#nanokoryos

[koryoslore]

hey it's that time again it's October and you know what that means? IT MEANS IT'S ALMOST NOVEMBER

and November is National Novel Writing Month!! and I do it every year!! and I cry!!

Ok let's get serious now. NaNoWriMo is a challenge to write 50,000 words in a month. This month I am writing a story called Darkeye and the synopsis goes thusly:

Darkeye is the tale of a future city overrun by genetically enhanced, hyper-intelligent wild dogs. Wrought from a misguided experiment, these dogs have run mankind to the brink of extinction and now rule their crumbling civilization.

When three young dogs, Mhumhi, Kutta, and Sacha, stumble upon two starving human children in a sewer pipe, they decide to spare their lives and bring them to safety. But there are few places left that are safe for humans, and with a looming famine and civil war, even fewer dogs willing to tolerate their existence. Mhumhi and his pack decide to smuggle the children out of the city, hoping to cross the desert for a haven on the other side. But what they do not realize is that dogs are not the only creatures that humans have modified…

HOT DINGDONG IT'S ALL VERY SILLY AND EXCITING. Also, as with every year, I will be uploading the story as I write it. This year I have built a wordpress for it, which you can check in with every day to read along!

But guess what, there's more! You'll notice on the site that there is a donation tab (and one has secretly appeared on my main blog sidebar). Well, that was mainly if people enjoyed my writing- nonfiction or otherwise, I spend hours on it each day, and if you like it, you could give me a dollar if you wanted. 

However, during November, I will be donating 50% of all proceeds to WCN, the Wildlife Conservation Network. I like a lot of their work and they also support Ethiopian wolves and African wild dogs, two species that will appear in this year's novel!

Of course feel free to bypass me and go ahead and donate there on your own- they do great work.

Anyway, that's it! Looking forward to November!

[koryos]

Life Post-NaNoWriMo

Total wordcount for the month of November: 80,688

Story completion status: 2/3

Satisfaction level: Mildly pleased

Current status of story in gif form:

Welp, NaNoWriMo is over, and I think 80,000 words is a fairly decent amount. This story was harder to write than others have been in the past. I think it had to do with the level of commitment I had to other things this year and the fact that this story had several things in it that were challenging for me, like a massive number of characters, a very constrained and repetitive setting, a main character who couldn't fucking talk, pronouns that were as flexible as Gene Simmons... It was rough. But I'm happy with all 146 pages I got through. I think coming into this just after I did a massive editing project was also a bit detrimental as it took longer for me to relax and just start spitting out words. But I got there! And you know, I think that was the point at which the story got a lot more interesting. The words were worse, true, but the story itself had much more life and vigor once I settled down and stopped overanalyzing what I was writing. It grew a plot!

Obviously, the story is not done yet, and I do not want to lose the momentum I've recently gained. However, I have a lot of very large commitments I should really start paying attention to in the next two weeks. So I've decided on a compromise.

I will keep working on the story every day! But I'm implementing a strategy I'm calling the "one sentence for you penance" tactic. Basically, I have to write at least one sentence of the story each day. However, the process of writing one sentence usually leads to about seven more when I do it. And that means I will usually get a paragraph done each day! Sometimes it is even more, like a couple of pages. Sometimes it is a lot less... sometimes my sentence is, "She sighed." But the point is, it keeps me writing. It keeps me thinking about the story. For those of you who have trouble maintaining your inspiration and enthusiasm for a story, I really reccomend this method. It's worked well for me in the past.

So, for those of you who are still interested in reading along, I am going to keep updating the google doc for now. I might post the link here again whenever I've written a substantial amount. So look for it! 

And for everyone who follows me who did NaNoWriMo this year, I don't give TWO SHITS if you made 50,000 or not. YOU'RE A FUCKING WINNER

[koryos]

NaNoWriMo site Profile

The thought of breeches felt rather dirty and forbidden, though, and he uncomfortably steered his mind away from that as well.

Word count: 72,069

guess who validated her novel today ME guess who ordered a wonner's t-shirt ALSO ME

and so anyway i didn't get much writing done tonight but I got a shitload of plot mapped out finally. It's alllllllllllll comin together now. But I don't know if I'll finish before nov. 30 :( And if I don't I will probably have to take a break for like exams and that lab report and an that lit review and that 30 page paper due in two weeks and all.

and grad school applications

and job applications

but you know i'll get back to it after all that! and I guess i'll keep updating so people can continue reading even though no one tells me if they are come on guysSsSs

[koryos]

Writing schedule and explanation

NaNo Site Profile

“I have never been good with lies, Mother,” Peridot said wryly, “save one.”

Day 21 wordcount: 57,085

[koryos]

NaNoWriMo Site Profile

Writing Schedule and Explaination

“It’s not a pigeon!” Opal threw the doll she was holding at him. “It’s a canary! And it’s dead now!”

Day 16 wordcount: 45,083

[koryos]

literally two-thirds of my writing output comes from writing copious amounts of dialogue and now I have a main character who REFUSES TO SPEAK and aaaaAARRGHGHhhghg

[koryos]

For those of you who keep checking in after I reblog my NaNoWriMo post, I've been reblogging it right after I finish for the night. Would you like me to try to alert you when I'm having writing sessions so you can observe?

ps is anybody reading along?

[koryos]

NaNoWriMo Profile

Writing Schedule

He chuckled very softly at his own thoughts and Peridot pinched his ear to shut him up.

Day 11: 33,033

ugh only wrote 1,000 words tonight... spent all day in the lab and have no energy eight now. It was also kind of a crappy weekend for me. Hope Monday looks brighter. On the plus side I've actually managed to write almost 60 pages in less than two weeks, so that's not bad.