Nanowrimo Status: Complete...sort of

So then. The thing is done. Did I finish?

The story is finished, yes. I wrote a novella from beginning to end within the month. 

Did I reach the official Nanowrimo word count goal of 50,000 words? Mais no, mon ami. I didn't actually think the story would be that long anyway, so no worries on that account. And it could actually turn into a whole nother thing later during a rewrite. Ya never know.

Completed word count: 25828

They're having an end of nano party in Indy. I thought about going but ultimately remembered that I'm not much of a party person. I do think it would be fun. I just...I don't know. I have other stuff that takes priority. Maybe next year.

Nanowrimo itself was a very interesting experience. I’ve seen some writers bash Nano on their blogs and so forth. They have this idea that it somehow devalues the written word by cramming all of this work into a short time. They think everyone just cranks out all of this drivel and then they ship it off to attempt to get it published. That viewpoint is pretty shallow and not true, for the most part. 

Judging by the message boards, that isn't what Nano is for most people. First, it's more about camaraderie than anything else. These people all over the world attempt this crazy feat at the same time. They encourage each other and engage in community weirdness. They whine about word counts or they offer advice where they can. 

Mostly, they write. It is a marathon, my friends. Make no mistake about that or think for one moment that cranking out a book in 30 days is something that a "lazy" author does. It's a month-long lurch that drains the brainpower considerably.

It's also optimum time for the interferers to interfere because they will observe you working, which reminds them that they aren't working and maybe their lives are a little sadder than they could be. 

Was it worthwhile? Yes! Would I do it again? Probably! I would like to go in with more extensive notes, however. Mine were quite crappified.

procrastination plus book trailer update

Today I was reading through the remix project and I discovered that somehow like 200 words or so had vanished from the manuscript. It’s weird because I have no idea how or why they disappeared. Luckily I still had a hard copy printout of the previous version, so all I had to do was find the corresponding page and type the missing part back in. I’m just glad that I hadn’t taken the pages to the recycle bin yet. Yay procrastination!

Ok. Guess what. No…not chicken butt. Book trailer update! I have completed the flower animation. I have also resolved the problem of the crap-ass picture quality.

Flash animation does not convert to avi format well, which is why the video looked blurry or grainy or whatever the first time I put it up on the blog. The problem was even worse when I converted the completed animation to avi. It was so bad that when I tried to play it on full screen, the flowers looked like straight up 8-bit graphics. After working so long on the thing, the bad picture made me want to cry.

But I did not cry. I looked for and eventually found a solution. The conversion from Flash to Quicktime (mov) went much smoother.

I haven’t made the final adjustments to the timing of the flowers yet. The roses will start before the rest of the foliage, with the exception of the grass blades. There will also be words in the middle, of course. The flowers, etc are just the border.