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Well to start with the laptop died a couple of days ago. It’s the iBook G4 that I bought for uni and has been a little rock for the last five years, which isn’t bad as laptops go. And it was good up until the end because it let me copy off stuff that was on it before really acting up. As much as I use  my iMac somehow it’s just not the same. It does sound a little whiny as I do have a computer to use – a damn good one too! But it’s strange that writing requires a certain mind space and the little 12” laptop fitted that role perfectly. 

Apart from the technology really messing with my head so is my story. Actually it’s not my story. It’s me. I’m learning lots about my own writing style and it seems that I’m a little sparse with words so events that would take lots and lots of words are actually not taking very long. I’m going to have to lean the art of padding real soon otherwise I’m going to get the end and still have 40000 word to write. It’s not that the story is too small. I’m just a very sparse writer and I think I need to use more description and set some more tone and colour in my writing.

I guess it could partly be the story as well as I’m writing by the seat of my pants and I’m not really convinced that it’s working for me. So the plan of the day is to get some more words written but also to try and come up with some sort of sign posts about where I need to get to so that I’m not just babbling.

How is everyone else doing?

Discovering stuff about themselves?

Maybe I am a Literary Fool?

What have I done? This is must be the maddest idea I’ve ever had! I thought quite sensibly that I’d have an outline and a plan going by today so that I could know exactly where I wanted to go. The trouble is that every time I actually formed more than a few thoughts on what I wanted to write I was coming out with scenes and dialogue and other stuff that actively involved writing the damned thing and if you know anything about NaNoWriMo you’ll know that you’re just not allowed to have pre-written anything before today. I have kinda cheated by writing one partial scene on the back of an envelope and it probably won’t make it to the final thing. But that’s about it apart from a few shower thoughts.

I’m not exactly clueless I know where my inspiration is coming from and I hope that I don’t end up borrowing too much but even if I do it’s unlikely that anybody but me is going to read this. At least until I’ve finished it and have some idea of the monster I’ve created.

The one thing that I have been thinking about it how to actually get the words down somewhere. I have my desktop mac and my old uni iBook G4. I’ll probably end up using both and type sections into either Google Docs or Word before copying them across to Scrivener, which I’ve just installed and using for the first time to help me keep moving. It has a project and daily goal thingy so I have some goal posts.

Now what I’m I writing? I might tell you another day but probably not today.

To anyone else doing NaNoWriMo best of luck and fast fingers!

More later