November Silence...

   The month of november was pretty quiet for my review blog and there were two main reasons: 1 getting a job is great but has cut into my reading time and had slowed my progress and 2 attempting to participate in nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month). 

     In terms of my recent reemployment I'm working in an artisan bakery mainly doing prep work for the weeks baking and a pretty proud to be involved so may in producing such quality bread, Danish and pastry. 

      Now I have been working on reviews but most of my writing time was eaten up by attempting to write a 50,000 word novel for nanowrimo. This is the third year I attempted it. 

     In 2008 I worked on an alternate history idea that had been knocking around my mind for a while. That year I had a vast amount of time in my split shit job and I filled it with writing. I managed to finish the story in the 30 days and make a couple hundred words over the 50k succeeding in my attempt. In a moment of self hatred and depression I erased it in 2009 an have no backed up version. It was on the whole probably bad on the whole bet there are some scenes and characters that are still alive and vivid in my memory of it.

      2009's attempt was not so close to success in that I dove in with no plan what so ever and did not even get more then a few days worth before walking away from the attempt. It made me sad but I did get my blog up and running so I will count my failure as a win somewhere. Anyway that same year I got the iPod touch that has become one of the ways I have been able to read a number of the books for the blog.

      2010's Nanowrimo attempt I started with a concept for an interesting character concept and placed him in another alternate history setting. My attempt amounted to a Weird Western "rural" Fantasy that involved a town based on Jacksonville Oregon during it's goldrush. I figured I would need to write anytime I had about 20 minutes to a half hour or so free. About that time I discovered that 1 my writing program of choice Scrivner was releasing a new version and that with a combination of an App called plaintext and Dropbox I could write on my iPod on the go. It was easy to transfer it to the laptop and drop it into the editor of scrivener so voilà I could write whenever I got a chance. 

     Plaintext is a great mobile writing platform on the touch as long as you can get used to typing with your thumbs and fingers. I'm sure my speed is nowhere like on a standard real keyboard but I was for the first couple days of writing hitting or coming within a couple hundred words of my goals across the multiple short writing sessions. It was hard having to recall where my train of though had stopped in one session and pickup in another. But I did get through thirteendays before my plans got derailed and I fell more behind then I was. Halfway through I knew I did not have a clear end in sight and my characters began to want to go in directions I fought to hold off since some of them ached to rush headlong into violent or irrevocable action NOW. I got down to the last week knowing I had over 20000 words left to go and characters fighting me for their independence. My goals went from 2600 words a day at the beginning of that week to 3000 a day to near 5000 on the 29th. Now I did not make it but I did get over 40000 words on a novel that is now much more defined in terms of characters plot and setting then it would ever have been without the attempt. I don't like whole side plots and events that occurred and will be trimming those away. Even though on the 28th after writing 5000+ words that day I hated the whole damned thing and was tempted to chuck the whole thing. I look back now knowing I've made it almost another week of still writing when I have time (something I did not do in 2008 ) I feel like a success somehow even though I don't have the badge to post saying I succeeded in nanowrimo 2010.

     Oh and about writing with plaintext on a touch I think it's a pretty workable thing; like having a notepad with me all the time which I used to do only this one is easier to move ideas about. Also just so's you know I'm writing the post from my touch an testing the posterous app to post it to the blog... badge to post saying I succeeded in nanowrimo 2010. Oh and a out writing with plaintext on a touch I think it's a pretty workable thing; like having a notepad with me all the time which I used to do only this one is easier to move ideas about. Also just sos you know I'm writing the post from my touch an testing the posterous app to post it to the blog..