Cat Pollock Writes

Tomorrow (well... technically tonight at midnight) is the start of NaNoWriMo... November 1st is almost upon us, my friends. Which means this - in other parts of the world, NaNoWriMo has already started, and hundreds (if not thousands) are pounding their keyboards in hopes of producing a novel in thirty days... a novel of at least 50,000 words. Everyone I say that to who isn't a writer and has never heard of NaNo thinks 50,000 is a lot of words. I'm thinking it doesn't sound quite so tough when I really break it down. 50K words/30 Days = 1667 words/1 day 750 Words = 3 Pages (double spaced, 1 in. margins) Cat's word count = (abt) 50 words/minute If I aim for an average of 8 pages (or 2,000 words) a day, I should reach 50K by November 25th. If I can keep my inner editor in check, that means 40 minutes a day at 50 words/minute. If I can't, then I should count on doubling the time, which means about an hour and a half a day. Heck, with that time frame, I shoul...

After much deliberation, I am attempting to create a playlist of musical goodness to both sustain me through NaNoWriMo and send off to a few of my fellow NaNoers in other parts of the country. So far, I have a grand total of five songs. It is frustrating because I have so much music, and so little time to figure out what I really want to share. The songs thusfar: Paper Thin Hymn - Anberlin I'm Not Who I Was - Brandon Heath Set the Fire to the Third Bar - Snow Patrol Savior - Skillet Eileen's Song - Burlap to Cashmere Currently, I am listening to what my mp3 player says is the 25 songs I listen to most to see what is there and if anything is good enough. You would think this would be a good starting place, but the only reason why so many of these songs are at the top is because one of my characters at one time or another would not talk to me without multiple repeats of whatever song they want to hear. I'd like to give up on this particular project. There are so ma...

I said yesterday that I would elaborate further on the reasons why I love and hate writing with characters I've written with in the past, so this is my attempt. Reasons why I love it: I don't have to spend time getting to know the characters. Because I already know them, I know how to make them talk to me. Because I know how to make them talk to me, writer's block is not much of a concern. All of this should bode well for NaNoWriMo. But, as you may have guessed, it does not always do so. Reasons why I hate it: Because I know the characters, my brain assumes details are not necessary. Because of above stated assumption, I forget to add details about the characters, and sometimes their surroundings, too. Because I forget to add these details, I end up with a less than stellar story. Which equates to lesser word counts for NaNoWriMo. Lesser word counts = no 50K. No 50K = no win. No win =... I think you get the idea. But why does any of this matter if NaNoWriMo is about gettin...

Someone started a topic on the NaNoWriMo boards recently asking people to post their list of things to do before NaNoWriMo that are unrelated to it. Obviously, I thought it was a good idea, as I am writing a blog about it now. Below is a list of things that I put together in my head at the time, and a note as to whether or not I've gotten them done). Sit down and plan budget for month of November. (done) Decide on costume for Holyween (yeah, I said Holyween… suck it up and deal with it). Unnamed Trib issues (in progress, probably incomplete before start of NaNo) Write apologies to a few of the people I owe them to. Go to Sonic at least once (done) Now, back to the task at hand. Next blog? Probably my to-do list of NaNo related things.

On a day like today, I really wish I had bothered to keep up with computer programming. You can laugh all you want at the fact that I spent many hours in high school sitting at a computer, programming my life away. Bet you didn't know I got a 3 on the Computer Science AP for C++ (because saying something like that makes me feel like an uber-genius, when in all honesty… I'm just an uber-dork who wasted two and a half years of high school on something I barely understood instead of two and a half years of college, thousands of dollars, and GPA points). But, in all seriousness, today is one of those days. I wanted to get a start on my NaNoWriMo preplanning. Some people start this process December 1 st (the day after NaNo ends). Some never preplan. I'm starting about ten days early because I want some idea of where I need to go with my story, but I don't want the rigid outline I know I would break if I spent months ahead of time planning it. My pre-NaNo planning s...

Maybe I've gone off the deep end on this one, folks, but it has been a long time coming. I signed up this year for NaNoWriMo. NaNo-wha? National Novel Writing Month. Yeah, it's held every November, and thousands of people make it their goal to write a novel of at least 50,000 words between November 1st and November 30th (an average of about 2,000 words a day). I've been wanting to this for years now (try 4 or 5), but either didn't have the courage, or did have too many creative writing classes to consider it. Since this is a November where I am not in school, and will in all likelihood still be jobless, I figure... why not give it a try? What do I have to lose? Right? Right. I will attempt to document my journey through NaNoWriMo here, with word counts, what kinds of issues I am running into, and maybe a small excerpt or two here and there. It's not that I won't blog about other things, but this is a big deal, and (I think) it deserves some attention he...