NaNoWriMo 2015 - November 1

So I decided to give National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) a shot this year. I'll be tracking some of my progress, thoughts and mental anguish on this ancient blog. Been a while since I've posted something here, but I can't really reconcile putting these updates on my Movie Review blog.

So I'm working on one of my favorite genre's to write, supernatural thriller. It's got a definite Lovecraftian inspiration to it. But this story is also a bit more action oriented than my previous works. In a way I'm actually adapting a couple of my older stories in a new guise. Swapping out some characters here, some settings there and changing the overall outcome. The goal is to introduce the world these stories (yes I'm planning more of these) and set up the main characters. This is a kind of origin story with hints at the larger conflict I've got brewing.

One of the big differences here is that main characters are both male. Oddly enough that is rare in my fiction. I usually have one female protagonist. I think I'll have to focus on making sure both my male leads don't sound like the same guy talking.

I didn't get as much prep work completed as I wanted. I really should have character bios hammered out for both these guys and the main antagonists. I've got a basic idea about both of them, but with my week long business trip cutting into my writing time last week, I did't get the prepping work done.

Still I did create a basic framework for the story, and that will be my guide as I write. I like to create a basic outline for most stories, but I don't hold myself to it. Too often the characters take things in unusual directions that are just too fun to ignore.

11/1/2015
Charted out my course for writing. I want to give myself three days off a week. That means I have to write about 2,777 words a day to meet the 50,000 word goal. That sounds really doable, especially if I can get ahead in the word count.

I ended up spending a few minutes formatting my document before I actually got started. I spent too many minutes messing with fonts, styles and line spacing. Ugh, I really should have done that last week.

I also ran into an issue where I wanted to put an accent on a character's name and spent too much time trying to figure out how to do that in Word. Realized I was wasting time and just wrote around it. This is a speed run for a first draft, it doesn't have to be perfect, right?

Writing music for this run:

• Heat (soundtrack) - Various Artists including Eliot Goldenthal, Kronos Quartet, Passengers and Moby
• Original Soundtracks 1 - Passengers (U2 and friends)
• I Like to Score - Moby
• Collateral (soundtrack) - Various Artists including James Newton Howard
• Lost Highway (soundtrack) - Various Artists including Angelo Badalamenti, Barry Adamson, Trent Reznor and Smashing Pumpkin

Final word count: 4,420