NaNoWriMo Is Fast Approaching!

NaNoWriMo is coming up quickly! So is my baby's due date! With so much going on I'm trying to keep my "baby brain" from keeping me back from doing everything I need to do. I have a short to-do list but the thing that's been weighing on my mind has been what I'm going to write for the month of November.

For the past few NaNo events I've been working on trying to finish other projects. That's been fine but I've been worried that maybe I'm spending too much time with them, you know? Fortunately I've had a couple of projects that I haven't written much on beyond a synopsis and yet another idea that's been rattling around in my head but hasn't quite seemed right. The pieces for the last idea have fallen into place and, barring any weird happenings, I'm thinking that a fresh project will take me through to the finish line. Here's the little blurb and the cover I made up for the NaNo website...maybe a banner will follow...


"An Embarrassment of Magic" by C. E. Daniel

When a well dressed noble crashes into her garden Senna is annoyed. When shadow hounds try to enter as well, it's outside of enough. Saving a noble doesn't interest her and his idea of gratitude irritates her more. What can a single woman do though when she finds out that this nobleman isn't your average pompous idiot?

Cover photo: Witches Dwell by wyldraven on Deviantart.com

I'm not sure where it will go yet beyond the opening and the two main characters but I'm working on it! the next thing will be to come up with a few more characters and some "candy bar" scenes. I'm not sure what will happen. Maybe this idea will stick or not but we'll see!

NaNo News and General Life Update

The past couple of months have been quite busy. I've been neglecting my blogs and have no real excuse for it. Real world stuff comes and my writing is what suffers...*sigh* It makes me so sad and disappointed in myself sometimes.

The month of July held some unbearable weather in our area as well as the summer stomach bug for myself and my three year old son. Awesome times to be had by all. Wee also had family vacation and a visit to my mom's. Not a very productive month at all though I did (somehow) manage to write my thirty thousand words that I set as my goal for Camp NaNoWriMo. How did I do it? I still don't know.

I am five months pregnant and that presents its own difficulties. I'm more tired than usual, overheated easily, and sitting comfortably is becoming a challenge. That being said, I am due in November, November 6th in fact and many people have been asking me if I will be doing NaNoWriMo this year. The answer is a resounding yes. I will still be an ML and there's actually training for us Saturday, the 10th of August. I'm looking forward to it and will be re-watching last year's webinars as well just to refresh my memory. All very exciting and I'm hoping to be more organized this year now that I know what I'm doing!

My goal now that July NaNo is over, is to catch up on my Merry-Go-Round blog posts as well as planning emails for the month of November.

Community

Since this is about writing I'm not talking about the television show. This month's theme has been community as it applies to writers. My own "community" consists a lot of online type interactions and less people to people (unless it's November and that crazy NaNoWriMo thing) but it's a supportive community nonetheless.

These days there's a lot going on via the internet. I see it as both a blessing and a curse. The internet has given me access to a much wider community of writers and thinkers to bounce ideas off of and talk to about writing. This is a good thing. The downside to the internet forums and communities is the lack of person to person, face to face contact. When I lived closer to The Big City I had a writing group that a friend and I had started to keep meeting after NaNoWriMo ended. We had bi-weekly meetings (or write-ins) at a local coffee shop and while writing did get done there was a great deal of socializing as well. We had critiques as well and while these are all things you can get online (minus coffee and yummy pastries from good looking barristas) there's nothing that really can take place of human interaction. It's just not the same. However I think every writer needs community and people that understand the crazy things that go on in a writer's brain. (Think plot bunnies or something similar.)

As I said before, I do participate in online communities, much more so now that I live further from The Big City. There are writing groups around but they tend to cater to older (50 yrs + crowd) or younger (high school age) groups. I've found it hard to be accepted or welcomed into either so I've just let it slide for now and stick to my online presence. It's sad but at this point (expecting baby #2 in November) I'm not ready to try and set up a writing group from scratch.

Since that's my case I have to say that there are a number of supportive online communities for writers out there. The first I should mention of course is the Forward Motion for Writers community. They plan and put together topics for the monthly posts that I do. Yep, this would be one of those. It's a forum-based community that has chats and groups for just about every topic a writer can think of. If you want something more specific there's Scribophile, an online critiquing community. You can't just ask for critiques but rather have to give some in order to get some. While some people think it bothersome I think it's one of the best ways to become a better writer so it's never bothered me much. It's gathered all kinds of writers and thinkers so you really get a good variety of input. Those are my two main go to spots for writerly community type things.

Anticipation for 2013 - Projects Ahead

Every year it comes down to it...my least favorite question: "So what are your writing goals/projects for the year?" I hate that question with an undying passion. Mostly I hate it so because it reminds me that another year has gone by with what I feel is little to no progress on any of my projects.

In reality I do get quite a bit done and as my DH is so anxious to point out I do have a whole house, family and two jobs to maintain as well. I remind myself that I've done at least fifty thousand words for NaNoWriMo. I try for another 50K during one of the NaNo Camps as well. I'm not so hot at editing but I'm getting better. I've also logged on to Scribophile to get some feedback since I've moved away from my previous writing group. I miss the camaraderie of that group and it certainly helped me get my word count in once a week. Anyways...I suppose I should actually think about my goals now for the year. I'll set them below.

1. Complete Summer of the Sword. 
Yes this was my NaNo project two years in a row but I'm still not content with it. Not to mention I'll lose a bunch in editing, I'm sure. I'm still not sure how it's going to end.

2. Post one chapter of above work on Scribophile for critiques per month.
The intent is that after being on for one month I'll have at least 3 good critiques and can get to editing while the next is getting looked at.

3. Rework my ideas for Nighttime Reading and make a functioning outline.
Another project that I started and still not completely satisfied with it. I'm doing a class and possibly will use that for my work there.

No, I don't have publishing in there but I'm still working at making myself a good, habitual writer and editor. Writing once a day is fine and all but that's not all there is to it. I'm hoping that this year, by throwing some editing in I'll be making myself a better over all writer and more prepared to publish, eventually.

Writing For January

There's a lot going on in my household for the month of January. The basement is on it's way to being finished, they started working this past Tuesday on it. A lot of progress over the box cluttered basement. There are actual things that look like walls now! Almost more exciting is the fact that the DRIcore flooring system is going to go in today. All very exciting stuff!

Even more exciting is the amount of work I've put in on my blogs over the past week. I am more than just a little pleased with myself. I've gotten no less than two posts for this blog done to be posted in the future. I've also completed a monster post for my website with another one in the works that I hope to finish today. I'm trying to get ahead, can you tell? I've added a goal to my sheet this year and that is to post weekly on each blog at least! I have three so that's at least three articles that I should be writing a week. Or something equivalent to that. That being said I've been rather naughty and haven't been writing much in any of my novel writing projects. This isn't anything new really. After NaNoWriMo in November I tend to short out. Then you pile on Thanksgiving and Christmas and it's like running a race, finding out you have to jump hurdles at the end and once you've finished you realized that you didn't eat anything for breakfast. I guess writing my blogs uses a different part of my creative writing node in my brain. It's all good though. I usually break out of my funk sometime in February. It takes time to write blog posts and such. Especially those for my site. Those usually take a bit of research as well. During the month of November I don't think I posted anything at all, choosing instead to focus on my novel. I suppose this is payback.

It's probably just as well that both of my "regular"jobs (both of which are seasonal) have no need for me at the moment. While this does hurt my wallet it gives me time to really tackle my writing and other projects around the house. Like keeping track of the basement finishing and taking care of appointments for my son and pets.

So just a little update this time around. Look forward to some fascinating posts on this blog soon!                           

Post - NaNo Life

The month of November saw absolutely nothing of me as far as my blogs are concerned. I'm sorry for it though I did manage to get my 50k pounded out for NaNo for which I am grateful. Nano was hectic as usual and this year a bit disappointing.

As some of you may have read in the previous posts this was my first year as a "Municipal Liasion" for  NaNoWriMo. I was pumped up and ready to go! I got my stuff late though and had a hard time getting to the libraries around my region due to their limited hours. It seemed like every time I wanted to go talk to someone or put up a flyer, they were closed. I found out quickly that many of them close early around here. I planned a kick off party for Nov. 1st as well as a meet and greet before November began. I had a whopping five people including myself at the kick off party and that was the last I saw of anyone in my region. I had write in's planned once a week and an online write in for those that couldn't make it, also once a week. I became discouraged quickly. On top of all of this I had to find a winter job as my main job is only seasonal and stopped putting me on the regular schedule at the beginning of November. It's been so crazy and now it's nearly Christmas.

I'm going to be rejoining my writing group in the metrowest area. It's a ways away but I miss the camaraderie and general happiness of being in a good writer's group.

A Fickle Heart

So after some major indecision on my part concerning my NaNo project I have actually come to a conclusion. I hate leaving things unfinished so I have decided to do a rewrite of my NaNo novel from last year since I lost a solid half of my word count during the move. Half gone and I think that I actually lost more than that since I had over 50k. So to inspire me I have created a cover and banner. I will be backing up and emailing copies to myself hourly!

I've added a new plot twist to it and so I'm hoping that I won't get bored or something during NaNo. I guess we'll just wait and see! NaNo starts tomorrow and I can't wait!

Stock Image by: MD-Arts
Cover and Banner Design by: Me!

Oh Fickle Heart...

Remember how just yesterday I was boasting that I was all set on my story choice? I did jinx myself. No sooner than I think that I'm all set than I start having doubts and another story idea pops into my head....*sigh* What to do? I just want to kick myself in the rear. What a pain! I'm going to have to decide soon. Anyone else having second thoughts?

Covers and Banners

I've fully committed myself to my NaNo project! (I've probably just jinxed myself into losing all interest and changing stories at midnight on October 31st but hey...)

There are so many talented artists on the Artisan boards on the NaNoWriMo website but I decided that I was going to make my own cover and banner this year. I've done it before but this year I definitely think that this year's is a huge improvement. You can see the change on the Past Projects page. I used some stock photos and a handy browser photo editor called PicMonkey. I'm very pleased with how they came out. What do you think?

Writing Workstation

***So before anything and because I live in New England (specifically Massachusetts): GO PATS!***

Alright now that that is out of the way I can officially start this post. We've finally moved which is why I haven't been writing much...okay, at all. The good news is that I'm hoping that will change soon. I've got my desktop up and running, which is easier to type on for me (read: bad eye sight and arthritis), and I have a nice clean and quiet nook to write in. Now we'll see how long it stays that way. I'll take a  picture tomorrow in the day light and add it to the site. It's quite nice. 

Now for an actual writing update:

Most of my writing since NaNo has been for any of my novel ideas or works in progress...rather I have been trying to stay on top of the rather over zealous goal of writing for each of my three blogs twice a week. I realize that I can't do that and maintain my website, care for my son and a new house. So I'm paring down my posting to once a week in the hopes then that I will be able to work on actual writing projects. That being said, I failed miserably at NaNo this year. 

My NaNo this year was miserable. Between the family holiday obligations and dealing with purchasing this house, the month of November was a nightmare for me. Also, mid-November I started to fall out of love with my idea and was wishing that I had chosen to complete a previous NaNo project. I think I'm going to make it one of my goals this year to put my old NaNo project into the new writing software (yWriter) and try to complete that during the year and see where I get. Beyond that I'm still working on getting myself settled in the new house and catching up to all the new housework I have to do! 

2011 NaNoWriMo Season!

It's here! The one month out of the year when other people, writers, get as obsessive as I do over daily word counts, fictitious people, screwy plot twists and plot bunnies. My husband says that I turn certifiable this time of year. I reply, "How is that different from any other time?"

So because it's November and I'm posting this now, between writing sessions, it definately counts as procrastination in my book! Now I probably should be procrastinating in some other way since my wrists are starting to get that familiar November ache but I had put off post here long enough. This year's NaNo has started with some difficulty for me. We lost power here due to a early and very wet snow storm. Having been relocated to my mother's house where there is power but much less child proofing has been a blessing and a curse. At home my son and I can play in the living room together. Rather, he plays and I write until he deigns to play with me. It works well because we have two gate that keep him from getting into trouble in the kitchen or bathroom. My mother doesn't have those protections and she has the added temptation of stairs. Today, for instance, I've been writing in fits and starts. Now I'm not the fastest typist in the world and I have issues turning off my inner editor to begin with so my steady writing pace is nothing spectacular. I do tend to do better when in a word war because then I feel like something is at risk. I do even better when coffee or chocolate are on the line! Though what I tell everyone who asks me how I do it I simply tell them that it's one word at a time and the best thing is just to start. So I'm starting..my goal is for the first week (possibly two) to write  two thousand words a day. It's a little more than the required 1,667 words a day but enough so that I can build a buffer over a number of days for the inevitable Thanksgiving day 0-word count that will happen.

Well I'd better get back to writing! Good luck fellow writers! See you in December!

WOO! A Character Sketch!

So you may notice a few different things on my blog. One is the obvious advertisement space to the right. What can I say? With money being so tight right now I figured why not if it'll help gain a few extra dollars?

The other exciting addition is the lovely illustration of my intended main character for this year's NaNoWriMo. This was graciously done for free by Kerynean and you should really check out her stuff! It's AMAZING! I'm hoping to put a larger version in this post if she has one for me so look for an update!

Also if you haven't looked at it yet, you should check out the new NaNoWriMo site! So far it's been faster and better than the last! So take a look and hopefully we can convince you to write with us in November! You'll also notice the cool new NaNo badge on my site for this year. So really, go check it out!

Life and Moving Interferences

My writing has been on a sort of hiatus recently. I have not been posting to my blogs as regularly as I would like and a lot of other things have been put on hold too due to difficulties with our new house. We had planned on moving last week but that got put on hold and now the builder has asked for yet another extension. Unfortunately my writing has taken a back seat to hounding my contractor, real estate agent and packing. I'm hoping that things will get back to normal soon and that we'll have a definite closing date by tomorrow. In the mean time this blog and my others are on the back burner. It's probably just as well since I've been thinking that I'm going to move to a one post a week model. Two for each was a little too ambitious and I want to spend more time working on my novels than on blogs. Not to mention I still have to move and get my sewing shop set up.

On another note I have picked my idea for NaNo this year. It's based on the writing prompt from the Forward Motion writer's community. The base of it is a non-magical person in a magical world. How would they cope and the repercussions. I had the beginnings of an idea that I'm just starting to flush out with character descriptions, location maps and candy bar scenes (more on those later). All in all I'm quite excited about this particular idea and I find myself having to refrain from starting to write it! I suppose that's a good thing, steam for the upcoming November! Well I suppose I should be off to bed. Keep writing everyone!

Rather Unsuccessful

I attempted to take part in Camp NaNoWriMo this month and I have failed epically. Between shopping for appliances, flooring, etc for the new house, trying to plan and pack for a vacation and pack up the condo I just haven't had two seconds to sit and type. My son has also begun teething again and he's transitioning to one nap a day. The end result? No time for mommy to write. I'm hoping that this won't be a mark against me as I would like to apply to be an ML for November NaNoWriMo. I'm disappointed in myself and wonder if I'll be able to do it in November. We'll see.

I'm still working on my Napoleon story but I'm also bending my writing skill to my blog posts for my website. I've taken the advice of a friend of mine who has had an internet presences for a while. He said to me "start with a blog even if you don't have product up yet." I took his advice and received a few positive comments. I'm abnormally pleased but I I have had more spam and some comments I'm not sure if they are spam or actual feedback which is sad. But! People are reading it and it's getting noticed and that's the whole point of the endeavor. Well I have to get back to packing...

Last Minute Idea

So I realize I haven't posted lately. Sorry! I've been busy doing writing of another kind: blog posts of my research for my website: http://athreadtofollow.com. I've been trying to get ahead so that when we move in September and I'm doing NaNoWriMo in November, I don't have to worry about anything jsut sechdule the posts to be published at regular intervals. Today for the fist time since the beginning of July I looked in on the Camp NaNoWriMo site. I poked around and all of a sudden an idea that been on the back burner in my mind started to gush out. So! It looks like I'm going to write for this month's camp after all.

This time I'm going for a  Historical Fiction taking palace in Napoleonic times. Time travel and a snarky, insightful Boneparte. It's still just something rattling around in my brain so we'll see. It may end up just being a proposal that I use to write my actual Nano novel this year.

Relationship Charts or I'm Not Very Politic

As I have been looking at my NaNoWrimo novel that I wrote last year (it's still not finished) I realized that the book is turning out to have more politics than anything else I have written before. I quickly realized as I was re-reading it that I was going to need some help keeping track of my character's political machinations. To that end I posted a request on a few of my regular writer's forums as well as on NaNoWriMo forums.

I was a bit disappointed when some of the replies were sarcastically mean. In general writer's communities can be quite helpful and so I was shocked to receive such replies. Sadly it wasn't just one either. I felt like my faith was restored in the helpfulness of one writer to another when on the NaNoWriMo forums I received a post that actually helped.

Now I was never really taught to use relationship charts for drafting novels but it can be a very useful tool. Keep in mind that the one below is only an example. I'll try to remember to take a picture of my when I'm done and upload it into another post. The link I received led me to the picture below: 

So I'm not writing about the X-men but this is a great look at how a relationship chart works. Clearly the creator of this chart picked Wolverine as his starting point, just like I would choose my central character, and connected all the people that had significance to him with different colored "threads." The different colors indicate the type of relationship that they have with each person. In the end the notation is all up to you but I thought to post this in case anyone else had the same issue. I hope it helps and keep on writing!

Debate

Today I'm having a bit of a debate with myself. Due to the inaccuracies that I keep finding in my story that I wrote for NaNoWriMo I am thinking that it may be in best interest to plug in my current work into Storybook. Storybook is a great piece of Open Source software that helps you track your character's details, location and more. It will even generate charts for you letting you see a timeline easily or where your characters are at any point in your timeline.

My only hesitation comes from the fact that I would have to plug in 50k words and think about chapters now rather than later when I'm done with the project. It would take me the better part of the evening I think to plug it all in. It might be something better done on the weekend on second thought. It would go faster and I would be more accurate with my hubby taking care of our 14 month old.

Speaking of software: I've finally figured out how to download my documents onto my iPad into Pages, the iPad equivalent of Office Word. It's not very direct and Apple really is into making money since the only way to make a direct save is to go pay for their iDisk service. A whopping $99 per year for the same service that Google offers for free. All in all I love the iPad but the small things like this and flash player are definite limitations that can be a pain in the butt.

Another New Look

So my blog has yet another new look. YAY! I think I'm a little ADD when it comes to how my blogs look. I must change them every three months or so, sometimes more often than that. Well this one I like a lot and will save the template for future use as well. So besides having a new look I'm very pleased to say that I get to go to another of my writing group's meet up. YAY!

From late January to mid April I really wasn't able to attend many of my group's meetings because of work. That then continued into March but then finally in May I was able to go to my first meeting in a while. It felt so good to be with other writers and just be able to write!

Also exciting news for anyone who wants to write a book or has done NaNoWriMo in the past: Camp NaNoWriMo will be launching soon! The long awaited ability to do NaNoWriMo in any month you wish will finally be here! I'm very excited about this since I love NaNo and would willingly do it multiple times a year. I keep looking at the NaNoWriMo website for more information. I'm such a geek!

50K and Counting!

NaNoWri Mo is officially over! I am very proud to say that for the first time in three years I have completed the month successfully. It is a little ironic considering that I have a seven month old to care for and didn't think that I was going to get anywhere near the goal. I am so excited! Of course the story itself is not nearly done. I have just reached the exciting part and I have come to realize that this will be best told from multiple points of view. The result is that I will have to go back and add in the additional points of view that are only hinted at at the moment. All in all I am very satisfied with the story so far though it will definitely need cleaning up when all is said and done.

In other news a few of the local Wrimos and I have decided to put together a low key writing group beginning in January. I am looking forward to that as well. I'm hoping that we'll do word sprints, critiques and maybe some writing prompts. Mostly I just want to get together with other writers for a couple of hours a week to keep on writing. More of an accountability group I guess. Well for now I'm going to try and keep my writing goal for about 3-5k a week. A lesser pace than the 11,700 per week of NaNoWriMo. I figure that will be enough to keep the creative juices flowing but not so much that I'll feel pressured and stress about it.

Staying Productive

So I realize that the last time I wrote in here it was about a week ago or a little more than that. I have been working a gig that was explained to me in such a way that thought that I would only be working for one day and it evolved into two weeks. Since I work in theater most of the work hours I have put in are at night. Coincidentally I get the most amount of writing done at night after my son goes to bed. So since my last post I have been struggling to keep up with typing my 1,667 per day for NaNoWriMo. I was just barely staying on top of it up until this past Friday night. Now I am about three thousand words behind and my little man has decided that he will be very cranky for the next couple of days. (He's teething so I don't blame him a bit.) I am hoping that now that I don't have to work at night since the gig is over I can go to some of the evening write-ins and do some more word wars that make me so productive! I am so much more productive at a local Starbucks or something similar, it's crazy.

On the down side, I think I may be coming down with a cold. I keep feeling all achy and tired and I haven't gotten much sleep lately either. Hopefully all will resolve itself so that I don't have to deal with that at Thanksgiving and during the final push of NaNoWriMo!