The figures I was able to find suggest that a typical grenade filling is about 30cc of TNT. And a Zippo lighter just doesn't have the volume. (I was being really nasty and thinking of mustard gas.)
And some space would be taken up by the firing mechanism, which has to be triggered by the action which would light a real lighter.
(Q-branch would have a hard time in my stories.)
44,570 words
I'm going to hit the target, that's for sure.
A 1930's cigarette lighter rigged as a bomb: it explodes with the first flick.
The characters know it isn't likely to kill the victim, but it's nasty. A chap could lose his fingers and it's within inches of his face.
Does that sound a reasonable assessment?
And 40,247 now.
Things feel easier than they did last year. I don't know if the story, as a whole, is any better, and I started today with the heroine barrel-rolling a four-engined flying boat over the Niagara Falls.
The casualty rate is much lower than last year. But I have ideas t deal with that.
Hit a bit of a sticky patch, but I hope I'm through it. I could reach 40,000 words today, if things go well this evening.
If not today, then tomorrow.
34,272
But it's the Doctor Who special tomorrow.
And I'm not sure that I want to watch it.
Up to 31800...
Doesn't feel like a good day, as I lost some time replacing a very small, very old, boot drive on my computer. But still ahead of the daily quota needed for 50000 words in November.
Thursday wasn't a good day.
But, rather than throw away a chunk of rather awkward text that didn't really fit, a couple of lines turned it into a nightmare.
Works for NaNoWriMo, not a good answer for publication
And I'm just past 29,900 words, which isn't bad, considering.
28,238 words
Which would have made another 3000 word day if I'd updated a litte earlier. So Thursday is going to look a big day, if it goes as well.
Charlie's worries are mounting. He thought things were good, but his complacency--maybe that's not quite the right word--is getting repeatedly challenged.
And Helen isn't there to talk with.
I've reached the daily target, just short of 1700 words, which is the average for 50,000 words in 30 days. Where I am, I only need to average 1250 words, but I want to do better than that.
Anyway, one of the bigger personal secrets has been tumbled out before the reader.
There was some maintenance downtime announced for the NoNoWriMo site yesterday.
NoNoWriMo "buddying": put the name you've been given into the Search page on the site.
I have heard of several fannish types who are at about the half-way stage.
I've now cleared 25,000 words in 10 days.
I beginng to see what so many mega-novels are multi-threaded. When you hit a sticky patch on one thread, switch to something else. I wonder how many have the published thread-switches set up rather differently to the writing sequence.
A couple of thousand words genuinely today, so far.
23616 running total.
Check for "Antonia_Tiger" if you want a writing buddy, waybe us Making Light types should be in better contact.
(I know have two couples each split by some 85 degrees of longitude, a Prince delivered to his family, and assorted villainous types udentified. Time to bring in the ninja?)
Monday was a 2500-word day, but I only got about half that logged on the website, because it stopped updating.
Nicola, when you come across somebody like that, tell them that they have a good name for a character.
15746 words at the end of the first week, some of them a bit dire. On the other hand, Charlie has just discovered that the Holy Office are sending an investigator. And I have slipped in the obligatory Spanish Inquisition reference: an explanation of just why nobody should expect the Spanish Inquisition.
And over on the other side of the world, Alberto Gonzales, anarchist and Catholic, is in Spain. A sort of a cross between Tom Wintringham and David Stirling.
13600 words and still writing this evening. I'll stop at the viewpoint break, and I don't think this last section is all that good. But words are words.
Quote of the day: When Lady Carol walked in, all red fur and black leather, it was generally reckoned to be the first time anyone had seen Charlie Bellman drop his pipe and not start shooting his pistol. This was, of course, an exaggeration. Sometimes he had used a knife.
This is 1937. Lady Carol is the widow of the Duke of Stepney, and Charlie Bellman's step-mother-in-law.
The big thing I learned last year was that I'm not a dreadful writer, even in the bad bits. There are sections of the text which aren't as good, but they suffice to bridge a gap. I have, perhaps, been too self-critical in the past. And that helped me get quite a few bits of stuff done since. It's a question of confidence.
The word count matters most, but I managed to write a story which held together, and reached a conclusion.
I'm not quite trying to do the same this year. I do want to get somewhere, but I'm hoping to get enough laid out, pin down the characters, to develop into more than one story. Think of a Hary Turtledove alternate history, with far too many characters. You can split it up, and have the essentials of several different stories laid out.
Oh, before I forget: running total 10122 words. It hasn't been a good day, but I'm satisfied to reach the landmark.
Total at end of day, I want to let the next bit stew in my fevered mind, 8258 words.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2009 | 42 |
| 2008 | 8 |
| 2007 | 4 |
| 2006 | 2 |
| 2004 | 1 |
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