After a good effort last night, I’m *less *than a day behind.
Local meet up tonight, yay.
Y’all, I’m so proud of this one! I wish I could put a thumbnail up here, but no such luck. So I give you the Day 7 Cover>>> (drumroll)
Sex and the Single Devil: The Pulp Fiction Edition
Cookie quote from today’s work included. 
I’ve been keeping pace every day so far, but man today is killing me. I don’t know where to go with this story of mine, and I’ve fallen into the trap of taking it too seriously to just keep writing no matter what.
I’ll get it done, because I know that if I let myself slide tonight I’ll never catch up, but damn - it’s tough!
How’s everyone else coming along?
Do you guys mind me posting about the character designs in here? I’ll stop if you do.
Got the two latest designs up. Because I’m lazy, the link is in my sig. Half-naked superhero, yum.
I figure anything writing related is fair game. Character away.
If you find yourself stuck, remember that you can post a quick synopsis here, and someone will give try to give you a nudge. Even an idea that you can’t use directly can jumpstart you sometimes.
As usual, my job has gotten hectic in November, so I’m on the sidelines again. On the other hand, it’s not quite as bad as last year, and I’m getting some work done on a couple of game scripts and a short story that I had shelved. (Featuring a sentimental necromancer, a band of fantasy adventurers in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and a Christmas ghost story, respectively.)
I got ahead of the word count goal last night! So very happy. Of course, now I’m due today’s word count…
Not going to jinx it by saying anything other than; it’s going better than I expected, so far.
Go us! (Waves Happy NaNo Flag.)
And here’s the cover for today:
I’m slightly behind, at 13,500, but I think I can catch up if I try. Had a bad day Thursday.
Today my MC shocked me by flipping over a table during her assessment for magic school. It took me a couple hours later to figure out just what she was bent-out-of-shape about.
I’m a little jealous of writers who can actually control their characters. >_<
If anyone is interested, my NaNo ID is the same as my ID here.
Good luck everyone!
Um… be careful about the magic school thing, okay? I’m going to end up changing a lot of details in Death Train before publication, but let’s just say that I’m not EVEN going to try touching a magical school with a twenty-foot stick. Just introducing a powerful paranormal figure, two MC’s from warring families, and a train is close enough to dangerous territory for me. Don’t forget the Tanya Grotter incident…
I’m at 16,500 words. There’s going to be a murder very soon. Muahahahahaha!
Hopefully, only of a character in the fic. 
Come and see today’s cover!
Thanks, I might take you up on that. I do have a general question for everyone, though, that I think would be helpful: where, to you, does the line fall between taking the story semi-seriously and just getting it done? My understanding of the NaNo philosophy is that you can make the story as silly as you want as long as you keep writing.
What I’m finding at this point, though, is that I’m invested enough that I want this thing to make sense and actually be semi-decent…which makes it harder to just drop Godzilla or a unicorn or resurrected Adolf Hitler into the plot whenever I hit a wall. How do you guys deal with that?
Um…uh…sure. That’s what I meant. Yeah. 
She’s still alive, I’m up to 18,092. Had to let my mc sleep with her a few times first. 
Loving your covers and excerpts! I’m excited to read Death Train when you are finished.
Okay, for what it’s worth-- here’s what happened to me. I was going completely nuts with Death Train 1.0 (of course, it’s possible that I was already THERE.) I seriously wrote about 30 different versions of the first 30-40 pages (I counted.) Now, this had all started about 2 months before NaNo, and I decided I would carry it over.
But what happened was that writing so much every day really exposed the fundamental problems with that first section. Because of this, I decided to start on Death Train 2.0 about four days ago-- and the writing is going SOSOSOSOSOSO much better.
So here’s what I think the moral of the story might be: if you find yourself getting stuck repeatedly at a certain point, and everything you write after that point is crap, then there’s a reason. I personally think that at some point, it’s going to be better to find out that reason. However, plowing forward is exactly what may lead you there-- that’s what happened to me. THAT is where I think the true value of NaNo lies.
Although I do want to see Godzilla resurrected as Hitler and fighting a unicorn…
(hands everyone 2 cents)
P.S.: Thanks, YellowVal! 
Post some of your excerpts, too? I’d love to see that from everybody.
You can do both - and this is something I’m reminding myself about at the moment.
I’m at a really serious, pivotal point in the story and bogging down. What you and I can both do is write furiously, and decide in December whether we keep that in or dump it.
I’ve finished other nano’s with a few thousand words in a final / junk chapter. I wrote the words, they count in the total, but they don’t fit in the story anymore.
Tag the section somehow (like [FIXLATER], or [WTF], or whatever) and write whatever you can come up with in that spot. Written your protagonist into a corner with goons closing in, and can’t think of a cool way for them to escape? Godzilla wanders through and steps on the goons before wading back out to sea. That leaves your protagonist free to move on in the next section, and you have an easy way to find the bits you don’t like and clean them up next month, when they won’t impede your progress.
Don’t get hung up on any one thing–drop in a placeholder and move on. In a previous NaNo thread, I advised someone who was stuck on the name of a dog to name it Ebenezer or Zebadiah. Why? Because it’s easy to do a find and replace on those names later when the “right” name occurs to you.
I am also trying to write a “semi-decent” story. I know that people say it can be as silly as you like, silence your “inner editor” and all, but I’m trying not to make too silly or nonsensical of a story.
Something that I find gets my word count up fairly quickly is dialogue, and lots of it.
I don’t go for “silly” exactly, but I have gone for filler and some bad filler at that. So, when I didn’t quite know what to do next, there’s a long, involved description of the room that the character is standing in or instead of writing “Jane told Bill about the murder” (6 words), I’ll write the entire scene, including dialog (including interruptions from Bill asking for detailed clarification), facial expressions, internal emotional states, etc - while I figure out what Jane and Bill do next. Flashbacks are good filler, too.
I also don’t hunt around for “le mot juste,” I’ll just throw anything in there. So, no, no Hitler brain transplants, but I have had some truly awful dialog (even in some of the better years).
Eek! I’m too chicken.
[QUOTE=EmilyG]
I am also trying to write a “semi-decent” story. I know that people say it can be as silly as you like, silence your “inner editor” and all, but I’m trying not to make too silly or nonsensical of a story.
Something that I find gets my word count up fairly quickly is dialogue, and lots of it.
[/QUOTE]
Yes to all of this. I don’t really do “silly,” so dialogue is the way to go for me.