Writing Progress

An August CampNaNoWriMo update -

Just a little past the halfway point in terms of days, and almost to the halfway point in terms of words.  I'm clocking in at a little over 22,000 right now.

The news is mixed because I know I'm not even at the halfway point of the plot so I have a lot more writing to go, but that also means you'll have plenty to read when it's finished.

A couple things in the back of my mind as I write

• I have too much fun writing miscommunicating dialogue.  Creating a character who speaks in tongues and also detects lying - still impossible to get a straight answer out of a teenager.
• Am I writing enough action?  My critique buddies should let me know - yet, I don't think this story's about the action.  When there's characters that are all-powerful, I want to dig into what makes them more human.
• Some of the characters need fleshing out since they're kind of cardboard placeholders at the moment.  I think that'll improve in editing as I follow each one's path.  The omniscient viewpoint should help me convey info to the reader without creating an every-being-for-itself atmosphere.
• Why did I want six sort-of-main characters in the first place?  That is a good question and I'll give that some more thought.  
• Neferseshotep is the title character, but alone he's not so interesting.  He seems powerful, but there are flaws.
• My 'from the real world' character might be too much, but I patterned her whiny self-centeredness on Sarah from Labyrinth.  I might change her name to something even more obnoxious sounding like Bettina.
• Am I doing justice to six different characters in terms of growth?  Do they all need to grow? Or better yet, do they grow in different ways? 

Enough teasing?

Anyway, you can also enjoy this sort of thing and at the best time of year - November.  November is National Novel Writing Month  It's more fun in November because the regional groups are operating so there will be a kickoff party, write-ins, encouragement, and an end of the month party.  There may even be a cake challenge in your region.  There's even a buddy system so you can take a quick look at others - including those not in your region.

It's August and I'm talking about November?  Preparation is key to accomplishing 50,000 words in 30 days.  Turning on your preferred word processing program on November 1st and staring at the cursor is not a good start.  Outline a plot, get some character names together, write some back story for them, do some research, interview your character after the end of the book.  There's all sorts of things that can be done beforehand that don't include actually writing the text of the novel.