Oidhche Challainn

Well, it looks like the writing I did this morning is all I'll get done today.  Not only have I been fairly busy at work (I've got to stop counting on "slow" days!) but mentally I'm dead in the water.

 

I guess I can only function on 4 hours sleep for three nights in a row before crashing.  Today was the fourth. 

 

I'm not actually awake right now; I'm caffeinated.  There's a difference.  *g*

 

I do have tomorrow off, and I do plan to sleep in, then spend the rest of the day writing.  But the joy of it all is that for the first time in years we've got something going on for New Year's...and it's at our house.  We're hosting about 12 people and we told them they could stay all night if they wanted (though I imagine most will leave around 1-2 am).  People will start showing up around 6 pm.  There's housework yet to be done, and I most desperately need a nap if I'm going to be at all social and awake for another 8 hours.  Oh, and I'm still at work; not sure when I'll get to leave.

 

But it will all turn out in the end.  If nothing else I'll make the excuse that LB insists I lie down with him for a while when he goes to sleep.  Which he has done the past few nights.  Maybe I can sneak a little nap in that way.  As long as DH doesn't leave me up there all night!

 

At any rate, everyone enjoy themselves (and I hope our friends on the other side of the Date Line did too!), be safe, and

 

Bliadhna Mhath Ur!!!

What a way to start off the morning...

So this morning I finished a scene I'd been avoiding, in which A&E find a mother and child who die/have died (respectively) of measles.  I knew the impact I wanted to make, and the points I needed to get across with this scene, but as a mother of a young son it was hard.  Even though it was fictional and not based on any personal experience, finishing the scene choked me up a little.

Not exactly beginning the day on a high note.  But Robert Frost said "No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader," so hopefully that means I've written something with emotional impact.

On a lighter note, see the post below for a contest!  I'm off to get ready for work.

CONTEST!!!

I just had a brilliant thought: a contest to add (even more) excitement to the upcoming completion of my book!

There will even be a real prize.  Possibly monetary/bookish in nature.  I'm leaning towards a $25 Borders gift card.

The rules are simple: post a comment with your guess as to the final word count of my MS when I finish it this week.  Whoever guesses closest, wins!

Some info to help you out: right now I'm at 93,163 words.  (Ignore the wordmeter, I need to fix/fiddle with it.)

Feel free to ask me other questions in the comments.  I may or may not answer them.  *g*

So let's hear it.  How long-winded do you guys think I am?

A valiant effort

...but one doomed to fail. It just takes too much out of me to write for more than a couple hours straight, so I had to take multiple breaks that slowed me down. And in the end I gave in to the siren call - more like the incessant wail "mmmooooommmmmmmmmmmmYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" - of Little Boy, and then we all went grocery shopping for our New Year's Eve (Hogmanay? *g*) party and had dinner and I gave LB a bath and put him down, but he insisted I lie down by his crib and I didn't get away until much later than I intended to get started again.

Bleh.

Even so I took my little yellow pill (that's caffeine, for any new readers - nothing illicit *g*) and had a cup of instant cappuccino and settled in for a long winter's write.

Not to be. I can tell I'm brain drained, so I'm packing it in in favor of a few (likely 4) hours sleep to start fresh before I have to go to work. Should be a slow day there, and I'll spend it writing if I can. After lunch, though, I'll have to switch gears and start getting ready for the party.

I'm off on New Year's Day, which I'd planned to spend sleeping in and cleaning house, putting away Christmas decorations, etc. but now I suppose I'll spend it like I did today. I'll still consider it making my goal if I finish by the end of that day.

Though word count *is* a measure of progress, I've switched over to completed chapters as my benchmark. The 100K goal was just an estimate, and I'll be adding and cutting stuff as I move through to the end. Whether it ends up at 98K or 108K is impossible to know at this point.

All in all, I did manage over 2K new words today, and 5 more chapters under my belt. Not too shabby.

No matter what, I'll be done by the end of this week. It's a staggering thought!

Sunday morning

I've been up since 5 am.  Progress is slower than anticipated, but my momentum is building.  And my internet keeps crapping out on me; I think it's the writing gods' way of keeping me on task.  *w*

DH and Little Boy are at church.  LB didn't even know I was here (I'm usually gone to work by the time he wakes up, so nothing really out of the ordinary except it's the weekend).  The plan is to stay holed up in my office (the spare bedroom) all day...and into the night if necessary.  I'm keeping myself caffeinated, with the reasoning "I can sleep when I'm done."

As of right now, I'm at 92.5K (no wordmeter update - Zokutou hasn't been working lately *sigh*).  At 500 words/hour, that's about 15 more hours to 100K, or 2-3 am.  Assuming I maintain pace and don't go over.  We'll see.

I'm up through chapter 17 and 202 pages of contiguous MS!

Saturday morning

Well, some progress at least.

Yesterday morning I finished Chapter 12, the trip to Glasgow. At work I realized chapter 13 was already written, it was just in a big chunk I had to re-paste into chapter format. I've been working on 14 this morning. Finished a major scene. Tonight will be another marathon session, during which I'll hopefully finish the other major scene in that chapter and move on. Chapters 15 and 16 are already largely written, just need to be formatted and smoothed over. I'm thinking about abandoning my family tomorrow and spending the entire day holed up with my computer.

I have finally really seen the light at the end of the tunnel. The gaps are closing fast, and it turns out I don't have so much left to write after all. The major thing slowing me down is that everything left to write is the slow stuff, stuff I haven't been able to "see" well, and transitions, etc.

But Little Boy just realized I am, in fact, home (does that make me a bad mom?) and I've got to be somewhere this afternoon, so I have to leave poor Elspeth kidnapped by Campbells and on her way back to Kilchurn to face Ormelie. It's a decent stopping point.

Fight scenes are hard for me to write. I want to make them accurate, and true-to-life. Elspeth can kick some ass, but she's also a woman, in skirts, surrounded by armed men with rather different attitudes about gender equality and fair play. I generally have to do them bit-by-bit, trying to imagine realistic actions to whatever move just occurred.

Today I knew one of the kidnapping party was going to try to abuse her, but I couldn't let that happen. I knew she fought him off but I couldn't "see" the action in one continuous play. So I'd write a paragraph or two, then have to think about something else and after a bit I'd realize what the most logical next move would be. And now it's done, her virtue intact, but not her sense of self-control...

(And because I have no self-control, I took another look at that CafePress list and found these gems: a mousepad I might have to get, and THIS SHIRT that I almost certainly will.)

Fun t-shirts

A real update coming soon, once I have something worthwhile to update. Hopefully in a few hours.

I'm up early to compensate for passing out on the couch last night and not only not writing, but missing a planned chat I had been looking forward to. Sorry, girls!

Anyway, I stumbled across this and thought some of you would appreciate them:

Fun author t-shirts on CafePress

I particularly like

Of Course There's a Writing Formula:
beginning + middle + end = story

(Oh, if it were only that easy. Especially for those of us who write in chunks!)

and

All the cool kids are writing.

Hehe. Also, the sadly accurate

A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
-Thomas Mann

My personal favorite:

Careful, or you'll end up in my novel.

the search for which (with my Christmas money) led to the finding of the page.

Addendum: on a later page I found

Not Now! My muse is kicking ass

and

I prefer to think of myself as "pre-published."

and this awesome magnet:

Not tonight, dear...

After 2 cups of Diet Pepsi *and* a caffeine pill, I'm still sitting here useless and blank.  So I'm going to pack it in for the night and set my alarm extra early.

Though it occurs to me: even if - by some miracle - I hit the 100K mark by New Years, I don't know if I'll actually finish the book.  With only 10K left to go, that's 4 (relatively short) chapters, and I think there's more story than that to tell.  Glencoe itself will be at least a chapter or two. 

I'm writing heavy, and a lot of stuff is going to be cut on rewrites, methinks.

Boxing Day

For me, the day after Christmas means the return to normal, which in this case was a 12-hour day at work.  Bleh.

I did get BIC tonight but not until after 10 pm.  Only managed a paltry 300 words.  However, a large part of my time was consumed by research.  I'm in Chapter 12, which is the trip to Glasgow.  Now that I have the background, hopefully things will pick up tomorrow and roll smoothly through the next few events, most of which are already roughed out.

I did find a neat website:
FirstFoot's Scottish Vernacular Dictionary

And the Wikipedia article on (modern) Glaswegian dialect defined the expression "pure dead brilliant" as "rather good".  Someone's got a sense of humor.  *g*

Christmas Eve

<---Courtesy of icanhascheezburger.com, the LOLcat that summarizes my day.

It's not so bad, really. Only a half-day, and being salaried I get paid for full. And it's almost time for me to leave.

Unfortunately, my plan to spend 3-4 hours writing because there wouldn't be anything to do was shot down. I've been fairly busy all morning, and thus: no wordage.

I did make some progress yesterday during LB's nap. Finished Chapter 11 - and therefore Act I - and moved into Chapter 12. This needs some historical background and then I just need to string together and smooth several large chunks as I move through Act II.

Last night I didn't get my BIC time because wrapping the last of the presents took longer than expected (doesn't it always?). Dunno if I'll be near a computer again until after Christmas proper.

Wishing everyone a Very Merry Christmas!!!