HIVVER|W1NTER|XEIΜΏΝ

We’re back at it again this year. You wouldn’t know this because I didn’t exist before this website was created–but in addition to my non-existence I’ve been doing nano for….

Hmmm.

14 (fourteen) years. On and off, sure. Maybe about 7 years I hit 30k, hit 20… maybe I only wrote a couple thousand, but I know a good 7 were wins…

even if those stories were never published… self… or otherwise.

But I’m tracking my progress here this year. I’m gonna be a funny guy and update this post every day instead of saving it as a draft and then posting it at the end like I keep wanting to do, psyching myself out, and then not doing.

HERE WE GO.

Wow look… its November… it sure wont let me edit this calendar but it looks cute so I’m going to leave it up anyway in case you forgot how many days November has.

Anyway–in order to beat this challenge you have to write about 1666.66666– okay 1667 words a day for most days (1666 when you’re feeling particularly evil on occasion). Usually my sick strats are to write 2000 words so I can take, roughly, the last 5 days off (or have 5 days of wiggle). Usually I bounce between 1k and 5k (sometimes 10k on an absolutely fucking hogwild day wowee… maybe I’ll hit one of those this year– a guy can dream).

As a funky fresh little exercise though I’m gonna put the days I don’t hit the basic word count (1667) in RED to shame myself–(just kidding I just really like to see things funky and visual)– and the good days in yellow, I guess? I don’t like green. Just kidding idk how to do that because I’m not a tech-whiz and WP is a lil bastart about it… or I have no idea what I’m doing… (this might be the case really).

BUT FIRST–

I guess I can tell you VERY QUICKLY what the two drafts I’m picking away at are (usually I do something Fresh but one draft was literally a couple thousand words from being done, the other I just got new music so I found my inspo-groove for it again and I reaaaaaally want to finish it in 2025).

DRAGON’ BREATH (Title… uhhh WIP)
This is a short 20,000 word erotic story about a knight who falls into their fantasy of fucking around with a princess… and the dragon who captured her.

XENIA
This is … a fucking beast of a project (its already 47,095 words) playing with the Hero Story as told in antiquity, modernising it, crunching it up in my teeth and spitting it out into a Trans Allegory. Idk– maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t, it’s the baby bird I’m currently drip-feeding because I love the main character. I’m also playing more directly with the Myth of Narcissus which I think is fun because even I never expected to like that story as much as I am playing with it.

I don’t think NaNo will FINISH that second story’s first draft for me… but I’m hoping I can reach its halfway point. Its the longest thing I’ve written… a real Greek Epic it would seem.

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How is NaNo 2024 Progressing?

• NOV 01 — DRAGON’S BREATH — 1,251
• NOV 02 — DRAGON’S BREATH — 1,374 (STORY END)
• NOV 03 — XENIA — 2,033
  >>>>>>>> TAKE OUT — 1,102
• NOV 04 — XENIA — 2,018
  >>>>>>>> TAKE OUT — 525
• NOV 05 — XENIA — 2,004
  >>>>>>>> TAKE OUT — 695
• NOV 06 — XENIA — 2,059
  >>>>>>>> TAKE OUT — 661
• NOV 07 — XENIA — 2,024
  >>>>>>>> TAKE OUT — 264
• NOV 08 — XENIA — 1,026
  >>>>>>>> TAKE OUT — 829
• NOV 09 — TAKE OUT — 1,177
• NOV 10 — TAKE OUT — 866
• NOV 11 — XENIA — 2,036
• NOV 12 — XENIA — 1,359
  >>>>>>>> TAKE OUT — 407
• NOV 13 — XENIA — 2,227
• NOV 14 — TAKE OUT — 1,217
  >>>>>>>> XENIA — 1,273
• NOV 15 — TAKE OUT — 490
• NOV 16 — TAKE OUT — 1,019
• NOV 17 — TAKE OUT — 3,049
• NOV 18 — TAKE OUT — 2,052
• NOV 19 — TAKE OUT — 1,311
• NOV 20 — TAKE OUT — 1,828
• NOV 21 — TAKE OUT — 279
• NOV 22 — TAKE OUT — 939
• NOV 23
• NOV 24
• NOV 25 — TAKE OUT — 2,438
• NOV 26 — TAKE OUT — 1,145
• NOV 27 — TAKE OUT — 1,680
• NOV 28 — TAKE OUT — 1,647
• NOV 29 — TAKE OUT — 1,923
• NOV 30 — TAKE OUT — 1,825
  
  

NOV 3

TAKE OUT
Is … a last minute addition to the roster, a new fucking indulgent ass script I just decided to chip at about one of my tabletop characters. Don’t mind me. Maybe it’s something I’ll post here. Maybe not. You’ll see.

Am I a little bit nuts for rewarding writing… with MORE writing? Um… we’ll see!

…

NOV 5

So, I generally can’t write 2k in one go. At least not anymore. I used to be able to fixate and just GO for hours and hours… and maybe as the month progresses I’ll find that groove again, but in case this helps others: I reach my daily goals by breaking things down into manageable bits. Generally I seem to be able to sit for an hour and pull out a good 1k if I manage to focus. This gives me time to reread what I wrote previously (or a couple paragraphs for a refresh) before jumping into the new stuff… all within the same hour. My routine seems to be: after breakfast for an hour and before dinner for an hour… with bonus writing coming in after dinner because I’m excited to hop into the new stuff.

Just in case you are also doing NaNoWriMo, word of advice is don’t read TOO FAR BACK and get bogged down in a previous bad sprint. Just read what you did, remind yourself where you’re at and keep running forward. Prose is pretty much editing everything in post anyway.

…

NOV 7

Music plays an insane part in my inspiration to tell a story… so here’s Xenia’s playlist:

01. Lonely — Son Lux
02. Ashes — Radical Face
03. Thanatos — Soap & Skin
04. Dusk Talks — Woodkid
05. Hearsay — Radical Face
06. Delirium — Danny Knutelsky
07. Beware — Little Red Lung
08. Son of Nyx — Hozier*
09. The Fold — Wickerbird*
10. Seasons & Narcissus — Bastille*
11. Let Me Follow — Son Lux*
12. It’s Time For You To Stop Being A Ghost – Sindri Már Sigfússon & Sin Fang
13. This Night Is For You And For Me — Danny Norbury
14. Silence III — Son Lux

* These are story-changing songs. Songs that shaped a LOT of my current draft vs the rest which add to the vibe and help fill in the gaps in my thoughts. They all kind of help pull this thing together. (As you can see all the heavy hitters happen… where the Plot Really Kicks In).

If you do happen to listen to the playlist… get ready its a biiit of a moodkiller but that’s a bit what happens when you’re writing something of a tragedy :’)

…

NOV 12

Progress with writing is a little bit of a struggle. You pick and chip and poke away at a project and it doesn’t have the same hulking satisfaction for me as drawing does. You see files of comic pages, collections in a book. But prose just kind of fills up a document with a growing number.
Its a little bit why I refuse to reread a draft as I’m working on it. Plow through, finish the thing. I think that might be advice worth giving, to folks who worry about finishing a draft. Its not perfect. It won’t be perfect the moment it comes out of your head.

Just get it down. Edit later. Let yourself have fun right now. Put everything you’ve got into it.

(I’m 61,532 words into XENIA right now and holding onto this like its my own personal Mantra. Some writing days… are rough.)

…

NOV 14

Time for a proper progress update (this is the WC & Page count the stories are at/including words outside of NaNo):

DRAGON’S BREATH — 21,304 // 41 pages (complete)
XENIA — 63,758 // 105 pages
TAKE OUT — 7,699 // 28 pages

NANO WC’s SO FAR…
DRAGON’S BREATH — 2,625
XENIA — 16,786
TAKE OUT — 7,699
NANO TOTAL — 27,110

So far I’m managing to keep ahead of Base Nano Goal: 23,338… with ease. Both XENIA and TAKE OUT have hit a bit of a stride for me in the last day or so, too so the next stretch should be pretty smooth! I was tempted to pull this kind of post the 15th but tomorrow is proving BUSY so you get it a day early.

…

NOV 17

Hmm… maybe we’re starting to notice that the fun story is overtaking the story that is supposed to be taking precedent here.
I don’t know. I don’t have an excuse other than its been a long year and this thing is really fun to work on. I’m afraid that by flipping and flopping I’ll burn out on both stories and write nothing.

XENIA is a bit of a tough beast, I think I’m starting to wrangle her again but it needs a bit of breathing room to heal up before I start working again, I think.

…

NOV 18

Its gonna be a busy week so… why not share my tabletop OC’s playlist (the one I’m writing TAKE OUT for):

01. Nowhere Kid — Des Rocs
02. Goodbye Stranger — Supertramp
03. Aha! — Pentatonix
04. Happy Idiot — TV On The Radio
05. Love Me, Normally — Will Wood
06. Take Me Out — Franz Ferdinand
07. Back Against The Wall — Cage The Elephant
08. Spanish Armada — Ratatat
09. Two Against One — Danger Mouse, Daniele Luppi, Jack White
10. Side Character — Cloudfodder
11. Leave Me Alone — I DON’T KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME
12. Lampshades On Fire — Modest Mouse
13. Makeshifter — The Kite Machine
14. Dangerous — Big Data, Joywave
15. The Rifle’s Spiral — The Shins
16. The Kintsugi Kid (Ten Years) — Fall Out Boy

This one is … considerably bigger than XENIA’s but that’s kind of what happens when you get really attached to an OC you’re tabletopping for. The first like 6-10 tracks built most of JD’s backstory which is what I’m currently scribbling so fast through this month’s NaNo.

…

NOV 25

The month’s getting rocky, we’re about to head into the holiday rush (missed 2 3 days being at a convention with long hours and, ironically, playing the TTRPG game the MC from my current draft is in).

Current wc: 41,101 41,832
NaNo on-track wc: 41,675

so we fell behind a bit (though I was already pretty sure it was going to happen, this week was BUSY but really good). Time to hurry and finish it up this week hehe-

Just kiddin’ we’re back on tOP baby~

…

NOV 30

If my math is RIGHT– that’s 50,000+ words baby. That’s a WRAP (yeah its like 13 minutes into December–I’m still counting it).

Doing my little NaNo recap tomorrow to wrap this post up and that’s IT baby~

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THE RECAP

So this month was a little bit hectic, a little bit of a mess. I don’t usually split my attention between multiple projects but one Seriously needed finishing (Dragon’s Breath) and one needed to push through some Progress (Xenia).

XENIA was admittedly supposed to be my NaNo project this year but the story is going through the big Self Doubt phase and I needed a little something to rebuild my confidence. Needless to say I think TAKE OUT has been a good easy side project for me to work on. All of my current projects (with and without my partner) are all guilty pleasures in some way, shape or form but I needed something a bit more different and out there.

I’m experimenting with storytelling.

I think its important in self-publishing to have fun in different mediums, to follow what makes things easy and comfortable for you to write in. I think there’s a really fun element to reading a script (maybe that’s just my film-student side). Scripts are straightforward, little fluff. I don’t have to worry about the dialogue-tag discourse (I think both descriptive and “said” function for different writing styles and different instances btw).

Anyway.

Sometimes a writing challenge is the only way to get yourself out of a block and into the deep end. Sometimes you just have to power through the hard bits and finish the draft. It’s a sketch it’s not the final product.
Also…
It was really fun keeping a log of my progress and sharing some of my inspirations this month with whoever of you might be reading this. <3

Maybe you’ll join me (again?) next year… hehe.

For now… keep your eyes peeled. I’ll likely be posting TAKE OUT in it’s entirety up here once I finish editing it ;v;/