The Further Adventures of Karl

NaNoWriMo 2010

2010-10-31T23:09:00.002Z

OK, so, in my last post, when I said that I was going to post here again in a few days time, I actually meant 365 days time. Er, sorry about that...

And I've got to be really quick here, and so here's a quick summary of the last year. NaNoWriMo 2009 went great, and I ended up writing 101,548 words in 29 days! This was the second highest score in London - I was beaten by Joan of Quark who managed to write an incredible 120,000 words...

My OU course went OK. Didn't get quite as high a mark as I would have liked, but I did OK, and I now have a Diploma in Literature and Creative Writing to add to my name! I've decided to hold off on doing an MA, at least for the time being. For now, I'm still doing some OU courses, this time in computing (M150 and T175) - the role I currently perform at work is IT related.

Work itself has been, well, OK, and I decline to comment any further on that subject...

I'm now also on Twitter, and, if you wish you can follow me: @karlsgreen

And, now NaNoWriMo 2010 is upon us! After my success last year I'm aiming to beat my 2009 total as this year I'm aiming for a whopping 150,000 words! But this year is about much more than that. I've decided to get myself sponsored for charity, specifically, St Luke's Hospice in Harrow and Brent, who helped to look after my father shortly before he died last year. If you wish to sponsor me you can do so at:

http://www.justgiving.com/karlsgreen

Please do sponsor me as much as you can - even just a few pounds will be much appreciated by myself and St Luke's.

As for my novel itself, it's called "Thirty Days", and, funnily enough, it will be set during the thirty days of November! Each chapter will relate to one day, and I'll be publishing a chapter each day to my website! You'll find all of the details at:

http://www.karlsgreen.co.uk/thirtydays

My aim is to get each chapter up by approx. 6.30pm each day.

I've got the first two weeks booked off of work, and so during this time I'm going to have to get ahead of myself in terms of wordcount - ideally I need to do a minimum of 7,500 words per day for the first 14 days (even though each chapter will only be about 5,000 words). Let's see how I do with that...

The build up to this year's Nano has been great - I know that I and a lot of my friends are very excited at the prospect that that madness that is NaNoWriMo is about to start again! I also met a load of nice people at the two NaNoWriMo kick-off parties that we had in London, and we have a great community on the net, both on Facebook and Twitter. You can find the NaNoWriMo London group on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=6905365979

You can also follow us on Twitter by searching for #nanolondon, and by following @LondonNaNo

Well, it's just over 20 minutes to go now. I and a few other London Nanoers are going to be starting at midnight and seeing how much we can do before we all go to bed. Wish me luck everyone! (I have a feeling I'm going to need it. Why did I say I was going to do 150,000...?)

NaNoWriMo 2009

2009-10-31T23:42:00.002Z

OK, I know I haven't posted here for a little while. I'll do a proper update in the next few days or so. This is just a quick post to say that I will once again be taking part in NaNoWriMo. This will be my third year, and I'm going for my hattrick! I'm aiming for 100,000 words this year, and my novel this year will be called "The Day I Lost My Mind" (which certainly seems appropriate considering my target!).

It all kicks off tomorrow, and one of my aims will be to try and have more words written each day than I had at the same point last year. Which means I'll have to write over 5k tomorrow...

Wish me luck! (I think I'm going to need it...)

Update on the World of Karl...

2009-06-21T18:43:00.003+01:00

OK, so once again I've left it a while to update this blog of mine. Sorry about that, but I did have a good reason. My father had been suffering from lung cancer and sadly, on 10th May, he passed away. We had the funeral very quickly, and I read out a poem that I had written a few months earlier about my realtionship with my Dad. He got to read it before he died, and he liked it.

And so it's been a difficult time for me and my family, but things have slowly got back to some sort of normality.

Obviously I've had more important things than my writing to worry about over the past few months, but I have still been doing some. I was able to get the last three of my Open University course assignments completed and submitted on time. I got good marks for the first two of these, including a really high one for the second one (which was written hurridly as it was due in within a week of my father passing away - although at the time it was good to have something else to focus on). The third one was the End of Course Assessment (ECA) which carries a significant amount of marks for the course as a whole - my excellect marks for the previous two assignments means that as long as I get at least 70% for my ECA, I'll get a "Good Pass" for the course overall, which is the second highest grade, and the highest grade that I can now achieve. I'll be getting my mark for the ECA back sometime in early August...

In April I took part in Script Frenzy, and, unlike last year, this year I was able to win it. I did just one radio script, which at some point I intend to do some more work on and submit to BBC Radio Four...

And talking of submissions, one of the assignments for my Open University course was to write a story aimed at a specific magazine. I wrote one aimed at The People's Friend and, as I got such a good mark for it, when I've got a moment I'm going to do a quick rewrite of it, and then submit it to them...

And finally, as mentioned in my last post, I've started a new novel writing inititive via Facebook. The aim is to write just 250 words each day, every day, for up to a year in order to get the first draft of a novel written. It's been running for just over two weeks, and so far it's been going pretty well - I have a rough idea of how the plot is going to go in my novel. I've also got several friends on Facebook giving it a go as well. We've recently had a vote on what to name the group, and the winner was "TorNoYe" which is short for "Tortoise Novelling Year" - the idea being that if NaNoWriMo is the hare, than this is the tortoise, and we all know how that story ended...

Anyway, if you want to check us out on Facebook the direct link is:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=93069867815&ref=mf

And so that's everything writing wise that I've been up to recently. With everything that's been going on in my life over the past few months some of the deadlines mentioned in my previous post have had to be dropped, and I also have a new one to add to them. And so here's a rundown on all of my deadlines:

I was planning to write a novel by writing and publishing on the web one chapter per week, with the novel's title being "Recall". Originally that was due to start yesterday, but will now be postponed (again) until later in the year. This is partly due to the fact that something new has come along (more on that shortly) and partly due to the fact that Geocities, where my site has been hosted for over ten years, is going to be axed later this year by Yahoo. And so I'm going to have to find a new home on the web. I think I know where I'm going to go, and once I've decided on that and done the migration "Recall" should be good to go.

My "novellette" idea, where I would write and self-publish a 20,000 word story, is also on hiatus at the moment. The original deadline for this was 31st May, but this would have clearly been impossible for me to meet given what else was happening in May this year. I still intend to do it, but it probably won't be until autumn. I'm going to aim to get it done in time for Christmas...

I was planning to finish the first draft of my NaNoWriMo novel in July, but this will now need to be moved until September. However, I still intend to do the rewrites in October, before doing the next NaNoWriMo in November.

As for the final two things mentioned in my previous post, the unnamed complicated idea that I was planning to start work on in September is going to have to be postponed until 2010, but my plans to take part in the Writers' Forum competitions haven't changed.

And so I believe that covers everything that I mentioned in my previous post. But I now have one more thing to add to the list. Last week I read about this competition:

http://www.scifinow.co.uk/tag/war-of-the-words/

The aim is to write a sci-fi or fantasy novel that is at least 80,000 words long, with publication being the prize. The deadline for this is 20th August. And I've decided to go for it! My ECA consisted of the first 2,500 words of a fantasy novel, and so I'm going to use this a starting point. From tomorrow I'm going to aim to write at least 2,000 words per day, which means that by the end of July I should have a first draft of just over 80,000 words written. I'll then spend a couple of weeks frantically rewriting it, and writing a sypnosis, ready for it to be submitted. As I'm having to write it very quickly I know that I probably won't win, but that deadline will spur me on, and, as long as I meet it, I'll still have a novel that I can continue to improve on and then send out to agents and publishers. (Although, if I were to win...)

And so that's all of the news from the world of Karl. As you can see, over the next few months Karl is going to be a very busy Karl...

Setting Deadlines

2009-03-31T21:17:00.003+01:00

OK, so it's been three months since I last posted here. That's very bad of me, I know. But for much of the first three months of 2009 I have been feeling pretty shattered, and not up for writing much. However, it's now time for me to start cranking things up a few gears.

My OU course has been going OK. I've got two more assignments to go, and then the End of Course Assessment. I've already done a draft of the next assignment, which isn't due in for about four weeks. The fifth assignment is due in around the middle of May, and the End of Course Assessment is due in by 5th June. And I've already signed up for next years course...

Tomorrow Script Frenzy officially starts (although I may not start until Thursday because I want to watch the football tomorrow). I'm going to be doing some radio scripts, with a serious intention of submitting one of them to BBC Radio 4 later on in the year. I've got my idea for what I'm going to write about, and I'm pretty excited by it! I won't reveal what it is yet, but I'm happy to announce the title of the main script: "The Trial of Timothy Hepton"

One of the reasons why I don't seem to be producing an awful lot in the way of writing at the moment is a lack of deadlines. NaNoWriMo and Script Frenzy can help with that, but what I'm also going to do is announce a few things here, with deadlines, to try and force myself to get them done. And so here goes...

In my last blog entry I mentioned a new writing project that I was planning to start in either late January or early February. Well, I haven't started it yet, but I will do so in the near future. Because of my course deadlines, and something else I'll be doing first, it won't be for a little while yet, but it will definitely start on 20th June. What it will be is that I'll be writing a new novel at a pace of one chapter a week. I'll be releasing it as a series of freely downloadable PDFs, and setting up a forum somewhere so that people can discuss it - people can tell me if they love it or hate it, and discuss what they think will be happening next. However, what they say won't affect the plot as I already know what that's going to be! This novel already has a title which I can announce today: "Recall"

But, before that, by the 30th May, I'm determined to get myself into print! Well, self-publishing something anyway. I'm planning to write a long-short story, or, as I prefer to call it, a "novellette" (which is longer than a short story, but shorter than a novella or a novel). I'm aiming for around 20,000 words. If all goes to plan by 30th May it'll be available to purchase online at around £2.99 for the paperback version, or around 99p as an e-book. I still need to look into all of the processes involved with this and so those prices aren't final. I don't have a title for this one yet, so watch this space...

My NaNoWriMo novel (which is called "They Are Coming...") is still not completed, but I really want to get it done. And so I'm going to aim to get the first draft completed by 31st July, and the rewrites done by 31st October ready to start submitting it to agents and publishers. And just in time to start the next NaNoWriMo novel...

Also, (yes, there's more!) I'm planning to start a new novel writing initiative that everyone can take part in! I intend to run it through Facebook (and so if your a writing friend of mine on there you'll be hearing more about it soon) and start it on 6th June. I'm not going to reveal the details about that yet, but I'm pretty excited about it!

And then (nope, not finished yet!) I have an idea for another novel to write. I'm not going to reveal what it's about, but I think that it's a really good idea. However, it's also a complex and difficult idea - it will not be possible to get a draft done in a month like with NaNoWriMo. It will require a lot of planning and research beforehand, and so I'll be taking my time with it. But, if I can pull it off, it should be pretty special. I'll be starting work on this in September, but I'm not imposing any deadlines on this one as yet.

And finally, I want to start entering some competitions. There are a whole myriad of competitions out there, but I've selected the regular monthly competition in Writers' Forum magazine to aim for. All types of short stories can be entered into it, and it has a flexible word limit of 1,000 to 3,000 words. I subscribe to the magazine, and so it will cost me £7 to enter each month. The first prize each month is £300, second prize is £150, and third prize is £100. I intend to enter once each month from September for at least a year, aiming to win at least one prize, which will more than make up the entry fees, as well as getting the winning story published in the magazine. But whether I'll be any good to win a prize is another matter - I guess we'll be finding out nearer the time!

So, all in all, things are going to start to get busy. But I'll keep you all up to date with what I'm up to in this blog. (And I promise it won't be another three months until my next entry!)

A New Year's Message for 2009

2008-12-31T21:54:00.002Z

Well, 2008 is nearly over, and I'm now four months into my writer's olympiad. I felt that this would be a good time to post some of my thoughts on the year just gone, and start looking ahead to the year to come.

2008 was the year that I came up with my four year plan to try and improve my status as a writer. I started my Open University course in September and so far it's gone OK. I did my first assignment at the end of October, and, whilst my mark wasn't mind shattering, I still did well, and I should be able to improve as the course goes on. I have my second assignment due in by Monday, and hopefully I can do a good job with it. I've also made some really nice friends through one of the OU groups on Facebook, which helps makes the course even more enjoyable.

I wished we had something like Facebook back when I was doing my degree at Aberystwyth. Towards the end we had a website called VirginStudent, which was an early social networking site. There were a few people from my Uni on there, and that was fun. But things would have been amazing with Facebook. Just when you think technology and the internet have given you everything that you could possibly think of, along comes something else to amaze you. It's been great to find old school friends on there, and for keeping in touch with everyone. And it's also great for making new friends too.

November saw NaNoWriMo and, whilst I failed to reach my original target of 125,000 words, I did make it to an impressive 80,000 words, and I'll be going on to finish that novel soon. And, like last year, I met some really nice people along the way (and, again, Facebook played its part here!).

On the work front it's been an... interesting year, which is about all I can really say... Next year probably won't be too eventful, although I am due to switch departments around November (it's standard practice where I work to switch jobs every two years or so). Things should be fairly quiet, until 2010...

The biggest story of 2008 has been the credit crunch. I'm not so badly affected as I'm quite comfortable financially, but there are many others that have not been so lucky. Woolworths is probably the best example. I still find it hard to believe that it's about to disappear from our high streets. Over the years I've bought so much stuff from there - everything from kitchen utensils, to stationery, to DVD's and computer games. My local branch is due to close forever on Friday, but, because of the fact that I'm working this week, I may not be able to get in there again before the doors close for good. And you've got to feel for the 27,000 people across the country who are losing their jobs because of it - this is a terrible time of year to be made redundant, and especially in this economic climate.

(And there have also been some pretty big political stories in 2008 but, because of work, I prefer to avoid discussing them in my blog.)

Looking ahead to 2009, whilst I'll hopefully be able to keep my bank account in credit, I'll be wanting to step up a gear with my writing. As well as finishing off my NaNoWriMo novel and the OU course I'm currently on, I'm planning to take part in Script Frenzy in April - the aim of this is to write 100 pages of scripts in a month. Last year I failed due to illness, but this year I'm out for revenge! I already have a rough idea of what I'm going to write about. And, on top of all this, I'm planning a new writing project that's due to start in either late January or (more likely) early February. It should be pretty good if I can pull it off, and it'll require a lot of hard work, but I think you'll like it...

Overall, whilst everything in 2008 may not have gone as I would have liked it to, and despite the credit crunch and looming recession, I'm fairly optimistic for 2009. The bills will be paid and I'll still be able to do all of the things that I'd like to do. Even with the financial situation as it is I'll still have a roof over my head and food to eat, and there are many others in the world who are far worse off. And my writing will hopefully go from strength to strength.

But, more important than all of that are my friends - friends from school, friends from college, friends from Uni, friends from work, friends from Harrow, friends from NaNoWriMo, friends from Facebook, and all my other friends. Apart from my family, you are the most important things to me, and it's great knowing you all. Whether your 2008 was good or bad, whether you're looking to the year ahead with enthusiasm or trepidation, I hope that all of your 2009's are fantastic. We can all make it a great year.

Let's all make this year one to remember, and for all the right reasons. Let's all work hard to make our dreams come true.

And let's do it together...

NaNoWriMo 2008: The Post Mortem

2008-12-07T19:19:00.003Z

It's now been a week since NaNoWriMo 2008 came to a close where I reached the dizzy heights of 80,000 words! But how did it all turn out, and what went wrong with my original bid for 125,000 words?

In order to get 125k I had to write 5k on each of the days that I wasn't working. Day One went OK, with my not only getting 5,038 words on the board, but also having time to attend the London kick-off party. However, Day One would turn out to be the only day that I would be on target for 125k.

Things started to go downhill from Day Two as I once again found things to distract myself: Games (both those already on my computer, and found via the internet), YouTube (especially clips of "Whose Line Is It Anyway"), and TV. There were some good days though, with a couple more 5k days before I went back to work, but 125k for the month was rapidly becoming a distant dream.

And so I set myself a more realistic target of 80k - at the time that I set it I only needed 2.5k a day to reach it, and so it felt much more achieveable

As for the story itself I did have a rough plan for the plot when I started out. That plan was thrown out on Day Two as the characters took over and the story started writing itself! But I don't see that as a bad thing - it's a great feeling to be in that creative zone. However, it also meant that I had no idea how long it would be before I would reach "The End".

Two characters in particular have taken over the show. My novel is about people starting University, and in the original plan I had four characters living in the same flat in a Halls of Residence. I felt that four was a bit small for a flat (I had about eight in mine in real life), and so I settled on having six which felt more realistic - which meant that I had to create two characters very quickly. But rather than just have a couple of quiet characters that didn't really do much I gave them both their own sub-plots, which have slowly taken over a large chunk of the novel. The second-to-last chapter that I've written so far was focussed on a key day in the lives of these two characters, with the main character only making a very small appearance. The chapter culminates in a very big moment for one of these characters, which I enjoyed writing. But the chapter was huge, about three times the size of the others in the novel so far, but it's one of my favourites. Unfortunately, I am going to have to change the names of these two characters when I come to finish the book - when I created them I needed a couple of characters quickly, and let's just say that their names became a in-joke that's gone very badly wrong!

And, talking of in-jokes, there is one in there. Anyone who's familiar with both me and my writing should be able to spot it quite easily once they eventually get to read it...

I think the story's been going quite well and I pretty much know what's going to be happening to all of my main characters and what all the plot points that I have to get through are. But it is huge - I'm at 80k and haven't finished yet, this will easily go beyond 100k, I have six viewpoint characters each with their own story arc, and I have a huge supporting cast who I've lost count of. The last chapter I wrote felt like a good place to take a break as all of the characters are at key points in their story arcs, and I can't wait to get on and write what happens next...

Because of the time I put into NaNoWriMo I've fallen behind on my OU course, and so this month I'll be concentrating on that. But I'll probably go back to my novel sometime around January. Once I've got the first draft done I've then got the huge task of doing the rewrites, which is going to take a very long time...

And so, overall, whilst I did fall short of my 125k target, I'm still classing NaNoWriMo as a success. I managed to get my revised target of 80k done, beating my previous total for NaNoWriMo by 29k. And, importantly, I like what it is I have written, and I feel that it has huge potential. I just have to sit down and finish it!

But I'm already looking ahead to NaNoWriMo 2009. I'd really like to get 100k done in a month...

The End (at least for now)

2008-11-30T17:55:00.003Z

Yesterday I had my best ever NaNoWriMo writing day. I started off quite well, getting about 2,500 words done before taking a break. However, it wasn't all going to be plain sailing. I was meant to be going to my parents for dinner, but shortly before I left I got a call saying that they had to call an ambulance for my dad (he hasn't been well recently - I won't dwell on the details here). And so I went along to the hospital with them whilst he got checked out (and he was still joking around like he normally does). Once it became clear that they were going to keep him in overnight I came back home, much later than I would have done if he hadn't had to go to hospital. (He's been let out today, so hopefully all should be well there).

I then continued to write my novel, going on late into the night. I was still writing the same chapter that I had been writing over the past few days, as it had now turned into a behemoth of a chapter! But I really enjoyed writing it, and it's one of my favourite parts of the novel so far. I was able to finish the chapter late last night, having written a total of 5,633 words yesterday, which gave me a total of 78,177 words. And that just left another 1,823 words to write to hit my 80k target. (Incidentally, the length of that chapter came to a whopping 9,606 words! I may be able to cut it down a little when I come to rewrite it, but even then it's going to be huge!)

And so today I quickly wrote the final words that I needed to hit my target. A lot of them do ramble on a bit whilst I drag the word score up, but this is NaNoWriMo and so that doesn't matter. I wrote a further 2,027 words today, giving me a final score of 80,204 words, comfortably achieving my target. Yay me!

That said, whenever I cut and paste my novel into the validator on the NaNoWriMo website, it counts the words differently to how my word processor does, and it adds about another 200 onto my total, and so my official, validated score is 80,416 words. However, whichever one is correct, I can say that I wrote 80,000 words of a novel in just one month!

My novel is far from finished though and I still have a lot of plot points to get through, but I'm going to take a break from it for a little while. However, I will go back and finish it, as I really want to get to the end of this novel eventually.

And so let's take a final look at the graph:

I'll be doing a post-mortem on my NaNoWriMo 2008 next week, and so look out for that. But for now I'm going to take a well earned rest!

Another delayed update...

2008-11-29T14:46:00.003Z

Yes, I know I've been a bit crap about updating the blog during NaNoWriMo this year, but that's because I've been too busy working on my novel. But here's how things have been going since my last post.

Days nineteen and twenty didn't go so well as I just did 527 and 995 words respectively. Things improved on day twenty-one with a further 2,540 words, bringing me up to 54,132 words in total.

Things dipped on day twenty-two with just 1,393 words, but then on days twenty-three to twenty-six I had my best sustained period of days, with 3,539, 3,496, 2,973, and 3,037 words written on each of those days, taking me up to 68,570 words. Part of that was that I was able to get a lot of writing done during my lunchbreaks at work - with no access to Facebook or games I had little to distract me, allowing me to get a lot written, sometimes as much as 1,500 words in 45 mins. I then followed those up with good writing sessions at home. Things were looking good for reaching 80,000 words by Sunday, as I only had to write an average of 2,858 words a day for four days, which is less than I had been writing on the preceding four days.

But writing at this pace does have its costs, and tiredness was starting to set in. Day twenty-seven saw 1,485 words, and day twenty-eight (yesterday) saw 2,489 words, meaning I'm currently on 72,544 words with just two days to go. I'm planning to break these down into three 2,500 word writing sessions. I'm hoping to get two of those done today, leaving just one for tomorrow. But the bare minimum is to get at least one done today.

I'm also in the middle of writing what is turning out to be one of the longest chapters in the novel - it's at about 4k now and there's still more to go! But it is a key point in the novel and will probably be one of my favourite chapters in it. The only thing is, it's about one of the subplots concerning one of the secondary characters, and the main character doesn't even appear in it. But he's got plenty more coming up for him later...

So, let's take a look at the graph:

I'm sure you can see that it's pretty self-explanatory and don't need me to tell you what all of the lines mean!

Right, I'm off to get cracking on the first of those writing sessions. I can see that 80k is still within reach, I just have to stretch a little for it...

Day Eighteen: Victory!

2008-11-18T20:57:00.002Z

No time for a detailed post today, so I won't be able to talk about the graph as promised. Yesterday I tried to reach 50k, but failed because I was so tired (I'm always really tired on my first day back at work after leave). But I've made up for that today as a little earlier this evening I reached 50,070 words, making me a NaNoWriMo winner for the second time! Yay me!

I think it's safe for me to say that there is now no chance of my reaching 125k by the end of the month, but I'm still going to go for 80k. Although that may not be enough to finish my novel, and so I might still be writing it into December...

A belated update...

2008-11-16T20:31:00.004Z

OK, sorry for not updating this for over a week and a half. I've been busy concentrating on my novel, and didn't have time to do a blog entry. Those of you who are reading this via Facebook may have some idea of how I'm getting on by my status updates, but for the benefit of everyone else here's how I've been doing since my last entry:

Day Six: A reasonably good day. I wrote over 4,500 words to get to 20,012 words. I was still behind the pace for getting 125,000 words done this month, but I had reached an important milestone.

Day Seven: The worst day this month where I just couldn't get in the mood to write anything. I was already behind, and with not having done anything today I was 15,000 words behind where I had wanted to be at this point.

Day Eight: A better day than yesterday, but still not good. Just a little over 1,000 words written, taking me to 21,064 words, and now just under 19,000 words behind my target.

Day Nine: The best day of the month so far, with 5,457 words written, taking me to 26,521. The gap between where I am and where I should be had closed, but only slightly, as the gap now stood at about 18,500 words.

Day Ten: Not such a good day, but I still got 3,536 words written, taking me up to 30,057 words, and another milestone reached. But I was further behind my target, the gap was now almost 20,000 words. I then decided to give up on my target of 125,000 words, and decided to aim for a revised target of 80,000 words (more on this later), which would mean that I would now just have to do 2,500 words each day.

Day Eleven: Not a good start on going for my revised target - just 1,326 words done.

Days Twelve and Thirteen: Things are improving now, with 2,875 words done on day twelve, and 3,270 words on day thirteen, bringing me up to 37,528 words, and back on target for 80,000 words.

Days Fourteen, Fifteen, and Sixteen: Steady and consistent progress, meeting my target each day. I now stand on 45,017 words, which is 56.27% of my new target. There was also another NaNoWriMo meetup on the 15th, which was good fun as well. I wasn't the only high achiever there, as there were a couple of people who were a few thousand words ahead of me...

And so there you have it, it looks like my dream of writing 125,000 words in a month is slipping out of my fingers. However, 80,000 words will still be a respectable total, and it would be almost 30,000 words more than what I did last year. If I get to 80,000 words I won't consider myself a failure, as that is still a good achievement.

But is 125,000 words by 30th November impossible? I do have a very slim outside chance of making it. I'm back at work tomorrow, and I'm planning to get some writing done during my lunch breaks. I think I can get up to 1,000 words, maybe a little more, done then. Then I just need to write my socks off when I get home. If I can get 5,000 words done on each of the ten days that I'm at work this month, and then a whopping 7,500 words done on each of the four weekend days that are left, I'll reach 125,000 words. That's going to be very difficult, but it's not impossible.

Am I going to take a shot at it? Well, I'm not going to revise my 80,000 word target upwards just yet, but I think I will have a go at getting 5,000 words done tomorrow, but that's just because if I can get that done I'll reach the official NaNoWriMo winning post of 50,000 words.

And if I can achieve that, then, well, we'll see...

Oh, and before I go today, have a graph (I'll talk more about it tomorrow):

Day Five: On the back foot...

2008-11-06T01:37:00.002Z

Today has not been a good day NaNoWriMo wise. Last night I stayed up until after 5am (going to bed after Barack Obama's speech - well done him!), and I wasn't able to get many words written whilst I watched the election results come in - just another 148 words. I didn't get up today until around 1pm. I did try to get some writing done today, I really did. I thought about having another crack at doing 10,000 words in 5 hours to get back on target. But I just couldn't get into the right mood for writing today.

I think the fact that I'm a long way behind my target was getting me down. Yes, I know I'm far ahead of the official NaNoWriMo pace, but I've told everyone that I want to do 125,000 words this year, and I don't want to face defeat. But I have to admit that I did had quitting urges today - I remember back in April when it became clear that I wasn't going to be able to finish Script Frenzy that it was such a relief when I finally admitted defeat and didn't have to worry about it any more. I started to think about what that relief might feel like again if I were to give up on going for 125,000 words...

But I am not going to give up. This is only day five, and I don't want to be a quitter and face the humiliation of defeat, I want to be a fighter! Yes, I know that writing 125,000 words in a month was going to be tough right from the start, and now that I'm behind it's going to be even tougher, but it is not yet impossible, so don't write me off yet. I have a plan...

Today I've only been able to write a token amount - 239 words, which brings me to 15,451 words (12.36% of target). The original plan was to write 5,000 words on each day that I wasn't working, which meant that by the time I went to bed on 16th November I needed to be on 80,000 words. So, what I've now done is consolidate all of my word debts into one easily manageable daily payment. If I write 5,800 - 5,900 words each day (just 800-900 more than I had originally been planning to write on each of these days) I'll hit 80,000 words on the 16th. If I write any more than that on any given day, then there'll be fewer words that I have to write on each of the remaining days up to the 16th. This now feels much more manageable than trying to do 10,000 words in one go.

And so I'm now going to go to bed, and come back tomorrow refreshed and ready to take on the monster that is my novel once more...

I fail, sort of...

2008-11-04T20:29:00.002Z

Well, I failed in my bid to write 10,000 words in 5 hours, only managing 5,003 which takes me to 15,061 (12.05% of target). So at least I haven't fallen any further behind today, and I hope to be able to write some more later as I'm going to stay up and watch the results of the US election (for the record I'm hoping that Obama wins it).

So any more that I do write today will help me to clear some of my word debt. Watch this space...

Day Three: Oh dear...

2008-11-04T13:39:00.002Z

My quest to get to 12,500 words yesterday ended in failure, with my only getting to 10,058 words, an increase of 3,575 words. I was doing quite well, getting through a lot of words quite quickly. But I'm also trying to keep up to date on my TV programmes during the month, and yesterday realised that I had quite a bit that I needed to watch if I didn't want to fall behind, and so I got up to date with them. By the time I came to write again I got distracted by something, and then it became too late to go for the last 2,500 words.

But all is not doom and gloom - I've done double what I needed to do if I was writing at official NaNoWriMo pace with a target of 50,000 words. And there is one, last, crazy hope for me to catch up with my own schedule today...

One of my NaNoWriMo friends (Andrew - not sure what his NaNoWriMo user name is) pointed out this thread to me on the NaNoWriMo website:

http://www.nanowrimo.org/node/3004454

If you're unable to access that - there have been some access problems with the site recently due to heavy traffic - it's about the ultimate NaNoWriMo challenge, namely, to try and write 10,000 words in just 5 hours. I've decided to give that a go - if I'm able to pull it off and get to 20,000 words today I'll be back on target. My time will start at 2.45pm GMT...

In the meantime, I've got some time to (finally) tell you something about my novel. It's called "They Are Coming..." and starts with some people starting at University. Parts of the novel are written in varying 3rd person viewpoints, and parts are written in the 1st person viewpoint of the main character. The reason why I'm doing this is because the main character will slowly be going insane. In the book he'll be talking about a girl he knows from back home, but his friends start to think that she doesn't actually exist. By writing the novel using these viewpoints the reader also won't know whether or not she actually exists (although that does get revealed at the end).

It's coming along quite well so far. I've had to deviate slightly from my initial outline, but that's a good thing because I'm adding to it, rather than diverting significantly away from it, so I still have plenty of things to write about. My main concern is that I've mixed in some elements from my own life with the fiction in the book - when people read it they may find it hard to see the difference between the two. I'd like to assure you all that I'm not really going insane! (Well, maybe just a little - I am trying to write 125,000 words in a month after all!)

I still don't have time to sort out the graph, hopefully I'll get that up in the evening as I intend to stay up tonight to watch the results of the US Presidential Election. My next post here will be at about 8pm GMT where I'll let you know the result of my 10,000 words in 5 hours challenge...

Day Two: Slipping behind...

2008-11-03T13:38:00.004Z

OK, OK, I know I said I'd tell you about the plot and reveal the graph yesterday, and I haven't. I'm a bad, bad blogger! Unfortunately yesterday's writing didn't go as well as the first day's. I went to my parents for lunch, and when I was back I wanted to watch the Grand Prix (and glad I did - it was a thrilling race and I'm pleased for Lewis Hamilton becoming world champion!). I did write some of my novel during the race, and intended to try and get up to my target for the day in the evening.

But it just wasn't happening for me, it was a struggle for me to get any words down. In the end I decided that it was better for me to get a good night's sleep than to stuggle on to 10,000 words, and so I decided to stop for the day. Unfortunately, I was only on 6,483 words, 3,517 behind my target.

It's taken me a while to get started today, but the words are starting to flow now. Under the original schedule I should have been aiming to reach 15,000 words today, but that would now involve writing 8,517 words in one day, which, even by my standards, is madness. And so I've decided that I'm going to try and write around 6,000 words today, which would be the 5,000 I was due to write today, plus 1,000 words that now forms part of my "word debt". And so today's revised target is 12,500 words. I'm currently at 7,550, and so there's still another 4,950 to go. I'm going to try writing them in 1,000 word bursts, and so that's five writing sessions to go. I'll keep you posted on my progress during the day here.

Whilst I may be behind my target, here's another way at looking at things. The official NaNoWriMo target is 50,000 words, which means you have to write an average of 1,666 and two-third words each day. At official NaNoWriMo pace you should reach 5,000 words today, and 6,667 words tomorrow, and so I'm already more than a day ahead of that pace, so I'm still looking good for becoming a NaNoWriMo winner, greatly surpasing the official target. But I really want to get to 125,000 words...

Oh, and I promise to at least tell you what my novel is actually about at some point today! And I might even get the graph up as well...

Day One: 5,038 words (4.03% of target)

2008-11-02T00:09:00.002Z

I don't have time to write a full blog entry tonight. When I was cooking my dinner my oven broke down (which means I'm now going to have the fun and games - and expense - of getting it fixed) which led to me losing quite a bit of time this evening. And so I'm not able to show you the graph, or go into details about the plot and the NaNoWriMo meetup today - apologies for this. I should hopefully be able to make up for it tomorrow, so watch this space.

But what I can say is that so far the writing has gone well. It may have taken me a little longer than I had hoped, but I've made my target for the day (although I'm unable to access the NaNoWriMo website at the moment to update my word count there). Just another 29 days to go...

The eve of NaNoWriMo 2008...

2008-10-31T22:37:00.002Z

NaNoWriMo 2008 officially starts tomorrow, and I'm all ready to go! I've messaged a load of my Facebook friends about it, and I know of a couple of people that are going to be starting at midnight, but I'm waiting until tomorrow morning before I start mine - I need a good night's sleep first!

This year will be tougher than last year as I'm going for 125,000 words (instead of the 50,000 you need to do to be declared a winner). There were a few days last year when I was behind schedule, but I caught up and finished a day early. But if I'm to hit 125,000 words this year I don't have that luxury.

I've got the next two weeks off of work, which means that I'm only going to be working for 10 out of the 30 days in November. The plan is to write 5,000 words on the days that I'm not working, and "just" 2,500 on the days that I am. It's going to be tough, but do-able. I've got the plot more or less sorted, but there's still plenty of room to expand. I can't wait to get started!

Based on my writing schedule, here are some key dates during November:

1st November: The beginning - if I can get 5,000 words done today I'll be off to a good start, any more than that is a bonus. This is also the date of the London kick off party where I'll get to meet some of the other Londoners taking part this year.

2nd November: Day 2, and the day that I should hit 10,000 words. The first two days will be the toughest, but if I'm still on target at the end of today I can start to settle down into a rhythm.

4th November: Apparantly something important is supposed to be happening in America today, but I can't quite remember what...

5th November: 25,000 words - half way to the official NaNoWriMo target.

9th November: My brother's birthday, and we'll be having a family dinner. With any luck, I'll get to 45,000 words before going out.

10th November: 50,000 words, the official NaNoWriMo target! If I make it to this point, but no further, I can still hold my head up high.

15th November: The mid-month London meet up. Hopefully they won't be pointing and laughing at me for being behind my schedule.

16th November: The last day before I go back to work. As well as getting to bed at a reasonable hour, I'll need to get to 80,000 words.

17th November: Back to work, and the ton of e-mails that will be waiting for me. I will not be trying to write any of my novel whilst I'm supposed to be working. I may not always tell the truth. (And this will be the point that I regret informing my colleagues and managers about my blog...)

21st November: Not only am I working today, but I may need to be going to another part of the country for the day. Hopefully I'll be back home in time to get my 2,500 words for the day done.

23rd November: If I'm on target this will be a duel celebration - passing 100,000 words, and, at 102,500 words, beating my previous record for the longest story I've ever written (which would be my original series of fanfics about some witch or other that came to 101,462 words).

30th November: The last day, where I should hopefully reach 125,000 words, to the sounds of cheers of everyone who's supporting me, and another year of NaNoWriMo over.

So there you have it, one very hectic month! Like last year you can follow my progress via my blog, but new for this year I'm hoping to have a Dave Gorman style graph! Now, it's about time that I went to bed so that I'm nice and fresh to start tomorrow morning. My first update here will be in the evening, where I'll be revealing my novel's title and premise, so I hope you'll join me then.

And good luck to all of my friends that are also taking part this year!

Ten Years Ago...

2008-10-22T19:46:00.003+01:00

On this day, ten years ago, the first episode of "The Worst Witch" was broadcast in the UK. Anyone reading this who's unaware of the connection between myself and "The Worst Witch" can read all about it here.

I've been thinking about this anniversary for a while now, wondering how I should mark it. Considering the huge effect the show had on my life I felt like I should do something for today. Last week I was on leave from work - I had my day school at the Open University for my Creative Writing course, which I did some work on during the week. Before this week I was thinking of writing a story for my site for todays anniversary, but any ideas I had for it just weren't that strong, and so I abandoned the idea.

The course, though, is going really well, and I feel like I'm really going somewhere with it and will learn a lot from it. It was actually "The Worst Witch" that got me writing as much as I have done in the first place.

After the second series of the show I started to write a "Worst Witch" fanfic for my old website. I planned to do a twenty chapter story, writing and uploading a chapter each week - a big undertaking. By the time it came to do chapter six I was starting to tire. I was just about to put up a message to say that chapter six was going to be postponed. But then I saw the following message in my guestbook from a visitor in Australia (and this is a direct quote):

"YOur site is cool, even extreme! I nearly die each week waiting for the 'worst witch on holiday' stories, i have to wait until saturday because of the time line! Keep up the great work,"

To read a comment like that, to know that there was at least one person out there that appreciated what I was doing, spurred me on. I went ahead and wrote chapter six there and then, and didn't look back. I finished the story, and followed it up with four more - all in all I wrote over 100,000 words of "Worst Witch" fanfics in an approximate 18 month period. They weren't the greatest stories ever written - they were in effect first drafts with very little editing done on them. But they were a start, and I learnt a lot about writing by doing them. I've been writing ever since.

As those of you who have read my journey contained in the link at the start of this post will know, the show had a big effect on my life, and I took a lot from it. Two years on from that journey I still look back on the show, and still occassionally think about it's star, Georgie Sherrington, and about everything that happened back then, together with my hopes and dreams at the time... But, whilst it is important to look back on our pasts, to honour it and make sure we never forget it, it is also important to move on and look ahead to the future.

But there was still the question about what to do for this anniversary.

As I was leaving the office after work today I started humming the theme tune to myself. As I did so a story came to me. I thought about it on the train. By the time I got to Oxford Circus I pretty much had the plot sorted, and by the time I got home it was fully formed in my mind. It was the perfect way to mark today. I went straight on the computer, wrote it, and uploaded it to my site. And now you can read it here.

I know it's not necessarily my best writing, but, like my original fanfics, it is effectively just a first draft, but I think it says all that it needs to say.

And so with the past remembered and honoured, it's time to look forward. My OU course is going well, and I've made a lot of friends on it. And it's now just a week and half to go until NaNoWriMo, and I can't wait to get started. I have a feeling that the novel that I'll write in November is going to be pretty good...

Studying, Typos, and Planning...

2008-09-21T17:52:00.002+01:00

OK, it's been a little while since I've posted here, but I do intend to do so more often (promise!). And first a confession - since my last post I haven't done any more planning for my NaNoWriMo novel. It's just that I find it very hard to plan a novel in too much detail before I actually write it. So all that I intend to do before November is to write very brief one or two sentence summaries for what I'd like to be in each chapter. That, combined with the fact that I already have a good idea of what's going to be in the novel (including the ending), should hopefully be sufficient for me to fly with it come 1st November...

I've received my study pack from the Open University for the creative writing course I'm doing with them this year, and it's looking very interesting! I've read through the first chapter (even though the course doesn't officially start until next week) and it appears that I'm going to learn a lot from this course. I've also had a look at (and posted a few messages in) the forums that the OU provides for the course, which are very active with lots of people taking part, so it looks like it's going to be a lot of fun!

And with all this writing I'm going to be doing I need to be on the lookout for typos, as I seem to be particulary prone to them. I spotted a few on my website (which I've gone and quietly corrected) and it's really annoying when I see them! Even though I re-read everything several times before I publish them on my site, there always seems to be a few typos that get through. My brain just seems to skip over some of them for some reason, and it's only when I read something in a different format (such as a different font in a different size) that I spot them. So it looks like I'll have to read through my writing in two different formats before publishing in future, just to try and catch them. I just hope that no more get though the net...

(And, before you all rush to comment, yes that last one was deliberate!)

The Longest Journey Starts With A Single Step...

2008-09-01T21:27:00.002+01:00

Today I've made a start on planning my novel for this years NaNoWriMo. I'm not generally a huge fan of planning novels too much in advance. For me it takes away a lot of the energy and excitement of writing the actual story. I normally like to do what I did last year - have a rough idea of where the story's going, including a big ending, and work my way through from there. If the idea is good, then the story tends to come alive of its own accord.

But this time I am giving the planning thing another go. As I'm aiming for 125,000 words this time I need to have a good idea of what's going to make up those words, otherwise it'll just end up being waffle that no one will ever want to read, not even me.

To help guide me I'm referring to a book called "First Draft in 30 Days" by Karen S. Wiesner. She argues that by writing a extremely detailed outline you can fix whatever's wrong with a novel before you start to actually write it, to the point that the outline counts as your first draft, which then makes writing the actual novel a lot easier. I've read through the book, and there are some good ideas in there. But I'm not going to stick to it religiously, especially when it comes to plotting the novel - I tend to disregard anything that tells me how a story should be plotted. I've seen a few versions of plot outlines that advise new writers where the twists and turns in a story should be, but they all tend to differ from each other. So which plot model is the right one that authors should be following?

I don't think there is a single "right" method for plotting a novel - each author has to find what's right for them. Personally, I can't write a story where I'm being told the direction the plot should be taking, such as when the problem the hero has to overcome should be introduced, when they should suffer a setback, when they should almost win, but then fail and have to try again etc. I find that approach stifles my writing, and changes the story that I wanted to tell into something else entirely.

And so I have my own way of plotting a novel - which in it's simplest form is to have a big finale in mind when you start writing the novel, and to build up to that. If you have a good idea for your story the twists and turns will come to you as you write it. And as I've written a number of stories I think I'm getting reasonably good at naturally plotting a story. Being able to do so naturally is infinitely better than trying to force plot points into a story.

I already have the big finale in mind for my NaNoWriMo 2008 novel - in fact it's been in my head since the end of last years NaNoWriMo! I'm doing something very different this year to last year. This year's novel is going to be semi-autobiographical, but heavily fictionalised - the main character will be doing many things that I have never done nor ever will do or would want to do. People who know me will notice elements from my life, but then see these elements go in completely new directions. (And, before anyone asks: No, there are not going to be any witches in it!) I also have the novel's title in mind, but I don't feel now is the time to reveal that...

Today I've started some very basic character sketches, with nine characters so far. We've been introduced today, and over the next few months I'm going to get to know them very well, to the point where they'll probably drive me crazy...

New Beginnings

2008-08-31T18:00:00.003+01:00

Even though I graduated from Uni over six years ago, I still think in terms of academic years. Which means that a new year is now almost upon us. And with the new year, I'll be stepping back into the academic system, but more on that later...

I did my BA in Film & TV, but after that I got a job as a Civil Servant. It may not be the greatest job in the world, but it pays enough to enable me to get onto the housing ladder and pay my bills, so I can't complain too much. Towards the end of my course I got more into the writing side of things, and since then I've tried to get some more of my writing done.

Whilst I've put a few of my short stories up on my own website at http://www.geocities.com/karlsgreen, I've struggled to find the time to do as much writing as I'd like to do. I've been slogging away at a children's novel for what seems like ages (I finish a draft and then decide to change the nature of the story which neccesitates a complete rewrite) and which I still intend to finish at some point. And last year in November I took part in National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo for short) where people challenge themselves to write a 50,000 word novel in a month - for more details see http://www.nanowrimo.org/. I completed the challenge with a day to spare, but because I had used copyrighted elements in my novel the chances of publication were nil, but my efforts are available on my website.

And so we now come to a new year and a new beginning. I'm already thinking ahead to NaNoWriMo in November. I've decided to set myself an even bigger challenge this year - instead of 50,000 words I'm going to aim for 125,000, and I'm going to try and write something that I can seriously try to eventually get published. That will take a lot of work - whatever I have by the end of November is unlikely to be publishable due to the speed that it was written in, and so it will still need a fair bit of work done on it (the aim of NaNoWriMo is simply to get a first draft done). I've decided to start planning my novel tomorrow, and to try and get the plan done by the end of September...

And I'll also be entering the academic system again. I've signed up for a creative writing course at the Open University which starts at the end of September. I'll be doing one module this year and, if that goes OK, I'll be aiming to do the advanced module next year. And if I pass both of those I'll get a new qualification to add to my name - a Diploma in Literature and Creative Writing. Whilst it is still at undergraduate level, it should hopefully be a useful stepping stone...

...to doing a Masters degree. I ultimately would like to do a Masters degree in creative writing (and then possibly to look into teaching creative writing as an alternative career). This two-year Diploma at the Open University should hopefully enable me to get used to working and studying at the same time, and should ensure that I am writing regulary. It will also give me time to save up some money to help me during the two-years that I'll (hopefully) be doing my Masters, as I'll have to switch to part-time work whilst I'm doing it.

And so that should hopefully be four years worth of studying ahead of me. We've just had the Beijing Olympics and we're now looking forward to London 2012, which will be taking place towards to end of my completing my Masters. Whilst I may not have any chance of competing in any of the events in 2012, I still have something that I can work towards by the London 2012 games, something where I can aim to be the best that I can be.

To help keep me on track I've set up this new blog. My intention is to keep updating it regulary so that people can follow my progress, and hopefully keep me on my toes! So please feel free to leave comments and to get in contact with me - and to keep chasing me to get some more writing done! One of the bits of advice for NaNoWriMo is to tell everyone that you're doing it, so that failure doesn't become an option. Likewise, I don't want failure to become an option for me during the next four years. In this case "failure" wouldn't be defined as not getting a novel published, or not getting onto a Masters course. "Failure" would be to not continue writing on a regular basis, and thus not meeting those aims by default. But if I try my very best, to be the best that I can be, to make sure that I continue to write regulary, and to actively try to improve my writing, if I'm still not able to get a novel published or get onto a Masters course, at least I'd be able to hold my head up high and say that I did my best. And doing our best is the most that anyone, including ourselves, can ever ask of us.