Tasha's (aka Beren) Journal

Is everyone doing okay at NaNo? I imagine my US friends have more important things to worry about today. Good luck with the election.

My NaNo is actually going really well, although it did grow a whole new subplot. I knew the beginning was missing something, one of the reasons I was having so much trouble with it. So I sat and thought about it and decided to go with the adage, if in doubt, ramp up the tension :). Seems to be working.

Defence, Pretence, Offence looks like it's going to be 56 chapters so far. This doesn't make it hugely longer than GTS (40 chapters) because I'm going for smaller chapters for this one so they fit more easily on Wattpad (it's a culture thing rather than a hard limit thing). Wattpad readers like smaller chunks and I've had to divide some of GTS's chapters to fit the format for them, hence making sure all of the chapters are about right in DPO straight away :).

However, the rate I'm going I think DPO will be about 30K longer than GTS in the end - especially with the new subplot. Parts that were just filling and one scene have turned into three or four and I'm going to have to add in even more to play the whole thing out. Hopefully it will be worth it. Of course I only have a vague idea on how to resolve the subplot, but I will figure it out - LOL.


How is everyone else doing with their writing, NaNo or otherwise? All going well?

So we're over halfway through NaNoWriMo. I hope all your novels are going well.

I'm trying to get a little bit ahead at the moment because I know this weekend is going to be chaotic. I've nearly finished the end and the middle is well fleshed out which mostly leaves the beginning to deal with. I have the very beginning and a few scenes, but otherwise that's the part that is a skeleton. Makes it rather hard to start posting it without a beginning, so, of course, that's the last bit to really come to me :).

How are you all doing? Is your word count going well? How's the plot?

So first we have this *points up*. There were times this month when I really didn't think I was going to finish. It was right down to the wire.

1. I had a really nasty cold, which, I kid you not, turned me into a zombie for about a week. I barely managed to write a couple of thousand words.
2. Last Thursday, just when I was trying to get back on track I fell over in the shower and bruised and jarred my left side which made sitting still and writing somewhat fun for 2 days.
3. My parents-in-law rang up and asked if they could come for the weekend. Don't get me wrong, they're lovely, but that meant most of the weekend was spent with family rather than deep in novel land.

Hence by Friday evening I was pretty sure I wasn't going to reach 50K and I almost gave up, but then I decided to give it one last go. It's funny, my stats on the site make it look as if I wrote almost 20K yesterday, but it was actually just that I was so disappointed that I might not finish I stopped filling it in until I was almost there :).

I'm pretty sure half the stuff I wrote yesterday is crap and is coming straight back out again or being heavily reworked, but at least it's in the machine :).

Well done to everyone else who finished too.

The Study

Our study is very nearly finished. The only things left to do are the hearth in front of the fire, for which we have all the bits, Rob just needs to work his magic, and half the door frame which had to be filled so didn't get painted at the same time as the other half.

This is a panoramic view of the end wall and the right side. You can see how it lays out, but unfortunately Rob's phone couldn't get the whole walls in :). Click to see it bigger.


This is of the end wall so you can see the cupboard, which was the final part we put in. We have always had a cupboard on that wall, but it was old fashioned and too shallow to be of any use, so we have extended it outwards using the same system as the shelves (they have an amazing catalogue).

This is what it looks like in daylight and looking at the end and left wall.


This is standing in front of the bookcase looking back at the doorway. That stylish picture on the wall came from Range - was £12.99 ;).

And finally for the room, this is the view of the corner along from the door. As you can see we need to put something on the walls :) It's the exercise corner.

Of course it wasn't quite complete so we also bought a rug and a bean bag chair (which is remarkably comfortable :)). We just need to get some anti-slip for the rug because it tends to move, although we could not have found a better size if we had custom ordered it.


All that was left was something for me to be able to reach the top shelves and Rob found these on eBay :)

The steps are made of yew and the frame is made of pine and they were hand made in the east end of London 40 years ago. They have been living in a dry cellar ever since. As you can see Rob has cleaned the top step just to see what colour it would come out, but the rest still need doing. I have tried them out and they are awesome - just high enough, but not too high so that unstable me can fall off and do some damage :).

This has now become my favourite room in the house. Book! :)

So who else has finished NaNo? How do you store you books these days?

Just had to play catch up again today. Yesterday was almost a complete loss, only had a chance to write 300 words.

Our new Wittegen Press site is based off of Wordpress and one of the plugins is playing silly buggers so I spent yesterday trying to fix it. Problem is I can't repeat the problem on the test site. *bangs head on table*

Anyway, today was all about writing this morning and I am back on track, so yay! And no, I still don't know who did it, but I have some ideas ::g::. I better decide soon!

This afternoon it's back to stripping the study and then painting it. We've been working on it since Wednesday and we have one more bookself to empty and take down, then we can paint :). One of the hardest parts was the weights machine - we had to dismantle it so we could move it and it was a right pain. At the moment the front room and the old dining room are stuffed with books and craft stuff and basically the contents of the study :)

P.S. This extension OneTab for Chrome is so useful. It takes all the tabs you have open and puts them in a web page list and if you click them opens the link in a new tab and takes it off the list. If you have two windows it gives you two lists on the same page. Awesome if you're like me and end up with dozens of tabs open, but don't want to lose them.

I am so close to being caught up with NaNo. I'm ~500 wds short of what I should be at today at the moment.

I didn't have a chance to write anything on the 1st because it was Rob's little brother's 21st birthday, so we had to head up to Colchester to help him celebrate. Hence I started writing 1,667 wds short on the 2nd. I have almost caught up, but I've reached a point where I need to have a think.

The thing about writing from the seat of my pants is that sometimes I just have to sit back and cogitate to work out which is the best way to go :). I think I may go poke at the website for a while, make sure it's all up to date and let the idea percolate in my brain.

Then I need to write some more so I am up to date, then I can work on getting ahead because I think I'm going the Amsterdam some time this month, but don't know when :).

Of course it would help if I actually knew what the main plot was! I know it's a murder, I know what's going on with the protagonist and the supporting main cast, I just have no idea why my victim was bumped off or who's behind it ::g::.

So nano is going well so far. I have completed my word count for both days and have lots of ideas to keep going. At this point I am pacing myself because I don't want to burn out. The novel idea is still percolating in the back of my brain so I don't want to run out of what I know before the rest has had a chance to grow :).

Was nattering to Rob about it over breakfast this morning and he gave me a wonderful idea for the spaceship :).



Hope everything is going well for all my NanoWriMo friends too.

BTW if anyone wants a copy of my variable Nano spreadsheet it's here: Word Count Spreadsheet.

It does the same things as the Nano stats page, but allows you to have:

• a variable number of days,
  
• a variable word count
  
• a total before start date (so if you have some scenes already written that are not part of your word count you don't have to try and remember to take that off every time you update your total).

( Click to see a screen grab of the sheet )

I'm writing a blog post first today (I've just come home from doing the weekly shop) because I have to put my head down and play catch up with my Nano writing. I managed to get my daily word count written yesterday, but our kitty died on Saturday morning (thank you to everyone who commented on my last post about it), so that was a write off of a day. We gave him a good send off and had a mini-wake on Saturday afternoon and I didn't feel like writing again until yesterday evening.

Then there's tomorrow. I am very happy to be reading my 500 word ghost story at Den of Geek's Den of Eek! at The Phoenix in Cavendish Square, but I doubt I will get any writing done before hand. By tomorrow morning I am bound to be too nervous to concentrate on the next novel :). I haven't read my own work in front of people since school (and that was longer ago than I care to admit ;)).

So, that said, I best get to it :).

You know I said I had the bad guys figured out yesterday; that may not have been completely true, but it is today. I know who the bad guy actually is now :). Yesterday I knew what they had done and why, today I know who too. I just had the most fun writing the big reveal! Scenes like that are always so exciting to put together.

Still haven't finished the big fight scene, but that's no shock.

Writing is becoming easier every day - I hope it keeps up. I hope all my fellow nanoers are also doing well. You can do it *waves pompoms*. Even if you are behind I bet you can catch up. Just break it down into little segments, even if you look at it as 100 words at a time. Be happy every time you tick off one little block. If I'm stuck I write a couple of paragraphs and then fill in my Excel spreadsheet to watch my total go up (I don't always put it in on the website because I don't want to help kill their servers :)).

BTW, talking of my spreadsheet, it basically mimics the nano web page, but it allows for having an initial word count, having variable days and a variable word count goal. It's a .xlsm file because it runs VBA. I find it very useful for all sorts of projects just to keep me motivated.

If you would like a copy it's available to download here.


P.S. Apologies if there are any bugs in it - this is the latest version where I added in the variable days and I've tested it as well as I can, but you can never be completely sure. I find the best way to use it is to take a copy, name it whatever the project is and then leave the original as it in case of irretrievable errors.

Please LMK if you find any bugs. Thanks.