NaNo novel 2009 cast list

This is another of those things that I meant to post earlier but forgot about. During December and (mainly) January there was a thread on the NaNo forum for who we'd cast in the film versions of our novels, just for a bit of fun before people started editing and whatnot. For better or worse here's my cast list, and it was only after the novel was finished that I really gave any serious thought to who my characters most closely resembled:

NaNoWriMo - the final word count

I completed the final chapter of the first draft at around 2.30 this morning - having a day off was not a particularly bright idea. As it says on the left hand side of the page my final word count for this year is 55274, so I'm rather pleased. Now I'm definitely having a couple of days away from the story before printing and reading it right the way through.

NaNoWriMo - over the finishing line

If the title of this post didn't give it away, I've passed the NaNo finishing line! At 9.15 this evening my word count reached 50148, and there are still two chapters to go (originally it was three chapters, but I decided to combine the last two). Verification begins on Wednesday and I'm hoping to be completely finished some time on Thursday, so will probably verify on Friday.

NaNoWriMo Week 3

In spite of a late start after dinner this evening my word count is now at 44873. The long chapter that I was writing a couple of days ago is almost finished (at last), and I may try and get it out of the way before shutting the computer down for the night. If I do the extra words will be added to Monday's word count. Depending on how things go over the next couple of days, I could reach the 50k minimum late on Tuesday or early on Wednesday.

NaNoWriMo: nearing the finishing line

A few days earlier than scheduled, but a couple of hours ago (before dinner to be precise) my NaNo novel crept past the 40k barrier. There are four chapters to go, plus the rest of the chapter that I'm currently working on, so the finished first draft will be longer than the 50k minimum. At this stage I'm not entirely sure how much longer it will be, but I'm just thrilled at the progress I've made so far. The fact that it's been so much fun has helped, and knowing that I won't have to pull an all-nighter in order to finish on time is even better!

NaNoWriMo Week 2

I've just finished today's writing session and feel that the story's jogging along quite nicely. Hopefully it won't all go horribly wrong over the next couple of chapters, resulting in the story ending a few thousand words short of the 50k, but the pacing seems to be about right. It's taken just over 29k to get to the current stage in the plot, but as the antagonist and the male protagonist haven't had their backgrounds covered in too much detail as yet (which is deliberate), using up the words shouldn't be a problem. There's a lot more dialogue in this year's novel, and writing dialogue is something that I don't really enjoy as a rule. However the plot involves a police investigation, so making my characters talk to each other slightly more than usual isn't something that can be avoided!

NaNoWriMo Week 1

A day later than planned, but my word count total for Week 1 is 15176. On Thursday night my total was 10369, so getting almost another 5000 words done while I was away over the weekend wasn't too bad. The official NaNo site was down for a while last night (Monday) so I couldn't get anything updated until this morning, but with any luck I'll be able to add at least another couple of thousand words tonight.

The day after tomorrow .....

..... NaNoWriMo begins! Characters and plot are sorted, necessary research is done, so all I'm waiting for is 1st November. Between now and Sunday I'm going to try and catch up on some long overdue blog-reading, and try to finish the book I'm currently half-way through - The Blood Detective by Dan Waddell.

On a final note here's a link to a non-vital but very useful piece of kit for any NaNoer:

Dr Wicked's Write or Die

Since the last NaNo he's added a downloadable version for $10 (roughly £5 I think), but I'll be sticking with the free online version as I only use it during November.

All that remains now is to wish everyone taking part in NaNo 2009 good luck! :)

NaNoWriMo 2009

After much deliberation I've decided to take part in NaNoWriMo again this year, and I'm sticking with the horror genre as I had so much fun with last year's novel. It was a matter of choosing between vampires and werewolves for this year's theme, and in the end vampires won by the narrowest of margins. Werewolves will definitely be next year's theme, as I've never really explored them in either my reading or writing.