pizza, novel, family

[peroxidepirate]

Recursive/meta-pizza (see icon): delicious! But man, that's a lot of bread when you sit down to eat it. Photos and recipe/description coming in December, probably.


NaNo novel: 30,500 words and counting! I think I'm unstuck, at least for now. And my method of goal-setting is changing, again. Plan A was to write 1100 words on the days I work and 3300 on my days off, with a goal of hitting 50,000 words by the 29th. Plan B was to write a set number of scenes each day, according to my outline, with a goal of finishing the rough draft by the end of the month.

Plan C, since some complicated and unexpected things are happening (i.e., the friendship between Anna and Olivia has become the main drive of the story; Rick's car was stolen while Anna was borrowing it; Rick is in love with Anna; the supposed villain, Yvonne, has not been seen in days; and an iron statue of William Egan, the first governor of the state of Alaska, has become a semi-major character):

• Days I'm working, I just want to write something -- however short -- to keep myself from losing interest.
• Days I'm off work, generally Tuesdays and Fridays (but there will be one extra day in there), I want to get myself to the next 5k bench mark. This should get me to 50,000 on November 27!
• By the end of December, I want to have written the first draft of every scene in the book (which I'm now guessing will be a 65,000 to 75,000 word story, all told).

And that, I can definitely do! :D

Also: I talked to my brother today, and found out he's a Neal Stephenson fanboy, to the extent of joining The Mongoliad -- a sort of shared world, partly fan-created, alternate-historical web based novel/blog/thing -- and blathering on about it to me. I knew he was a fan of Stephenson, but fanboy is something else entirely. So then I told him about q_sama 's Tortallan Timeline and how that's come to the attention of Tamora Pierce herself, and... well, how adorable is it that I got to talk fandom with my brother? He's become much more of a geek as he's gotten older, and I heartily approve.

ALSO also, said brother and his family might be moving back to Michigan in a few months. File that under "so excited-making I can't think about it, lest I be heartbroken if it doesn't come to pass." (And possibly I need to get up to see the family that is in state a little more often. Right.)


So overall, a successful day. And now it's off to bed -- tomorrow is, barring anything else unexpected, my last opening shift for like a week and a half. I'll be on all 10:00 shifts, and I couldn't be happier!

Comments

[golden-horizon.livejournal.com]

Woah, pizza! :D

Man, you are simply powering through your nano! I love writing buddies who are ahead of me (not by a ridiculous degree, though) so seeing your wordcount go up is really inspiring!

[coldthermistor.livejournal.com]

Cool! It's really awesome to see how you're pushing through NaNo :)

And that pizza thing makes me feel hungry. Somehow. Metapizza ftw! :D

[erimthar.livejournal.com]

That Recursive Pizza is a real actual thing? That's awesome... you need to get the recipe and description up before Super Bowl party time.

So have you plotted your novel out to the end, or do you just start writing and let it go where it goes? Sometimes I think the latter method is the only way I could ever even attempt to write a novel.

And Neal Stephenson is awesome. "Snow Crash" is my favorite single-volume science fiction story, and his Baroque Cycle/Cryptonomicon is addictive as well. What I wouldn't give to be able to write like that.

[peroxidepirate.livejournal.com]

:) Happy to help!

[peroxidepirate.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :) The pizza is working its magic.

[peroxidepirate.livejournal.com]

1. I will attempt to do so. (That's.... late January, right? *not a football fan*)

2. I did have the novel plotted out, something I've never done with a story before. But then when it seems like the characters what to do something unexpected, I let it happen. Assuming I finish this thing, it will require a lot of rewriting anyway, so I'd rather let any flashes of inspiration through and then decide later if I'm keeping them.

3. Snow Crash is epic, although I can never decide if I like The Diamond Age better. It took me forever to read Cryptonomicon, but it is a thing of story-building beauty. I'll have to track down the Baroque Cycle books one of these days.

[erimthar.livejournal.com]

1. It will be on February 6. (I'm not a football fan either, but being a football fan on Superbowl Sunday is getting to be kind of like being Irish on St. Patrick's Day... helpful, but not necessary.)

2. I wish my characters would tell me what they want to do. They just stand there looking at me, expecting me to do all the work. :-(

3. The Baroque Cycle is kind of a prequel to Cryptonomicon... it's three volumes long, each one as fat as Crypto is. If anyone ever told me someone could write a 2,500-page story that's a picaresque adventure set against the backdrop of the creation of calculus and the beginning of modern market capitalism... and have it be a page-turner... I'd have laughed and laughed.

[peroxidepirate.livejournal.com]

Well, my characters definitely wanted to just stand there for the first 6000 words. And I didn't even know my main character at all well for like 12,000 words, and I spent a week being bored sick by all the exposition I had to do at the beginning and asking myself, "Why the hell didn't I just write fanfic instead?" But then things started to happen. :)


"a 2,500-page story that's a picaresque adventure set against the backdrop of the creation of calculus and the beginning of modern market capitalism... and have it be a page-turner..."

Um. I'm not sure Stephenson is entirely human -- some of his recent ancestors have to be from a higher plane of existence; there's no other explanation for that. But... recommendation duly noted.