Beth -- 26,352

Hurm. Well.

I feel... done.

It's a little... short.

But I don't want to add anything else to the end. I think I'm going to sit on it for a little bit and then go back and see if there are any parts I want to flest out. My other shortest 3-day was last time's which was about 1000 words more than this. I would like to add another thousand or fifteen hundred if I could.

Hm.

Susan -- 26931

I know there are aproximately 3000 words left in my story, hell there are probably more... I just don't want to write them.

Beth -- 25,161

I'm not sure that my story has another 5000 words left in it...

Susan -- 23795

It's cool that Beth and I are keeping relatively the same word count. I'm impressed by her mad catch up ability yesterday.

Marissa came home after a stupid long shift, Paladin fucked up and she had to stay four hours longer.

I just ate some garlic toast for some reason when making it I'd put some kind of significance on the toast, dunno what... just did.

I'm going to keep writing. was about to write desparaging stuff but that doesn't help. I'm wondering if there are really 6000 more words in me before 6pm when I have to leave to go belly dance, come home, eat dinner then go to bed to wake up at 6am for an 8am shift in surry.

This seems to be what's nagging at me lately. The fact that I have so many domestic whatsits waiting on the wings. Day one I didn't even consider them, Day 2 they were on the back burning, but today, Day 3, they keep trying to butt their way in.

Blarg.

Ok, time to get moving. I like to mauveitmauveit...
Pink Floyd.


PS accidentally posted that to Reformations as I was logged in to google under that title. Oi.

Beth -- 23,694

I have to take a break or else I'm going to combust or something.

I'm just ready for this to be over. Yesterday was bloody exhausted. I wrote twice as much in day two as I did in day one. Day one ended in an emotional mess way behind schedule. Day two I worked something of a miracle. I still don't know how I did that.

Today I am exactly on schedule. I am exactly where I should be. I think this should make me feel better than it does.

I'm still so tired. I slept for ten hours, out like a light. I only woke breifly once, and that was because I couldn't find my Nina-shaped pillow. I fell back asleep and when I eventually woke up it was with a moan and me thinking "I need to do another day??"

I'm tired, my wrists hurt, I'm fairly sure my story is crap, and I just want it to be over -- but hey... all of that is perfectly normal for the third day :-D

Susan--20 606

That's where I ended things last night and then promptly abandoned my computer. By the way, my wrists hurt, bad.

Went out into the world to a walking distance restaurant last night, this in an attempt to remember what the strange things attached to my hips are for. Guess what, they're legs!

I insist that this is a very boring story, but at least it's getting written and at a good pace, and maybe just maybe, it's got enough... depth? Hidden depth... undertoes... to be worthy of existance. I am learning while I'm writing this, what I'm learning will have to wait until I'm able to focus on myself and not my characters.

Beth -- 20,069

Oh my god. I can't believe I pulled that off.

I'm totally going to collapse into bed now...

Beth -- 16,722

A random seeming number, perhaps, but a significant one.

This means I've written 10,000 words today. It's the daily goal. I didn't meet yesterday's goal, which is why my count isn't closer to 20,000.

But that means the rest of tonight is catching up. Closing the gap between where I am and where I should be. I don't think it's too important at this point that I actually make 20,000 tonight. I mean it would be nice, but I'm going to try to not be disappointed if I don't get there.

I should have another couple of hours left in me. I'm wildly jealous of Susan's word count and whatever it is she's doing right now. But for the rest of the night I'm catching up. I've done my 10,000. That's oddly comforting. Right now, after completely the 10,000, I think I deserve a short break. So I'm taking one.

Beth -- 15,288

It appears to be dinner time. I would rather not break just now, but food is actually a fairly good idea.

Susan--17570

I can't help escape the idea that what I'm writing is really boring... whatever.

My neck and wrists are not happy with me. Not at all. In fact, my body in general can think of a few things it would totally rather be doing.

Beth -- 13,132

Okay. It's about perspective, right? I'm only at 13,000 words. The chances I'm actually going to hit 20,000 today are looking pretty slim.

However. I have already matched my word count from yesterday, which was only about 6500. So everything from this point on is better than what I did yesterday. Which means improvement, right? And improvement is good.

I would really really like to be at least at 15,000 by now. That's the half way mark. But that's only 2000 words. I feel like I've been chasing 2-3000 words all day. If I could just magically inject that many I would be happily on schedule. But it doesn't work like that.

I need to take a typing break. I've reached the end of my outlined bit. I need the next part to happen interestingly. I could probably wing it and have it be boring. Time to channel all those stupid crime shows I've watched over the years with my mother. The good guys never figure it out in the library. It's got to be exciting.

I'm actively avoiding yesterday's mood by clinging to the brightside. I still wish it would bloody well stop raining!

Beth -- 11321

Hm. Well it looks like I've slowed down again. And I'm taking a break. I took a break after my last post too because I was crampy. Have I mentioned I'm writing this year through my period? So after my last post was an orgasm break. That helped. Then I wrote about 1300 words and am now breaking again. Because I'm hungry. Need food.

I'm not exactly despairing at this point, but I'm not thrilled. My mother doesn't help matters. She asks how far along I am, I tell her, and she says "You're never going to make it to 30,000 words!" Um. Way to be supportive?

Food should help. I'm going to need to do more outlining soon. I've only got a couple bits more to write before I have to figure out what happens next. Again, I know who did it and why, I just need to figure out how the good guys figure it out!

Susan--15 213

Half way through overall, thank heavens. Been looking at beth's update and agree, she's doing pretty good. Way better head space than the one she was in yesterday.

I'm enjoying my occassional emergances from my room. People tend to follow me about the house, curious as to my mental state when I emerge. Robin got me some green tea stuff yesterday after his failed late night bike ride, think I'll go and partake in that...

Beth -- 10,018

Okay. I just hit 10,000. That's where I should have been when I went to bed last night.

However... I mean say I had stayed up late to finsih the word count. It's possible that then I could have done something like sleep in until noon or something right? Considering it's only 1:15 now... maybe I'm not so far behind schedule as it feels like I am. I mean Susan's only like 2500 words ahead of me. That's not that much really.

I woke up this morning feeling a bit better about life in general. I focussed hard and wrote out a bit of an outline that should take me through another really good chunk. By the time I get to where I finished outlining I'm going to be ready for a good break, maybe a walk or something. And then I can continue from there. I then put in a solid three hours of work in which I produced about 3400 words. That's not bad time. Right?

Oh, and my boyfriend is still amazing. I got a string of encouraging texts this morning including one that said he feels oddly personally invested in this. I found that amusing. I'm writing the novel, not him! And Audere said "grr." I said I'd try to incorporate that :)

12 535--Susan

Yay 1/4 word count break now. That took a bit longer than I thought it would, but I also had to go through all my very latest work and make sure that it was all right.

Going to go stretch now.

Beth -- Going to bed

At 6686 words.

On the bright side, it is almost exactly 1000 words from when Susan told me to write 1000-1500 words before going to bed.

On the not-so-bright side, it's still a little more than 3000 words below the daily goal. They're also not words I'm especially thrilled with. The last scene I wrote was a sex scene and I hadn't been intending to go there. In fact, I was actively planning on avoiding that. But I did a sex scene. And even that I struggled with a bit. I was just getting into that when the text message exchange I talked about in my other blog took place. I was in a very much not good headspace prior to that, but then I was cheered up and was able to at least finish the scene without too much trouble.

I don't like the scene over much, but I do like that it's done. I'm going to go to bed now. I hope, before falling asleep, to come up with a bit of direction for tomorrow's writing. I might even try to put together something of an outline tomorrow morning before I start producing words. I just feel like I need to have direction and then I might stand a better chance of getting things done.

I like my characters. I like my concept. I like what I know of my plot, and only wish I had more details about it. There are enough "I like"'s in this paragraph that this piece should be going somewhere good. And yet it's been such a struggle. Hopefully over the next two days I am able to utilize the potential that I feel my premise etc is working with, and maybe I can even catch up on the word count.

Incidentally, last time I wrote this contest I went to bed after the first day approximately 3000 words ahead of schedule. This year I'm going about 3000 words behind schedule. Well. There's a nice mirror there. Considering I didn't actually win last time, maybe this apparently negative inverse will actually work in my favour?

Good night.

10 211--Susan

Well there ya'go ladies and gents. 7pm rolls around and I've met my goal. Might go back to it but I think I've left myself in a good place for tomorrow, who knows who knows. What a good girl am I. Time for my rightful breaks.

Beth -- Back to work

Well. That break took a little longer than I'd have liked. And I wasn't able to think so much about the plot as I was kind of otherwise distracted. Now, not only do I have to make up for lost words, I have to quell the almost unignorable desire to either blog or call Susan/Alex to talk about what I did over my break. And I had two glasses of wine (one of which was the essence of the joy of the earth). What's with wine and this year's 3-day? I swear it's not helpful!!

*breathes*

I have bugels. And I have come up with a little bit of plot. I just need to get from where I am now to where I figured out. It's... a little unfortunately.

I'm going to eat bugels and try to keep going now.

Susan--7649

At this rate I might get to cuddle one of my people before the disappear for the evening. Three of the four people I live with will be running away to go cycle somewhere tonight. Dave and M to work, Robin off to his anarchist cycling group. I'll be lonely tonight, but I'll live.

Really feel like I'm getting past the daldrums of the text now, of course, that'll make it harder to write, but at least I'm starting to find subject apropriate music on my iTunes.

Susan--Back to work

The trouble with comfy cozy homes? They're super comfy cozy, nearly ended up napping, but that has happened in the past. S'ok, this is going to be the struggle of the day but I can totally handle it.

Arg, total mood shift starts now!

Beth -- 4859

Okay I'm about to leave for a few hours break. Pretty close to 5000 words. A good place to stop too because I don't really know what happens next. I need a chance to think and it's kind of hard to do that while trying to produce words...

Susan--5156 words

Sweet deal, I totally made my goal time for that :)

If I keep at the pace of a thousand words an hour I'll be done by about 8 tonight, giving me till about midnight to fuck around, you know, if I want to. I might not...

Things are about to get difficult and this break may last longer than I'd like it to.

Beth -- 3938

Hmm. I was hoping to be at 5000 words before I was whisked away. I don't think I'm going to get there. Not quite anyway.

I really have only the slightest barest most skelleton like idea of my plot. Which really needs to begin now. So... hopefully I'll be able to draw enough of it out of me to reach about 5000 and then have inspiration hit me for the rest while I'm out.

I just went through a crisis of "What does one wear to a gnostic mass???" which, again, is not something that is tremendously helpful to be thinking about right now. But I'm dressed. I think I'm being picked up between 2-2:3o ish. I'm going to try to power through a bit before that happens.

Susan--3826

That's not bad I don't think. I should meet my 2pm 5000 word goal at this rate. Going to shower then take a walk... then maybe shower again... eat something... when I hit 5000. I'm kind of struggling, this story isn't as cut and paste as last year's entry was, but at least it won't be as emotionally draining as ANARCHIST was, god that was a bitch to get through near the end.

I should be able to do this... Wondering how beth is doing, I know she's trying to power through, what with her 2pm interruption that'll last her till some time around five. Thinking about it though, it probably won't put her too far behind, not really... well, maybe a bit.

I'm at 12.753% done this novel. Hey, that's kind of cool. Zokuto word meter no longer works, alas, I'll have to do my percentage counts myself.

Susan--2576

That's how many words I've got now, it's kind of nice having a character who rambles... I'm also posting my updates on Twitter, but not much difference from what i do here.

Beth 3-Day 2009 -- DAY 1

10:34 am

2300 words

Okay so it appears the world is not interested in making this easy for me. Not only am I feeling the struggle that is the result of so much creative inactivity over the past several months, there are other things working against me as well. I have to go out around 2:30 today. That's probably not a good idea no, but it is for an activity that I am otherwise very excited about and it makes my boyfriend so happy that I'm going. It is just a few hours. And I will get bugels. I've had an okay morning so far, but I am more tired than I would like to be. This is because I was awake at 5am sending consoling text messages to my darling Alex who was dissolved in tears because his little sister is moving away and it had just hit him. I was able to fall back asleep, but the interruption was not helpful.

I'm a little worried I've gone a little heavy on the exposition early on. Hopefully things will get moving swiftly now.

Suse--1st day Good morning

Well, I started my night off with cuddles, then a shower, then writing. The first 1000 words actually came quite nicely, but I have fears for the rest, can I really continue to prattle on at this rate? We'll see.

I don't think I've really challenged myself with this piece, or at least, not the beginning of it, it's simply a matter of stringing it all along cohesively. Alas, that may be a challenge. Was thinking of the people I could offend with this novel... hurm.

Beth 3-day 2009 -- The first night

That's it. I'm going to bed.

Wow... feels kind of weird to be posting in here. It's been a damn long time. But... it's three-day weekend. I kind of feel like I have to.

Anyway, I'm turning in a bit earlier than I'd like. I haven't accomplished all that much. Only about 1500 words. So long as I'm at about 10,000 by the time I go to bed tomorrow night it's okay. Still though, I'd have liked a fair bit more on the first night.

That being said, I don't want to push it. I'm only just starting on my story now, having gotten through what I wanted by way of introduction. I can already feel this is going to be a struggle. I didn't write the three day last year. I have some creative catching up to do.

I hope to sleep well and wake early-ish, refreshed and ready to go. I have a couple of hours worth of break planned tomorrow afternoon, and I hope that will also help to refresh and energize and not to distract or interrupt.

Okay. I'm off to bed. See you in the morning!