| Day Twenty-Eight: Ramblings of a Failure |
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| 03:25am 28/11/2006 |
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mood:  fucked music: 浜崎あゆみ - 1LOVE
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Fucking hell...I think I have about 35,000 words, and I only have three days left. So...I'm going to go with no.
How bad is that? This is my fifth year. I fail at life.
At least this is way more words than I've ever done before -- like, twice as many. But I still fail.
I don't want to do this next year, I think. Time to throw in the towel -- five years in a row is too many, IMO.
Technically I could still do it if I did 5,000 words a day -- but I tried the past two days to write 5,000 words and only got half that both days.
Today was so weird though...I don't even know why, but it was. The same but different.
Maybe I'll do it next year, but pretend I'm not so that I don't have to introduce myself as "suckiest Nanowrimo participant ever." I think that title might actually be appropriate -- there's not that many participants from five years ago, and they can't have failed every year like me. How sad.
Nano was still fun, but I just would rather not display my suckiness to the world anymore.
I keep imagining myself finally winning in my 8th year or something and giving a Nano interview about it. Oh my God, how bad would that be?
NANO: I see that you have your first win in eight years of Nano. (Finally...)
ME: I'm sorry, what was the last thing you said?
NANO: Oh, nothing. To what do you attribute your success?
ME: Well, I have discovered the secret of Nano.
NANO: Oh? Please, enlighten us.
ME: A magician never reveals her secrets.
NANO: Uh, well, I was reading over your novel, and it seems you just copied the same chapter over and over, with the excuse that your main character has no short term memory and has to be reminded of the first chapter's events in each subsequent chapter.
ME: ...
NANO: Would this be your so-called "secret of Nano?"
ME: ...
NANO: Well?
ME: My cat's breaths smells like cat food.
Ha ha, I'm so glad no one reads this. |
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| Day Nineteen: We'll See... |
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| 01:44am 19/11/2006 |
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mood:  phoo music: Every Little Thing - FOREVER YOURS (Voodoo & Serano Mix)
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Now that the Prologue is finally fucking done (holla), I've hit my stride with this novel and I wrote 6,000 words today. So instead of being 3.25 days behind, I'm only 2.02 days behind. Then again, I keep catching up and then falling behind again because I skip a day. So as long as I don't do that today, I should be enough back on track that I can slow down the catching up process.
On the other hand, this year is officially my best effort at currently 26,000+ words, my second best being in the 18,000's. And my Prologue was 18,000 words, wasn't it? Ha ha.
And I know I said I would never mention the P-word again, but I'm a liar liar pants on fire.
昨日の会話に行かなかった。ねぼけしちゃった。>_<;; 前回楽しかったから、後悔する。今度は目覚まし時計をセットしようと。 ^^;;
One of my characters was temporarily unable to walk, and I accidently had her start walking around and moving furniture. I should have saved that little scene, but I went back and fixed it. That's what happens when you stop a scene and start again hours later, I guess. But it's kind of a plus with Nano that since the whole book is written in such a short amount of time, even things that happened at the beginning of the book are still reasonably fresh in your mind, so things like a temporarily disabled person moving furniture don't happen as much, as funny as that was (to me, anyway).
I would love to be successful this year, and have a first draft to show my writer friend come Christmas. She's always encouraged me in my projects, and I rarely have anything to show for it. ごめんね、ゆみちゃん！ |
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| Day Fifteen: OMFGDONEFIEHAFKLDF |
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| 12:44am 15/11/2006 |
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mood:  tired music: Battle Royale - Utsumi & Nanahara
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At 18,205 words, the Prologue is done. Praise Jesus, hallelujah. And it will never be mentioned again. Much.
I'm still desperately playing catch up, but now that I'm writing the actual novel, I'm gaining momentum. I wrote 2,879 words today, so now I'm only about 2.25 days behind instead of 3. I'm getting there, though, at least I hope I'll get there. I'm not sure I can keep it up.
I went to my second regional Nano meeting, which I forgot to mention last entry. It was pretty small, which I was actually thankful for. I heard that last week was way overcrowded, and I'm not sure I would've been able to deal with that.
けど迷惑な人がいた。彼女がフォーラムで本のことを話して、私のPrologueと同様だと思うったから興味があった。けど出会った時彼女はいつも彼女のことだけべちゃべちゃ話した。とても煩かった。（本達がなんとか同様でどういう意味？）私はこんなに意地悪からごめんね。
You know, that title might be a little more appropriate fifteen days from now. Here's to getting there. |
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| Day Fourteen: Losing Momentum |
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| 12:39am 14/11/2006 |
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mood:  emo? music: Ventrilo :O
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I suppose it should go without saying that I'm still on the Prologue, and if there's anyone who actually reads this LJ, believe me when I say that I'm just as sick of writing it as you probably are of reading it.
I'm pretty far behind (three days to be exact), so I have my word count finished up to Friday and I'm working as best I can to up the word count so that I can be back on track, since this week is much lighter than last week. The thing is, the book I'm writing this year is from a plot that I've been mulling over in my head since middle school, so if I can't get 50,000 words this year I might as well throw in the towel. I mean, what story am I going to have as much to write about as this one? There's not going to be one, in other words. So I could be extremely pathetic and introduce myself next year as "Year Six with No Wins" or just accept the fact that I am not a novel-in-a-month novelist (or even a novel-in-a-lifetime novelist). Sad but very likely true. Which is why I really don't want to fail this year. |
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| Day Eight: Still. No, seriously. |
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| 10:17pm 08/11/2006 |
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mood:  bitchy music: Meh...
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Finally after being behind for three days, I'm back on track (with 2 hours and 20 minutes before I'm off track again). And yeah, I'm still on the Prologue, and I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record. And it's not like I don't love my Prologue, I just thought I'd be done with it by now. Every day I keep thinking "I'm getting close to the end..." and then it's not done. I'm not going to have any space for the actual book at this rate. >> I guess I shouldn't complain about something that I've gotten a big word count out of...but I'm going to anyway. >_<
I really shouldn't either, because I know it annoys me when people get all crazy with their books. I guess I've just been doing this too long, because I hear the same stuff from people every year about how "suddenly this minor character took on a life of his own and demanded to be heard!" or about "why has my book suddenly changed from being about a jittery convenience store clerk to a jittery Eskimo firefighter? Why do I do this to myself!?" Just...I don't know. I'm a bitch, sorry.
And by the way, why is the "I Hate Myself and Want to Die" thread now called "NaNoWriMo Ate My Soul?" I vote for changing it back. The second one just doesn't capture the level of self-loathing the first one does.
I'll be nicer tomorrow, I promise. >_<
(And if you caught the Simpsons reference, you get a cookie.) |
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| Day Five: STILL on the Prologue |
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| 05:00am 05/11/2006 |
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mood:  busy music: 後藤真希 - さよなら「友達にはなりたくないの」
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9k+ words into the story, and I'm still on the Prologue. Which will be strange, because none of the seven characters that are in the Prologue will be in the rest of the book.
The good thing about Nano is that even though the majority of what you write is total crap, every so often you get a great scene or line of dialogue or something in there to make it worthwhile. And I got my first good scene about 6500 words in. I needed comic relief after Janet's goodbye to her aunt, and so I put in one of the group trash talking and playing Super Smash Bros. Melee, inspired partly by all the gamers in the Nano group. I'm putting it behind a cut because it's long and it contains a lot of cursing.
( Edited Version )
I didn't do a whole lot of character development on the Prologue characters (since they don't appear in the rest of the book), but almost all of them were inspired by someone or some character. Also, the three of the four main characters of the book are, in part, prototypes of their "ancestors" in the Prologue: Camille as Tina, Brian as Bernard, and Locke as Alex. So, in order of appearance:
Janet's Inspiration: Lucca
Janet is the founder, leader, and brains of the magic group, just like Lucca in Chrono Trigger (which I just recently beat again). Where would Chrono and his lackeys be without Lucca? Well, without Lucca and her time machine, the world would have been destroyed. And without Janet, none of the magic group would've survived the apocalypse.
Alex's Inspiration: Kyo Souma
Alex is a total hothead with orange hair, just like Kyo. However, Kyo's orange hair signifies that he's possessed by the spirit of the cat; Alex's is because he uses fire. He's constantly cursing and yelling, but those who know him well accept it as his normal demeanor. Alex is relatively grounded, though, and can sometimes get mired in seriousness. He's also the only male member of the magic group capable of magic.
Bernard's Inspiration: ???
Bernard's the only one without a specific inspiration. He's kind of the typical "strong but silent" type and "romantic lead" type, but more than that, he's generally a happy person who likes playing soccer. He finds humor in everything. Supposedly, he's capable of using magic, but we never find out what his specialty is or how he comes to find it out.
Tina's Inspiration: Me
I drew that picture of me in Paint a while back. XD Using me isn't very original, but this is Nano and the Prologue, so no big deal. Tina is undiluted me, while Camille later in the book is only part me. Tina ends up being essential to the magic group because of her ability to use water and (eventually) lightning. That scene I cut from up there is typical me when I'm playing video games with my sister. (And yeah, I say "feel my jiggle wrath" when I play Jigglypuff, lol.) Tina is also my nickname.
  
Alice's Inspiration: Gogo Yubari & Hanajima Saki & Nancy Downs
Alice may have three inspirations, but she's the most cookie cutter character of the group. She sees and talks to ghosts, and because of a certain "spell" she cast once, her mind is permanently half gone, à la Nancy Downs from The Craft. (The Craft was actually a big inspiration for the Prologue story from the beginning, and I was fortunate that it came on TV a couple of days into Nano so that the inspiration could be more fully realized.) Alice may look small and cute, but to most people outside of the magic group, she's scary. Alex and Alice are constantly getting into arguments, which Janet always has to intermediate in (or else they end by Alice casting some sort of spell on Alex). Pretty much I use the Alice/Alex arguments for comic relief, which are a bit reminiscent of the Hanajima/Kyo clashes (except mine are more frequent and more disastrous, lol). Alice had previously quit the magic group before coming back because of Janet (who threatened to kill her pet spider).
Rob's Inspiration: Robert Plotkin
Rob's inspiration and namesake is Robert Plotkin from Project Runway. Rob is the typical guy. He has no magical specialty or even ability to use magic -- but he's best friends with Alex and is always crashing at his house, which is where the meetings are held. This sounds mean, but Robert Plotkin always struck me as a good-natured dimwit, and a bit of a horndog, and that's what Rob became. (When asked by Janet what they would need for the apocalypse, he says "weed and condoms".) Rob is special, however, because he is accepting of Alex's and the group's differences (which no one else is), and is generally a nice guy (well, so is Plotkin, lol).
Margaret Mullen's Inspiration: Lirio
Lirio is also a character in The Craft -- she's the owner of the magic shop where the four witches go. Margaret is also a magic shop owner, and Janet's aunt. Lirio provides a safe haven for the magic group from the apocalypse, however, Lirio doesn't stay with the group as she decides to stay with her own coven instead in another city. (Basically, she leaves a bunch of high school kids to fend for themselves. >> In that way, she's unlike the Lirio inspiration, because she's so flighty and irresponsible.) Her name comes from Margaret Murray, whose anthropology significantly influenced the emergence of Wicca (part of what the group's magic is based off of), because Margaret mentored Janet with her magic, who in turn mentored the other members of the magic group. Also, I have an aunt Margaret. XD
もう、つかれた。 |
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| Day Two: Still on the Prologue |
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| 01:46pm 02/11/2006 |
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mood:  caffeinated music: L'Arc~en~Ciel - the silver shining
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The first day went really well -- I had slept most of the afternoon before (and evening, so I basically missed Halloween), and ended up writing once after midnight and once before school started, so I ended up with about 3500 words for the day. And even though I was struggling (already), I hit 1900 words today. I always start out well though, and since I have no successes in Nano as of yet (and this is year 5), I'm not too encouraged.
And what's with people and the obscenely high word counts already? Someone mentioned it in our regional forums, but I just recently looked at it and saw that people are claiming up to 200,000 words. Seriously. Did they just write "I am writing a book," and copy it 40,000 times? It's pretty pathetic.
Speaking of the regional people, there's a lot of gamers, which I was really surprised by. I didn't participate too much in the discussion they were having at the kickoff meeting, but I thought that was pretty cool.
実はその会議に私は遅刻になったからテーブルのかなたに座って会話をよく聞こえなかった。そして大きな窓の前に座って太陽が照らすぎて困った。けど次の会議へ行くつもり。会議室は本屋であるから大丈夫みたい。 |
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