It has been a while since the last time I posted and since then I've told my mom several times that I was about to blog again. Since having read somewhere that you should write 'as if your mom doesn't read your book', things have changed and it has helped me to feel a little better about all this. So, all 'your mom' - or in this case 'my mom' - jokes aside, let's continue ( and not just because my mom - and perhaps even your mom - is eager to read more ).
In all honesty, my absence on here has been due to low energy; a mix between the Autumn weather, the crypto bear market and overall low vibes in the air these days. It doesn't mean that I haven't done any writing though. In fact, I wrote almost 15,000 words since the last time I posted. Surprisingly so, my most productive day has been one when I woke up feeling crappy, after a night struggling with stomach cramps. The fact that the following day became my wordiest one so far, with close to 3,000 words ( about 6 pages of the story written ) is a sign that there's no logic at all to life ;>)
Unfortunately, it was cancelled out immediately with a low word count the day after and the day before ( when I was already not feeling great ) was pretty disappointing too but still... it proves that no matter how I feel, I can always write. It's just a matter of sitting down and doing it, or as I describe it in my story:
start writing away
and make sure to write more than just "away"
and words will appear and lead to more words and so on and so forth...
As mentioned in my last post, I visited a writer's meetup in Coimbra. It took place last Saturday, 9 days ago. I also decided to spend three nights in the city, to enjoy a change of environment and hopefully get inspired too. Although Coimbra can be an inspiring town for sure, it didn't really go as expected. The Botanical Gardens gave me a short burst of inspiration but that was about it. Also the writer's meet up didn't really have the desired effect. There were five people, me included. Two of them left early and were just there to write ( didn't seem to feel like talking ), two others merely talked about stuff that didn't interest me too much and although I invited them to hang out with me again in the next two days, none of them had time or was interested. I might still meet up with one of them who lives in a nice town that I have been curious about for a while, but that isn't gonna happen this month. Which is a good thing because I still have plenty of writing to do!
12.5k to the finish line
I made it past 75% of the necessary word count to be a Nano winner. My name isn't Vincent ( from the latin verb Vincere ( to win or conquer ) for nothing. So I'm gonna seriously go for it. I intend to write some more tonight and told myself that if I reach the 45k before the 30th of November, I'm gonna make it, no matter what. That gives me four days ( plus the remainder of today ) to cough up a little over seven thousand words. Sounds very doable to me. I will do my best to get closer to the finish line before the last day of the month though, as I do not necessarily like sprints and work better when I'm not under pressure.
Here's some fragments of what I've written in the last week and a half ( to be honest, I'm not sure what I've written since then, as I've used all kind of techniques to add more words, including adding sentences to existing paragraphs. I hope you enjoy it anyway ;>)
She seemed to pickup on his emotion, as she quickly continued spouting her thoughts:
“No need to feel bad about this. You're different in the best way possible. Also, I can tell by how your family treated you, that they've always accepted you as one of their own. They loved to have you around.”
This last remark just made him want to hug her. If it wasn't for his short, clumsy arms and her broad back he would have done exactly that. So, instead, he gave her the least scary teeth baring smile that he could produce. It must have looked strange to her, but she knew him well enough to understand that this was meant as a sign of gratefulness.
“Thank you,” he said. “All this means a lot to me, even more coming from you. For a moment, I thought I was an entirely different species but I guess that we're all dinosaurs in the end, so it doesn't really matter."
And here's another piece of writing:
No! he screamed. You're not gonna sleep now! You're not gonna give in now! I won't let you! You are stronger than this. You know that sleeping is giving up! That it might kill you. If you want to live, treat your wound as good as you can and make sure that nobody can get to you. Only then, you are allowed to sleep. Don't disappoint your mother by leaving her because you can't take care of a minor injury. You are surely stronger than that!
He had to use all the acrobatics he possessed, to get his mouth close enough to his foot in order to lick the wound clean. He made sure to spit out the blood and his attacker's saliva, as he knew he should not take any risk here, it helped that it tasted and smelled gross. One thing he could tell, this other guy had not cleaned his teeth for a long, long time.
TO BE CONTINUED ( AND IMPROVED )