So there’s a challenge on the nanowrimo forums to write 10,000 words between 8pm tonight and 8am tomorrow. (Unfortunately I can’t find the link so there is a chance the crazy part of my brain made this up…) I’ve tweaked the rules a little, going from 6pm until 6am so I can function on a ‘normal’ level tomorrow
I am doing this with Sean Wills, we will both be live blogging it so come witness our descent into madness! Free ringside seats to the night of 10,000 words and a similar number of coffee breaks!
18:00 it begins
0 / 10000 words. 0% done
19:00 Taking a break to make my first cup of coffee of the evening. it can only get worse from here…
19:22 The local kids are playing outside. What kid plays outside in November at half seven?! They were being really loud so I stood on the balcony and glared at them meaningfully until I realised what an how odd that would look to any parents who were watching…
On the plus side I’m past the 1,000 word mark. It’s all downhill from here, right?
1178 / 10000 words. 12% done!
21:00 my computer is not my friend. After spending ages trying to set up Google + hangout chat thingummy so Sean and I could taunt each other, my computer overheated and turned off. the mike didn’t even work. So I’m a bit behind on ye old word count. On the plus side I think I’ve cleared up quite a lot of the mess from my previous attempts at this chapter.
2075 / 10000 words. 21% done!
22:00 starting to fade a bit now, the words are coming quicker but I’m not sure how much sense they make. Oh well, took a break to read A song of Ice and Fire: A Feast of Crows and then he killed SPOILER, who’s one of the only characters I’m still rooting for. I got really angry and read frantically to see how they would be avenged, then gave up and checked the table of contents. Turns out they’re not dead after all so normality resumed and the word race can continue
3075 / 10000 words. 31% done!
23:30 So now I’m pretty much horizontal on the couch, can’t sit up much longer without all my vertebrae compressing into one solid mass. I’m also convinced that this building is home to wild gangs of unsupervised children, they’re playing pokemon out in the hall and it’s taking all my willpower not to join them.
On the writing front I just edited a scene I was very happy with, almost nothing needed to be changed and now I’m stuck in the middle of a scene that could have been better written by someone tap dancing across the keyboard. The excitement continues!
4570 / 10000 words. 46% done!
24:00 it’s officially tomorrow! My bed is looking very comfortable right about now…
01:15 So I’ve fallen prey to the adverb demon, and the inconsistent grammar demon… it’s going to take awhile to exorcise all these from the manuscript. I’m now at the point where I’m writing completely new scenes from scratch. I’m pretty happy with what I’ve written so far, my teeth however are not happy, they’ve been assaulted by coffee, diet coke and most of the leftover Halloween chocolate…
6166 / 10000 words. 62% done!
My teeth can take another one for the team, MORE COFFEE!
2:55 Now I’m on chapter three! After weeks of lingering around chapter one I’ve suddenly flown through the rest. I wonder if I should make this a regular thing, once a month or something. Worth thinking about
7065 / 10000 words. 71% done!
3:07 So it turns out if you type ‘askew’ into Google the page appears slightly off kilter. Bet you can’t guess what happens if you search ‘do a barrel roll’
I think all the coffee might be beginning to have an adverse affect on my attention span…
3:30 – FINAL WORD COUNT
I am going to bed, I have a some college work to do tomorrow, some Gears of War to play, some people to be grouchy at. My final word count is (drum roll please)
7720 / 10000 words. 77% done!
Not to shabby, not 10,000 but I think I’ve earned some sleep, or some catatonia, not sure which it’s going to turn out. Thank you for bearing with me during these hours of madness, we now return you to your regular programming…
…zzzzz