The Third Check-In

You know what I said last time about not meeting the goal?  Yeah.  That again.  But you know what?  I'm not letting it bother me.  Life is tremendously busy for me just now, and the fact that I got about 5200 words written this week (erm... last week... yes, this post is late) is good enough for me.  Will I finish Half NaNo, at the rate I'm going?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  But at this point, I'm just enjoying the ride.

Are you?

Word Count When This Piece of Craziness Began: 8,536
Total Word Count As Of Now:  22,501 [before any writing was done today]
Final Word Count Goal: 33,536
Daily Word Count Goal: 1,000
Average Daily Word Count: too tired to do the math... but it's less than 1,000.  Heehee.
Words Remaining: 11,025

Challenge Taken This Week: I stuck in a pirate!  Well, I stuck in a pirate in a character's imagination.  Yes, that counts.  It's my challenge, after all.  :D

“We could get all kinds of people to come and stay.”  Mark stopped to pick up a stone and attempt to dribble it as he walked.  “Travelers from all over the world, maybe.  And they could tell stories around the dinner table.”
“And show us their jewels and treasures from the caves of Arabia,” said Celia dryly.
“Maybe they’d even be pirates!” Timmy’s eyes widened.  “If one was a pirate, we could keep him.”
“In Pumblechook’s doghouse?” inquired Celia.
“No, silly.  He could share a room with Mark and me.  You’d let a pirate have your bed, wouldn’t you, Mark?  If he had an eye patch?”
“Why couldn’t the pirate have your bed, if it comes to that?”
“Because I like my bed.”
“Well, I like mine, and I’m not letting any One-Eyed Hook come and take it away from me.  Pirates don’t take baths, you know.”
“I think I’ll be a pirate when I grow up,” said Timmy, awed.

Favorite Snippet Written This Week:

This lake was quite different, and it was a lovely, wild kind of different.  For starters, the beach was practically nonexistent—a thin stretch of pebbly sand with rocks here and there and no semblance of order whatsoever.  The lake itself was rather small, and Sylvia could see clearly to the other side.  Pine trees, which Aunt Janet had never approved of because they were wont to shed like St. Bernards, studded the banks, and the air smelled sharp and clean and cold, not sun-warmed and proper like it did in the mountains.  “Isn’t it gorgeous?” said Celia comfortably.

Challenge for Next Week:  Use a word you've never used before (and I'm referring to fifty-cent dictionary words, not swear words, as I hope you realize).  Put it in your narrative or casually drop it in a favorite character's dialogue--it's your call.  Don't forget to post the snippet containing your word on your blog and drop me a link in the comments!

Did you do last week's challenge?  How'd your week go overall?  Do share in the comments!

First Check-In

Hello there, me fellow Half-NaNo-ers!  How'd the first week go? Okay, so technically it's not been a whole week.  But I've decided to do my check-ins/progress reports on Saturday evenings when I've finished writing for the week, and today will be the very first.  (Yes, thank you, my dear.)

In three days I wrote three thousand and twelve words, which puts me right where I wanted to be at the end of this first sort-of-week.  My goal is 1,000 words per day, as I don't plan to write on Sundays or on Thanksgiving Day (hey, every author needs a holiday, and I'll be at my grandmother's all day anyway).

I'm going to ape the Real NaNo's dashboard pages here and record my stats for the week... it's way too much work to do it every day, and frankly I "don't have the time or the want-to."  (That's a Grandma's Attic quote from Ma O'Dell, for your random information.)

Word Count When This Piece of Craziness Began: 8,536
Total Word Count As Of Now:  11,642
Final Word Count Goal: 33,536
Daily Word Count Goal: 1,000
Average Daily Word Count: 1,004
Words Remaining: 21,894

And I'm adding a few statistics of my own...

Character Discovered This Week-
Patsy Rochester, aged four-almost-five.  Okay, so she was in the story before this week.  Picky, picky, picky.  But it was only this week that I finally was able to put a face to the name.  And once I came across this picture of Shirley Temple, it was one of those "well, DUH" moments.  :D  Blogging world, meet Patsy.  Patsy, here are a bunch of fun and crazy people.

Favorite Snippet Written This Week-

Here the handwriting changed to something less neat but much prettier, with bubbles over the I’s instead of dots. This is Francie, and I think it would be much better if we all tell you about ourselves individually instead of leaving the whole thing to Alice.  Thank goodness she’s grown out of the habit of pinching my elbow every time I do something she doesn’t like, or else this part would be pretty sloppy.  Now she’s saying I had no business telling a thing like that to you who hardly even know us, but I believe you should know the worst about people from the start, that way you won’t get an unpleasant surprise.  Now Alice says that last comma should have been a semicolon, and I said that if she wants to dictate every detail of this letter she may as well just write the whole—oh, wait, never mind.

Challenge for Next Week-
Observe the people you see/meet this week--at the grocery store, at the library, at church, whatever--and stick someone into your story as a side character.  Ideally, use someone you don't actually know very well.  Change the name, of course, if you know his/her name, but try to portray him/her as accurately as possible in your story.  The character need only appear once if you want, but just add some flair to your WIP by introducing an interesting "extra."