ysabetwordsmith (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ysabetwordsmith) wrote2018-12-01 06:06 am
ysabetwordsmith) wrote2018-12-01 06:06 am
NaNoWriMo: Wrapup
Cheers for everyone who took part in NaNoWriMo! Let's take a look at what folks accomplished this time.
What was your project? (Similar things besides novels are eligible for sharing.) Include a summary and a link to its landing page if you have one.
Is it currently available for people to read? Did you read anyone else's project that you'd like to share with other readers?
What was your final wordcount, if you wish to share it?
Is there anything else you'd like to share about your NaNoWriMo experience?
What was your project? (Similar things besides novels are eligible for sharing.) Include a summary and a link to its landing page if you have one.
Is it currently available for people to read? Did you read anyone else's project that you'd like to share with other readers?
What was your final wordcount, if you wish to share it?
Is there anything else you'd like to share about your NaNoWriMo experience?
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There is a recap post https://lilly-c.dreamwidth.org/2757784.html I’d prefer comments on DW rather than AO3.
Yep it’s up on DW and AO3. The links to both are on that above link. I didn’t get around to read others projects.
I added 3407 words and the word count is currently 13266 words, and still unfinished. I feel like it’s gonna take me forever to finish it.
Well ...
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Thoughts
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This one particular instrument, DISS (dual imaging spectrograph: it can simultaneously take blue and red spectrums AND images) is the oldest instrument for the telescope, and it's not been healthy for a long time. It's also the most in-demand instrument. It's been breaking and people have to schedule other instruments, and then be given some comp time for not getting their preferred instrument. And when it's fixed, it's not just a matter of it going back on sky and producing science: there's frequently some calibration runs to be done to make sure it's performing properly. And then demand for it is high, which increases strain on it which increases chance it's going to start behaving badly and fail again. On top of that, the telescope flat-out broke recently, problem with the altitude controller. Fortunately they only lost part of a night, but when it's costing member institutions $1,000 an hour, any downtime is to be avoided! Weather losses are unavoidable, but equipment failures should not be. That's why a replacement for DISS is in the works, but that's multiple millions of $$$ and several years work.
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I think it's probably common to all observatories. All of the instruments are functionally Serial #1 or 2, and that means they all have to be coddled to a degree. We're now entering the time of year where all night long it's below freezing in the dome, which adds stress to all of the equipment, and lengthens the time that they're in use. Conversely, it also shortens the daytime window during which repairs can be attempted. This is why they shut down for a month or two during the height of summer to do deep maintenance on everything. And now you know a lot more about the internals of observatories than you ever thought you would. :-)
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Ditto. It was just luck that my wife found my profile on an online dating site. I remember watching one of the Apollo moon landings in the second grade, the entire grade crammed into one classroom watching it on what was probably a 12" or so B&W TV. I know it wasn't Apollo 11 as that was in the summer, but I don't know which one it was.
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A ren fest was one of the first things that we went to together. She was going to go to a slash fic convention in LA but her dog was kind of sickly, so she figured a 500 mile drive was better than a 900 mile drive and spent the weekend with me. We went to the AZ renaissance festival and also saw one of the Lord of the Rings movies, or possibly one of the Hobbit movies, in one of the good Phoenix theaters as it was still showing in its original release. The theaters up here, even though a new theater has been built, just aren't all that praise-worthy. My wife is thoroughly ingrained in ren fests: she's twice the national Scottish harp champion, such championships are conducted at festivals.
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We discovered the Harp Twins a few years ago and managed to catch one of their concerts.
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Irish/nylon. Unfortunately she found that her favorite harp is cracking and needs repairs, and the Albuquerque harp store closed their retail front a few years ago, we were discussing possibly rehabilitating her other harp which is technically better, but smaller and doesn't have a stand. She played against - and lost - one of the women in Three Wyrd Sisters and enjoys complaining about that. Her tuning key for her breaking harp also split and needs to be re-made, I was hoping my dad and I could cobble something nice together the next time we were in Phoenix.
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We need to (A) get some money saved up, and (B) find a luthier reasonably located. With the shop in ABQ partially closed, that eliminates a possible line of inquiry. The money situation will improve in 2019, so hopefully we'll be able to get it repaired next year. She can use the other harp until then.
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NaNo Page: https://nanowrimo.org/participants/elinox/novels/wicked-wolves-1460990
Summary: The sequel to my 2015 NaNo book 'House of Red' in which the adventures continue for our heroes.
{'House of Red' is a re-telling of Little Red Riding Hood involving werewolves, magic and a Huntsman who is not what he seems.}
'Wicked Wolves' picks up where 'House of Red' ended and involves a kidnapping, pirates and more werewolves. Plus, lots of cameo appearances by classic fairy tale and mythological characters!
Final Word Count: 56,578
Yay!
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Here's the synopsis I had on nano : Zvon is used to life at the bottom, helping his father rob graves to survive. That is until an infection leads to the amputation of his hand. His father sets him to panhandling and a chance meeting with a sorceress and her young daughter, Arria, changes his life.
Ten years later Zvon is a budding detective working the capitol city with Arria still his best friend and 'sister' as she works as a sorceress to the crown princess. Together with his lover, Caeles, a duke, and Arria's friend Siaq they have to stop a killer who is targeting women with magic before even more fall to him, their lives and their magic lost forever.
It is not done but if someone wants to peer at it I wouldn't object. I didn't read anyone else's sadly. I won by the skin of my teeth and my experience is master than internet addiction if you have one or you will struggle.
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NaBloPoMo stats: 15617 words in 30 posts (average 520/post) 3 days missedYay!
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http://duskpeterson.com/threelands
https://www.patreon.com/duskpeterson
Yay!
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Aww yeah.
The novel is "Hidden in Mist" about a former super-villain turned civilian trying to live a normal, quiet life in a tiny town on the coast. Things don't quite go as planned since her neighbors turn out to be hyper-intelligent ravens who need help saving their bit of forest.
I'll get around to putting a page up for bits to read eventually ... probably.
My first NaNoWriMo was in 2003 and I learn something new every time. This time around I wrote (almost) every day and outlined the next day's writing for a few minutes after each session. It was a slow start but probably from day 5 on, I was leaps and bounds ahead of the curve. I finished the novel on the 22nd. And I actually got a story out of it that was -done- around 50k.
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It's important to know when a story is done. Used to be, a novel was typically 40-60,000 words. Now they're 100,000 to 160,000. And most of that is bloat in most of those books. >_
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The financial aspects of print/ebook publishing favor shorter novels. Publishers who bring a lot of novels out in quick succession - genre fiction publishers in the early and mid twentieth century, and romance publishers up to this day - tend to publish shorter word counts, because they can make more money that way. So what you often get is a series of connected short novels which, if the finances were taken out of the equation, might be published as a single long novel. (I've actually seen some mid-twentieth-century novel series reprinted as single novels.)
Where finances don't affect word count, you get some interesting variations. Online fiction writers may have short chapters (because they're publishing chapters rapidly) *but* have the novel go on forever. So they're really reverting to the "lots of stories in quick succession" practice, only the chapter is now the "story."
(Not disagreeing with you in any way about 50k being a good novel length, and about lots of longer novels being bloated. Just interested in how publishing practices affect novel length.)
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So this one time I did an experiment with my brain. I read something really, really wordy. Like ... I can't even remember what it was. Probably a Stephen King book. And then right after that I read a Robert Parker book and my brain felt like it had fallen off a cliff. From super word spew to typographical scarcity. It was a lot of fun.
And it helped give me a decent grasp for what I consider just the right amount of description/dialog/etc and the mix there of. Also pacing. I suck at pacing.
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As a writer, I almost always rely on description. I have one setting that doesn't: my dark fantasy world of Penumbra. And writing that is hard because it's very austere. I have go back and take out stuff that I put in by habit that doesn't belong there.
I will give George R.R. Martin credit for one thing: he has the plot scope and cast list to justify the number of pages he fills. I just find his writing boring and his characters unbearable. I think I made it partway through the third book before I gave up. :P
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As a writer, I tend to rely on dialogue but I'm trying to change that.
You are a brave soul. I can't read George R. R. Martin or Robert Jordan. If I'm going to read the dense stuff, it tends to be Robin Hobb or Stephen King's earlier stuff. You are a brave soul.
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