Novel Status - December 16

And... I finished. I was really darn close to the end, so it feels a little anti-climatic to end so early in the evening. I had visions of toiling really late as I tried to wrap things up. But hey, you can't control creative stuff like this.

So I finished with 66840 words, but that includes the huge chunk of material that I ended up scrapping to get the story back on track. If I remove all that material I end up with 53606 words. Not a very long novel to be sure, but certainly the longest thing I've written in years. It feels good to be done and to be able to enjoy my accomplishment. Still a lot of work to get it into a finished form, but I need to let it sit and rest a bit. Then I can come back with fresh eyes and give it the time it deserves.

I do admit I was feeling a bit of the blues near the end. Self doubt creeping in and telling me that it wasn't worth finishing. We really are our own worst enemies sometimes.

Well that's all I have to say at this moment. I might post some reflections later on this blog about the whole experience. Thanks to everyone who's spent some time with me on this adventure. I appreciate the comments, encouragement and advice. It's been a blast.

Novel Status - December 14

Yeah it's been crazy this month. So many things going on at work and going on after work that actually sitting down to finish my novel became a real challenge. The frustrating thing is that I'm so close to the end, but at the same time I don't want it to end. I've had such a blast with these characters that I don't want to see them go. But I don't want to leave this story unfinished and dangling out there on my hard drive.

But it was tough starting today. Quite a few distractions, but I was able to get past most of them and just knock out another chapter and start in on the final one that covers the post climax revelations. I get the feeling I'm going to have to revisit the climax of the story in my next draft and work the timing out a bit clearer. A couple things are happening at once and I'm not sure the characters have enough time to perform all the actions. I think I've got another night of writing to wrap this up, but then the novel will be completed and I can celebrate.

Music for this run:

• Star Wars: The Phantom Menace - John Williams
• The Ring/The Ring 2 - Hans Zimmer
• Penny Dreadful: Season One - Abel Korzeniowski

Final Word Count: 65633

Novel Status - December 9

Well I'm still plugging away at this novel, but its been slow going. Work has been really busy and intense lately, and my creative energies were pretty drained last week. But I am so close to he end of the story I just sat down today and tried to knock out some more chapters.

And I did pretty well. Got things lined up for the final confrontation and started in on the first round of it. I should be able to finish it in another couple sessions of writing I think. But it was still a bit rough to get things moving again.

I do wonder if I was dragging my feet a bit because I didn't want to kill off one of the main characters, and was resisting the idea... but it happened anyway. As I feared, not everyone is getting out of this one alive.

Music for this run:

• Priest - Christopher Young
• Seventh Son - Marco Beltrami

Final Word Count: 63052

Novel Status - December 2

Got through the confrontation scene with my antagonist and her arch-rival. It was interesting in a couple ways. I got go into a bit of detail of how my antagonist perceives these threats to her. She treats the two people she faces in this scene very differently.

I realized that there is a bit of a men vs. women dynamic in this story. It isn't something was consciously working into the novel. A week or so back I realized that my female characters in this story were all pretty disturbing in their own way. This is a bit atypical for my fiction, but I think it grew out of the way the story evolved over the years. Of course if this story sees the light of day I expect I'll get some readers who find my portrayal of women in this story unappealing. My answer will be, read the next novel, it has much more positive female characters (and I'm not just saying that, it really does).

But as I was writing this scene my antagonist's response to the male enemy and the female enemy are quite different. There is a history there that I'm interested in fleshing out a bit more. Maybe not in this novel, but in a short story down the road.

Funny how these things come up.

The other element to this section was coming up with a description of the physical appearance of my antagonist. She's been expending a lot of energy and will power to torment the protagonists. This has rendered her a bit... well... unwholesome from a visual point of view. Coming up with gooey and disturbing adjectives was fun.

Music for this run:

• The Last Airbender - James Newton Howard
• Priest - Christopher Young (amazing how perfect this score is for parts of my story)

Final Word Count: 60419

Novel Status - December 1

So NaNoWriMo officially ended, but I'm still writing away. I'll continue to post some thoughts here just to have a written record of how I'm doing. As well as a public forum to keep me honest and writing. We'll see how long it lasts.

As I mentioned, I'm attempting to keep my writing schedule and minimum word count going for this novel until I complete it. Today I finished the longest chapter of the novel so far. It was a fairly intense sequence as my protagonist attempt to elude the creatures pursuing them. Had some fun building the suspense as they figured out what they were up against, and then entered the desperation mode as each attempt to escape is countered. I even worked in a moment I had in the back of my mind but wasn't sure if I could fit it in. Essentially it's foreshadowing for a later novel, but I found the perfect spot for it.

All in all it was a good solid evening of writing. Next chapter is going to pit my antagonist against her arch-rival (and no that isn't my protagonist. He's nothing but an ant to her. But she should really pay more attention to pest control). I really like this arch-rival character and I'm not sure if she's going to survive this encounter or not. I'm curious to see how it goes.

Music for this run:

• Ghost in the Shell - Kenji Kawai
• Aliens - James Horner
• Aliens: Colonial Marines - Kevin Riepl
• Berserk - Susumu Hirasawa

Final Word Count: 56934