Twas the Night Before NaNo

Twas the night before NaNo and all through the night,
Every Wrimo was waiting for the stroke of midnight.
Computer and paper was out and prepared,
For NaNo was, finally, practically there.

Coffee was brewed, or tea steeped if you wished,
Work was forsaken and school was dismissed,
Sleep would not come on this night of the year,
For NaNo was, finally, practically here.

Wrimos waited, breath bated, fingers twitching to type,
On this one and only most anticipated of nights.
Time went by slowly like water through stone,
NaNo was so close yet it seemed so remote.

Browsing the forums of the NaNo website,
Eyes constantly flicking to the clock on the right.
It's 11:59, so close to the start,
NaNo's finally upon us, it will finally start.

--

Just something that kinda popped into my head. :) It makes me smile so maybe it'll make some of you all smile.

Unfortunately, I can't do like the poem says and dismiss school tonight. I've got an early start tomorrow and haven't had any good rest for weeks so I need all I can or I will fall asleep during class. I might, might, be able to get some writing in, in the morning before class but I probably won't get to write anything until the afternoon or evening. (It's a six hour class. Unfortunately. Argh!)

I hope everyone has a merry, merry NaNo! :D

It's Coming. . .

NaNoWriMo, that is!

October has come, the site has reset and now it's time to get down to business.

All year I have been trying to figure out and unravel the plot, characters and world of the Chronicles of Siron. I have been thinking about Sun Touched and have many new, more powerful ideas for it. Another idea just recently came to me, different from the ones I usually get. It's probably in the middle grade or YA area, but I still like the idea. I think it may be too early to start writing it though.

And so now to start the new outlines and make the new covers and synopsis's and summaries and all those exciting things! I can't wait for NaNo to start but at the same time I feel completely unprepared. I think this may be the hardest year for me as I'm still living in such a small area and have been stressed out lately. But aside from that, I'm still excited! :)

I've already bought a load of tea and discovered a lovely tea store in the mall called Teavana, which I am in love with now! They've got so many different teas. And the tea pots! They are so beautiful! I think that is where I will go to get my tea set when my new bedroom is ready to be decorated.

And then. . . Just yesterday I did something crazy. I got my hair colored! I colored it a dark purple and then did a blonde umbre. And the hair cut with it; bangs and long hair. I absolutely love it! I've been wanting to color my hair for a long time now and I've finally done it!

Internets!!

Internet!!

My gosh it's been too long without internet. It felt like. . . like there was just not as much to do as usual. I hope I don't have to deal with that again. Downside is that there's only 1gb of speed so it takes a bit longer for some things to load than I'm used to. And videos? Omg, if it's not in the lowest quality setting I have to wait longer than the length of the video for it to load. But I can browse pretty okay so alls. . .okay.

In other news: We're halfway moved to the shop. We got all the important things, beds, fridge, other stuff that we use often. We pretty much just have the craft room, garage and other small spaces to move, and the garden dirt, then we're done! I can't wait till then, I hate, hate, hate! moving. And then. . . then we start putting up the walls for the new house in the shop. I can't wait until that either!

Anyways, while I was away from the internets an amazing thing happened! I read and finished (the finishing part is very important here) four, FOUR books! I read Crank by Ellen Hopkins, finished Shatter Me by Tehereh Mafi, which was awesome, loved it!, and read the last two books of the Hunger Games series! Which was really awesome as well! I can't believe that! It's been so long since I've read and finished any books and it feels so great :D

And then I found out that the Hunger Games movie comes out next month! I mean, I knew they were making the movie but I thought it would be coming out late this year cause they always seem to talk about the movies like two years before they actually come out. So I will hopefully definitely be seeing that movie in theaters when it is released if I can scrape a bit of money together.

Also, the no internet thing gave me a jump start on my art as well. I got some stuff in the works for my book which I think I'll post here soon!

So, till next time!

:)

Nano Day 5

So today was great! I went to another write in and wrote about 5k words today. I've got a total of 14,441 words, 10k of them in my story Sun Touched. Things are going pretty awesomely with Sun Touched really. I didn't know how far I'd get with the idea before I got stumped but ideas are popping up like crazy and the general idea of the plot, saving the world from a dying sun, is coming along nicely.

I'm really glad I switched from the Chronicles to Sun Touched because when I had been writing the Chronicles I was getting stumped and I wasn't even 5k into it yet. With Sun Touched? Bring. It. ON!

I'll go ahead and explain a little bit more about the characters (because I can).

Dalon Av Baen is 159 years old and lost his power a century ago when the sun began to die. His outlook on life is predominantly negative and memories haunt him. He's pessimistic, sarcastic, and I like writing him :) I view him as the main character of the story even though his POV time is split with. . .

Nara Belvene. A sun-touched around 20 years old. She is rather optimistic and this irritates Dalon to no end. She thinks she might be able to save the world and drags Dalon from place to place as she tries to figure out how to do this.

I like writing about both of them because while Dalon is very negative, Nara is more positive and I like the contrast between their POV's.

Anyways, I'm getting to a part of the book that will be exciting. I think I may be getting close to the first plot point. They're about to come upon the ruins of a sorcerer city. There will be some rather nasty surprises there, and some good ones too. But for some reason I can't wait to write about the nasty ones. I almost feel bad for my characters, they have such a cruel author. *evil grin*

My grandparents are coming to visit tomorrow (Sunday) so we'll see how much writing I get in. If I wake up early I might be able to get some writing in but somehow I don't think that will happen. Seeing as I'm writing this at 1 o'clock in the morning. Cause that's how I roll.

Goodnight everyone! Have happy dreams of making things unbearably difficult for your characters! :D

The First Few Days

Augh! I was wanting to post everyday but I didn't Dx Well, here I am now so. . .

Day 1, I went to the midnight kickoff. It was a bit subdued, probably cause it was midnight or something. I got in about 2.5k before I left at about 2:30am. And then after sleeping I wrote about 2-2.5k more. So all in all a pretty good day :)

Except, well, I started out writing The Chronicles of Siron like planned and then I had a sudden plot bunny about something totally different about the sun dying and stuff and now I'm writing that instead because it has a simple but - what I think is a - compelling plot. Compared to The Chronicles which is endlessly complicated and I'm very indecisive on many points of the plot.

Day 2, I wrote about 2.5k more. (what's with all the 2.5k's?)

And then today, day 3, I wrote nothing until the write in at a coffee shop near by, where I wrote about 3k and won both 15 minute word sprints by writing more than 700 words both times. That's, like, the most I've ever written in that amount of time. I usually average at about 1k every half hour if I'm really writing, but 700 every 15 minutes? That blew my mind.

Today's write in was fun. We all laughed about milking sheep and dolphin cheese XD It's nice to write with other wrimos in real life. I can't wait to go to more!

So my total wordcount so far is 9,189, so far so good!

As for my 'new idea' I'm calling it Sun Touched and here's the synopsis:

Dalon Av Baen, former sorcerer, lost his power 98 years ago when the sun began to die. Now with winters growing long and cold, he has done his best to blend with the others and forget his former life, waiting for his death. But when he meets Nara - a sun-touched - and her foolish ideas about saving the world, he reluctantly begins to have hope.


How's everyone else doing? I hope everyone's got good inspiration. Sending writing vibes your way! :D

Camp NaNoWriMo!!

Camp NaNoWrimo! I totally forgot to post about it cause things were happening. It was my brothers birthday yesterday and the day before was spent preparing for it so I didn't find much time to post about but anyway.

I'm so excited about this! I've written about 4k words so far. I'm getting stuff done and it's awesome! Gosh I've missed this! There's people back on the forums, there's word sprints going on at twitter (though I tend to miss most of them) and the energy's great.

For me though, Campnano seems a bit more relaxed and casual then Nano in November. I don't feel the need to push myself so far above and beyond like I did last year where for the first 11 days I wrote 5k words everyday. This time around I just feel like writing at a nice pace, making sure to keep with the minimum daily goal and not pushing myself too hard. I don't know if this sort of tactic will make for a better or worse novel but whatever, I'm going with it.

Also, I've got an outline for my story! I tried using index cards. It seemed sort of cool so I started writing down little sentences representing a scene or something on an index card. The awesome part is that I can move the cards around! Oh, that person should die later in the story? Alright then *move card* it's so easy. I used to read about people doing this sort of thing and moving their scenes around and I never imagined how anyone could possibly just move a scene. But now I get it. I didn't get it until I had some of the index outline written and was all like, 'Wait a minute. That shouldn't happen yet, it wouldn't make sense!' *move*

An odd thing is that I thought my story would be written in third person limited. There's a bit more freedom that way. But as I wrote I somehow slipped into first person without even noticing! When I noticed I was just like 'It's fine. It's a first draft. Maybe first person will be better for this story.' And then, somehow I slipped back into third person limited without noticing. It's really weird. Some parts sound awesome in first person and others in third person and I automatically just switch narrative POV. I've also noticed, reading over the first person things I wrote that sometimes things are in present tense and other times in past tense. That was really, really odd for me because I haven't hardly read any books in present tense except for the Hunger Games. And one time I thought about trying to write it and couldn't really figure it out properly. So. . . That's weird.

Anyway's I'm just going to go with it at this point since I don't really know what POV to use. Hopefully one of them will stick by the time July's over.

And now, I've got to get writing! Is anyone else doing Camp NaNoWriMo?

Too Many Books!!

I can't remember whether I've already told you guys how large my to-be-read book pile is, and my in-the-middle-of-reading pile. It's monstrous and has been so for at least a year and growing by the week. Actually I didn't even know how many books there were that I haven't finished yet. I am honestly surprised.

See, I was under the impression that I only had twenty some odd books I haven't finished. (Only twenty, she says!) It seems that I have more than that. In fact, I have more than twice as many unfinished books. There are 51, 51,  books!! 25 books are in the TBR pile, 22 are in the IMR (in-the-middle-of-reading) pile! I am actively reading only 4 books.

Here's the evidence of this atrocity:

(TBR pile)

(IMR pile)

(Currently reading)

 

So, yes, I have a problem. I'm a hopeless bookaholic! You see, what happens is that I buy a book and start to read but before I finish that book I see another interesting book and then start to read that one, then before I've finished either of those I see another book that I start to read and then forget about that first one, then another and another and before I know it, it turns into this!

So, I'm going to start getting these books read! What I'm going to do is completely read at least one book a month and review it on the blog. If I finish more than one book a month I'll also review them here. I think this'll help me stop myself from buying tons more books before I've finished the others.

At one book per month I might be able to finish all these by year 2015 O.O Gosh I better get reading. I wonder if it's possible for me to finish all these by this years end?

So, what about you guys? Are your TBR/IMR piles this out of control?  Please tell me I'm not the only one!

A Round of Words in 80 Days

So! I didn't find out about A Round of Words in 80 Days until yesterday. I saw people doing it, but I didn't actually go check it out. Stupid of me, really, cause I love these contest type things.

So, I decided that I'd join in, late as I am to the party. I think they're already a month into round two. I'm sooo late, but that's okay. There's still plenty of time left this round and then there's round 3 and 4. . .

Mkay, so my goals are:

• Write at least 2,000 words a day. (I know this is more words a day than my May Madness challenge, but that's proving to be somewhat easy.)

• Spend at least 30 minutes a day refining my plot, world building, figuring out my characters and other important things.

And that's it. It'll be a challenge though to do that every day but I hope it will become a habit. So I can write everyday and all that, and finish my book faster and stuff.

Here's the linky for other bloggers who are participating!

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?

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!!

POV's

That whole archery thing has cooled down enough for me to want to write again. I've jumped back to writing The Chronicles now, glad too, I missed it! The Journalist wasn't going the way I wanted it to, I couldn't figure out a proper way to start it without making writing it boring, so I'm taking a brake from that.

I'm doing a bit of experimenting with The Chronicles on POV. I mean, the main character is still the same but I'm messing around with first person POV, where before I was doing third person limited. I'm wondering if first person will be better or not for the story since I've got a major character arc to follow. I'll have to see which one works better, it's too early to tell anything.

I know that third person is supposed to give more freedom for the author, and I like the way third person reads with a narrator telling the story, but I also like first person because it's more intimate with the character, hearing the story straight from the character instead of having the story told to you by a third party. But there's also those annoying things like every paragraph seeming to start with 'I' and the character sometimes seeming to act whiny and stuff.

I have read first person done well though. The Name of the Wind, for example, was in first person and was, in my opinion, done incredibly well (plus it was awesome).

But I think, when you look at all the books, most of the good books are written in third person. Is that because it's more accessible for people to read? Is it because first person is harder to write well in? Do readers, in general, like having the story told to them opposed to living through the character themselves?

And when I think about it, it seems to me like first person should be the easier POV to write in, because it's the POV everyone lives in. When we talk about ourselves we say things like: "I went to the store today and got. . ." or "My sister told me I should go try this great restaurant. . ." Not: "Mrs. Black went to the store that day and decided to get. . ." or "Her sister had told her to try a great restaurant. . ." So shouldn't it be easier to write in first person?

I'll have to try and figure out exactly why third person is more popular than first person.

What do you guys think? What's the pros and cons for first person and third person, and why does third person seem more popular than first person?

I'm sending good writing vibes your way!

Something That's Not Writing

Three days ago I found a archery bow in the garage, long forgotten about. I managed to find some arrows and a target and have gotten back into archery. So, the last three days I've been doing little else than shooting arrows at a target and desperately trying to find a recurve bow for a reasonable price. I had somehow forgotten about everything else these last three days because of this. Including my blog and my writing.

This is what happens to me when something strikes my fancy. I seem to forget about everything else and devote my entire existence (for a few days or so) to whatever has interested me. And then the rest of my life starts to come back to me and I get into a new rhythm to accommodate my new interest along with the rest of my life.

So I apologize that I don't have anything else to say. I haven't written anything since my last blog post or done anything writing or reading related. And I don't think anyone wants me to suddenly turn this place into an archery blog :p

Please forgive me, I promise things will get back on track by Monday.

Working on Two WIPs

Last night I saw my partially written manuscript, The Journalist, laying on the table and decided to flip through it. Perhaps a mistake. Now when I say partially written manuscript that makes it sound long, it's only 35 pages long, and I read it all last night, and was taken over by the idea again. As I read more ideas came up on how to fix this or that and how to make it more complete and stuff and. . . well, today I find myself writing The Journalist instead of The Chronicles.

I feel like I should keep myself focused solely on The Chronicles and not give into the temptation to write The Journalist but why should I do that, really? Why should I waste this onslaught of inspiration? It's not like I'm going to abandon The Chronicles, I'll just work on them both at the same time.

But I still feel a bit guilty. I don't think I should though. I mean, what if this book will get me published? Quicker than The Chronicles could have? And that's quite possible with The Journalist being only one book long, while The Chronicles shall be three.

So now I find I'm going to be working on two WIP's at the same time.

Would you guys do this? Or would you work only on you're main project. Or just let the new (or old) idea sweep you away and only write it?

I hope everyone writer luck!

(Does this not give you inspiration?)

Irresistible ;D

Wow, I have been given a blog award.

It appears that I'm sweet.

Irresistibly sweet.

And now I want cake.

The award was given to me by Claudie A. Thanks so much! I'm glad you enjoy my blog!

1. Thank and link back to the person who gave you this award. (look up ;)
2. Share four guilty pleasures that you have.
3. Pass the award on to six other blogs.


So. Guilty pleasures.


1. Fanfiction. Usually of the Harry Potter nature. I can be very obsessive when it comes to this, ignoring my writing, my towering in-the-middle-of-reading pile and the general things in life. I will stay in my room for days at a time if I've found a particularly awesome and long fanfic. Like I said, obsessive.


2. Liking the evil guys in fiction/movies. May not sound like a guilty pleasure, but when it makes someone give you a nervous or weirded out look that makes it so much fun! I like to play it up sometimes, eliciting even stranger expressions. The look my older cousin gave me once = priceless :D


3. Honey cinnamon toast. Oh yes, butter, drizzled honey and sprinkled cinnamon on toasted bread. . . I could eat that stuff ALL day!


4. Books. Maybe this shouldn't count, but I think it does. I spend copious amount of money on books, making me feel immeasurably guilty (thus guilty pleasure). I also hate getting second hand books unless they are in prime condition, so just about every book I get is brand new. And also, if I had the money, I would buy some old tome a couple centuries old in a heartbeat. Even if it was in another language and I hadn't a clue what it said.


And to pass on the SWEETNESS:


Margo Bendersen at Writing at High Altitude!


Misha at My First Book!


Jaime Reed at Write-or-Die !


Claire Legrand at Builder of Worlds!


Hyperbole and a Half!


And Sara at her three blogs In Shades of Scarlet, Fiction Fusion and The Random Life of Sara H.!


I enjoy all of these bloggers and encourage everyone to check out their awesomeness!


Have a wonderful Friday everyone!

The Troll

Inspiration for stories is strange. I mean, it can come from anywhere. Or nowhere. Half the time I've no idea where an idea actually originated from, cause it's just so strange or something it just makes me go 'O.O?' Other times I see this tv show or movie and an idea strikes. But most the time, I don't have a clue what my brain is doing.

It's like there's some kind highly unintelligent troll in my head that just grabs random things and squishes them together. Then just chucks these blobs of randomness at me, expecting me and my muse to do something with it.

(The Troll)

 

I usually write most of these unusable ideas down, just in case.

And then the troll goes back to work.

The troll seems to work best when you're being entertained by a good book or show, using the information it's being presented with to put together some of the more usable blobs. And those ideas that kind of seem pointless. . . Well, he just couldn't find much material for use at the moment.

But those rare strikes of genius, the ones us writers live for, it's as if the troll had been working on a masterpiece, and sometimes this only occurs once in the trolls life. The troll isn't usually apt for genius.

The troll is more commonly known for throwing together some vaguely recongnizeable blobs, sending it to you and then passing on to the muse who tries to get something out of it, and convinces you to write on it for awhile before you both realize the troll has fooled you.

And he's laughing at you.

But even though the troll is a small, dim, sometimes unsavory fellow he works really hard, doing the dirty work by putting together the base of a story idea, before giving it to you and your muse to work on. Without him, there'd be NO stories.

And even if he's laughing at you, it was still an idea that you learned from, and something he can use for better material.

Perhaps for that masterpiece he's working on in the basement.

Happy Thursday

:)

The Other Side

I found this cool blog post over at Write-or-Die that talks about the antagonist of the story and how important they are because they're what's really driving the story by giving the protagonist something to do. And she had a cool idea.

Somehow it had never really occurred to me to really get into what my antagonist is doing while the story goes on centered on the protagonist. I mean, I have vague ideas on what my villain is doing behind the scenes, but most of the time it's really blurry. The stories not centered on the villain so why bother, right?

I'm starting to rethink this. Outlining what the villain is doing throughout the story could bring up some good stuff that I hadn't realized before, and could add more depth to the story when I know precisely what's going on with both sides. Not to mention it could be downright interesting. And fun.

I wouldn't let this take over into a book of it's own (try not to, anyway) cause it would only be for reference on what's going on over there.

So what do you guys think of this? Writing about what's going on on the other side, what they're doing to get at the protagonist, how they're planning they're stuff and just general stuff like that? Only to know what they're doing throughout the book while your protagonist is doing his/her thing?

Using Writing as an Excuse to do Anything

Seriously. I do this all the time. You probably do it too. You see some book in a store about some kind of questionable content that you're curious about but wouldn't want people to know you're curious about it because they'd give you funny/worried/disgusted looks and question you're sanity/morality. But you get it anyway, firmly telling yourself it's research for your book.

Or maybe you decide to take karate lessons, not because you're just interested but because that side character in your book that shows up for one scene does some pretty awesome kicks and stuff and you need to know how to describe such things! So you have to take lessons!

Or you know that place in New Zealand where you're book takes place? How are you ever going to describe such scenery without having been there first!?

And that stuff you read on the internet in the name of research for your book. . .  Goodness help you and the poor soul who decides to look at you browsing history. They'd be sure to send you to a mental hospital despite your pleas of, "It was for my book!"

And it is for your book, really. A little. But not wholly. Lots of times it's purely excuse, others it's only part that. Like my reading up on witchcraft and alchemy. I had found myself wanting to glance around at those two subject in the bookstore but never did. Until I found the perfect excuse. You see, having trouble coming up with a magic system I saw that section of books in the book store and it hit me: witchcraft. Alchemy. Those might help me with my magic system problems!

See? The perfect excuse. I really am reading them for that purpose, but not wholly, some of me is just genuinely curious about it, and I'm using writing as the excuse to not get those funny looks.

But hey, it works.

So what have you used writing as an excuse for? Vacations? Musical instruments? Some really really old and expensive book so you know what paper and book binding was like back in the day because of that scene where you have to explain that?

:D