so I, like many others, am two days into NaNo. My word count is a little lacking, but I am not concerned. I was down 600 on day one and I am only down 400 as of last night (a net gain of 200). This isn't too bad considering I am only writing in quick bursts of 5-10 minutes at a time throughout the day. The strategy seems to be working and I should be ahead by the end of the week, just in time to go visit my sister and her new son (My nephew is a brute at 9 pounds 3 ounces). I am hoping the hotel time is productive time, following the same strategy of bursting. We will see.
In other news, Halloween was fun. The local funeral parlor had someone dressed as a zombie out front. I should have taken a picture, but I am not that quick. I promise if they do it again next year I will snap away.
Also I found out that the issue I have with my word processing software could be costing me sales. When I format in .rtf it does wonky things to the spacing, some of it is doubled, some of it isn't. Things that are centered aren't anymore and my headers are gone completely in some cases. Lucky for me I have a friend who is an IT guy and is giving me his old copy of Office 2003. I look forward to it.
Happy NaNo, everyone!
More Little boats: Poleacre and America's
2 weeks ago
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10 comments:
Enjoy your family visit and keep Naoing...
Cate- I plan on it.
Are you using NeoOffice? It does the same crap to my documents. I thought it was only doing it when I opened them, but sending them intact. Then I started getting word from editors that it was still wonky. At least one editor did not give me the benefit of the doubt.
If you want a simple, intuitive program that doesn't suck balls, I say go with Nisus Writer Pro. RTF is its "go to" format and it does a beautiful job with headers.
Nat- I have been using Open Office for a while now, and I love it, but this thing with the .rtf has finally come to a head with me. I format I save, I reformat, I save again, I look at it and think I have it right, send it off and then I look at it again and smack my head into the desk in frustration.
Not sure how you're going to manage NaNo in bursts - you're more disciplined than I could ever be. I wish you the best of luck.
As for the formatting thing: we are all trying to gain publishing credits and move forward on that journey to the book deal of a lifetime! (cough - sorry)
Thing is, we have enough hurdles to jump without adding dodgy writing software. It is probably worthwhile to fork out (or "obtain") the world standard and ensure we don't have those issues (You can even claim it on tax against your future earnings). People say all sorts of things about M$ but we need to face the fact that most people use it, and it does the word processing thing very well.
It is not a sin to use it. It is a crime to be overlooked if the editor believes you're not following the guidelines on formating...and you did everything you could to make it perfect.
Trust me, I know. Get the proper software.
Hey man, NaNoing in bursts is the way to go. I find it much easier to hop in and out of a novel in short bursts. No idea why.
Any word count is a good word count.
Ann dropped by my blog to tell me that the zombie made her think of me. I feel absurdly flattered by this. ;)
I have the same problem with .rtf spacing being off. I've never figured out how to fix it. I use Open Office usually so that may be the problem. I have Word on my old computer, at least.
Hi ggreat reading your blog
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