Bar Maid Final Update...

As you may know, Jae ran a 5K dressed as a barmaid on Halloween. We collected over $700 for charity: the Toys For Tots and Teens program that is run by volunteers at work to directly benefit needy children in the local community. Today we went to purchase toys for the children. We filled three shopping carts and also bought two bikes! The pictures of our shopping spree have been added to the photo collection.

Good thing we had at least a couple of women come help us shop, otherwise needy girls would be getting Lincoln Logs and LEGOs for the holidays!

Falling Behind...

I'm falling further and further behind in my novel. At this point, I'm about 6,000 words behind schedule. Between school, being tired, and lack of motivation, I'm having a hard time continuing... Hopefully I can break the trend and power through some content in the next couple of days.

I should know better than to read manuals by now...

Mark has a copy of Chris Beaty's book "No Plot? No Problem! A Low-stress, High-velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days". First of all, Chris gets points for having such a length title, although he hyphenated words, sacrificing word count for the sake of grammar. This must not be his first draft. :-)

When I skim through his book, I see topics that distract me. Getting to know my characters by asking them questions? Subplots? I barely even have a plot! Skimming his book makes me realize just how much I may be leaving out - or at least how much work I am leaving for future drafts.

So why am I really doing this? Two words. Strong Bad. "Yeah, I wrote a children's boook. Who hasn't? I mean, kids can barely read as it is so how hard can it be to write for them?"

Is this getting easier, or harder?

I'm now at 12080 words - 24%. I'm not sure if this is getting harder or easier now - maybe a little of both. I am having an easier time understanding my character and knowing how he reacts to things. But I am having a hard time figuring out what and where the major plot elements are going to be. I'm almost a quarter in, and I don't have a major conflict in the story yet. But I do know what it is. I think. Maybe.

I need to move things along a bit. Still, this is kind of fun.

NaNoWriMo In Full Swing

Well, it's hard to believe it's been only four days of NaNoWriMo so far. In those four days I've written 9146 words of mediocrity at its finest. Do the labels for chapter divisions count? If not, then deduct 6 words for my three chapter headings. It hasn't been too difficult but it has taken a bit more time than I expected. I'd say I'm averaging about 1000 words an hour.

To help keep me honest, here are the minimum word count quotas for every day in the month.

Day	Word Quota	Word Count
1	1667	1752
2	3334	3345
3	5001	6104
4	6668	9146
5	8335	9146
6	10002	12080

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I moved the word count table to the side bar so it stays visible.