completely ships Galen and Eva. Sam doesn't buy it. I need more plot.

Today, I gave up writing (mostly) for a day-long fraternity event (it was mandatory) and the draft of an essay about Judas. I'm glad the draft is happening, but I need to step up my non-procrastination game, because I need to stop procrastinating. I have nearly fallen behind on my word count, and I have some reading for Shakespeare to do as well.
This is going to be a long night.

Saturday, November 8, 2014

NaNoWriMo Day 8: Where I attempt to use my lead to do homework

Current Day: 8
Current Page: very top of 48
Target Page: 49
Place in Story: Noelle thinks Galen and Eva have romantic chemistry. Samuel doesn't. Dragonfly hasn't made an appearance in a while. Neither have Jasper or Clara. WHAT IS REAL AND WHAT IS FAKE? To be discovered after I do a required draft of an essay on Judas...

Right now, I'm mostly trying to keep up. It's been busy - I was on a bit of tight schedule today, I'll be on a tighter schedule tomorrow. My word count is safe, but it's not very much so. Right now, I'm just trying not to fall behind. I'm going to go write an essay now in order to get my word count up later.

Friday, November 7, 2014

NaNoWriMo Day 7: attempting to get farther ahead for the weekend

Current Day: 7
Current Page: 42
Target Page: 45 (But, realistically, I'm probably going to hit maybe 44 if I'm lucky and stop blogging now).
Location in story: Eva is having weird dreams, the basic materials have been purchased, Jasper the Older Brother is an asshole, Clara The Older Sister is reasonable, and I actually need to have stuff happen now, because PLOT. This could happen through backstory, but it might not. I don't know.

Right now, my biggest issue is making sure my word count is good, because I'll be very busy this weekend. Tomorrow, I have to write a mandatory draft for a term paper and Sunday I have a day-long fraternity retreat. I don't know how much I will be able to write this weekend, so I'm going to stop blogging now and write.

Fun story from this evening, though.

I helped my friend collect donations for Relay for Life, because she's on one of the committees. A typical interaction, especially in the male-dominated dorms, often went like this:
Me: *knock knock*
Them: *Vaguely scrambles about and opens door half-dressed*
Me: Hello, do you have any spare change or dollars that you would like to donate to Relay for Life?
Them: um... no... sorry...

In one dorm, though, I must have accidentally woken someone up some people and a boyfriend. The boyfriend stepped from one of the lofted beds onto the dresser to open the door from a weird angle. When I looked surprised, he just said, "Sorry, I thought you were one of my friends." I'm not sure why he thought his friends would crash, but this was a freshman dorm and we all know that freshmen get up to a lot of weird things.

Right, to writing!

Thursday, November 6, 2014

NaNoWriMo Day 6: FALLING BEHIND AAAAAHHHHHHHH

Day: 6
Current Page: 34 (very top)
Target Page: 38
Deficit: 5 pages
Location in Story: THEY'VE STARTED DOING THE THING. THEY'RE PLANNING THE BUILDING. EVERYTHING IS A GO.

For real, though.  The most important thing about the plot: Building the UNICURSAL HEXAGRAM.  Right now, Eva and Galen are trying to figure out logistics.  After all, Eva is only five foot three, and the hexagram is supposed to be around ten to fifteen feet tall.  Right now, they need to figure out HOW TO DO THAT THING - specifically, if they're allowed to use magic on a pulley system to get Eva up and down and around on levels.  Am I overthinking this?

NaNoWriMo Day 5: Double-Named Characters and Mean Siblings

Current Day: 5
Current Page: 30
Target Page: 32-35
Place in Story: the villain has been introduced. Who is he? Eva's brother. (He was introduced way earlier than I intended, but I like where he is right now.)

One thing I realized as I was writing today was that I broke one of my only rules of writing: I accidentally gave my villain, Joshua, the same name as an important good character in my 2012 novel. The rule I generally give myself is DON'T SHARE CHARACTER NAMES BETWEEN WORLDS. The short explanation of how this rule works is that there's only room in my annals for ONE Joshua.
Of course, I don't want to change the name of either of these characters. All my character notes for 2014 call Eva's brother JOSHUA Thompson. At the same time, my 2012 villain is called Jericho, so I intentionally called his counterpoint Joshua because of the Biblical reference. It would be easiest to change Joshua Thompson's name now, while it's still early on in the process. Part of me doesn't want to - it would be really simple just to keep the names as is. The 2012 novel may not see the light of day, after all. The 2014 novel might not either, for that matter. Still, the fact remains: in the showdown between Joshuas, there's only room in the annals for ONE of them.
Though I do want to make sure that each name gets its own association, it's difficult to simply turn to a generator for answers.
Since all the names except one (and she's a fairy that only shows up in backstory, so she doesn't count) are in the typical realm of English names - Evangeline, Clara, Galen, Samuel, Noelle - it's a bit more difficult to figure out a new name than it could be. If they were all fantasy-style names, I could easily combine a few random objects around me to create a name for him, but most English names don't do things like that. I've been writing so many common-name characters, however, there are a few issues with most male names: I've either used them as characters, know someone with that name, or the name sounds unfitting (Euseibo, Frederick, Carl, Willy, Wilford, etc). Hopefully, I'll be able to sort this out.
Until then, TO WRITING!


UPDATE: Eva's brother is now named Jasper Thompson.

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

NaNoWriMo Day 4: a Slow Catchup

Current Page: 21
Target Page: 28 (to modify it because I'm behind, it's 24 or 25)
Pages Written Today: 4
Pages Until (modified) Target: 3 or 4
Location in Story: Eva is about to begin The Right and Proper DOING OF THE THINGS.  Involved in The Right and Proper Doing Of The Things is reasoning with a dragon, building the dragon's character, and eventually (hopefully by the end of the night) getting the dragon to consent to Eva building the icon anyway.  Right now, though, she's hanging out in the library and trying to find things on religious iconography.  I'm not wholly sure why I'm having her do that, exactly, but she's there and that's what she's doing.  I might have her look up in-world religious iconography to give symbolism to the stones they're putting into the unicursal hexagram.

Speaking of STONE SYMBOLISM IN UNICURSAL HEXAGRAMS, there will be some of that going on.  Unfortunately, I lost the bookmark that had all my character notes on it and the stones I plan on putting in, so hopefully I can find that before it becomes necessary.  Mostly, the stones have to do with balance of passion and energy.  I decided the fairy changed Galen into a dragon because of her religious order: the order is all about harmony, balance, and unity, and dragons generally are none of those things.

So far, though, Eva is still not showing any depth.  Well, she's showing a little ability to manipulate and talk through things, which I can hopefully use, but she's in more scenes than Galen and does a lot of things (or at least says a lot of things), but has no character development, aside from being resentful of her older brother.  Kind of.  I know what I'm doing with that, I just need to flesh it out properly.

Anyway, I still have an hour left, so BACK TO WRITING!

Monday, November 3, 2014

NaNoWriMo Day 3: BEHIND ALREADY??!!??

Current Day: 3
Target Page: 21
Current Page: 17
Current Approximate Word Count: 5000-ish words
Place in Story: Galen and Eva are about to meet properly for the first time.

So, technically, I'm not behind on the word count.  According to the NaNoWriMo Official Word Count Calculator, I am right on track.  According to the Wild Card Personal Not Falling Behind Standards, I am WAY behind.  Okay, not WAY behind, but significantly enough behind on my target of 2100 words a day that I'll need to stay up tonight, probably.  The trouble is, I know exactly where I fell behind - I can tell precisely where I had an hour or two here or there and I did not use it for writing.  I really wish I was not at the point of falling behind already, but I hope I can recover from it.
I know that many of my friends are a lot farther behind than me - quite a number of them are around 0, according to their reports.  I cannot afford that if I want to win.  I also cannot afford to keep up with this word count procrastination, but I also need to sleep.  This is a lot of internal debate.
For now, back to trying to pad my word count.

Sunday, November 2, 2014

NaNoWriMo Day 2: THE DAY I GOT MY COMPUTER BACK (and also weird dreams)

Day: 2
Page: 15
Target Page: 14
Word Count: 4200-ish
Place in Story: ACCEPT THE CHALLENGE, EVA! DO IT! DO THE THING!

I've just realized a bit of a problem with my plot: Galen might not want to turn back into a human. So, as a solution, I'm going to make Eva very empathetic and do the building for everyone else in the castle. Seeing as she has only ever spoken to a hedgehog and a raven and a weird guy in a dream, she can't really say for sure if she's willing to build for Galen or willing to build for everyone else in the castle. So far, it's looking like she's going for everyone else in the castle, because there are ways for Galen to permanently be a dragon if he wants to.
I really need to improve Eva as a character. I haven't established her voice at all, and she has no real reason for staying aside from a willingness to help people. I need to have a stronger motive; willingness to help is usually secondary. But what should her motive be? This is what I must ponder tonight.

Saturday, November 1, 2014

NaNoWriMo Day 1

Day: 1
Current Words: 1500
Current Page: 5
Target Words: 2100
Target Page: 7
Deficit: 2 pages, 600 words
Things that have Happened So Far: Eva has entered Galen's palace because it's rainy and cold. Galen's servants welcome her. Galen might not agree. He's kind of a brat.
Things That Should Happen Before Bed Tonight: Galen and Eva should meet. The challenge shouldn't necessarily be issued, but they should meet. 

So far, I feel like this is a slower NaNo start than normal. I need to fix that tonight. That might be a downside of starting NaNoWriMo on Saturday: there's a lot of things I have to do on Saturdays. Homework. Service. Stuff like that.
Also, the NaNoWriMo word count updated seems to have crashed. They should fix that.
As you can tell, I'm tired. I need to go write and go to bed.