9,717. Bloody well close enough to 10k There were a few times there I thought I was going to fall in the sappy love story pit of despair, but I think I have worked past that now. The last couple of thousand have seen Fineas thrown off the farm he was working on, Siv having a bit of a shaky moment while out collecting, Kalden very morose and drunk asking Siv some very personal things about her love life and...( this )

I am trying my best to eek out a few more words for my miniWriMo. I know this story holds the potential for much more, so I do want to keep working on it past November. Hell, I can't be finished yet, it still has not told me what title it wants to be. I really do want to hit 10k if I can by Friday 11:59 pm. I am at 7,752 now, so I will really have to bust my ass to get there, however I am stubborn enough to try for it anyway. I guess I just needed a deadline looming in my face to get me motivated again.

( don’t mess with the excerpt tradition… )

So I have been super lazy since I hit my word target ages ago, but I am slowly getting back to it. 5,976 now. Would be more, but I need to go cook dinner. Very short excerpt behind the cut because it has two swear words. Pretty standard for me really.

( click to see proof that I am actually doing stuff )

Righty oh then. Last night I managed to just squeak past my November target and now sit at 5,075. Its still vary much a hodge podge of out of sequence and somewhat unfinished scenes. Plenty of gaps abound and in some cases I have lone sentences I just needed to get written down. So what now. I am going to take the day off to get something else done today, you guys are owed a treat anyway, and once that is done I will sort everything into chronological order (stop looking at me like that) and start working through the gaps. I figure now that I hit what I wanted amount wise, I might as well keep going until I am done.

( just a little one )

Struggled today and yesterday, but the next little bit is brewing so I should have a good run tomorrow. Oh yeah. 4,271.

( excerpt ahoy )

Tagged by rivernapping
List 10 characters off the top of your head. Explain, briefly, who they are in brackets beside their name. If you run out of characters, you're allowed to take some random nameless people along like 'the guard who shot them' or 'the shopkeeper who sold them the bad tacos' or so on and so forth. Only do this if you're really desperate, though.

( more back here )

Because anghard knows I cannot resist being distracted by the power of a meme. Those who have finished this already will see some familiar ideas.

Write about 5 of your strengths as a writer and 5 pieces of writing advice.

Five of my strengths as a writer:

1. Tenacity. In the face of a troublesome scene, I will rewrite, write around or more generally poke at it until I can sort it out. I will not be defeated!

2. Observation. I like to study how people interact with each other and the world around them. Both these help me to put more definition to characters.

3. Recognising my own flaws and being able to laugh at myself. I have no qualms about putting my hand up and taking ownership of the crap bits.

4. I can jump in with no fear. I am not afraid of turning off the outside world and get lost in what I am writing.

5. I think words and the way you can put them together is magic. Put the right two next to each other and they can have power, instill fear, comfort or bring great joy.

And five pieces of advice:

1. Never be afraid to make mistakes.

2. Only worry about making yourself happy.

3. Learn by example. Read. Then read more. The best way to recognize the things you need to improve in your own writing is to see the strengths and weaknesses in what other people have already done.

4. Know when you have had enough. Take breaks, walk away and do something else for a while if its not coming together.

5. Put it aside and give it time to settle before you edit; and (because I cheat)

6. Turn off your Word grammar checker. Seriously, that thing hates creative sentence structure.

I tag anyone else out there who has not yet done this.

And because my word count today is going to be shocking, ( hey everyone, look at what I made... )

I have not had a great deal of time to write this weekend, but the trade off was getting to spend a couple of uninteruped days with the Bloke. Anyway, I thought I should still check in and give you guys my word count - 3,334 to be exact. I'm still pretty happy with that considering my normal slothlike writing speed.

( Is it excerpt time already? )

Rewarding myself with a glass of red after a rather disjointed day. Up to 1,675 now. Not much compared to the full on participants, but for me, pretty amazing. I am struggling with one little problem, which is I had not planned for it to be so full on 1st person narrative, I wanted to only use that for some things, but it is all that I am writing at the moment. Hopefully it will sort itself out as I go since I am covering quite a bit of background stuff and will be moving on from there in the next couple of days. I promise to whine more and ask for help if the problem persists.

And for more nano fun, I was tagged by rivernapping (who is too good at distractions dammit)

( nano meme and excerpt ahoy )

He stared at it, glared at it, he could not take his eyes away from the scar on my face. And then he smiled. They never smile. They slink back into the shadow and turn their back. They make clandestine arrangements for scrap metal, or some trinket for their missus. They judge me without ever really seeing me. Curse him to hell, just look at those eyes. I am never going to be rid of the thought of those eyes and that smile.

“You are here just in time,” he said.

I should have known he was not really looking at me. It’s just another job. Another trek into the metropolis. He must think he can play me to knock me down on the price. Poor sod doesn’t realise how vindictive us collectors really are.

“There are things I have been needing. It’s a long list. It includes a few special tools, some specific machine parts and,” he whispered the next word, “books.”

We were in a barn in the middle of nowhere and he was still frightened to use the word out loud. I emphasised the word just to watch him flinch, “Books cost extra.”

His hands were shaking, “If you can get the ones I need I will pay anything.”

Anything. He actually said anything to me. Gran said one day this might happen, that I would find someone like him. A cash cow she called it. I grinned back at him, my handsome little cash cow, “I think we can work out some terms to our mutual satisfaction.”