Friday, April 29, 2011

Catch Up Month

Well, according to the chart on the right I am majorly behind on my goals. Like, way. I was hoping this wouldn't happen this year. Last year I didn't make my goal either and I really don't want to do that this year. So May is catch up month.

I'm going to call it May Madness! Cause, you know, that makes it sound cool n'stuff.

I'm not sure whether I should do like NaNoWriMo and aim for 50k, or go insane and aim for 100k. I think I'm leaning towards insane since I've got some major catching up to do. The game plan is to do a post on the first to mark the beginning of May Madness and then do an update every Friday until the end of May.

If I aim for the 100k that means 3,226 words a day. I think I need something challenging right now to get back into the swing of things.

If any one else wants to do this with me, go for it! Some friendly competition could be fun :)

How are your goals going? And do you like the new everything look?

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

My - Real - Map

Good news! I finally - finally! - have an official map for my world!


Drawing a map for the place you write about - a place that doesn't exist on earth - is really really hard, a lot harder than I had originally thought. The first map I posted on here, I thought that one was it. I had the whole entire world right there, and then I realised that the story wasn't going to happen over the entire world, and the map grew sour for my story. So I drew another one. Again, drawing the whole world and then choosing the specific place in the world the story would take place. Didn't work. I drew at least five maps before I gave up. And then, when thinking about my story one day, when thinking about the different countries and peoples, a map came to mind. I hardly even noticed that I was imagining the map of my world and it almost slipped away before I realized what I was seeing. This map was what I saw, and it's sticking. I can imagine the story taking place here, something that I wasn't able to do with all the others.

So, that's one thing taken care of :D

The map doesn't look more realistic like the first one I did, I colored it this way to make it look more map like, more like something you'd see in a book. I'll probably end up doing a satellite-esque one sometime though.

Does anyone else have this much trouble creating a map?

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Meeting Patrick Rothfuss

When Patrick Rothfuss (author of The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear) had his book tour last month, I didn't go to his signing because, well, the drive was way too far. I kicked myself when I woke the day of his signing, already too late in the day.

But then, a miracle.

A couple unexpected signings. In April.

And one would be near where I live. Again.

And this time I went.

It was awesome!

First though, me and my mom had to drive four hours to get there when the book store opened at 9:00 am. Which meant we woke at 3am and left home at 4. And I didn't get a wink of sleep that night. And then, when we got there at 8 we were lucky that one of the workers were handing out the tickets for those who came early, lucky for us so we didn't have to wait an hour in the parking lot.

And then we had to wait.

You see, the signing wasn't to be until 7 pm. That means we were in an unfamiliar city with. . .11 hours before the signing.

The bookstore was near a bunch of other stores, so after eating me and my mom walked around to pass the time but we had already walked all the stores by about 12 and then there wasn't anything to do so we got back in the car and I started reading my book (I wasn't quite finished with his second book yet) and after an hour I could hardly keep my eyes open cause I was so sleep deprived so I took turns napping and reading until 3:30 at which time we moved into the book store to wait.

Thankfully we did because Patrick arrived early at five.

Patrick Rothfuss is a very inspiring person. He is so passionate about the world he has created and his story, he's also very careful not to spoil anything for those who haven't read his books yet. And he's downright funny. He read a humor column that he did for a newspaper back when he was in college and someone got him to sing. He sang You are my Sunshine. (I don't know why that's not on youtube yet since he let everyone record that). And it was just generally awesome and fun.

I ended up buying his series again since we had to buy something from the bookstore and I didn't have the US version of the books yet, and baught his Not For Kids fairytale book (The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Wiffle) Which is pretty funny once you get to the end and then reread it and see all the signs. . .

I got two pictures with him and a hug.

Over all, totally awesome and giving me a huge inspiration boost!

Oh, and I met some guy there that had some really interesting theories about what might happen in the last book and now I want to reread his series, this time with my eyes peeled.

Happy reading and writing everyone!!

Monday, April 4, 2011

Sorry for the Hiatus

 
I know I haven't been on the blog for awhile, I haven't had much time. I never meant to stay away from here this long, sorry guys. I've been busy attempting to set up a website, checking out the drawing tablet I've recently got and a bunch of other things that have kept me away from the blog.

Unfortunately this means I haven't gotten much writing done. But I have figured out how to fix a plot hole regarding Siron's mother! Thankfully not too much is changing because of this.

I've also watched this very interesting movie called Pan's Labyrinth, it's a sort of fairytale for adults and well worth the watch! Gave me some inspiration for my book and showed me a bit of how to make things a bit scarier. Also, I'll bet you've never seen a fantasy/fairytale quite like it!

I've received the second book in the Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear! The book is 3 pages from being 1,000 pages long! The largest fiction book I've ever owned, the thing is a monster! I've got to hurry up and read it before he gets to the book signing he's doing over here later this month! Well, it's not really near here since I'll have to drive a few hours to get there, but it'll be worth it!

And have you guys heard about Claire Legrand getting a book deal? That's so awesome! That's two people I've seen so far get a book deal, with Tehereh, on these blogs and it's so inspiring!

Also, I'll be posting less on here, probably once or twice a week so I can concentrate on my writing and reading and everything else going on at the moment.

Until the next post!

(I promise it won't be a month from now.)

(For real.)

(I mean it.)