It seems this post brings me up to one gross (ewww!) in total and with it, news of my successful completion of my first ever NaNoWriMo! One day early, even! Yay me!
Here's the breakdown of the "final" stats:
Words: 50 602
Paragraphs: 911
Characters: 281 012
Pages: 88
Chapters: 8
I put final in quotes because I might add one or two things tomorrow while it's still officially NaNoWriMo, but I am otherwise finished.
I'm probably going to take a day or two to decompress and then post some thoughts on the overall exerience.
Until then,
Freak Out
-TfitC
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Fifty Percent Plus One
No, this post is not about referendums. Rather, it is an update on my NaNoWriMo progress, now on the 16th day, which is one day past the half-way mark.
So far, things continue apace. I am still on-track and currently sit at about 27 000 words (including what I've written so far today) spanning 48 pages, which is actually a little ahead of schedule. I'm still enjoying the process (though it is quite the commitment, forcing myself to write at least 1667 words each day!) and unexpected things keep happening in the story itself. So as long as things continue as they have been, I should have no trouble reaching the 50 000 word goal and may even hit it a day or two early.
The story itself won't be anywhere near finished at the end of the month as at the half-way point it feels like it's only just getting started. While I don't have a detailed outline or anything, I did do a very rough overview of the early parts of the story and I am nearly to the end of it, though so much has happened that is either different from how I had envisioned it or which I hadn't anticipated at all that I think the outline (such as it is) is kind of moot at this point anyway.
Overall I'm fairly happy with how the story seems to be progressing, though I don't think it's as humourous so far as I'd like it to be, though I am of course putting funny or silly things in where I can. At the moment, I'm just focused on pumping out my daily quota and don't really have the extra time to stop and make it as humourous as it could be. That's something I can go back and put in via editing, I guess! Because it's naturally going to need editing when all is said and done.
I think it also goes to show that humour is hard, especially continuous, consistently maintained humour (though there's also nothing saying that a basically humours story can't have its serious moments as well). It's one of the reasons why I admire Weird Al so much; having a 30-year plus long career based on being funny is no small feat and I often think he doesn't get the credit he deserves for it.
Anyway, that's enough ramblings for today. I'll do a wrap-up post at the end of the month (or early next month) to review my NaNoWriMo experience.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
So far, things continue apace. I am still on-track and currently sit at about 27 000 words (including what I've written so far today) spanning 48 pages, which is actually a little ahead of schedule. I'm still enjoying the process (though it is quite the commitment, forcing myself to write at least 1667 words each day!) and unexpected things keep happening in the story itself. So as long as things continue as they have been, I should have no trouble reaching the 50 000 word goal and may even hit it a day or two early.
The story itself won't be anywhere near finished at the end of the month as at the half-way point it feels like it's only just getting started. While I don't have a detailed outline or anything, I did do a very rough overview of the early parts of the story and I am nearly to the end of it, though so much has happened that is either different from how I had envisioned it or which I hadn't anticipated at all that I think the outline (such as it is) is kind of moot at this point anyway.
Overall I'm fairly happy with how the story seems to be progressing, though I don't think it's as humourous so far as I'd like it to be, though I am of course putting funny or silly things in where I can. At the moment, I'm just focused on pumping out my daily quota and don't really have the extra time to stop and make it as humourous as it could be. That's something I can go back and put in via editing, I guess! Because it's naturally going to need editing when all is said and done.
I think it also goes to show that humour is hard, especially continuous, consistently maintained humour (though there's also nothing saying that a basically humours story can't have its serious moments as well). It's one of the reasons why I admire Weird Al so much; having a 30-year plus long career based on being funny is no small feat and I often think he doesn't get the credit he deserves for it.
Anyway, that's enough ramblings for today. I'll do a wrap-up post at the end of the month (or early next month) to review my NaNoWriMo experience.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
One-Page Complete
The comics workshop continues apace. Since the last post on the subject, the one-page comic series of homework has been finished. This was done in two steps: penciling and then inking.
Above are the pencils for my version of the one-page comic. I penciled directly over the non-photo blue rough work and scanned it in using the greyscale setting on my scanner. As can be seen, the non-photo blue lines have disappeared, no further work required.
The next step was inking the art work, with my results shown above. Unlike the mini-comic that I did over the summer which I ended up inking largely with the brush, this was inked using a nib pen, which was the aspect of inking which the workshop covered last week (we'll be doing brushes later on). I used four different nibs for inking, one for each row of panels. In reality, I'd probably use different nibs for different parts of the drawing, but as I'm new to this, this was a way to try out some different nibs without having to worry too much about specifics. One thing of note, I forgot to draw in the pattern on the father's vest in the last panel - how I missed such a large detail, I don't know, but oh well.
The nibs themselves were interesting to work with - easier to control than a brush, but more flexible than a normal pen, plus they make an interesting scratching noise when drawing.
I should probably also note that I didn't erase the rough work before scanning, which is mostly visible in the word balloons and the lettering guidelines (created with an Ames lettering guide).
The next series of homework walks us through the creation of, in theory, a six page mini-comic. For the purposes of my workshop, I'm suggesting a two to six page mini-comic, depending on how ambitious each participant feels, or how much time they think they have. I'm still not sure how many pages I'm going to tackle, but I'm hoping to try for at least another four page one.
Well, we'll see how things go.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Above are the pencils for my version of the one-page comic. I penciled directly over the non-photo blue rough work and scanned it in using the greyscale setting on my scanner. As can be seen, the non-photo blue lines have disappeared, no further work required.
The next step was inking the art work, with my results shown above. Unlike the mini-comic that I did over the summer which I ended up inking largely with the brush, this was inked using a nib pen, which was the aspect of inking which the workshop covered last week (we'll be doing brushes later on). I used four different nibs for inking, one for each row of panels. In reality, I'd probably use different nibs for different parts of the drawing, but as I'm new to this, this was a way to try out some different nibs without having to worry too much about specifics. One thing of note, I forgot to draw in the pattern on the father's vest in the last panel - how I missed such a large detail, I don't know, but oh well.The nibs themselves were interesting to work with - easier to control than a brush, but more flexible than a normal pen, plus they make an interesting scratching noise when drawing.
I should probably also note that I didn't erase the rough work before scanning, which is mostly visible in the word balloons and the lettering guidelines (created with an Ames lettering guide).
The next series of homework walks us through the creation of, in theory, a six page mini-comic. For the purposes of my workshop, I'm suggesting a two to six page mini-comic, depending on how ambitious each participant feels, or how much time they think they have. I'm still not sure how many pages I'm going to tackle, but I'm hoping to try for at least another four page one.
Well, we'll see how things go.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Monday, November 7, 2011
Ready, Set, Write!
This is going to be a picture-less post (gasp!)
I've decided to attempt NaNoWriMo this year (that's National Novel Writing Month for anyone who might not be familiar with the acronym). That means my free time for November will be taken up largely by comics and writing.
NaNoWriMo is something that I've been wanting to do for at least the past couple of years, but never felt I had the time due to one thing or another. While it's debatable whether or not I actually have enough time this year, I've decided that I don't really want to put it off yet another year. And while I could just pick a month and do my own personal NaNoWriMo, it just doesn't have the same degree of motivation.
And so, after about a week of writing, I am currently on track, up to about 11 700 total words. At this point, I'm fairly confident that I should have no problem meeting the 50 000 quota by the end of the month so long as I can continue setting aside sufficient time to write.
I'm enjoying the writing so far. This marks the first significant creative writing I've done in the past few years that is not FASS related. I have a basic premise in mind for the story and now more-or-less where I'm going, but there's no detailed outline. In a way, it's similar to how I was approaching the Kyoujo RPG. And so far, at about 20 pages in, several unexpected things have happened in the story - either things that I hadn't foreseen at the outset or things that have unfolded differently than I had original thought they might. But that's ok! I think that's part of the fun of writing.
The story itself is meant to be a humourous fantasy story which combines original elements with parody. The basic idea is one that's been rattling around at the back of my head for several years, since the year I spent working in Toronto, if I recall correctly.
Anyway! That's all I have to say about that at the moment. Still trying to decide if I want to post the actual story to this blog, or perhaps just some of the better snippets.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
I've decided to attempt NaNoWriMo this year (that's National Novel Writing Month for anyone who might not be familiar with the acronym). That means my free time for November will be taken up largely by comics and writing.
NaNoWriMo is something that I've been wanting to do for at least the past couple of years, but never felt I had the time due to one thing or another. While it's debatable whether or not I actually have enough time this year, I've decided that I don't really want to put it off yet another year. And while I could just pick a month and do my own personal NaNoWriMo, it just doesn't have the same degree of motivation.
And so, after about a week of writing, I am currently on track, up to about 11 700 total words. At this point, I'm fairly confident that I should have no problem meeting the 50 000 quota by the end of the month so long as I can continue setting aside sufficient time to write.
I'm enjoying the writing so far. This marks the first significant creative writing I've done in the past few years that is not FASS related. I have a basic premise in mind for the story and now more-or-less where I'm going, but there's no detailed outline. In a way, it's similar to how I was approaching the Kyoujo RPG. And so far, at about 20 pages in, several unexpected things have happened in the story - either things that I hadn't foreseen at the outset or things that have unfolded differently than I had original thought they might. But that's ok! I think that's part of the fun of writing.
The story itself is meant to be a humourous fantasy story which combines original elements with parody. The basic idea is one that's been rattling around at the back of my head for several years, since the year I spent working in Toronto, if I recall correctly.
Anyway! That's all I have to say about that at the moment. Still trying to decide if I want to post the actual story to this blog, or perhaps just some of the better snippets.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
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