Week One: NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo is going great!

The daily goal all NaNoWriMo’ers try to meet is 1667 words per day. So far I’m doing pretty good at reaching that (so why can’t I do this during the other 11 months of the year?). I did mess up on Day 5 (I had a huge migraine) and on Day 7 but I made up for Day 5 on Day 6 and plan to do the same on Day 8. Now, let’s recap Week One of this literary adventure…

Word Counts (novel total after the dash, goals in brackets):

Day One:  3,395  – 3,395 (1,667) – Sunday
Day Two:  2,715 – 6,110 (3,333)
Day Three:  2,310 – 8,420 (5,000)
Day Four:  2,065 – 10,485 (6,667)
Day Five:  715 – 11,200 (8,333)
Day Six: 3,444 – 14,644 (10,000)
Day Seven: 1,190 – 15,834 (11,667) – Saturday

Novel Stats For Week One:

Number of People Killed off Screen:   1 planet + 997 thousand (Mothership 255) + 25 (Planet Tarton)
Number of People Killed on Screen:   8
Violent Acts done to the Main Characters:   1 rape/beating
Violent Acts done by the Main Characters:   Blew up a planet by mistake + destroyed numerous Myrith Arrows
Phrase from the Villain:   “Oh my. Did your balls just drop, boy? How interesting.” – Corin Macias
Phrase from the Minor Character: “Um, Sir. Did you have a plan? I mean besides relying on my perfect piloting skills and pure dumb luck?” – Benson Wats
At the end of this week you are on which Chapter: Halfway through Chapter 4

Other:

I know what you’re thinking. That’s a lot of really bad things happening to your main characters, what’s the deal? I think I answered this on Twitter by posted that “I’m emotionally destroying my characters so I can rebuild them into heroes”, and my friend Michell agrees with me (I think) saying “No pain/mutilation, no gain/retribution”.

There was this forum on NaNoWriMo.org that asked you to create a PostSecret for your character. I did one for Tori when I really should have been writing on day 4 but hey I still think it’s cool.

Tori's Doubt

Also, I mentioned in my supplemental post I created a very basic outline for my novel. This novel has 15 plot points (two are place holders that just say “something big & bad happens” but I’ll work on those). I am already on point number 5 which reads “Harper infiltrates the Myrith system and arrives on Mothership 255”. I think that my outline (and story overall) will take more than 50,000 words to tell but at least 50K will give me a great head start.

How did your first week of NaNoWriMo go? Did you meet your goals? Have any favorite stats or phrases you wish to post?

Not participating this year? No problem, but you can still leave me a comment anyway 🙂 (I need the encouragement).

6 thoughts on “Week One: NaNoWriMo

  1. Jodi Cleghorn Reply

    Great word count Tina. Very impressive.

    This week is my first week NaNo record for the number of words committed to the page. For that I am truly grateful because other things are going to need to take precedence this week.

    While the word count is flying along I didn't anticipate the political machinations which would happen (I don't think they would have happened last year if I had have kept writing – but who knows) nor the sheer number of characters I'm holding in my head – I normally keep it simple. Ha! Not this year.

    This week I've let my female MC get lost in the forest and then she almost drowned. She's going a bit loopy actually which is the start of her finding her way back to her memories. The male MC was almost killed and he's lot the plot a bit from grief.

    One character died of natural causes (which in the end I couldn't write because I was so attached to him and had to do it from afar through another characters eyes who is emotionally detached from him) another died of poisoning. The dude poisoned was meant to spear head as antagonist so having to go in from another angle – which actually makes far more sense. Someone with much more to lose.

    I don't think anyone said anything quirky though my female MC had an “I carried a watermelon” moment at the graveside were she said “I … you … we bury our dead too.” Hoping for some snappier lines once these two get together and interesting things begin to happen between them. Love our sense of humour though.

    sfor why can't we do it other months of the year … who knows? I'm hoping to keep the pace up from now on, finally comitting to a few other novel ideas which have just been floating around. But to get this one finished.

  2. Tina Hunter Reply

    Hey Jodi,

    Sounds like you're having a fantastic time of it. I know that you will be busy come week two but I hope you will keep it up. Political intrigue is always a good motivator in a story.

    I also see that you are at 20,144 words. WOW. Brilliant Job.

  3. Deidra Reply

    PostSecret card for a character? This is genius! 😀

    I'm at a little more than 20k right now, but it's okay to be a bit behind, because I'm a newbie. 🙂

    • Tina Hunter Reply

      Thanks for stopping by Deidra. I know I should post a recap of Week Two but it's awful so I think I'll wait for the Week Three recap.

      Congrats on breaking 20K.

  4. maramyfriend Reply

    Was surfing around the Nano site and found a link to here in the Blogging Nano post. So how are you doing on NaNo this year? I've just finished the NaNo goal but my book is far from finished, its going to be around 80K by the end but I downloaded my certificate this morning.
    This was my first year of doing it so it was quite an experience. Are you still only at 21,695 words. Better get some caffeine and introduce some alien ninja monkeys 😉
    So you already have some published work. Congratulation on that, I'm hoping to edit and rewrite over the next few months and then get it to a publisher. My goal is full rewrite by Apr 2010.
    BTW, I made a post about it in my region (Calgary, yeah I know, nobodies perfect 😉 ) that I am using Open Office for my writing and the Nano Word Count Submittal was 2000 words less than what OO gave me.
    Good luck, there is still time.

  5. maramyfriend Reply

    Was surfing around the Nano site and found a link to here in the Blogging Nano post. So how are you doing on NaNo this year? I've just finished the NaNo goal but my book is far from finished, its going to be around 80K by the end but I downloaded my certificate this morning.
    This was my first year of doing it so it was quite an experience. Are you still only at 21,695 words. Better get some caffeine and introduce some alien ninja monkeys 😉
    So you already have some published work. Congratulation on that, I'm hoping to edit and rewrite over the next few months and then get it to a publisher. My goal is full rewrite by Apr 2010.
    BTW, I made a post about it in my region (Calgary, yeah I know, nobodies perfect 😉 ) that I am using Open Office for my writing and the Nano Word Count Submittal was 2000 words less than what OO gave me.
    Good luck, there is still time.
    Oh, I am maramyfriend on NaNo.

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