Monthly Archives: November 2011

NaNoWriMo 2011, Day 15 – A strange left turn and a half tank of gas

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Now that I’ve crossed the halfway point and am hovering somewhere in the neighborhood of 14,500 words, 50K by the end is a definite impossibility for me at this point. I’ll just have to soldier on and see if I can make 25K before this is all over.

In related news, it seems my story’s taken a twist for the mundane. The “typical RPG hero” I was set to groom has just become a member of the neighboring city guard, presumably as a stepping stone towards beating the hell out of the bastards who burned his village down. If this were an actual RPG, I’d have doomed poor Alex to a life of anonymity and probable death, since the city guards are the most likely combat-ready NPCs to die first when the Big Bad attacks. I still wonder if I might be able to turn this in my favor after all…

NaNoWriMo 2011, Day 11 – Not in the “write” state of mind

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Been a bit grumpy lately due to all the news surrounding the Penn State sex abuse scandal, and I think it’s adversely affecting my mood and writing output. I’ve been compulsively watching the news and reading the newspapers for the last few days to follow the story, and the more I read about it, the more it makes me sick.

On a brighter note, I think I’ve just discovered a brilliantly stupid idea for my story (which I’m certain I’m not going to get to 50K before November because of how much time I’ve spent cursing at my computer because of the above scandal). Since my NaNo story revolves around playing with RPG clichés and such, I figured I might as well make the battles turn-based, too! (There’ll be an in-story justification for this later, but I have no idea how well it’ll work out.) Right now, I stand at 11.5K, and I probably won’t write much tonight, since it’s a Friday and I’m just now coming home from work.

NaNoWriMo 2011, Day 7 – Scattershot approach

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9,008 words and counting after one official week on this thing. About 90% of that is the story I’ve written from the beginning, while the other 10% is made up of lines of dialogue for future events in the story. It’s the same technique I used in 2008′s when I got stuck trying to think of stuff to write: when in doubt, skip ahead. It’s really the only “trick” I’ve employed to boost my word count. I’m still about 3,000 words off the pace, but I’m in a bit better shape than I was over the weekend.

Modern Warfare 3 and Skyrim come out this week, so I feel kinda bad for any NaNo participants who are big fans of the Call of Duty or Elder Scrolls series, as they’re missing out on two of the biggest games of the year. I’m not in either camp, and I’m relatively patient when it comes to new game releases, but it’s hard sacrificing game time when something that big comes along.

NaNoWriMo 2011, Day 4 – Streak broken for the weekend

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I made it to 5,000 words on my third day, which would have put me in a position to finish on time had I kept up with my current pace. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like I’m going to be quite as lucky this weekend, as today I took a college placement test, and then went out to pick up Sonic Generations for my PlayStation 3 (because apparently Sega actually made an awesome Sonic game again). Tomorrow, I’m going to visit my brother for awhile, which is going to cut even more into my NaNo time. If I’m ever going to beat my old score, I’m going to have to majorly increase my output on Sunday and Monday so that I can at least get over 10,000. (Insert Vegeta scouter-crushing moment here.)

As for my incomprehensible surely-never-to-be-published novel, I’ve already checked off several clichés from The Grand List:

  • Hero awakened by mother to start the story/game
  • Hero’s hometown village destroyed in spectacular fashion (this is where I am right now)
  • Hero discovers mysterious girl he’s ready to help out for no apparent reason despite knowing nothing about her
  • Main male hero uses a sword as a weapon
  • Main female hero uses a staff (actually a magic wand, but whatever)

Some of them I obviously won’t be able to add due to this not being an interactive medium, but I still plan to cram as many of these tropes/clichés in as I can until the very end. For triple-word-score-cliché points, my story’s “plucky male hero” is modeled directly after Alex, the “default” hero from RPG Maker 2000, right down to his appearance. I knew I’d find a use for that beat-up old program one day.

NaNoWriMo 2011, Day 1 – And we’re off

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So I’ve hit 1700 words on my first day participating in NaNoWriMo this year. I’m off to a good start, but I know that I’m going to need to do more on my non-working days if I’m going to keep up the pace to make up for the days that I do have to work (like tomorrow and Thursday, for instance).

I have a college placement test on Friday, so that might cut into my prep time, but hopefully not too much. The only thing I need to do for now is to keep on writing, even after I’ve hit my target for the day.