I just noticed that after Chapter XXVIII I restart the numbers at XXIV instead of XXIX. One simple typo and my chapter numberings are messed up for the rest of the book. And--aw man--I did it again in the XXXs. Clearly, Roman numerals are just too complicated for me to handle. Total chapters is actually 62(?) + 3 introductions.
Google Webmaster Tools to the rescue!
Okay, so I said I was going to edit, but then didn't do anything beyond that first day. Poo on me.
But thanks to Google Webmaster Tools, I've just found a quite significant error: Hilfa's real name is Hilfa. [Edit: WTF? Hilsa. Hilfa's real name is Hilsa.)
Apparently, the top (read: only) query for my website is 'hilfa fish'. Initially, I thought I was polluting the results for people wanting to learn about the type of fish knows as the hilfa, but a bit of checking reveals that it's actually knows as a 'Hilsa'. In fact, I knew this initially. There is exactly one occurrence of 'Hilsa' in the entire novel, her initial entrance in Day 4. The other one hundred (exactly) mentions of her name all call her 'Hilfa'.
I suppose I'll just to a simple replace, but maybe I'll later insert a running joke where Fin keeps calling her 'Hilfa'.
Or I could add a line or two where she explains (or the narrator explains) that her father'd had a tendency to mispronounce words, and he'd named her 'Hilfa' due to this. Nah. s/Hilfa/Hilsa/g;
(I seem to remember having trouble remembering how to spell her name while writing, but I guess I never looked back to the initial spelling and just settled on the wrong one.)
Okay, so I'm finally starting a bit of editing. I started by catting it all into one huge file. Then I went through updating the chapter titles to include chapter numbers and putting them in order. Just doing this made me realise, holy hell, this is long!
The chapter titles, of course, hae some problems. 'Deadlines Approaching' refers to me being nearing midnight, not something happening in the story. 'A Noisy Arrival in a Noisy Town' turned out not to have the arrival, which ended up happening in 'For Real This Time'.
There is no Chapter XXXXIII.
Then there's the actual content. Chapter II needs bit of fixing up. Chapter III needs to be scrapped or rewritten in full or something. Chapter XVII has to exist, but needs to be much, much better and well-thought-out. What else? I don't know. Lots.
When I awoke this morning, I moved my lapop back up onto my desk as I always do.
It turned off.
It's been doing this a lot lately. According to my sources, it has a broken pin that needs resoldering. Luckily, so long as I don't bump the cord, it's not a problem, so I just plugged it back in so I could turn it back on and all would be fine until I moved it again tonight.
Only, this time it decided it was really screwed for good. It won't stay powered for more than a few seconds. I have around two hours of battery time to use when I'm ready, and then it's gone until I disassemble, solder a pin on the motherboard (I've never soldered anything before), and reassmeble.
I sohuld point out that:
* Compaq notebooks have apparently been plagued with this problem since 2004 or before.
* The fuckers, as of 2005, had not yet said 'Hey, let's fix our goddamn soldering process'.
* Compaq is the devil.
So, anyway, my 500MHz Linux box is quite slow with anything graphical. Normally I wouldn't need anything graphical, but I do for Blogger. Or, Elinks wasn't working. No DOM. Makes for very limited JavaScript support.
Also, [almost] all my text versions of my NaNo were only on the laptop, so getting them to verify was a pain.
I got 49997 and had several contenders for hte last three words:
* 'The bloody end.'
* 'To be continued...'
* 'Compack bleeding sucks.'
I went with the second, but let me make this perfectly clear: Compaq bleeding sucks.
The Day's Text
Words today: 374
Words total: 50000
Target total: 46666.666 repeating
124.666 more per day or (more likely) 374 tomorrow. Plus a little bit over.
The volcano story was shorter than I anticipated. But it's cool. A short bit of Sylvia tomorrow, then perhaps some fiddling about. Hilfa's age is the only thing that I know needs fixing (beyond a few typos I've noticed), but I'd like to insert mentions of these nozzles being dragged around by the army.
The Day's Text
Words today: 728
Words total: 49626
Target total: 45000
Again, next to nothing before midnight. But enough after. This morning, I needed 411.2 words per day. Now I need 275.5. Gaining!
I discovered there's no Chapter XXXXIII. Nothing really fits in there. Maybe an additional Sylvia chapter, but at this point, I think the historic volcano will take more words than I need, so volcano+ending Sylvia+XXXXIII Sylvia = lots of words.
The Day's Text
Words today: 954
Words total: 48898
Target total: 43333.333 repeating
I believe I wrote under a hundred words before midnight, but then I stayed up really late, like, until now (4:20am here) writing. Got lots done. More than half.
In addition to getting a fair bit written, I now have a aside to write: The tale of the volcano. Lots of kissing and not enough swordfights. Turns out at the end that you can't stop a volcano with just toothpicks. (But maybe that you can with a trained military battalion.) Perhaps the volcano is Kukukillapacawowdomingobarajibjab. But probably not.
I only have two things left to write, though:
Volcano
Silvia
1 028 words each. Volcano will have to be long, because I don;t think Sylvia will be.
Also, I think the volcano aside will be inserted as Chapter XXXXVI, bumping up the other two.
The Day's Text
Words today: 2073
Words total: 47944
Target total: 41666.666 repeating
I realised that Chapter XXXXI ('Paths Cross') wasn't really finished, so I've continued from it today. Next, I think should be Leath before the final decision is made.
TODO:
* Leath decides mission should be abandoned
* They abandon missions and decided to visit the Isle of the Gods.
* Maybe Phil picks up the escaped prisoners.
* Sylvia heads north.
I'll probably also want another aside or two. You know, historic bits, fables, and whatnot.
Low wordcount again, but I'm gaining:
Words per day to finish on time, as of the beginning of the day: 721.142857
Words per day to finish on time, as of the end of the day: 688.16666...
Of course, if I did words per thread to tie up, I'm not doing quite so well. That's why I need to think up an aside or two.
The Day's Text
Words today: 919
Words total: 45871
Target total: 40000
Okay, so I didn't reach 1666.666... words for the day. I don't mind. I got some hard stuff done, tying up the Ravioli/Gar/Biscotti bit with a cliffhanger for Part II. I only need 793.5 words per day at this point and I got a fair bit more than that.
I now have about four things left to do. This makes for 1262 words for each, but I suspect the Fin-Dallywonk joint group will consume a disproportionate share of it.
A couple weeks ago, I started listing the various threads so I could look at it and pick one I could stand to write that day, and so I could see what had been ignored for the longest. Here are the threads as I see them now and what I intend to do with them (ordered by last written ascending order):
I wrote most of this in the last hour before midnight. It went nicely towards the end, though I hated writing earlier today. I HATES IT!
There was one problem: I introduced Dudders and then promptly forgot he even existed until morning. I had to go back and add a bit about him. But it's all good now.
Also, I realised about half an hour ago that BattleJesus had been right in telling me to hurry the plot along a day or two ago. I'm only just finishing up the set-up right now. I have half the plot to go and only 6 348 words until victory.
Oh well. Maybe aliens will put an abrupt end to these events when they tire of watching and drop nukes on the planet. (Oh, dang! I just realised that my stock cutshort ending won't work because no one dies in this war.)
The Day's Text
Words today: 1731
Words total: 43652
Target total: 36666.666 repeating
Gah, I /SO/ should have ended the day with 42k.
Okay, this crate should be picked up by the Phil or the pirates who joined the organisation.
That's all.
The Day's Text
Words today: 1672
Words total: 41921
Target total: 35000
Damn it.
I'll write some more, post-midnight.
The Day's Text
Words today: 1697
Words total: 40249
Target total: 33333.333 repeating
Okay, done. Not much, but enough to counter Day 18's low count.
The Day's Text
Words today: 176
Words total: 38552
Target total: 31666.666 repeating
Okay, I didn't make up for it, but I will. I'm not totally tired, so I'm going to finish this chapter before bed and post it as day 19.5.
The Day's Text
Words today: 2034
Words total: 38376
Target total: 31666.666 repeating
Caffeine is bad for you. Drugs bad, kids.
Only around 1800 words today, but I finally have a chance to fix my sleeping patterns (maybe), so I'm going to bed early. Very tired. Didn't sleep last night. Got a few hours this afternoon.
I'll write extra tomorrow. I promise.
The Day's Text
Words today: 1826
Words total: 36342
Target total: 30000
I wrote over 300 words after midnight last night because I'll not be writing much/any tonight, most likely. I'll be up all night, so I may be super!tired tomorrow as well. Hopefully I'll get it done, though.
Today's stuff didn't get much plotwork, but the Fin Co. is moving along.
The Day's Text
Words today: 2063
Words total: 34516
Target total: 28333.333 repeating
I don't know what to do with Fin and Co. now. They're just walking. Seems kind of boring to write about.
Once the two covert ops groups meet up, I'm thinking thy might take a secret ancient underground subway like thing to the coast. You know, to save time, writing, and whatever. But I don't know.
I did finally get something done with the prisoners Gar talked to. Nothing with Gar, but this is a start. However, I must remember to review 'An Explosive Turn of Events'. Guenter and Warren's personalities and speech are probably completely different there.
The Day's Text
Words today: 2279
Words total: 32453
Target total: 26666.666 repeating
Okay, so I was checking around for some reference regarding how far these northern dweebs have to walk. And, well, Germany has 1480 miles of coastline. Did you know that? That's a lot of coastline. It looks closer to three hundred miles, but coastline is all wrinkly, making it actually really, really long.
Luckily, Fin and Co. don't follow the coastline. And Sawbill isn't at the top of the nation. And the border isn't at the bottom of Halley's old realm. I figure they only have to travel about 400 miles to reach the border. Various things seem to suggest that these people can maybe get 50 miles per day (or a lot more or a lot less) on horseback, and I have a friend who's walked over thirty miles in a single day, so surely! (Of course, that was with very few supplies. Thirty-six miles took her three days when heavily loaded. Horses, though, can carry the load.)
The last chapter, starring Biscotti is valuable. I wrote it, gaining a lot of fast wordcount, and then fixed it up some more. It's not super!excellent, but it solves plot paradoxes (Biscotti must have known Delmer's name if he hired and betrayed him, so why the trip for Gar?) and tells the reader (and finally me!) what's going on with Gar and Ravioli and Biscotti. I needed that. They've been much ignored due to me having now idea what to write.
The Day's Text
Words today: 2350
Words total: 30174
Target total: 25000
I set Dallywonk and Co. up to get lost, giving Fin and co time to get down to the border. I think they'll need horses, though. And a timeshift. I MUST REMEMBER: They get horses in THIS chapter. Not the next one. Maybe horses just happen to turn up along the trail. Maybe Fin steals them from some other travellers. Maybe they go into a town. But /before the chapter ends/. I named it to have horses. LEt's finally get something right with the chapter naming thing.
Oh, and I forgot to make the Pesce be polite and formal with each other for a bit. I had to go back and repair their dialogue. Added 107 easy words. Then I wrote some where they weren't so long-winded. But they were all panicked, sort of, having just fled a bear. So maybe it's okay.
But why, oh why do the Pesce sometimes speak almost like Middle English people and sometimes like 'normal' people? I suck.
Note: at some point, I need to mention Snook saying 'Fate!' from the Tan's perspective.
The Day's Text
Words today: 2123
Words total: 27824
Target total: 23333.333 repeating
