So, today was a cluster&#$% of nothing.
Largely because I had to leave the house. 😰
I think there's something I'm allergic to out there, 'cause I start going light-headed after I've been outside for a while.
Hopefully, I'll be back to normal(?) tomorrow.
Today's total was a miserable 872 words, giving me a total in the month to date of 15,940.
Thankfully, due to my earlier position of being ahead, I've not yet fallen behind. But it's still disheartening.
Not much to report about today's writing, really. (Is there ever?) I didn't accomplish anything particularly big, just kept going ahead with the plan I worked up earlier about how to fill in the gap between the planned scenes. (The gap that's only there because of the material I added to a previous planned scene... 😅 )
I did also check in with the project lead about some of the new material I've added to the VN, and they had no complaints, so that's good, at least! 😆
(Since starting to use Discord, I find I have become increasingly addicted to using emojis when I write informally like this. 😰 It's kind of alarming... 😱)
Anyway! Today's word count numbers!
Total written today was a modest 2,307 (of which only 920 was for the VN script, with 408 on the fanfic that's almost done, and the remaining 979 adding material to the plot summary for a different fanfic I want to write)
That makes my total so far in November a decent 15,068.
This number is disappointing for two reasons.
First, it would be cooler if I had written one more word. 😋
Second, back in the day, I'd have already been at 50k by now, or at least a lot closer to it. (I think my in-NaNo speed record was Day 5, while my out-of-NaNo record was like Day 4.)
On the other hand, the NaNoWriMo officially suggested word goal for today to be on target to reach 50k by the end of November is 11,669, so I'm well ahead of the game and shouldn't be complaining. 😂
Ack. Almost the entire first week of November is already gone, and what do I have to show for it?!
<copious weeping>
I'm not so much worried about my progress through the script/my 50,000 word NaNoWriMo goal as I am that I have a deadline to finish some real-world stuff by the 9th and there's still a disquieting amount of it that I haven't done yet. 😅
Anyway, today I had to go off-book (as it were) to add some new material to the visual novel script because my pantser nature had changed the tone of the preceding scene to the point where more was needed before the next scene that's actually in the outline. 😅 I'll still be "off-book" tomorrow and probably for several days after that, too, but whatcha gonna do? I can't just leap from one scene to the next in a way that makes no logical sense, leaving out a bunch of very important plot development! (FYI, I am laughing my ass off over here about that phrasing, because the next scene in the outline literally involves frogs.)
It took me a while to drum up a possible scene to fill in that gap, and there's still gaps in my plans for the scene for tomorrow, but...I'll think of something...?
Anyway! Word count time!
Today (counting some additions to the outline and a bit more on the plot summary for an MDZS AU fanfic) I wrote 1,904 words.
This brings the total for November up to 12,761.
Well, not "last minute" as such, but I didn't even start writing until dinner time, sooooo....pretty close to it. 😅 (When you consider that I typically like to start writing in the morning...)
Today was just kind of not my day for writing. Or anything else, actually. In part because I had a really bad night last night, and in part because I ended up having to spend most of the afternoon with my family. Which sounds very awful when I say it that way. (It's just that in our case "spending time with the family" tends to be "I go over to my parents' house and we all watch TV together," so that's kinda...a different thing than what most people mean when they say "spending time with the family.")
But!
I did manage to write over the daily 1,667 words!
Admittedly, most of it was me jotting down the plot idea for yet another MDZS fanfic (which I may or may not actually get around to writing), but...hey, words are words, right? And at least I did add another 812 words to the VN script, taking me to the end of the scene (which turned out really pretty good for a first draft, because instead of the MC and the dragon cheerfully working together, they started squabbling viciously as soon as the tense situation was resolved, which is way more fun), so that's something...except that now I feel like it needs a new scene in between that one and the next one on the outline. 😅 I'll have to talk to my collaborator and see if they have any ideas for what to put in there.
Anyway, today's stats:
Words written: 2,694
Total in November to date: 10,857
"Fighting on" because a large chunk of today's writing involved a fight scene. 😂 (The combatants varied as the scene progressed, but the good side had a minor god and a dragon, and the evil side had a ghost and a woman the ghost had possessed. Which makes it sound way more exciting than it actually was...😅)
Anyway, not the greatest day's work, overall, but at least I got through my word count just on the visual novel script. XD (And in real world news, I finally got my water meter replaced like the water company's been pestering me to do for about two months now. Or rather I let the service tech they sent to my house into my basement so they could replace it. Not like I did anything other than make an appointment and open a door.)
Anyway, my NotNaNo totals!
Words written today: 1,906
Words written in November up to this point: 8,163
(And, just for the record, if I was on the NaNo website looking at their graphs, their suggested word count by today would be 6,668, so I'm pretty much a day ahead, despite how slowly I write when I'm working with VN scripts. So that seems like a win. 😁)
It's like, progress but not progress at the same time.
I got some good progress on the script, then sort of smashed into a wall and couldn't really move further, even though I know exactly what has to happen next. It's a confrontation scene, so I guess that's why it was more difficult to write. (Violent type of confrontation, that is to say, between the hero and the villain. Uh, if either of those terms properly can be said to apply.)
I tried to move forward on the fanfic to fill in my word count for the day and managed to write one whole word! Wheee!
(Actually, it wasn't even a word, but...Word counts it as one, so...)
On the other hand, last night, after I posted my progress, I'd had an idea for a really interesting AU fanfic (an idea which is so obvious that there's probably already at least 15-20 on the same theme on AO3 alone) and writing out the plot idea took more than a thousand words, so I figure I can count those, 'cause that was too many words to just throw away. (If I get desperate to reach 50k, I will absolutely be adding in all these blog posts, needless to say. 😅)
Anyhow, today's stats!
Yesterday's total: 3,905
Today's total (counting the plot idea from last night): 2,352
Total words written in November to date: 6,257
So, this month's question/suggested post topic is about whether or not you (have) participate(d) in NaNoWriMo. And my answer is "Yeah, I used to, but I hate what they did to their website when they changed it over a few years back, and I'm not going to officially participate again unless they change it back to something less ugly and that's more respectful of our projects."
But I still kinda participate in the form of being a NaNoWriMo Rebel, meeting the challenge of writing 50,000 words in the month of November, just without officially entering on the NaNo website, or using it to keep track of my words. (Blogs are useful for the latter, though I have no way to make a chart graphing my progress. At least, none I know of.)
However, that'd be a short and boring post, so I want to talk about my main project for NotNaNo. XD
I mentioned in an earlier post that I was really struggling with the visual novel script I was working on. That continued to be the case until I started chatting in Discord about the format I was planning on using for the routes (for the dateable characters), asking some more experienced visual novel writers about if that format sounded like it was going to work. (I have loads of experience as a writer of standard fiction, but am still pretty new to interactive versions, only a little over a year.) The more I talked it over with them, the more I realized that not only was the format I had planned (which was designed to make the branching easier to write) problematic, the whole thing just felt off.
The plot of the game, you see, was that you were playing an immortal being in ancient China, one who had once been mortal. When the Jade Emperor's son runs away from home, abandoning his duties in the heavens, you're sent down to the mortal realm to find him and bring him back. Of course, you don't know what he looks like (and he can shapeshift anyway), so you have to go undercover at the location where you know he's been residing. It's...well, the original idea was for it to be a school, but since schoolwork at that time would have been solid memorization and recitation (thus simultaneously super-boring and something we couldn't show, because all the good translations for the classic texts are too recent to be public domain), we opted for a handful of disciples following a rather eccentric philosopher. The idea was for the game to be a mystery, and you're trying to figure out which of the disciples is the runaway, while simultaneously potentially romancing one of them. (With the rather awkward situation that if you choose to go down the runaway's route, you're screwed, because it's a trap route, and you can never win his heart, because the whole reason he ran away was because he'd fallen in love with one of the philosopher's disciples.) On top of the fact that the structure I picked was mostly going to be easier to write but would make for very boring replay there was the fact that my collaborator (project lead, the other writer, etc) seemed to view the runaway's love interest as "the" love interest, rather than any of the characters the player could romance.
So I approached my collaborator and explained my concerns about the structure, and everything that the others had said in the chat, and suggested that we change our plans--someone, either my collaborator or one of the other devs in the earlier chat, used the term "pivot" for it, and it's really the perfect term--and instead of writing about the immortal who's trying to bring the runaway home (forcing the player into an unpleasant situation, making them choose between the runaway's happiness and his extremely important heavenly duties), we should make the game about the runaway instead. I had hoped that would mean my collaborator wouldn't have to pay for so many sprites, but they'd already promised to buy a certain number, so apparently I didn't manage to save them any money on that score. 😓 The important thing, though, was that as soon as we made that decision, a lot of stuff just fell into place, and by the time we were done brainstorming the new version, we were both feeling like it was going to be so much better than the original would have been. (And the MC I had so much fun making up a crazy backstory for isn't gone for good; we're planning to do two games, and he'll be the lead of the second one, which will still feature him being sent down to recover the runaway, only the runaway will just be like "nope, not going!" and it's actually something else keeping the MC on earth long enough to court one of the philosopher's disciples. 😁 )
The script is still coming along more slowly than I'd like--VN scripts always do that for some reason--but it's flowing much more naturally than before, and I think it's actually coming out better, too.
I'm hoping the NaNo boost will let me finish the script this month. Well, the first draft, anyway. My part of the first draft, that is. (My collaborator is writing the really romantic parts, and a few other bits.) Then I'll be able to go back to my novels, as I have one that I actually realized needed another subplot after I put it out there, so it's been sitting there with a "hey, FYI, I'm going to change some of this as soon as I have a break in my writing schedule" since like February. And the next book in the series has been waiting for its next draft for just as long. 😭 This VN project has really taken way longer than I originally intended...
