NaNo 2013: Days... 5-11

Yes. I fail. I know. Last week was just crazy busy. An interview, followed by 4 days of schedule changing shifts. And trying to catch up on sleep. And coming down with a cold. So when I finally finished my rotation on Saturday, I just wanted to zonk out. In fact, I was so exhausted on Friday night that I didn't even eat dinner before I fell asleep around 7. Then I had to be back at work at 7 on Saturday morning to work a 12 hour shift.

On the bright side, I did have a pretty good clinical week. I was called the best medical student in the hospital. Which wasn't a terribly impressive feat, given that it was at like 10 at night, and I'm pretty sure I was the only fourth year working in the hospital. But, I did contribute to saving a man's life, so I guess I deserved it. So, priorities what they were, writing fell to the wayside last week. And then with this cold, thanks to a precious kid I saw in the ED the other night, I just wanted to lay in bed and catch up on whatever I could find on Netflix.

But, I'm back. I managed to sit down and actually crank something out tonight. Not sure how much of it makes sense, but it's a start. I think I'll probably crank out another 1000 words or so before going to bed, assuming I don't fall asleep trying to write them. But I'm still super behind, so it'll be a fun week. On the bright side, I'm almost entirely packed for my trip on Wednesday, and I'll be spending a fair amount of time on airplanes and in airports, so hopefully I'll be able to crank out some serious wordage then. You know, when I don't actually have internet access. One can only hope. This is, of course, assuming that I can access Google Drive offline, or can find some alternative for writing on my iPad. It's really not designed for this type of thing, you know.

Anywho, here's your teaser for today:

A low hum sounded in the distance, and she blinked rapidly, instinctively knowing that something was coming toward her in the dark. Balling her hands into fists, she crouched low and continued to survey the scene. A soft laugh echoed through the room, which grew slowly, steadily more bright, like the pre-dawn sky.

“Who’s there?” she demanded, her voice sounding hoarse and unused.

“Come now, don’t you remember me?” a distorted voice called out.

Sophia looked around for the source of the voice, but the space was empty. Walls began to form around her, trapping her in an enclosed area with no hope of escape. “Where am I?”


NaNo Stats:
Days: 11
Words today: 1754
Total Words: 7432
Words Remaining: 42,468
Average words per day: 684

NaNo 2013: Days 3-4

My excuse for not posting yesterday is I didn't do a whole lot of writing. No real excuse for that part, but it was enough reason not to justify a whole new blog post.

Anyway, I'm really starting to like Deedee as a character. She's fascinating me. I've mostly got her having discussions with Sophia, and much of those will likely be cut whenever I get around to editing this beast. I'm still slightly behind, but I did do an impressive amount of words today, so I think I can catch up fairly quickly. Especially since I'll be travelling a good portion of this month and will thus have a lot of down time. Anyway, excerpt for today:

She clenched her fists at her side and continued to stare at the ceiling. “Of course I'm hurt!” she said, a little louder than she intended. Clearing her throat, she dropped her voice back down to a whisper. “I barely understand what is happening to me, and the one person I thought I could turn to no matter what was actually trying to subdue me, to push me out of the way for her own gains.”

Short one today, but I don't want to give away major plot points quite yet.

Stats:
Days: 4
Words today: 2411
Total Words: 5778
Words Remaining: 44,222
Average words per day: 1444

NaNo 2013: Day 2

I'm trying to decide how lucky it is that the second day of NaNo falls on a Saturday this year. It means that I have a bit more time to catch up on how much I didn't write yesterday, but then again, I'm on an elective with a really odd schedule (I didn't have work Monday, had conferences on Wednesday, work Thursday and Friday, off today, then tomorrow I work a 12, then have Monday and Tuesday off, conferences on Wednesday, a shift on Thursday, an EMS ride on Friday, and a 12 on Saturday). But, after that I'm essentially done for the month, other than interviews, which means I should have plenty of time to write. It'll be a tiny bit of a challenge after the 13th, since I'm flying to Colorado and don't have room for my laptop, which means I'll be making use of my incredibly cheap bluetooth keyboard for my iPad. And by incredibly cheap, I mean that it would probably break if I dropped it.

Anyway, here's your teaser for today:

Deedee smiled. "Dreams. They act as the intersection of reality and something else, almost as if the soul transcends the physical plane to some other spiritual plane."

Sophia raised her eyebrow. "That sounds very metaphysical for someone interested in the neurotransmitters in the brain. Are you sure you're really interested in the neuroscience aspect of things?"

Deedee chuckled. "It does sound a bit strange, but I don't know, I've always been fascinated by dreams. The electrical activity in the brain during dreams is very similar to the awake state--I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that the mind is really experiences something elsewhere through a connection with something that we haven't quite found yet."


Interesting person this Deedee is turning out to be.

Stats for today:
Days: 2
Words today: 2228
Total Words: 3367
Words Remaining: 46633
Average words per day: 1683

NaNo 2013: Day 1

Today is the official first day of NaNo. And surprisingly, when I went to access the site, it wasn't crashing on me. That's definitely a good sign. I got off to a bit of a weird start this month, because I had to work in the middle of the day, and then when I actually started writing, I realized I hadn't named one of my primary characters, which kept distracting me from just writing the scenes anyway. So yeah, not my finest moments.

Still, I managed to get up to 1139 words by midnight. Shouldn't be too hard to catch up tomorrow, since I have the first several scenes planned out. Still don't have a major conflict yet. I'm toying around with a couple ideas, and I think it'll be interesting to see where things go from here. I've also come up with a working title for this work. As you may remember, it's a sequel to Hidden Souls, so I'm calling it Reclaiming Souls. It'll probably change, but that's what I've got for now.

I'm going to go back to my practice from a few years ago and actually leave a teaser here everyday. They'll be short, but will all be from something I've written that day. Here's the first one for you:

“Did you live at home before?” Sophia asked, resuming her seat at her desk.

“Oh, no. My brothers are older—they're both grad students here. I lived in their basement. A step up from living with my parents, but not quite spreading my wings just yet. Their sloppiness finally drove me crazy though. There's only so many moldy pizza boxes I can pick up in a week without dying to get out of there.”

As if on cue, two men wandered through the door, each carrying a stack of boxes. “Oh, good, we found you. Stumbled into one of your neighbor's rooms by accident. She was rather accommodating, though.”


NaNo Stats:
Words today: 1139
Total Words: 1139
Words Remaining: 48861
Days: 1
Average words per day: 1139