Travis Eneix

Lost in the deep forest of NaNoWriMo. Nearly done at a current word count of 45,967. Woot!

I just wanted to take a moment to drop a yay out for the terribly cool construction located here - http://tinyurl.com/p64rv

Check it out, it’s terribly spiffy!

Anne Lamott, author of the fabulous book, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (which I am currently consuming), has a chapter devoted to an idea that surpasses brilliant. One of the phenomenon’s that happens for writers that is both amazingly wonderful and desperately annoying is that excellent ideas for a piece you are working on inevitably come to you when you are away from you primary writing tools (like the laptop I am writing this on right now). The solution she presents is so simple its painful. Index cards. They’re tough, lightweight, and cheap. Just take one, fold it in half, and stick it in your back pocket. That plus a pen equals the end of the loss of those little flashes of inspiration. At a stoplight last night I managed to scribble down the notes for a good scene for the novel I am working on. When I got home I slipped it into my notebook for said novel and grabbed a fresh card for my pocket. That is simply brilliant.

I wanted to take a moment to recognize Randy Ingermason for his efforts to spread good tips and tricks for writing, and his bald faced encouragement of struggling fiction writers of all skill levels everywhere. His advice is solid and imminently useful. In particular I’s like to point out his Snowflake Method. This powerful method for outlining a fiction project is what got me to really try my hand at living the dream I have always held of being a producing fiction writer. Thanks Randy, you rock!

Since NaNoWriMo is consuming my life right now I thought a status report would be good.

As of this moment I am 13,818 words into my goal of 50,000 in the month of November.  Not too shabby.  In order to keep up the minimum average pace of 1,667 words a day I need to type in 1,182 more today.  No sweat.

One of the useful tricks I just re-found is the super fantastic incredibly useful Word War.  There is a thread on the NaNo forums dedicated to these amazing literary smash ups.  There are several varieties but my fav is the 10 minute word war.  People call out challenges like ‘ Who’s in for the :15?’ meaning when the current hour gets to the 15 minute mark folks type like mad till the 25 minute mark then posts their results.  My result for the 10 minute challenge I just did was 323 words added to my novel.  If I do that 4 more time today I will pass the minimum for the day.  Not a bad way to add to the pile of material for my first draft.  Add an hour of writing after my writer’s group tonight and I will be ahead of the game!  Niceness!!

Mycharacters are doing things on their own, and I am enjoying the ride.  I wonder where the story will wind up?

Currently at 12,014 words and rising.