Is anyone else having a problem with their characters just, oh, deciding not to DO anything? Like, sitting around for a thousand words, admiring the Christmas lights, or describing how they'd like to ask someone out instead of, oh, say... asking the fucking person out?

Little behind today, and not entirely happy with the output: 11,616 words.

(Cross-posted from my personal journal)

You know how on IMDB, they have Plot Keywords for the movies? And some of them are just totally and completely bizarre?

For those of you doing NaNo, what would your plot keywords be?

Mine:

When God's Hand Slipped

• 3rd person narration
• math teacher
• workplace romance
  
• cafe
• baristas
• student/teacher romance
• deformity
• ectrodactyly
• love triangle
• Christmas

Anyone else?

Also:

Day Four

Starting Time: 5:00 pm
Ending Time: 8:30
Word Count for the Day: Usure (I kept writing after I posted yesterday, so I don't know how many words counted towards today's count
Total Word Count: 7177
Satisfaction with Output: 75-ish%
Cups of Coffee Consumed (while novelling): None (OMG, I didn't have coffee today??!?!?)
Hours of Sleep Missed: 0

Day Two

Starting Time: 7:00 pm
Ending Time: 10:30
Word Count for the Day: 1,505
Total Word Count: 3006
Satisfaction with Output: 70%
Cups of Coffee Consumed (while novelling): 1
Hours of Sleep Missed: 0


Day Three

Starting Time: 4:30 pm
Ending Time:On-going
Word Count for the Day: 2063 (and counting)
Total Word Count:5069
Satisfaction with Output: 85%
Cups of Coffee Consumed (while novelling): 2
Hours of Sleep Missed: 0


Just because I want something in here for yesterday as well... I'm not yet finished for the day (and thank God for daylight savings - extra hour of novelling! :))

Day One

Starting Time: 8:00 pm, with frequent breaks (including a half-hour on the phone)
Ending Time: 11:30
Word Count for the Day: 1,501
Satisfaction with Output: 80%
Cups of Coffee Consumed (while novelling): 1
Hours of Sleep Missed: 0

Sad as it is (seeing as how its more than 100 words below the supposed minimum goal), this is actually my most productive first day yet. most first days I get in nothing, and when I do, it's usually a count between 600 and 800 words. 1500 is unheard of for me as a first day total. And I have a stay-at-home weekend coming up as well, so I will have plenty of time to catch up (or dare I say it, get ahead?)

Before I started, I was convinced that my first scene would take place in a coffeeshop; looking back, I don't really know why. Well, okay, yes I do - because one day when my sister and I went to buy a couple dozen donuts, I had the most surreal donut shop experience I'd ever had (well, second most, if you count that time MB and I were stranded in that coffeeshop in Connecticut after seeing (ironically) that surrealism exhibit at the Met in NY), and I thought, "wow, I would be a fool not to use this dialogue and this setting." Of course, since then I've completely forgotten what said dialogue was (except that I'd never heard septegenarians with dirtier mouths...), and the setting simply did not feel right once I'd found a character. Not to say some of the story won't take place in a coffeeshop; I just couldn't see opening my story there.

In the spirit of writing what you know, my story focuses on a Special Education teacher-in-training, and her life both inside and outside the classroom, and the opening scene takes place inside one of the aforemention classrooms, during a rather frustrating tutoring session. That feels much more natural and right than a coffeeshop - and opening with this has actually given me an overarching theme that I didn't have 1500 words ago.

Here's to a productive start. I hope to be able to check in with everyone tomorrow (I didn't intend to post this late at night! Work comes early (ugh, and I work until nearly 4 tomorrow, too...)

'Night, guys. Happy NaNo-ing!

2003: Untitled train wreck of a wanna-be novel
Word count: ~4500
Opening scene: A girl stands in a bakery, examining the perfectly glazed pastries on the shelves, trying to choose something to bring to her parent's house as they prepare for her sister's wedding.

2004: Best Served Cold
Word count: ~15000
Opening scene: I don't remember. I believe it was two cousins, who hadn't seen each other in ages, working at an ice cream stand over the summer. One was living with the other as his parents were working through a messy divorce.

2005: Every Truth a Lie
Word Count: ~9500
Opening scene: Two college-aged girls on a train discuss one friend's sudden fear and paranoia about her upcoming marriage and increasingly stagnant daily life.

2006: Thirst
Word count: 50198 (yay!)
Opening scene: A young woman, unable to sleep while staying at a hostel in Montreal, sneaks out in the middle of the night and attempts (and fails) to kill herself.

2007: Unsure
Word count: Sigh.
Opening scene: It will be set in a coffeehouse. That's all I know.

Anyone else?