Sunday Night School – Day Five

With Independence Day behind me, I've managed to bounce back a bit.

The real key to getting moving again was switching stories. That's a real blessing of the collection format: unlike novel work, if I get stuck on one story I have four others I can switch to. So I set aside the detail-heavy piece that had me shut down and switched to something more up my traditional alley.

I topped 3700 words for the day, so the new track is working so far.

Sunday Night School – Day Four

Nothing.

The holiday has me out of sorts, and I'm having some issues unrelated to the writing process.

Though I suppose it's still early, I'm starting to feel like this isn't my year for Camp NaNoWriMo.

Sunday Night School – Day Three

Today the fates conspired against me. I've got a stalled story. I had a friend in from out of town. Though I hoped to write at least a word or two, I managed to write literally nothing.

Total goose eggs really put a dent in my pace, too. Now I'm way behind on my 2k per day goal and even lagging a bit behind the pace I'll need to finish before the end of the month.

Sunday Night School – Day Two

Today went well, but not as good as yesterday. In general that's no big deal. Some days are better than others.

My particular concern at the end of the writing day today is that I'm a little stuck. I started at what seemed like a logical starting point: the first story in the collection. However, this particular piece is giving me a couple of different kinds of trouble.

First, the plot hinges on some technical details about DNA. At the outset of the writing process I admitted to myself that I didn't have the level of technical knowledge required to make this as realistic as possible. As long as the science fiction elements don't get too implausible, I'm prepared to forgive myself (and hope my eventual readers can do the same) if I make mistakes or suggest complete impossibilities.

However, even an over-simplified version of science and technology still involves a lot of science and technology. What I'm finding at this point in the story is that I'm having trouble striking a balance between details that are actually interesting and details that I'm merely trying to straighten out in my mind. And I'm concerned that details in the latter camp are bogging down the storytelling.

And second, I'm worried about story length. Figuring that I would write five stories and that I would need to hit 50,000 words before the end of the month was math so simple even I could do it in my head. But the end of the writing session today found me at the end of the first act of this story and at around 3700 words. Trouble is, act one is by far the longest of the three. If nothing else, it does all the set up. Thus I'm concerned that there isn't enough to this tale to get it to pull 10k worth of weight.

Sunday Night School – Day One

And we're off!

Following my typical November practice, I started promptly at midnight and wrote for awhile to give myself a running start.

Camp was a little different than usual, because the stories each needed their own set-up. So that was five epigraphs starting at the stroke of midnight. And for the first time I also intend to include an afterword. That occupied my time until I went to bed.

I didn't have the most productive writing experience ever during the day, but I was saved by a last-minute push in the last hour and a half of the day. How many times have I done that in the November challenges?

Sunday Night School – Cover design

I wanted something that said "church" without being churchy, if that makes any sense. So a photo I took of some stained glass at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art a few years ago came to mind.

Might change the font to something less cliché and more readable. This one looks a teeny bit like it says "Sunday Home School."

Sunday Night School – Preliminary thoughts

This year I've decided to give Camp NaNoWriMo a try.

For those unfamiliar with the camp concept, it works a lot like the novel version that happens every November. However, the camp challenge is more flexible. Writers can set whatever word count they wish or even use some other standard (such as writing time) to measure their success. And more to the point in my case, they can work on something other than a novel.

Several years ago I read the Bible all the way from "in the beginning" to "amen." It was an interesting experience for several reasons. For starters, it left me wondering if many people who profess Christianity as their faith have ever bothered reading their own scripture. That's a discussion for another time (and probably a different venue).

One thing I noticed was that the book was full of odd bits here and there, the fragmentary beginnings of thoughts that blossomed into story ideas. None of the stories born from the experience were actually about their source materials (at least not directly). Of the five that stuck with me from my reading notes and actually wound themselves up into stories, one is a consideration of one of the possible side consequences of a well-known Bible story. Two of them put a new spin on somewhat familiar verses, and the final two are likely to have been noticed only by the most astute of Bible students.

I know that's teasingly vague, but at the moment that's where it must stand. I'm half likely to write an afterword explaining my thoughts, and if I don't I promise I'll create a much more complete blog entry on the subject at the end of the process.

The goal will still be 50,000 words, though of course this time it's divided across five plots rather than just one. I'm curious to see if that makes a difference. I'm also curious to see how writing in July – when I'm a gentleman of leisure – differs from the frenzy of November.