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November 12, 2002

1110 words during lunch

I finally managed to find time at lunch during work to work on my novel. I closed the door and had my little sign up, and was only disturbed once, which was good.

I've had a lot of people asking me about how it's going, since I made the announcement to my co-workers. (When you're pretty much the sole help desk person, I thought it might be a good idea to explain why you can't catch me at lunch like you used to be able to.) That does help me; it's good to know that people are rooting for me here, and willing to let me have the time.

So I worked on Zan's intro today. Found out as I was going along that he's going to miss everything because he's going to be unconscious in the hospital when the World Ends(tm). Heh.

I also came up with the other character last night, which brings me to five. I may throw another person in that gets booted out of the collective before too long.

Of course, I have to write how the World Ends(tm) before I get everyone together. I really need to get cracking. I have two more characters to get started before It happens.

And Lou had the guts to tell me while we were on the trip that I needed a plot! *sigh* I guess I'll have to work that in somewhere. But plot works much better for the second or the third books...do I really need one in *this* novel? :)

Posted by Julia at 2:11 PM | Comments (1)

November 5, 2002

Crawling slowly forward

I had no time to write this weekend or so far this week. I had planned to block out my lunch time to write, and work conspired against me on every day.

That said, I managed to eke out 869 words today. I got into a groove doing the introduction for a character who is based sort-of on me, so I had a lot of experience from which to draw. I'm feeling better, even though I didn't even get 1,000 words out today.

Posted by Julia at 10:15 PM

November 1, 2002

Not an auspicious start

I tried to block out my lunchtime today to start in on TBE. But the fates conspired against me, and I didn't even get to take a lunch at work. Thank $deity for it being the day after Halloween - candy kept me going until I left work early (since I had no lunch).

I did tell everyone at my office that I was doing NaNoWriMo, so it wasn't their fault. My morning stuff just went longer than I thought it would, and then I had a training to help with at 1:00, so that's when I decided to bag it.

So, to give me a feeling of accomplishment, I rewrote my three teasers for the game that TBE is partially based on, and am using that as a prologue. That gives me 1800 words for today, and since I'm not planning on getting a lot done tomorrow (taking the husband off for his birthday stuff), I consider it a good start.

And all the pre-planning I had intended to do, but didn't, is being done now. I was going to start last night, but the lure of FFX was too much. I started it back up again (at the point at which I had stopped, not restarting the game) last week, and I just can't get myself to finish it. I'm still trying to catch all the frelling monsters just to get a complete set, for no real reason other than I want to do it. So that's where prep-time last night went.

So I'm writing character info now. Names, basic background, what powers I want them to get. I've decided on 5 or 6 main characters. I want to get a good spread of powers, but I don't want to overload anyone. One of the characters came to me as I was rewriting the teaser. Cecile is a psychic's assistant...one who didn't see the end of the world coming (heh). The others I'm making up as I am writing the bits, but I know what I want/need, which is helping. I've got four of them down, I just need one more with healing. Maybe I'll make that person a foreigner. I really don't want to have everyone from New England, even if we are going to be a bit more of a melting pot in this version of the future.

The rest of the near future is going to be hard to work time in, but I am going to try and snatch a bit here and there. I want to do everyone's "eruption" as well as a bit before the event. The eruption is going to have a significant impact on what powers the people have, so that's why I'm defining powers now. It'll help me craft their eruption event.

I still haven't decided if I'm going to post anything here. I don't want to start another blog, but if I do decide to do that, I'll let those who are interested know.

Posted by Julia at 7:23 PM