I've published my Nanowrimo novel on Read/Write Web as an HTML file. The PDF version will have to wait till Monday. I tried to use the Adobe Online Conversion service, but I couldn't get the file size under 600KB for some reason (which is odd because the Word file is only 350KB). So I'll use Distiller at my work on Monday.
Update, Monday 1 Dec: A PDF version of my novel is now available:
50,060 words. Completed in 27 days. The new name of my novel is: Dirt-side to Space-side. This is a NASA term for the Interplanetary Internet. I'll post a PDF version of my novel in the next day or two (once I correct the spelling mistakes).
Looks like I'm the second Nanowrimo winner from Wellington, New Zealand. Am feeling calm and happy. Exhausted, but satisfied. Over the next few weeks I will write more about what I've learned and the process of writing a novel in a month. Thanks to everyone who wrote encouraging comments. The Two-Way Web is a beautiful thing. Peace.
The penultimate day. 48,011 words (ch. 54 onwards). One more night's writing to go. I think I'm bringing together all the threads in time. I can't wait to finish now, although I'll probably miss it once I am finished. But I won't miss the late nights and early mornings. It's 1am as I write this.
One day to go, one day to go, hee hee.
46,253 words. Here's the latest (chapter 49 onwards). Two more nights to go and I'll be finished. Yesterday was quite difficult and I wasn't satisfied with my writing. I couldn't get in The Zone. No flow mojo. Thankfully today was easier and I was back in rhythm. I even went back and patched up yesterday's work a little bit. Perhaps it is nerves leading up to the final days of this novel. I'm looking forward to finishing. I've got my eye on the latest Pearl Jam CD - Lost Dogs - as a reward for my effort. Hey, it all helps with the motivation :-)
42,448 words - nearly 85% done. The end of chapter 46 is here, then I started a new page for chapter 47 onwards.
While walking in the local park today, feeding the ducks on a lovely sunny breezy Sunday with my wife and two-year old daughter, I had some ideas for the ending of my novel. It's amazing what fresh air will do. btw my wife said the other day that I have aliens on the brain. Heh.
I'm looking forward to completing my novel by end of this week. It'll be a load off my mind, but also something real and tangible that I'll have accomplished.
Saturday morning as I write this. I will have more words to contribute later this weekend, but for now I'm at 39,564 words. Here's the latest (ch. 44 onwards).
36,119 words. Here's the latest (ch.42 onwards).
I'd be interested to know if anyone is reading this and if so, what are your thoughts. I don't have much time to respond to your comments, but I do appreciate them.
34,094 words. The latest is here. Yesterday and today was spent writing a long chapter 41, where the main character Declan is inserted into a virtual world as an avatar. I surprised myself with some William Burroughs-like imagery to descibe the virtual world. It's likely to need some tidying up when I finally get a chance to do a revision of my novel.
I've got about 16,000 words to go, which I hope to finish with a couple of days to spare. I can see the finish line now, so my morale is quite good. I'm learning a lot doing this novel, which I'll share with you in December when I have some spare time :-)
30,125 words. Chapter 37 onwards. Two weeks to go, at 10,000 words per week. I feel I'm on the home straight!
27,563 words. Here's the latest (ch. 34 onwards). I'm hoping to reach the 30,000 mark by end of tomorrow. That will give me a nice round figure to aim for of 10,000 words per week for the final two weeks.
I'm enjoying having two storylines intertwining now. On the one hand, Declan Atomz is now beginning to understand the alien world. It'll be interesting to see how far this character goes (grows?). The other more recently introduced storyline is about Dave Darwin and his social software company called "Social Kinetics". I think I've come up with a new type of social software (well, as it deals with multimedia it wouldn't surprise me if Marc Canter has already done it). Here's a description from my novel - but to get the full picture, you'll have to read the rest of it ;-)
Today was the day Dave would announce Social-Kineticís new social software product to the world. The product was simply named after the company - ìSocial Kineticsî - and it was made up of three main ingredients: firstly it was an online community space on the Web, which was like other online communities. That is, it was a website with a URL (web address) and, in order to use the website, people were required to sign-up and register an account. The second main ingredient was the personality assessment and physical body mapping. Once a person had registered to become a member of the ìSocial Kineticsî community, that person would fill in a questionnaire to establish the basic parameters of their personality. This was a very superficial personality type, similar to Myers-Briggs. Social Kinetics had 50 initial ìtypesî (eventually the number of types would number in the hundreds). The person would also have a ìmappingî done of their face and body, so as to approximate their physical appearance in the avatar. The software and management team had decided on the following policy: people must use mappings of their own person as a base for their avatars. This decision was driven by Daveís philosophy that people should not be able to ìhideî behind an avatar. The principle of ìWhat you see is what you getî should apply, so that people learned to trust one another and be honest with their interactions in the community. Dave felt that if people could select a graphical online persona like in previous examples of virtual worlds - a wizard, or a dog, or a green two-headed alien ñ then that would only encourage other falsities. The purpose of Social Kinetics was to encourage people to extend themselves via their avatars - meet new people, and make new connections. Dave felt that a big determining factor in the success of his software was that the avatar should approximate its human owner as much as possible ñ not just personality but physical likeness. The third ingredient was the avatar software itself. Once a personality was assigned and physical characteristics mapped, the customer would be given an avatar. At that point the avatar would join the community and at the same time begin to build up its own identity, by collecting and aggregating data about its owner.
P.S. I miss my blog! There are some real interesting things happening in the blog world right now. Particularly Dave Winer's new category-based blog design. His use of categories is not quite the same as topics that e-vectors and Phil Pearson are doing. But it's pretty damn close. I suggested in a couple of comments that it'd be great to add a "topic" tag to the RSS2.0 spec. It would be a sub-element of the "item" tag, just like the "category" tag (that Dave is using). I agree with Paulo and Marc that a "category" is different to "topic", but in practice they are complimentary. Dave's use of categories seems to give more scope for heirarchic organisation, while using topics gives a flatter and (IMHO) more flexible organisation. It'll be interesting to see how it evolves. Anyway, all this is inspiring my next idea for a project - a re-design of my own weblog! There goes December ;-)
P.P.S. if you're wondering, here's a description of Nanowrimo.
P.P.P.S. GO THE ALL BLACKS!!!
