A Novel Later

So, November 26th I finished my novel with a word count of 50.118, which was the goal of the NaNoWriMo competition.

Of course, it was a great experience finally to have done it, but it’s also a bit strange now when it’s over and there’s no word count to be met every single day. So the last couple of days have been an attempt to recover, really, and to get my mind away from writing. I printed out the manuscript, put it on a shelf in a closet and closed the door. Haven’t looked at it yet. I figure that I’ll take a break for a week or two before going back to re-read and edit it.

To tell you the truth – the last two weeks were really tough. Staring into the screen, writing little more than a couple of hundred words a day. The last 8.000 words took almost as long to write as the preceding 42.000. Together with the fact that my sleeping hours went straight to hell during that period too, it really wasn’t all that pleasant.

Finally, I managed to get it sorted out though (with the help of a bottle of Bushmills and 48 hours of burning midnight oil) and I was at long last able to sleep when it was dark outside and wake up when it got light. Which was truly a relief. To fear going to bed every single time eventually gets you down. You’re so tired that your eyes hurt, both when they’re open and when they’re closed, and four hours later there’s nothing else to do than to give up. If you don’t get up, you feel confident that you’ll go crazy. Too many thoughts going through your head and no way to silence them. That’s the biggest problem of not being able to sleep, I think. The mind never getting enough free time to spring-clean.

But things are going better now and I’ve finished the novel so I can’t really complain. I know I’ve been neglecting you all this month, but as you might understand, I just couldn’t find the energy and motivation to post here during the last couple of weeks. Now I’m back though, and I’m looking forward to blog a bit and catch up on all the stuff you’ve probably been posting in the meantime.

Thank you all for your encouragement while I’ve been writing,

– Biyang

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The 25.000 Roadblock – NanoNews

The last couple of days have been tough. My word count went down until it reached a complete standstill yesterday, with only 88 words down on paper. I hit the 25k half-way mark like driving at full-speed into a concrete roadblock. Not a single coherent word would fight its way out of me. It was like the story mutinied on me.
Though I precisely knew what was going to happen next, and had the plot laid out on paper in front of me, it all jammed together. I had no idea of how to get one character from one side of the street to the other. Yes, it was that serious. All they did was staring back at me, inquiringly, waiting for me to make up my mind about the next word. And that was exactly what I was utterly incapable of doing.
So last night I just gave up (for the day at least), something I felt I should have done hours before, and went to bed, run down. Fearing tomorrow.

Today though, things have eased up and the deadlock seems to have passed. I managed to get 5627 words written today, which is an all time maximum for this story. It was quite relieving just to be able to write again. Being able to not sit in doubt for an hour for each word written.
So the plot are finally heading in the direction I want it to go, which is pretty nice. Apart from that, I am completely wasted now, it’s ten minutes to two and I need some sleep.

So see you around, and good night…

Gary Moore still got the blues

I’ve just gotten home from a concert with Gary Moore. To tell you the truth, I’ve never been the greatest fan of his. To me, he was just one of the unavoidable guitar legends that you have to know. Up there in the rock’n’roll hall of fame together with Eddie-boy Van Halen and Stevie Ray Vaughan (only overtaken on the inside by, of course, Hendrix with his version of All Along The Watchtower). But while a lot can be said about Gary, there is one thing which is incontrovertibly true. That man plays the most insane guitar solos you will come across in a long time. And no I’m not talking about the “Still Got The Blues” lick. I’m talking about the down-and-dirty, mind-blowingly shrieking frenzy of tones that he wrenches out of that Gold-top Les Paul through a couple of high-powered Marshall stacks. Leaves you breathless. That man is the king of guitar solos. And to hear and see that was worth it all.
So does Gary still got it? Damn right.

NanoNews:
Okay – so now it’s time for the breaking headlines of NanoNews. I hit 9.000 words today (9.302 to be exact) which means that I’m 19% done. So far so good.

Another thing: If you tried out the link to my author’s profile (it’s right over there in the sidebar) you may have noticed insaneously long loading times or even time-outs for the Nanowrimo.org site. It’s not because the link is broken, but because there is an excessive rush on their servers these days. Yesterday (I think it was), they reported that they had had more than 130.000 visits in one day, which is an all time high.
And I (together with the 90.000 other participants) got a mail from the founder of Nanowrimo, Chris Baty, where he apologized for the lousy functionality.

 

“[…] For the first week of the event, the site will be on fire. This year we moved to a completely new back-end system, and it has made me beat my head against the wall almost every single day. Pages disappear. Parts fall off. Error screens everywhere. It handles high traffic the way a country lane would handle a freeway. We have so many plans on rebuilding the site it for next year it’s not even funny. But for now, we have to work with what we’ve got. Russ is making all the improvements he can to make it suck less. […]”

That’s about all for now, I think. And, as always, happy blogging!

NanoNews – First Day of Nanowrimo

So I haven’t been around for the last couple of days. Been busy doing preparations and research for my novel. And today, November 1st, was the first day of writing! Managed to get down 3.100 words this morning through noon, which is all right I guess. Not behind schedule on the first day, at least 🙂 I had rehearsal with the band tonight too (just got home from it, actually).

In a way, it’s too bad that I won’t have as much time to spend blogging new stuff here and roaming the forums throughout November. But well, that’s how it is. Gotta concentrate on writing the novel for now – there’s no turning back now that everybody knows! 😀
Actually I read an advice on the Nanowrimo forums that went: Tell everybody you’re writing a novel. That way you can’t chicken out. I went for it and told a couple of friends and the family. So now, as they say, failure is not an option. 😈

Well, that’s about it for now – I’ll be back here (and hopefully in the wordpress.com forums) as often as possible.

 

Until next time, happy blogging!

Portrait #4

 

50 Days of Love Noir

– and an announcement…

So it’s been about fifty days since LoveNoir was launched. Not bad. Truth is, I didn’t even know it had been that long already. I accidentally discovered when I checked my blog stats at Technorati.
But I’d just like to use the occasion to thank all of you who have visited my blog. You’re making it a pleasure to post new stuff. Thanks!

And the announcement… I’m going to write my first novel! After a little while of consideration (and hesitation), I’ve signed up for the 2007 National Novel Writing Month competition – also known as nanowrimo. The idea is to write 50,000 words in one month – November. This is going to be quite a task since I’ve never written anything that long before. So everybody, wish me tons of luck! I sure am gonna need it.
And, as you may have noticed, I’ve placed a little banner in my sidebar named “NaNoWriMo”. If you click on it you’ll be taken to my “author’s profile” on the nanowrimo web site. Starting from November 1st, you’ll be able to check up on my current word count, excerpts of what I’ve written so far, and what-have-you.

Meanwhile, I’ll try to post here on Love Noir as regularly as possible. Probably won’t be any epic 1,000-page comics during the next month though 🙂 , but I think you can expect some more black and white illustrations and some updates on the writing process.

– Biyang

Portrait #3

Overhearing Lovers’ Talk

 

* * *

Tough morning today. Last night, we ended up in a small joint, playing billiards and listening to old classics on the jukebox. We had a good time, but Ballantine’s never leaves you be in the morning. So a good part of today went with a long walk, enjoying the calm before the winter sets in for real.

The rest of the time I’ve mostly been listening to music, while roaming blogs and working on some graphics. The one above – “Overhearing Lovers’ Talk” – I got finished today.

Drawing – Man and Woman

Writer’s Block

We all know it all too well. And none of us know what to do about it. Yes, the ominous Writer’s Block. Serious as cancer.

“My idea of hell is a blank sheet of paper. Or a blank screen. And me, staring at it, unable to think of a single thing worth saying, a single character that people could believe in, a single story that hasn’t been told before.
Staring at a blank sheet of paper.
Forever.”

– Neil Gaiman, www.neilgaiman.com