The NaNo Chronicles: Prelude and Days 1 and 2 . . .

As part of my National Novel Writing Month exercise, I am also going to journal the process. Who knows? Maybe there's a book in it.

Prelude

Let's face it, blogging about trying to write a 50,000-word novel is probably not the most effective use of time.

 

Still, there's no way to sustain a 450-word-an-hour pace for more than a couple hours at a time. And I am going to need to break away from National Novel Writing Month, and this will be a bridge back to the Real World, such as it is.

 

There's never going to be a good month to try to do anything extra, especially in the circus world that is my life. Even with nothing else going on – as if that's ever happened – I am running like crazy job-hunting, writing resumes for hire, freelance writing and taking care of as much as I can around the house.

 

So now we hit November 2010. There’s Nov. 13, when my daughter Theresa is getting married and Nov. 20, when I am doing the Polar Plunge for Special Olympics for the seventh time. Then, there’s Thanksgiving Weekend.

 

What am I thinking?

 

I am thinking it would be wicked cool to be able to say “I wrote a novel,” even if it would be stages and stages away from being publishable. I think it would be cool to finish something as geeky as this. I mean, everyone thinks I am crazy already.

 

Day One: Nov. 1, 2010

 

I have no idea what got into me, but since I was up until nearly midnight doing some newspaper writing, then Polar Plunge donation requests, I said “To heck with it,” and started writing. I got past the first day’s mark of 1,667 and got to bed at 2 a.m.

 

Not bad, considering at 11:30 p.m. Sunday I hadn’t decided on whether it would be the fantasy military quest novel, the baseball novel, the coming-of-age novel or the military space opera. Since I had actually started outlining the space opera, it was science fiction for me. I bounced around with titles and eventually settled on “Greater Share of Glory.” Yes, the flagship is named Agincourt, why do you ask? My wife refers to the story as “Kennedys In Space.” More explanation to come.

 

I managed to equal by early morning output and get almost a full day ahead during a writing meet-up at Rock Hill Bake House with two women I hadn’t met, both of whom who are also doing NaNo. They were very nice, and we all wrote a lot.

 

Did a little more work later and finished at 3,176 words

 

Day Two

 

One of the reasons I got a day ahead was that I knew I was working at a weekly newspaper from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and then doing an election story for the local daily in the afternoon.

 

One thing led to another, and I wound up just hacking around a little with it and finished at 3.354, so I actually slipped behind. I also started this blog.

The NaNo Chronicles: Days 3 and 4

Day Three

 

There are going to be days like this during the month, but dammit, there cannot be very many of them. I would up doing a lot of work in the morning, setting up some stories, researching a couple of things and working on job applications.

 

I went to a job interview for 1:45 p.m. and was heading to cover a girls’ soccer match when I got a bad nosebleed. (seriously, second time in a little more than two weeks._. Wrecked a good dress shirt, but fortunately I was a couple minutes from UrgentCare. That blew the game, and since I had my nose packed when I got home, there was not a lot of chance for a lot of concentrating on writing, so I fell well behind, because I didn’t really get anything done.

 

Oddly, just before that happened, I turned and drove the wrong way, because I was mulling the novel over in my head.)

 

Day Four

 

As it turned out, I finally managed to get some sleep when the nasal packing sorta came out. (I sleep with a CPAP machine, and I cannot use it when I have that packing in. That means I sleep fitfully). I was up from 3 a.m. to sometime past 5 a.m., so I slept until 10, then tried to become human, worked on getting a doctor’s appointment, caught up on some work I didn’t do yesterday, worked on some assignments for the weekend and got hung up in some Internet stuff. It’s now 10:18 p.m., and no new words yet.

 

OK, so I put my head down for most the of the time between 10:18 p.m. and midnight, added 1,053 words and am now at 4407. I am going to push for a little while longer. I am not sure if I can get to 5,000, which would equate with one of the 10 chapters and mean I would be only one day behind. The good news is that I think there are going to be a couple of periods of time tomorrow (Friday, Nov. 5) that I can actually put my head down and plow through. I think it’s critical that I be on pace at  the end of each week, which means that by the time I go to bed on Sunday night, I need to be at 11.669. That means I ma going to have to pick up the pace.

 

So I pushed a little harder and got myself through to the end of the first chapter. It’s nice. You decide to write a 10-chapter book in a 50,000-word month, and that meants that every three days is a chapter – 5,000 words. I got through the final scene of the first chapter, and I am now at 5,157 words, which is under a day behind. It also means I wrote 1,803 words in a little more than two hours tonight. If I can hit a conistent 1,000 words per hout rate – and I do flitter around a little, that will mean a touch over 90 minutes a day. Of course, since I am officially 1,510 words behind pace at this moment, I need 3.177 tomorrow to be at par (I sense a metaphor developing), so I need to bang for three hours tomorrow. We will have to see, I am starting a new chapter and introducing at least one more main character.

Ruminating on authenticity

 
There's a fascinating and sometimes annoying discussion happening on the Ansteorra mailing list.

(I gotta read some mailing lists since I my blood pressure cannot handle the inanity that is the EK List).

It started with the posting of some fairly strict appearance rules for fighters with the header: "Why Don't We Do This?"

It's been going strong, and one of the commentaries came from my friend Don Robert Macfarland, whose voice I respect greatly.

Robert wrote:

One of the things I have found over time that kind of extends on what Aethelyan said is that if folks are really helped and pushed towards more accurate from the start and get the items/kit/fabrics together they tend to feel more vested in the group and have more of an interest in not only staying but becoming contributing parts of the overall game.
YMMV
-- Robert

Here is my response, which I know I need to flesh out more.

I am going to take that and connect the original line of this posting and add a little along the way.
 
This discussion started with the posting of an Atlantian link on period-dress rules for fighters and headed in all sorts of directions.
 
To me, it resonates with the discussion we have recently had in the East regarding what I see as slightly higher armor standards, which in practicality come down to "Wear a decent-looking tunic to cover your plastic." There was resistance to this among some members of Chivalry, because it came down from the Soicety Earl Marshal as an edict. I like the idea.
 
Here is where I am going. In my opinion, a lot of our Society experience is defined by First Contact, the first, say, month or two of practices and events. People get turned on or turned off by that Contact, and if they are turned out, some of their experience is defined by it.
 
When I meet knew people, I play my Pelican role and talk about all the volunteering going on and offer them opportunities. I also talk about courtesy and proper dress and forms of address, etc.
 
I think it is critical that people running practices and teaching new fighters do the skill and safety end, but also teach the role of authenticity and the overall "game" of the Society. I loathe the phrase "stick jock." I think it's a perjorative and a negative image for us. I think everyone should be able to explore what they want to do in the Society, but I think we have responsibilities as well. Those reponsibilities included "playing the game" in terms of dress, comportment and volunteering.
 
I know marshals have a lot to do, but talking a little about fighting your armor, weapon style, dress and persona together will go a long way. That is not something I was exposed to at first. Fifteen years ago, I did not get that clothing, name and backstory should fit together.
 
Sure, I got more. Later, though.
 

Authenticity and being an educational organization

Duchess Willow posted this on the Ansteorra list.


We are coming into a New Age. The BOD and the main officers in our Kingdoms are trying to get Grants to fund us. To get Grants we need to look like we are really serious  in studying History.

I do  think we are making a mistake. We need to look like we are really interested in learning and teaching and experiencing history. Which is what we have claimed to be. I think people would be more impressed  with us if we could show people learning about medieval environments and then doing our best to recreate them.

Groups like the mountaineers and the Civil War people usually have areas similar to Carodocs Enchanted kingdom where everything is a proper as you can make it. Than there are other area at the events where learning and doing demos.

Educators and people giving grants away will be more impressed by seeing many people learning and doing.

But if we are going to do that we need to have more medieval and Renianssance theme things at our events.

We need to go back to heardry and Courts that reflect historical protocol. It doesn't matter how good your armor is if a Tournment doesn't look like anything that was done in period. If we have list fields and a sturture of officers that look like they are out of King Rene's book on tournments people will be more and willing to overlook  a few pieces of duck tape.

If we have a calendar in our local groups which show people learning about the Medieval and Reinssance periods and we are putting out How tos and useful articles on our Web sites we will impress people with belief in learning.

Also if we are having regular classes on what is period and teaching our people what to do that would impress everyone. I know that edicators are  impressed by someone showing armor at a demo and bragging on how he made it and how now he knows more and what he would do to change it.

Our greatest strength is we like to learn and do and we can make people excited about a life long   love of learning.

I don't think we should make it law but I do think we should stress the whole concept in our value system.