Day Four.

7208.

Doing pretty well. I’ve been consistently ahead, since I managed to start day 1 with over 2k–I’m still about five, six hundred ahead even though it’s only 11:40 pm today, since I got a headstart from being over 1000 ahead yesterday. (Egad.) I’m pretty excited, although a lot of the prose is awkward so far and the planning a little hackneyed. I can edit later. Two days, and wordcount bribery ahoy!

Busy

Have been very busy lately, but I think I’ll be prepared in time for NaNo. If I can even manage it this year with my schedule, that is, but if I have to drop out, that’s okay. (I can still say that I’ve won once, anyway.) I’ve been doing some outlining for the various ideas that I have bouncing around in my head, and a couple of them are starting to solidify, so that’s good news.

Now to come up with some wordcount bribes for myself to get me to 50,000…

WINNERRRRRRR!!

50,003 at last validation.

WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

Day Twenty-Seven Report

Coming in at 46,545, over 1.5k over where I need to be! Yesterday I managed a lot of words, ending up at over 1.7k+, which is pretty darn amazing for me. Currently I’m looking at having to write just over 1.1k every other day until Thursday.

So NaNoWriMo’s drawing to a close. This is it. This is: THE END. I’m hoping to have the team get their acceptance letter before the end of November, which may happen. I also finally figured out what Maureen does, and it’s pretty cool, although I’m going to have to go back and change a few things. (Note to self–people able to see magic of other family members; accounts for Maureen not being seen as unusual by own family.)

I think things are falling into place.

You know, I never thought I’d get this far. Before I started I told myself, “I’m fine if I make it to 30k. 20k, even.” And now I’m less than 4k away from the big 50.

I’m proud of myself. If I can do this, surely I can do anything! (Now all I have to do is figure out how to finish this monstrosity.)

Day Twenty Report

It’s been a slow day, but I’m still about 500 words above and will probably write more before the end of the night. In at 33,810.

Today I realized that one of my second-tier main characters was one heck of a lot sneakier than I thought. I already have the theme of magical bets going on, with Anabelle, so I realized that Coraline must have one going on with not only Inge but also with Professor Sharpe, which was the reason why Sharpe ends up helping Anabelle in the end. Ha-ha.

Signing off for tonight~ 35k or bust tomorrow!

Day Nineteen Report

Day nineteen and still right on track–and a little ahead. Although today had a bit of a slow start (curse you, Pokémon Crystal!) I had an advantage from finishing over a thousand words ahead last night (!!–2315 words, almost a record) and have so far managed about 1650 for today, meaning I’m over a thousand words ahead now and in the green at 32,829. Apparently at this pace I should be finishing even a day early, which I wouldn’t mind. More time to start editing, because now I have people who actually want to see this monstrosity.

Today I wrote an amusing and painful segment in which Anabelle and Coraline are magically passing notes in class through an spell Coraline put on their notebooks where Coraline has really atrocious spelling. It hurt to spell words wrong intentionally, but I managed. I came up with her half-literacy late in the planning, just a little before NaNo actually started, and it’s kind of an interesting side to her character. She’s so levelheaded and clever, but yet she’s way below grade level for reading and writing. Later she and Anabelle work on spelling together, Anabelle making magical self-correcting worksheets, my clever attempt to work more actual magic into the story.

Tomorrow Anabelle’s going to have to swallow her pride and admit that she was a little overzealous and can’t do everything. And then she’s going to get what she wanted in the first place, and there will be many celebrations. Hopefully I’ll be getting to the scene where Inge and Coraline’s bet is revealed in a few days–I managed to work in a nice set-up line in today’s writing where Anabelle asks why Coraline wants to help her all of a sudden. Coraline replies that if she doesn’t, Anabelle will rant about it for the rest of the year and drive her mad–but that, of course, isn’t the real reason. Ooh, sneaky.

I’m beginning to think that I may actually achieve 50k on this. I’m not sure I’ll have it wrapped up by the end of the month, but that’s what NaNoFiMo is for, right?

Days Seventeen and Eighteen Reports

Forgot to update yesterday — hit wordcount, albeit late at night, with 28864 at the end of the day. Didn’t quite get 1667 for the day, but I was far enough ahead from the day before that I was 500 ahead at the beginning of today anyway. So far today I’ve written 1042 words, and have a total of 29,906 words total. I’m going to make 30k!

In the past two days, Anabelle has suddenly developed a group of friends among the first-year girls after her befriending of Inge. My favorite line from this is: “At first it was sort of creepy, but eventually she began to remember that this was what her life was supposed to be like.” Yes, aha. There are still girls that are skeptical of her attitude, though. I randomly created a character I named Lindy after Captain Hallaoun from Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha of all things who is one of these skeptics, just as a bit character, but over the last chapter she’s turned into something of a bigger player than I anticipated. She and Anabelle have made a magically-reinforced bet that she can’t get Professor Sharpe to help them within a week.

It’s really interesting, writing off the outline. I’ve had trouble with it before, so I outlined about sixteen chapters of material, which have been condensed into about eleven in the actual writing. But now I’m off the part that I’ve outlined, so I’m essentially making stuff up as I go. And I think it helps that I’ve got momentum, but it’s actually going along. Huh. I don’t even think I need wordcount bribery any more.

Scenes that I’m really excited to write in the future:

• When the team goes to the tournament and Maureen meets her twin sister, who’s on the Coronet Academy team
• Anabelle having a bake sale to raise money for the entrance fee
• Anabelle giving Madeline (Maureen’s twin) a severe talking-to
• Coraline and Inge revealing that they had a bet running on whether Anabelle would manage to pull off getting the team into the tournament

Day Sixteen Report

Surprisingly, still on track despite a very busy day. I feel finishing in my future. Currently at 27,218 words.

I feel like my characters aren’t using enough magic for being at a magic school. Maybe I need to stick in some more classroom scenes. Or have Professor Sharpe do some real flashy magic, which she hasn’t really done yet, except to break up the badly-choreographed Anabelle vs Inge fight. I’m terrible at fight scenes.

On the other hand, Anabelle and Inge had a really nice heart-to-heart over detention. I realized that I skipped one of Anabelle’s detention scenes that had some really good Maureen development. I may have to go back and add that in, or change a couple scenes. Or maybe I’ll do that after I hit 50k. Decisions, decisions. Hm. I’ll probably do it after I hit 50k, mostly because I can’t afford to re-write when I need to be producing new material. Besides, what else is December for?

I’m beginning to really think that I’m going to do this. Wow.

Day Fifteen Report

HALFWAY!!!!!!!

25554.

That is all.

Okay, that’s not all. My MC is one of the most annoying characters ever created… and I love it. She’s aaaaaalmost at the point where she starts to turn from egomaniac witch to a just really, really gung-ho, ambitious and optimistic teenage girl. Almost. She still has to get smacked down a couple more times, though.

Eeeeeexcellent.

Days Thirteen and Fourteen Reports

Managed to miss a day of blogging yesterday

I had a really tightly-scheduled day yesterday, and only managed 1105, which, while not my lowest daily count to date, wasn’t so good, although thankfully the spectacular 2.3K and spare change the day before made up for it. Today I’m sitting pretty with over 1.7k for the day, and current total at 23,603.

Over the past few days, Anabelle has discovered something interesting about a teacher she thinks she can use for her own benefit, gotten let back in her room, had a decent night’s sleep, and is cooking up more evil plots. She’s also very mystified about the girl who asked if she knows who she is. She won’t have to wait long–she’s going to find out the connection in the next couple chapters. (Which means I get to write the Inge-Anabelle fight and subsequent shared detention, whee!)

I can’t believe I’m going to be at the halfway point tomorrow. Anyone else out there wondering how they’ve made it as far as they’ve gotten?