I finished the draft of the novel!

It's really terrible! I don't care! Hooray!

Maybe I should be writing this novel in the first person.

*headdesk*

The rest of this post can be summed up with the following: ( Whiiiiiiiiiiiine. )

30k!

That is all.

So my novel is currently about in the midst of the third chapter, the end of which is the end of my first act. (Of three. Ish.) It's about 12,300 words long; I don't really have a goal for length, but I feel pretty satisfied with how it's going.

Though I know it'll be vastly shorter on rewrite. That's the thing. When I did this for Nano, I was just writing random crap to get words, without much of a goal. Now I've got a goal for each chapter, so I'm writing to a purpose; but since there's so much worldbuilding to establish and I'm clunky at that, chapters two and three are reeeeally heavy on stuff I know will be removed. I'm sort of throwing everything and the kitchen sink in, and not worrying about elegance. I know whole pages will come out when I get to editing this draft, and hopefully they'll magically be replaced with a few deft sentences or whatever. On the one hand, that's probably a good way to approach it, but on the other, it's kind of frustrating. I would like for this project to be good.

(Though when in doubt, this gives me hope.)

Some things that have been helping me:

-Scrivener. Justine (see previous link) recommended this on her blog, and it looked neat, so I figured I'd give it a try. I'm in LOVE with it, even without using all the fancy features (like the cork bord, which is really neat, but not how I organize). But being able to split screen between the doc I'm writing in and my notes (or the previous chapter) with my outline at the right? Excellent. Being able to go full-screen with no word/page count visible? Even BETTER. Because when I've got no way to measure how much I'm doing, I do a lot more. (Also, the program is like a new toy. Whenever I work on my novel, I'm playing with a new toy!)

-Writing outside the apartment. I've been bringing my laptop with me to work once or twice a week, and setting up in Borders when I get out. It's because there's no internet to tempt me, I know, but I get CRAZY amounts done. In two hours last week, I wrote, like... five thousand words.

-Only working when I'm focused. I have other projects I can dick around with, but I only work on the novel when I'm working. It seriously helps me concentrate; I don't feel guilty because it's open and I'm not working on it, and when it is open...I work. I don't remember why I made the decision to do that, but it's been working out.

So overall... It's not quite crusing, but it's going.

I finished my markup of the rough draft of the novel! Hooray for that. Now I just need to figure out how to make it not suck. This, I suspect, will be the hard part.

I might have an actual, workable idea for a short science fiction story. Like, you know, fewer than a hundred pages. You know, unless my brain starts working the way it always does. Sigh.

Oh, and I enjoyed reading this. But it does remind me of how much I want to scream and throttle alot of writers. I really, truly, genuinely do not understand why people think they can develop a well crafted male character but not a female one, or say they don't know what to do with a female character. It's not that hard. You develop a woman the same way you develop a man. They fulfill a roll in the story, the same as a male character. The only challenge I can see a good writer having to face is remembering not to default to male for all characters. I just...don't...get the difficulty.

Okay, so I was very bored and ran a whole bunch of characters through the original fiction Mary Sue test, including a few I'd already done to double check for accuracy. The final scores...

Saga
Islana: 57
Cleran: 46
Kalin: 66
Serissa: 40*

Underground
Katie: 31
Abraham: 47
Franklin: 32
Harriet: 24
Ida: 16

( Saga analysis [some spoilers for middle season 2] )

( Underground analysis )

( Conclusion-y ramble )

Hey, LJ is back! My actual journal (queenitsy) was on the last sever to be brought back, and it caused major pouting. *pout* A lot like that.

But more importantly, Standing Alone updated!!!11oneoneeleven It is, hands down and without question, my favorite fic in the Newsies fandom and it hadn't updated since last March and I feared it was dead for good, but no! New chapter and it's a superlong chapter and it's so good and squeeee!!!!!

Oh yeah, EYDW also updated last night, but seriously, Standing Alone is way better and you should go read that instead.

Anyway, in actual writing related news, I'm still stalled out on the next chapter of HISMSV. I've moved from two paragraphs to two pages, which is quite the improvement, but every word is forced and that doesn't make for good writing at all. I'm not enjoying it, I'm just trying to get it done so I can move on to storyarchs that don't cause me to grit my teeth so hard my fillings fall out. Or whatever.

In direct response to that frustration, I've begun fiddling around with plans to turn the story original, which have been in my head for awhile now. I've been keeping harmonyangel up for several hours past her bedtime to bother her with inane questions like, "But if I name him Jack Sullivan, isn't that a little obvious?" and "Are you absolutely sure I need to have Sarah? And Les? And all of the other characters?" and yet she still tolerates me. Impressive, really.

So at this point, my plans consist more of amusing myself by renaming everyone in the main bunk (which may or may not remain Pentland). So here's a fun list of the six camper's names, and if you're bored, feel free to guess who's who. I managed to even stay away from fando names (mostly).

Aaron Williams
Andrew (Andy) Vazquez
Kennedy (Ken) Sterling
Michael Schwartz
Joseph (Joey) Gallo
Ryan Davis

I amuse myself. Ken Sterling my actually be my favorite name ever.

(Yeah, and here's some kid in the other bunk named Sean O'Conner, but he could be anyone.)

*cough* Did I mention that Standing Alone updated and I'm reeeeeally excited?

Hmm. I've spent the last few days reading through the 50 or so pages of a fantasy story I started on a whim in... I want to say 11th grade, but I'm pretty sure it was 12th. I want it to be 11th, or even 10th, because the writing is truly crappy; moreso than, say, the middle chapters of the Saga (season one), which was written at about the same time.

But it's interesting, because I remember writing it. It would have been in February (definitely senior year, I recall suddenly) because I wrote most of it on Almighty Bob, the ancient Mac Performa desktop I had, and then switched over to my shiny new Sam almost the day he arrived from Apple. And I know that was February of my senior year.

But what I meant to say was, it's interesting to remember writing it, because I was in the zone, so to speak. I wrote the first 40 pages of those 50ish in about two days flat; it just flowed. The next ten came over a week or so period, and then it just trickled out as I realized I needed, you know, an actual plot.. But it had a lot of elements I actually liked:

I like the basic set up of the bitter, jaded thief being magically shackled to the too noble for the corrupt real world Knight; by way of a sarcastic, accidental vow. (As in, he makes her swear she won't escape when he catches her; she says the words and plans to take off as soon as he falls asleep, and discovers that thanks to the vow, she can't and is kind of stuck.)

I like all of the minor characters. In fact, the supporting cast was way more interesting than the two main characters, being said Knight and Thief. Like, way more.

I like the potential love triangles that are set up, because the Thief has about three different potential romantic leads; at the time, I don't think I wanted her to end up with the Knight, but I kind of do now.

I like the villain's chief henchman. A lot.

My main problems are that the plot itself is very shaky, and that the main characters... Well, suck. Let's just say that the thief is a girl who spends most of her time pretending to be a boy, because I thought that was so cool when I was in high school, and not yet exposed to the Newsies fandom. Ha.

If I can find a way to make the main characters suck less, though, I may go all Leah on this story and spend the next six months mapping, plotting, and outlining. It's a thought, anyway.