Wordcount: 4406

A good day – managed to close the gap to the target line, with 2700 words today. For those following at home, I managed to find the features that I wasn’t using in Scrivener. Who knew that reading the “Start here” document pre-written in the sample Nanowrimo project would be so helpful!

Knocked out a whole chapter tonight, which is both good and bad. It gave me a very definite place to end the night’s writing, but it means that I’m starting a fresh thread tomorrow, rather than picking up mid-stream, which can sometimes be easier. Still, I have hope that I’ll get there yet. Tomorrow I’ll try and get ahead of the target line and start building myself a buffer for the slow days coming up, like Shaulabot’s birthday and the planned weekend of mountain biking later in the month.

Tonight’s snippet is not the cleanest of writing (hey, it’s Nano, and I’m a uni dropout), but it’s a fun move I may have to try in a D&D campaign sometime …

In a low crouch, his black cloak wrapped around his body, he charged at the first guard, who had now stepped outside the gate. In one movement, he pulled the green bag from his belt and hurled it directly into the chest of the second guard, who was still standing inside the gate, squinting at the sudden glare of the fire. As the bag hit the chest of the second guard, Felchy cannoned into the first one, pushing him back into the other guard, knocking the wind out of both of them. The green bag burst, and a white goo burst out, pressed between the two guards. As they fell to the ground, the goo hardened, sticking the guards together, effectively immobilising them. Felchy leaped over their flailing arms, and ducked around to the right of the house, heading towards one of the downpipes on the corner of the building.

Wordcount: 1678

Okay, so I’m a day behind, thanks to the Gong Ride yesterday, but I should be able to catch up over the next few days and head into Week 2 on schedule. So far I haven’t started the story proper, I’m starting with backstory and a bit of biography, just as much to refresh my own memory of the character as to pad the wordcount. But it’s mostly working, and hopefully the story will come out better than my previous Nanowrimo win in 2006.

I’m also taking advantage of the fact that Scrivener, a word processor I’ve heard a few rave about, has a special for Nanowrimo participants. So far I’m liking it, and even trying to actually take advantage of the organisational and project management features it has. A few things jar in the workflow – such as not being able to get a combined wordcount for a multi-file manuscript without exporting and counting elsewhere – but it’s possible this is just stuff I have to learn, rather than stuff that isn’t there.

A short snippet from tonight’s writing session.

A sound filtered its way through the alcoholic haze and into Gutgore’s consciousness. Footsteps, running away along the cobbles. He looked up, but the small boy was gone, the sound of his small strides disappearing into the fog.