And It's Over...

Well, NaNoWriMo 2010 is officially over for me this year. Interesting how the win was so important to me last year, but not this year. I thought I had it in the bag for sure, and I should have. I easily type almost 2K words in a single hour. No idea why I couldn't pull it off this year. I suppose I allowed myself to be distracted too easily? I may or may not attempt it next year. I don't know yet. I suppose I'll find out then.

I finished up at 35,011. Oddly enough, I see this book easily reaching 60K and maybe more. However, the pressure is off to write it and I can revert to taking my time and editing a bit as I go without feeling guilty. ;-)

Oh! I was writing some messages out on Writing.com and I think I found out why I didn't win. About what? Halfway through, I started wishing it was over already so I could move on with my new dreams and hopes. Hopes and dreams that were going to take a lot of work, that's for sure! In the end, I may very well have sabotaged myself so I would have an excuse to throw in the towel early and move on. To tell you the truth, that feels like the right answer. I could see myself doing that. :-P

Yeah. I'm working on becoming published now, and I'm being serious about it this time. As Beverly said in Eureka in an episode, "Talking is easy. Doing is hard." So, that's what sabotaged my NaNoWriMo win this year. That might be why I was wondering why I felt okay with losing when I should have felt bad. I'm moving on to bigger and better things. LOL Sorry, had to laugh at the cliche. I just pictured myself standing on the edge of a cliff, a breeze blowing my hair back, and I'm standing there with a straight back with the most officious look on my face like I was better than everyone else. lol Too funny. What makes that so darn funny is that I know I have a long way to go. I know I'm not better than anyone else, and that I make oodles of errors. Besides, the last time I checked, everyone could get better at what they do. ;-)

Now! It's time to end this lovely post and this lovely blog. I have officially moved over to my own website! That's what I've been doing this week. It might change before too long. I'm not sure what the heck I'm doing at the moment. So! Without further ado, if you'd like to keep tagging along, I'm now at www.erinjroberts.com. Don't be surprised if the URL goes down in the next few days. I'm seriously thinking of switching my hosting over to a paid site so I can make it "fancier" so that it reflects me better. Maybe. I'm still thinking about it. :-D

Until then, see ya!

Final Day

Well, here it is, November 30th. It is officially the last day of NaNoWriMo. Today has gone not near as good as planned. Not that I had a plan, but I did plan to write more than I have so far. I was hoping for at least a major push for a win. Silly me. I should have thought of that sooner while it was still even a possibility. lol

Of course, I woke up last night after my last post. Did I write? Of course not. I sat and watched Eureka with my husband instead. Then, he did the smart thing and went to bed. I wasn't tired then, so I stayed up. Story of my life, actually. So, I picked up "How to Grow a Novel" by Sol Stein and started to read.

You know, it's about time I found another book on writing that actually teaches me something! This one taught me why people like my writing. hehehe I get stuck up like that sometimes, so bear with me. I know I still have a lot of work to do and I'm not perfect by any means, but I understand now. I also understand why "The Day SHADE Came to Call" is getting better reviews than "Whispers of the Past" ever did. I'm currently fixing "Whispers of the Past" so that it's 'right.'

Anyway! Goodness. Meandering brain. I did learn why my books are interesting to people, but I was also sideswiped by several excellent ideas for "The Day SHADE Came to Call." So, I went to bed last night knowing I'd tackle them today. Whoo hoo!!

Enter today. Gack! That sums it up right there. lol Hubby didn't get me up right away, thank goodness. Turned out he had to come back home before going to class anyway, so he let me get 2 more hours of sleep. That would have been awesome had I gotten to bed when I should have. Yeah. Then, I got all snippy and growly at him and basically told him to go away, take the car, I'd figure out a different way to get to the doctor's appointment. Why do I do those things when I haven't had enough coffee? Sheesh. Thank goodness he knows I'm a pain in the butt in the morning. He came home at lunch and I was able to get the car from him.

My writing morning consisted of ... *drum roll* ... 1,000 words. Took me about 45 minutes to get that much down. Hurray! Unfortunately... I have my son's cold now. Boo hiss. So, I'm very tired and very cold due to the fact I am tired. Such a nasty combination. Anyway, I finished writing up to the point where I'd need to look into the reason why some guys like sports beyond all reason. Umm. I have NO idea. I might need to ask out on Facebook if anyone there knows. lol My brain curled up and fell asleep, so my body decided it liked that idea. I woke up in time for the car to come home. Yay.

So! That was a LONG entry to say, I'm definitely not going to win. I only wrote 1K words so far today, and my awesome ideas from last night are still way off in the distance. This book is going to ROCK! The further I get into it, the more I like it, and the more I realize it's going to outstrip the 50K word goal from NaNo. However, I think I'm going to go and write down my awesome ideas I had. I need to get them down since several of them are at least 2-3 chapters down the line. I'm a linear writer, I have problems skipping around. So, yeah. Off to write down my ideas.

I'll be back at the end of the night to give a final NaNo word count, but I know for sure it won't be 50,000. I'll keep telling myself I don't mind, but I think I do on some level or else I wouldn't have to keep saying I don't mind. I'll think about that later. For now, an FB poll and my idea sketches.

Anymore?

So, I was looking at my word count (31,944) and at my team on Writing.com, many who have gone on to complete at least 50,000 words, and I had a thought. How far can I push tonight and tomorrow? Then I remembered a few things.

1. I'm incredibly tired and haven't woke up yet, even though I've been up for over an hour and I'm on my 3rd cup of coffee.

2. I have a sick kid at home. However, he's generally happy with video games for the most part. He has immunizations tomorrow though, so this will be interesting.

3. Those darn immunizations means I need the dang car. Hubby told me at dinner that he's been enrolled in some class that requires full battle rattle and he'll be gone until 7. No!! That means I have to get up painfully early to have the car. I hate getting up early.

I don't know. I guess I could pull out the ol' notebook I've been writing in and get to work anyway. Well, after I find chapter 10 on my Netbook, that is. I apparently didn't upload it into my Dropbox account, so I don't have access to it on this computer. Boo.

I know that each page side equals approximately 250 words. It has for as long as I can remember. So, I could write my little heart out between now and then and count how many pages I finished. Since I won't cross the finish line, it doesn't matter if the count is a little off. If nothing else, I'd be that much closer to finishing my book. I've had several people ask me to keep writing it even though my NaNo win is out of reach. That has to make you feel good, to be asked to keep writing it as they're interested in reading it. :-) Yup. I like it.

What the heck. The win is out of reach, but hey! I'd be writing! That's better than nothing. :-D

**Fizzle**

Well, it's the end of my NaNoWriMo adventure, I'm sorry to say. So sad when you look at the beginning of this blog and see all the energy that was flowing. However, real life stepped up and slapped me back down.

Today, I spent the afternoon at an urgent care clinic to find out my son had strep throat. The past two days were spent keeping his temperature down and caused a serious lack of sleep. Today, the third day, I took him in. A fever lasting 3 days is not normal. At least he's on antibiotics now and his fever has officially broken. Hurray! Powerful stuff they put him on, and I'm glad. :-) I'm now on the alert and watching everyone else in the house, including myself. I'm hoping and praying that he's the only one, but you never know.

I am going to continue writing this book, however. I'm enjoying it and I'd like to see where it goes. It will be a slower journey and I can return to writing by hand. To tell you the truth, I'm looking forward to that. Also, with the end of NaNo, I can focus on some of my other goals.

Yes. While NaNoWriMo did not end in an official win for me, I did finish up around 32,000 words. That is absolutely nothing to sneeze at. Also, it opened the door to new thoughts and new dreams, which makes it an overall win, which is much more important. So, don't feel bad that I didn't "win," because in the end, I did. :-D

Happy Thanksgiving!

I was sitting here thinking about working on my story, and my mind keeps returning to the great day we just had. I put enough food on the table to easily feed more than twice our number, but we were the only ones to eat it. We have enough leftovers in the fridge to serve the entire meal all over again. I had my husband ask his buddies in his company if anyone wanted to join us, but they all had plans. Most were going home to their family for Thanksgiving while one was spending the weekend with his fiance. So we ended up with a ton of food. It's interesting how something like that can reveal, while we're almost poor by U.S. standards, we're still better off than many others. Yes. It was definitely a day to be thankful.

Here in a moment, I will convince myself to go write. I might not get my 3,000 words, which is my goal, but I do hope to get at least the 1,667 daily NaNo word goal. It's almost 2K words more than I had this morning. ;-) Now, to do that by 11 my time so I can sneak in at least one episode of Eureka before bed. hehehe

New Plan!

Okay, this one probably won't work either, but it's worth a shot. :-D

My plan is: 2K, 3K, 4K, 5K, etc. I bet you get the picture there. Each day, I add 1,000 more words to the previous day. That way, I will swiftly climb the ladder to NaNoWindom! Okay, I'm not so sure about the 3K tomorrow since it is on Thanksgiving day, but I am happy to say I did the 2K today. Which is good, trust me. It took me AGES to get that out of my head and typed. I have no idea what the problem was today, but my thoughts were everywhere but on that book. The good news is that I finished Chapter 9. Hurray!

Sadly enough, that's about all for today. None of my other thoughts were on NaNo. Unless you count, "I'm not going to win this year," or how about, "I put my Netbook on stilts." Oh, wait. No. That last one probably doesn't count. However, I did that while I was supposed to be writing, so maybe it does. Either way... That's all of my NaNo thoughts for now.

By the way, the possessive form of "boss" is "boss's" in case you're curious.

Getting Worse

Argh! I don't know what it is with me this year. I started off with such high hopes for this book, and it went bleh on me. Got my high hopes back. I'm all bleh again. The latest bleh happened when I switched to typing. I miss writing by hand and have this incredible urge to work that way tonight anyway. I missed my goal again by two 15 minute sprints. It turns out that I write better during the day. When I'm down, my characters are down. When I'm tired, my characters are tired. Silly characters. They're like my personal emotion mirror. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.

I'm not certain what I should do at this point. I have yet to have a 3500 word day. Without one, I'm in big trouble. Heck, I need 6 of them, and one of them lands on Thanksgiving day. You know, the day where I get to do all of the cooking? At least I can smile sweetly and hand over all the cleaning to my husband and kids. I'll do the pies and fruit salad tomorrow night to get them out of the way. It's easier.

The kids are out of school now until Monday. Maybe they'll let me write tomorrow. You know what? I think I could still win NaNo, but I'm not going to stress out if I don't. I'm still sad at having to give up writing by hand and I know it's influencing how my novel is turning out. I'm already looking past November and wishing it over so I can move on to other things. Mainly things like, retreating back to writing by hand. Editing Whispers of the Past, outlining The Dark Rider, changing my twitter name, and possibly starting a more professional blog. Yeah, my mind is definitely not on NaNo anymore.

Anyway! I'll work away on my book tomorrow. Oddly enough, it's gotten to the point that I can only write during the day. I find that incredibly odd due to the fact I used to write only at night. Weird how that changed. I'm still learning how to adjust to it. I'll get there, someday. Now, though? It's bed time, I guess. I need the sleep so I can write my little heart out tomorrow. Or at least hit that darn 3500 word goal. Hurry up and end, November!!

Poor Me...

Feel sorry for me, okay? Here I am, on the serious downhill side of NaNoWriMo and I'm flailing along here like a marionette who has no clue where it's going. I was doing great earlier today! I read a blog about cutting writing time into smaller chunks makes it easier to handle. Considering I'm staring at 3500+ words a day, I figured that was a good idea. I ended up slicing them into 15 minute increments. I discovered I can write around 700 words easy within that time period. Great! I can get it all done in no time.

So, I go to get ready to write and go upstairs for something real quick before I buckle down and get to work. I have no idea how I did this, but I whacked my forearm on the top of the divider that divides the stairs from the hallway. It has this decorative thing on top with a sharp edge. Forearm, meet sharp edge. Sharp edge, meet forearm. OMG! That about sums up the amount of pain that went through my arm at that point. *whimper, whimper* 30 minutes later, I got some feeling back in my hand and could begin to open and shut it without intense pain shooting up my arm. However, I quickly learned that I could not use a regular keyboard. It still hurt too much. Lucky for me, a Netbook's keyboard is so much smaller that I was good to go. Less finger span meant I wasn't putting as much stress on that muscle. So, I get to working and end up cranking out 2400 or so words before we had to go shopping. I was two 15 minute increments away from hitting my goal for the day. We get back from shopping and I stayed up too late last night. Yeah. My brain informed me that it was VERY tired and leave it alone.

I managed to force one 15 minute sprint out of my brain. Unfortunately, it ended early due to the fact I ran smack dab into the end of Chapter 8. Short little chapter, barely 2K words long. Go figure. However, that's as long as it wanted to be. Fine. I'm sure I could have added more to it, but I'm tired. Needless to say, all of my characters got tired too and went to bed on me. lol That works.

Tomorrow, I WILL make that up. I will make up the fact I fell short by 300 words in that sprint and completely missed the last sprint. I'm going to start writing in 15 minute increments all day tomorrow until I make excellent progress. I'm getting sick and tired of being this behind. It's time to book it and get it done.

So, that's my poor me post. I'm going to go to bed now and hope my arm is better when I wake up. It's still sore and bugging me. I can barely pick up anything that has decent weight to it. Unfortunately, when the ibuprofen wears off, that includes a coffee cup with coffee in it. That is not acceptable! Get better arm! We have work to do tomorrow.

By the way, I'm getting sick and tired of worrying about word count. *sigh*

9 Days Left

Well, here we are. On the downhill side of NaNoWriMo. I'm currently sitting at just over 23K words. You know, that's not even halfway, and I'm still not stressed out. I found out on Friday that I can do 3500 a day without a problem. I just have to find the motivation to get it done. Today, I took a nibble out of the entire amount by writing 3,000. Unfortunately, the NaNo site and I got into an argument over how much I did write. *growl*

FocusWriter says I did 3,037. NaNo says I only typed 2,400. See why I'm upset? I think I have a right to be upset. I was so upset that I redid the entire master file in case my synced files were off. *sigh* I did have errors on both sides of the computer/sync file equation. Those are all fixed and NaNo still thinks I only did 2,400 words. LAST time, it and FocusWriter agreed a lot closer than that on what I wrote!

Maybe using FocusWriter was a bad idea. I have an extra step thrown in now before I can save and sync my files. I guess I'll just start adding on to my previous files and call it good. Or something. I don't know. I'll think it through tomorrow when I sit down to write.

Tonight, all I want to do is go take a shower, watch an episode or two of Eureka, and head to bed. I DID however, spend some time watching a Twitter stream today. It was the #writechat. Excellent group to sit in on if you get the chance on Sundays. I'm going to start making it a part of my writing habit. I learned so much today. It was exciting. :-)

Now, off to take my shower.

Whoops. Swing and a miss!

Today was not a good day for NaNo, I'm sorry to say. It was a good day for going to a birthday party though. :-D We came back from that and I was worn out. We went to Chuck E. Cheese for a friend's party. The noise and activity in that place always wears me out. It's more of an emotional thing and my book requires way more energy than that right now.

It's funny, because when I tried to write, I noticed two of my characters were exhausted and only wanted to sleep. I figured out my time line and found out it was maybe 7 in the evening. Dang. Nope. They can't be tired yet. lol So the few words I got written today will need to be redone because it's completely wrong. Since I was obviously influencing my characters with my own feelings, I threw in the towel for the night.

I will get a good night's rest and will work hard all day tomorrow. I'd better because we're about down to the last 9 days of the month. I'm still not worried, though. I'll get there. :-) Until I can head to bed, I'm going to go watch some TV. Not much though. I'm very tired and I really want to go to sleep.

Done and Done!

Okay, I'm not done with my book, but I hit my goal today, both of them. My first goal was to hit 20,000 words. I was sitting at 16,587. No problem. That's doable. Then, I figured, what a silly goal, as that required 3,413 words. Silly number. I jumped it slightly to 3500. I ended up at, according to the NaNo site, 3609 words for today.

I'm just skipping around here happy as a lark. :-D I'm going to have to repeat that almost every single day from here on out. I might try and see if I can't sneak in more words whenever I can. Weekend starts tomorrow, then the kids have a good part of next week off due to Thanksgiving. It might be a little difficult to get the necessary words on a few of those days. Oh, well. I did it last year, I can do it this year. :-D

*happy dances off to take a little break*

Let's Rock This Thing!

Okay, here we go! I'm currently sitting at 15,086 words behind where I should be. Whoo hoo! You know what? I'm not the least bit upset to be that far behind. Nope! I'm not. This is when it gets fun. Dead serious here. :-D Now that my win is hanging in such a delicate balance, the pressure is on and this is when I do my best stuff. I'm about to get off my main computer, power up the ol' Netbook, and start cranking it out. I have 12 days left. Plenty of time to pull off a 50K win, and I hope a finished book to boot. Of course, this is also when the quality of my work is going to go down, I'm sorry to say. I wish that wasn't the case, but when you start aiming for such a large quantity of words in such a short span of time, quality goes right out the window. *big sigh* Oh, well. I can fix it later.

Let's rock this thing!!

I learned...

Today, I learned something interesting. I learned that I write faster, and better, if I'm not on my main computer. I might prefer the screen and the keyboard of my desktop computer over my Netbook, but for some reason, I can avoid the internet better on my Netbook. Weird how that works since it's perfectly capable of going online, and we have a wireless network in our home.

While at home today, I got a whopping 800 words typed on my desktop computer. So much for getting caught up and zooming along. *facepalm* Tonight, I went to a write-in. More people were there and we sort of talked more than we wrote, but I also cranked out another 800 words while there. Not bad when I was sitting and chattering away, sneaking in some writing when I could.

Tomorrow! Tomorrow I shall tuck myself into my writing corner and type away on my little Netbook. I seriously need to get caught up. That, and with the story line I still have tucked in my head, I'll go right past 50K words. I'd like to see the book finished this November, but I'll be okay with a win and then continue to the finish in December. I just have to be careful not to stop writing after November.

I have grand plans... grand plans. And I'd better either a) get started on it, or b) admit it's late and head to bed before I put myself in a nasty feedback loop of getting up exhausted in the morning so I feel the need to take a nap. That's what happened to me today. Then my nap was too long. And then I got nothing done. And then... It is a sad story, really. Yes, tomorrow I can try again and hope I get it right. :-D

Caught up...

Well, I'm caught up with the handwritten portion anyway. Took me all day to pull it off because I kept procrastinating, but I finally got 'er done. I figured that I typed over 7,000 words to do it. Man, it would have been nice if those had been new words. My only consolation prize was that I obviously can't count by hand. The NaNo site gave me 200 bonus words when I was finished. Hey, I'll take them! That's why my little box over there is orange. It can't make up its mind if I flopped or if I did okay. Considering they weren't technically new words, I guess that's a flop. Oh, well.

I have nothing amazing to say today. My hands are sore from all the typing and they're complaining at me. So I should probably just call it a day and meander off. I'll do a few more rounds of my sites and make sure nothing needs my attention. Then I'll call it a night.

Throwing in the Towel

HaHa! Gotcha there, didn't I? I am throwing in the towel, but not on NaNo. I've fallen way too far behind trying to handwrite this that I have to switch to typing. Not tonight, however. Dang. I'm having a heck of a time typing this entry up. I think it's trying to go from my Netbook to my regular keyboard that messes me up. They are not compatible.

So, new plan! I'm full of them because I want to win. That's what it boils down to. I'm sad to be switching because I know I write better by hand and my stories require less editing that way, but such is life. I'll make a little note to myself that I switched to typing around Chapter 6 so that I'll be aware when I read through it again. Then again, I'm sure it will be obvious.

My new plan is this. I will begin typing my handwritten portion tomorrow. When I've caught up, I will continue to write until I can't anymore. At this point, I'm looking at around 2,600 words a day. I'd stress out if I didn't know I put it off even longer last year and had to type way more than that every day. ;-) Besides, I hand wrote my way through the hard part. I'm now where things are starting to move and happen. It will work.

Writing this much by hand did teach me one thing. It taught me that I could do it. I honestly can write an entire book by hand if that's what I want to do. I mean, really. How many writers write a book in a month anyway? That's just silly. Which, of course, is the whole point of NaNo. To be silly and have fun. Now, it's time to crank this out and reach the end goal.

What is my end goal? It's to reach at least 50,000 words and finish my book. That finish is the all important word here. No longer will I be happy with leaving a story dangling. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Thanks a lot, hubby, for foisting that on me last year. lol That's okay though. I know I can do it. I'm sort of over confident like that. ;-)

Now to decide if I should watch one more episode of Eureka or go ahead and go to bed like a smart girl. I'll probably watch another episode. hehehe

Whoops, forgot a day

Well, actually, I didn't forget. My hubby needed to use my computer last night and I didn't get anything done on it. I could have used my Netbook, but we're having a power struggle over the keyboard. I'm pretty sure my Netbook is winning.

I'd like to report that I did awesome getting "unplugged." Unfortunately, I couldn't do it!! Obviously, technology has wiggled itself so firmly into my life that I can't ditch it. It's the best procrastination tool known to mankind. I'm not sure it aids in productivity at all, no matter what they say!

Last night, while I was writing, the strangest thing happened to me. I was writing dialogue between a few characters, which I was finding fascinating because my characters have taken over my book and their personalities are really becoming obvious. So, as I was saying, I was writing dialogue and I looked down at the paper and noticed that I was writing it. Okay, that sounds weird, but I was so involved in what was taking shape before me, that I wasn't paying attention to where it was coming from. I knew it was coming from my mind, but not to how it was appearing on the page. Gaw. I'm sounding more like a fruitcake every minute. The entire point was that watching my hand, holding a pen, and writing out these words literally threw me for a loop. I had become that distanced from where the story was coming from and enjoying the story as it appeared. I watched my hand for a moment continue to write and it was fascinating. I ended up having to jerk my mind away from what was writing the words to allow them to continue to flow uninterrupted. Yeah... That really makes me sound crazy.

It was interesting yesterday, when my characters took over, I was excited. I let them go and sat back to see what would happen. You know what happened? They walked themselves right into a corner and stalled. *big sigh* They're not supposed to do that. I ended up putting everything away for awhile and was thinking of how to get them out of their predicament. I kept thinking, "This is what I need to happen next. How do I get them there?" I finally got smart and "skipped" them to that point. lol I slapped in some asterisks to separate the sections and started it back up where I needed it to be. My characters stepped back in and took over again. I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing. If they get themselves stuck again, I'm going to be perturbed.

I am now far enough behind to be worried to some extent. I know from last year's experience that I do this. I managed to win last year by typing for 3-4 straight days. Whoo! Was that literally painful! I was hoping to avoid that this year by writing every day. Did you know you need to write more than 900 words a day to pull it off? *giggle* Yeah... And getting sick for 3 days didn't help anything either. So, starting today, I'm going to implement a 15/5. What I mean by that is I will write for 15 min., take a break for 5 min, write for 15... You get the idea. I have to write almost 3,000 words a day to pull this off. And you know what? I don't think that will get me to the end of my book! I'm sitting at just over 13,000 words right now. I finally got all of my characters introduced, I think, and now stuff is supposed to start happening. Right. As soon as I can figure out how to make it happen in a semi-believable way. Please ignore the impossibility of his characters coming to life in the first place. lol Well, since they came to life, they've behaved in perfectly normal fashion.

Okay. That does it. I'm off to see if I can stop my main character from pouting and get something done. I can't believe he's sat there this whole time, watching TV, without being the least bit interested in what's going on around him. This dude needs a serious wake-up call. All right. I'm off to get this thing done. Wish me luck!

Trying something new

I was reading through The Artist's Way, and I came across something interesting. I wasn't actually reading it. I was leafing through it. Either way, I still saw something that caught my attention. There was a heading in there that said to put yourself in "Reading Deprivation." Oh... However, within that deprivation, it included everything. TV, computers, video games, and reading. And you know what? That has probably been my biggest problem this NaNo.

Every morning, I power up Facebook, Writing.com, NaNoWriMo.org, and Twitter. Then, for the past 24 hours on top of that, I read Jenna Starborn. I highly recommend that book, by the way. A great sci-fi twist on a classic. ;-) That aside, let me know where writing fits anywhere in that mess of stuff I start. Yeah. It doesn't.

So, I'm going to attempt to make a deal with myself. I'm going to "unplug" for the next 24-48 hours and see what happens. Every night before midnight, I will give myself the 'privilege' of updating my word count on the NaNo site. I am giving myself the right to listen to music, but the wifi function on my new ZuneHD is to be disabled, and no playing games on it! This will count as today's post, but I'll swing by tomorrow and give an update on how things are working out.

Crazy how unnerving the thought of "unplugging" and "deprivation" can be on a person. I'm guessing I'll meander around for a bit like a lost puppy. I'll probably end up doing some laundry and getting the dishes done. Both are admirable things that take up very little time. When that's done, I'll have nothing better to do than write. Well, probably should throw a shower in there somewhere. :-D

Here I go! I'm going to unplug now. Wish me luck and I'll see you tomorrow.

New ZuneHD

Nope! Nothing doing here. I got a few words written today, but so few that I'm not going to bother counting them. I'll leave those pretty red boxes there stating I completely FAILED the past 3 days. I'm still taking pills now and then to ease my stomach and playing with my new ZuneHD. Hopefully, the fun newness of it will wear off soon. Tomorrow, I will write. Until then, I'm going to giggle insanely as I play with my ZuneHD and see what it can do. ;-)

Still Sick

Gack! That sums it up nicely. I'm still feeling queasy, though I was going to tough it out today and get to writing. However, everyone's home. Right then. I sat down, got all ready, selected my music on my iPod, put in my headphones and hit "play." *fizzle* NO!!!

*sigh* So, there I was, looking at my iPod that was saying stuff like, "Restore using iTunes," and giving me the sick iPod picture. Eep! I dash over to the computer and connect it up. Luckily, I'd updated to iTunes 10 last night. That will have my iPod up and running in no time. *big sigh* Nope. I ended up getting funky errors and my iPod then starts draining its battery faster than I drain my first cup of coffee in the morning. So, I pick it up to see what it's doing and almost dropped it. It had gotten that hot while it was plugged into my computer! So, I ripped out the cable and locate my receipt from last year to return it to Best Buy. I buy that warranty every time and it's saved my behind, twice, in two years. There's something going on here. It's a conspiracy! This last iPod didn't even last a full year before dying.

I baby my iPods. I don't throw them, drop them, anything. They have special hard cases they go into if they're not in their Bose Sound Dock. This last one didn't even have a single scratch on it anywhere! Needless to say, I wasn't amused when it curled up and died.

Knowing that Best Buy would just hand me a gift card to go pick out what I wanted, I looked up the iPod nano 6th generation. My first reaction was, "WTH?! If I wanted one that small, I would have bought the Shuffle in the first place!!" It wasn't what I wanted at all. A tiny 1" x 1" screen, or however big it is. In looking at my other options, I remembered the time back before my icky iPods when I had tried out the Zune. I was so bummed back then that I couldn't get it to work. I went through 2 of them before giving up. So, I pulled up the information on the new ones. I mean, they've had several years to get them right. CNet is giving them a 4 star rating and saying that it's the 1st mp3 player in years to give iPods a run for their money.

In the end, that's what I brought home. I'm a proud owner of a 16gb Zune HD. I, unfortunately, had to give up the best parts of my Bose Sound Dock, but that's okay. This will at least still hook up to it via the Aux In port on the back. I just don't get to use the remote anymore. That is a bummer in and of itself, but I refuse to get the other iPods. My Zune is now charging merrily away and it's done syncing. I even downloaded some spiffy apps on it I can fiddle with later. lol We'll see how that goes.

And yes, this seriously cut into my writing time today if you can't tell. I need to get back on track. I'll get to that here in a few. I think I'll drag my Zune with me over to my writing corner and plug it into my Netbook. It has USB ports there that can continue to charge it, and then I can fiddle and listen to music. Hopefully, I remember to write. lol

Lost a Day

Dang. Today is the first day since NaNo started that I didn't get anything written. I'm bummed by that, but I did try. I think I got food poisoning this afternoon. So far, I'm the only person in the house sick anyway, and I hope it stays that way. It was not fun. Needless to say, I ended up sleeping most of the day away, though I did take my notebook and pen upstairs with me. Unfortunately, my tummy wouldn't settle down enough for me to write at all. I'm in a brief lull where I feel good, but I'm sure it won't last long. Not that it matters anyway. Blogger will probably put this post as "Thursday," but it's definitely Friday here. The NaNo site will mark it as Friday, even if I got anything written now. I'm going to throw in the towel and go back to bed. Hopefully, it will have passed by tomorrow and I can get writing again. Yes. Going back to bed sounds like a grand idea.

Still Going!

Today was one of my best writing days since the first day. I haven't done the final count to enter it yet, but it's definitely over 1200 words. Whoo! Not bad when you're writing by hand, but I'll need to do better or I'll be left with a ton of typing that final week. I managed to finish Chapter 4 and start in on Chapter 5, so at least I'm getting somewhere!

Yesterday, if you notice, I didn't do a blog post. I wasn't feeling very good, so went to bed early. I tried getting up for awhile, but hubby had his gear spread out all over the living room. He must have gotten diesel fuel on it or something the last time he was in the field. Needless to say, it made me sick to my stomach to smell it. I went right back to bed and got lots of sleep.

I'll admit I could have done better writing today. I got distracted by my computer a few times, but I did better than usual. Hopefully I'll get chapter 4 typed up and loaded onto WDC before too long. I'll probably work on that tomorrow as I'm not sure how the writing will go. Gaw! I'm never going to get caught up. :-P The reason being that hubby and kids have the day off. *pout* I've gotten spoiled by my quiet days. I'll need to find a way to work around that. One way or another, I will get some time devoted to it. That has become my main goal this NaNo. I WILL write every day, even if it's only 10 minutes.

With that, I'm going to go see what the family is up to. :-) Family time is just as important as writing time.

More on my boring book...

Today, I was completely bummed out over my book. I mean, really! Who wants to write a book they know is boring? It also didn't help that I got hung up waiting to pick up my husband from work for 2 HOURS before he told me to go on home and he'd call me to pick him up later. Crazy Army. Stupid me, while we're at it. I left my notebook at home, so I wasted 2 entire hours that I could have been writing. However, I came to a nifty realization this evening. (Bear with me here. I'm tired...)

I made myself sit down and write for 30 minutes. I'm sad to say that was about all I did today, but at least I did something! Well, minus a 10-15 minute sprint I did with my middle son while trying to make him do his spelling words. ;-)

Anyway, the realization I came upon was this. I don't think I'm writing mainstream fiction this year. The entire theme that's running under the storyline is one of hope and redemption from a shattered past. The way it's being written is making me think it's literary instead of mainstream. It's 100% character driven and the ideas are a little deeper than something you'd find in a mainstream novel. So, that would explain why it seems to be flowing well, if a little on the "boring" side. Once I thought about it from the literary angle, it all started to make sense. The book is not attempting to make itself more interesting. As a matter of fact, it keeps wanting weird little 'hints' thrown in alluding to deeper meaning. I'll keep pushing through the book, though I'll admit it's more interesting to me now that I realize it's not meant to be mainstream. I don't expect a lot of people to understand it or enjoy it. If I like it, somewhat, when the rough draft is finished, then that's all that matters. Unlike last year's novel, it may never be worth major polishing and possible publishing, but as long as I enjoy writing it, then that's all that matters. And now, I'm very interested in seeing how it turns out.

My Book is Boring

Okay, that does it! I decided my book is boring. Mind you, I have people tell me all the time that they like my writing, so maybe it's just me. But... I'm pretty sure this one IS boring. I mean, my writing "sprint" today talked about... a coffee mug. Whoo! *hits head on desk* Sorry. I actually enjoyed a few parts because I had to wake up my characters, but didn't want to come right out and say, "The alarm went off and they woke up." Talk about boring! So I did the first part through the use of sound until a character appeared on the scene who could pick up the "seeing" side of things.

I had a very short writing time today. I think it boils down to having 3 kids at home. lol Tomorrow, while they're at school, I shall strive to do better. I know that I'm way behind on my word count, but you know what? It's not that big of a deal. Right now, I'm more impressed that I'm sitting and writing every day, even if it's only 500 words. That's better than nothing!

I spent some time this evening typing in my third chapter. That is one drawback to writing by hand. I think I'll start typing it in every night. My hand is complaining at me right now. I'm waiting to get a call from its lawyer. However, I hope we can put off the lawsuit for awhile longer. I have 3 people waiting to read my book as it becomes available. Man, I hope I'm not disappointing them. What I mean by that is, "I sure hope I'm not sending them a boring book!" I am though, I know it. Though, while typing in part of my 3rd chapter tonight, I came across a few good parts. They need editing, of course, but that's not on the agenda this month.

Well, I'm going to head off and take a break. My hand is getting rather upset and is petitioning for a break. Since I need its cooperation to keep writing, I will honor its wishes.

Happy Dance!!

Okay, in looking at how much time it took, and how many words I got, it's sort of sad. However, I am writing by hand now, so that's a different world. It's allowing me to get all of my ducks in a row and the book is unfolding in ways that are fascinating and yet make perfect sense with the rest. Well, except this one part that I caught on the count-through, but that's beside the point. lol

I told myself this afternoon, "You will write for 1 hour." So I sat down, after setting my cell phone for 1 hour, and began to write. That was after I setup my Netbook to stream Pandora through my Bose Sound Dock. Man, I love that thing! So, I selected some music I usually write to, and off I went to write. And I wrote slowly, sluggishly, haltingly, ... I bet you get the picture there. I'd stop and stare at the wall, and twiddle with a pen, and I didn't get a whole lot done. Then I thought, "What if I'm writing to the wrong music?"

Now, anyone who is a music lover knows what I'm talking about. Music influences us more then you could imagine. If I'm having a bad or stressful day, I can usually trace it back to the fact I hadn't listened to any music that day. A little time with my iPod and I'm back on an even keel. On the flip side of that coin, the wrong music can mess me up.

So, I told Pandora to play the other station I had setup earlier that day. It was a faster beat and was modeled after Robert Miles and a few other techno songs I enjoy. It was like a lighbulb went off in my head. All of a sudden, my characters started doing things again, and my pen started flying across the page. I wasn't stopping every two seconds to stare at the wall anymore. When my alarm went off at the end of the hour, I turned it off before it could get too annoying, and kept writing.

When my hand called mercy, I had written almost 1,000 words (937 to be precise). Awesome!! Happy dancing over here. :-D Since I switched to writing by hand, I was struggling to reach even 850 words, and that was writing 2-3 times a day.

I was also having random questions zing themselves into my brain. They would, of course, hang around, buzzing in my head until I addressed them. Right then. Enter a good use for random Post-It pads I have floating around. When one would come into my head, I would scribble it down real fast, and keep going on my story. It would instantly get it out of my head and I could decide later on if it was worth going back to and answering.

So! That's where I'm at right at this moment. Hopefully, the kids will give me another chance to write this evening. I hope, I hope. I'd like to hit that 1700 word count goal. :-)

"You will be writing a lot of crap."

Okay! I have to do it. I've been reading way too many entries of other people's opinions on NaNoWriMo and I feel compelled to chime in. Of course, all of these so-called entries are written by professional writers. Spuh. You know, those people who were just like me at one time?

They go on and on about NaNo in some way or another, but they ALWAYS latch on to that one line in the "What is NaNoWriMo?" section that says, "You will be writing a lot of crap." They always freak out and go overboard about it. So, let me just say a few things on it myself. I might not be a "professional" writer. I might not get paid to write my little blog. I don't even have a published anything, but I apparently know something those amazing "golden" people don't.

*clears throat* ALL first drafts are crap. Actually, Ernest Hemingway said it better, but I do want to keep this semi-family friendly. ;-)

Now those "professional" writers would glare at me, and I'm sure puff up, but you know what? Get over it. Sheesh. I'm sure you're just all marvelous and wonderful in your little world, but who cares? NaNoWriMo is NOT for writers like YOU, so don't worry your little perfect heads about it. NaNoWriMo is for people like ME.

Let's sit back and see what kind of people I'm referring to.

1) Fear of being able to write anything as long as a novel, even as "pathetic" as a short 50K word novel. Yeah, I know, I know! It's a novella. Get over it.

- FACT: Doing something as silly as writing a story over a course of a month that equals 50,000 words is amazing. Many of us have NEVER written anything that long before, EVER.

- FACT: While many do use word padding techniques, there are just as many who do not. Think about that one for a moment. Some write full books up to 100K words. Others leave room within their stories to go back and expand areas when they have a detailed picture of what's going on and more time. And no, taking your time in the first place is what leads to procrastination and the book never getting written. Obviously, the "published" writers are perfect. But I'm talking about the not so perfect people, like me.

2) Someone who is so scared of a recent accomplishment that they aren't writing anymore. Or, they're scared they might accomplish something. Being able to tackle something with no other reason than they want to try can be liberating.

**Ever hear of a little thing called "writer's block"? Yeah, that thing that kept you from finishing your book for ages. Some of the 'cures' for it are free writing and giving yourself permission to write ... crap. In other words, throw in the dang talking squirrel if it keeps things moving. Last time I checked, that's what the editing process was for. To take out that dang squirrel, but leave in what happened because it most likely got you past the dang problem spot! See?! Crap. (Unless you're in Narnia. Then it's perfectly normal.)

3) Someone who has no set times for writing and has a hard time making themselves write every day.

-FACT: It takes 28 days to establish a habit. Good thing NaNo is 30 days long then, huh? If a writer gets in the habit of sitting down to write at the same time every day for 30 days, they've put into place a habit they can use for life.

One final fact for you lovely 'published' writers. Not everyone wants to write a novel to become published. I know, I know. That probably shocked you right down to your toe hairs, but it's the truth. Most likely, for every writer who wants to be published, there are 5 who write just because they like to.

My first year attempting NaNo, I learned that I could write something that long. I'd never once believed I could. This year, I'm learning to sit and write every single day whether I want to or not. That is just as important as learning that I could. By knowing that I'm allowed to "write crap," all of the pressure is off. I still edit a little as I go, but nothing like I used to. I have become a better writer because of NaNo. But you know what? I don't expect you to understand that.

I'm of the opinion that "professional" writers just don't "get it." They don't understand, and will never understand, what NaNo truly means or what "You will be writing a lot of crap" means. Also, the arbitrary "win" at the end? Gee, you know what? That win at the end is the most many of us will ever see. If you're awesome enough to already have an agent and you're published, you don't understand. But don't take it away from the rest of us and demean it.

All I can say about the manuscripts that flood the publishers at the end is, "People should know better. Just because they wrote it doesn't make it good." As a matter of fact, it's a very rare, and gifted, individual who can write and edit at the same time so precisely as to have a polished manuscript at the end. So rare that people would do better to assume they can't do it and they have to edit first. However, look on the bright side, those crappy manuscripts ensure that those publishers will have plenty of work to do. See? Job security.

Now. I'm going to go write some crap so that I can have my purple winner's bar at the end.

Being allowed to write "crap" means that you are allowed to make wrong word choices and throw your characters into unlikely situations because you want to see what happens. It means that you are free from having to edit until the end because it's not important during the drafting process. Writing "crap" means that your first chapter can be useless rambling while you find the voice you're going to use for the rest of your book. It's okay that it rambles, cut it off during the editing process and rewrite it. That, by the way, is a time-honored tip for ANY book you write and not just a NaNo book. The first chapter is always "crap." In the end, "crap" only means non-perfect writing, for those of you who obviously don't "get" it. It is only a word to allow perfectionists to let go and move forward. It's nothing more 'evil' than that. So let go and move on.

Still Creeping Along

It turns out that I will have to continue writing this book by hand. I'm a little worried that means I won't make the 50K word goal by the end of the month, but I'll do my best! I'll admit that I will switch to the computer if I have to. However, I'll hold off on that until the final week. ;-)

The reason why I needed to switch to writing by hand is that my mind refused to focus on it while being confronted with my computer. So annoying. I guess the pull of technology has gotten stronger since last year. Imagine that. The only way I know to counter it is to turn it all off and use paper and pen. I do leave my Netbook up and running near me though. Oddly enough, it doesn't have near the pull that my main computer does. I use it to look up words to make sure they're the ones I want to use. So far, it's working well.

I'm currently sitting at just over 1,000 words for the day. However, I have plans to write more, which is good, since I'm behind on my word count. I have to write around 1732 words a day to finish on time. Yes. I need to get writing, and I hope that this story starts taking off more than it has so far or I'll be in trouble this year.

Back for another one

I thought I'd come sneak this in real quick. I'm technically supposed to be over at my writing desk working on my book. However, I decided I needed a technology break, so here I am!

I'd like to say that today was better than yesterday, but it wasn't really. The only difference being that I never took a nap. I'm anxious to get my sleep schedule halfway normal again. That is the funniest dang thing I've ever written. hahaha I've been trying to do that for about 20 years. It's never going to happen, but I'm tired and I'm delusional. It works out in the end. ;-)

All day long I did... nothing. I did some dishes and did some laundry and I zoned out in front of my computer. I played with long load times on the NaNoWriMo site, and did a bit of random typing on Writing.com. However, not a single word of that, or a single minute of that, helped my book any.

I then decided I wanted to switch my book to yWriter5. I have very simple tastes in my word processors. I have to have Times New Roman for my text and it must be 12 pt. I got sick and tired of fighting with Scrivener about it. Besides, I was losing. :-P So, with a few quick copy and pastes, yWriter5 is up and running for the rest of NaNo.

Okay, so by the end of the evening, after going through the typical stuff with my kids as the night wore on, I realized there was no way my brain was thinking clear enough to write. As a matter of fact, I'm not even sure this blog entry is making sense. But that's beside the point. :-D What is the point is that, while I was supervising bath time (i.e. making sure the youngest actually washed and didn't decide the bathroom floor was a better place for the water than the tub), I started writing the next bit in my book. Next thing I know, my story is slowly but surely taking shape again.

Writing by hand is slow and can be tedious. However, when your mind is running at about that speed, it's perfect. I've managed to fill one side and I'm well into the back side of a page. While not being done at the "blinding speeds" of typing, it works well enough. Thoughts are leaving my head in a partially coherent manner, I think, and being transferred to paper. It counts!! It all counts! Before too long, I'm going to take a quick word count and post it. I know I'm behind, but I'm so tired right now that I don't care. It has been "one of those days," and I'm ready for it to end. In the meantime, I'll get as much written as possible at the speed my mind is working. Slow.

What the...?!

Okay! So, today is going about as well as yesterday. There is something seriously wrong with this year's NaNo! Is my story idea bad? I didn't think so when I picked it out. It seemed to fall in place even easier than last year's idea. I don't get it. I've only managed 750 words so far today. I'm hoping to catch at least 1200 later this evening. I'm not sure if sprints will work or if I just need to punch in my word goal and keep writing until I hit it. Maybe not allow myself to even get out of my chair until it's finished. Or leave the writing screen or.... ARGH!

This year, I'm making some use of the "Write X many words if..." thread. However, as I was reading through them, avoiding the few that 'break the rules,' I realized that I'd end up with 5,000 words to write if I wasn't careful. lol For awhile, I was doing them one challenge at a time. Sort of along the lines of, "Write 250 words if you..." I'd write the 250 words, and any extra that came with it, and then go look at the next one. "Write 300 words if you're drinking coffee." Oh, yeah. No brainer there. As a matter of fact, where is my coffee cup?

Today, it's raining and cold outside. That is the ultimate recipe for nap day. I've been groggy and out of it ever since I woke up. I swear. This year's NaNo is doomed to failure... *sigh* So much for my "happy, happy, I can do this without a problem" attitude from the beginning. Excuse me, but can I have that attitude back? It was a much happier one and I could use it right about now.

Strangely enough, if I'm on my main computer (the one I'm on now), I find myself flipping through all of my tabs and all of my programs to just "fiddle." Then I'll get sidetracked by something completely unrelated and bleh. An hour later, I might remember what I was doing and return to it. I do believe I need to take a long look at this behavior and discover why I'm doing that. Last year, I was much more disciplined. Oddly enough, even though I had access to the internet, I was much less likely to do that on my Netbook last night. Maybe it's because I don't have all the same programs installed? My instant messengers aren't on there. I have different bookmarks. Maybe it's because the screen is smaller and I can't see as much. Who knows? Maybe it's because it "lives" in my writing corner. No clue. Though, I'm starting to think I might have to do NaNo over there. If it works, then great. I'd love to see this book finished sometime this month. ;-)

Oh. At one point last month, I started worrying that I had over planned my idea. Ut oh. Did I do that and it killed the book idea? Is that's what's wrong? I've lost interest in it because I know where it's going to go? But I thought I left a loose enough frame for my characters to move around as they wanted to. I did notice my main character moving a little out of the way yesterday, but he stepped right back in to line and kept moving forward. Of course, being only in the first 2 chapters, it's hard to say. I'll force my way into the next chapter and see if anything changes. The framework gets much looser through the next 7 chapters. Maybe that will help. I just have to get there first.

Well, time to get a kiddo to do his homework. The fun never ends.

1st Day

OMG! Can we say, "Nightmare?!" I think that if anything could go screwy, it did today. Let's run down the list, shall we?

I stayed up last night for the midnight kick-off. I had plans to NOT do that for a very good reason. I think it had something to do with getting up at 5:30 am this morning. Imagine that. So, I stayed up, did a single 15 min sprint (809 words), and went to bed. Then, I laid awake for the next 2 hours.... Hubby wakes me up at 5:30am. I tell him basically to bugger off and call a cab. To give him credit, he did try. lol However, I guess they were busy, or they don't run that early, or something. So, he comes to tell me that he has to take the car and I can take a cab to get it later. I proceed to get angry and basically rip his head off. Poor guy. I'm not a morning person. I know he hates waking me up early because I'm not a nice person.

I get him to work and manage to get the rest of us back home safely. Hurray! I send the kids back to bed for another hour, but I stay up. I wasn't sure I'd wake up again! After I got them off to school, I came straight home and went to bed. I didn't even pretend that I could stay up at that point. 2 hours of sleep isn't near enough. My goal was to get up at noon. Yeah, right. I got up at 2 pm. That gave me enough time to have some coffee, read the boards a bit, and go take a shower. I got out, dressed, and went straight over to pick up my kids.

I'm sure you can imagine the 'fun' that ensued then. Definitely NOT writing time, that's for sure. I managed to sneak in a small amount in there somewhere. I'm trying to figure out when i did that... Oh, well. No matter. In the end, I managed to sneak in 1946 words. Not the awesome start I was looking for, but at least I'm on target. :-)

I'm currently on my Netbook because we had a fun storm move in. Wow! It was shaking the house for awhile. I love these kinds of storms. Two of my boys fell asleep during it and the other was scared to death. Is it okay for me to find that amusing? hehehe In some ways, it's not much different than the mortars and artillery we have here. At least lightning storms come with a pretty light show. :-D

Well, it's now officially midnight. I'm going to go relax for a bit and then head to bed. Night all! See ya tomorrow with, hopefully, more words for my novel than my blog entry! lol

A New Widget

Note: The widget may take awhile to appear or be disabled all-together. The NaNoWriMo site is being hit, hard. It's running slow and they've been looking for ways to help speed it up. It will speed up again as people stop hitting it so often.

If you look over at the right hand side, you'll see a new little widget. What this mean little critter does is show any and all of my blog readers exactly how good or bad I do on a certain day. So, I'd better be good! Here's what it all means from the NaNoWriMo page on available widgets:

My Month is a simple display showing overall progress and how you did on any given day. Light green and red show where you were above or below the goal for the day, bold green and red are reserved for days where you did exceptionally well or monumentally badly.

The typical goal for a normal day is 1,667 words.

When I started planning for this NaNo, a single book was selected. As I became over-confident, I decided 2 was better for the amount of free time I had. I then returned to reality. lol While I still wish I could pull off 2 books, I decided I'd be smart and still head for only 1 book. If you're interested, remember I'm posting this book as I write each chapter this month on Writing.com. It's one of the best websites out there devoted to writing. It gets top rewards from a lot of writing related magazines and websites every year, for good reason. :-)

That's about it for today. We're in final countdown for the start of NaNoWriMo 2010. It's exciting watching the countdown clock on their website. Several regions have already crossed into November, so the insanity has begun! Now, to wait for it to reach me. Interesting thinking of the time creeping slowly across the surface of the earth as it spins. I can't help but liken it to the sun slowly lighting the earth as its light slides along.

Midnight... How I wish I could stay up and see you come this year. Alas, I have to get up too early in the morning, so I must hold off starting until the kids are settled in school. At that point, I'll be off the starting line like a greyhound after a mechanical rabbit. Zoom!

A Not so Gentle Reminder

Okay, people. Let's get this straight, shall we? Maybe I know this instinctively because I prefer writing pieces by hand, but let me remind you of something fairly important as we approach NaNo at lightning speeds.

Even if you decide to type most of your NaNo novel, you ARE allowed to write some of it by hand and type it in later!! There's absolutely no rule out there that says you can't do this. You might worry that you might "edit" it as you type it in. If you can do that, then you're over-thinking your book in the first place. Just get it typed in and use that momentum to keep going. It's not near as difficult as everyone is trying to make it be. If anything else, that section might contain the most typos if you're a touch-typist. lol You're not looking at the screen, you're looking at your paper, so you're not catching the errors as you type them in. When it's typed in, do NOT go back and read it! Just keep going!

I wanted to point this out because I keep seeing on the boards stuff like, "I can't write between my classes because my laptop is breaking down..." or "I can't write while on the train because I only have a desktop computer..." or... The excuse list goes on and on. Right. Last time I checked, pen and paper are portable and require no electricity outside of light to see what you're doing. If you start writing the wrong word, or you misspell it, to heck with the delete key or being able to go back and correct it. Scribble it out and put in the right word!

And yes! This is almost a pet peeve. People stress too much over making it "pretty and neat." This is NANO!!! There is no nice and neat. There is only getting it down in paper and/or digital form and keep going. The biggest part of the battle is writing it. You can fix it later if it's worth it. And later means December, not November.

Okay. I feel better now. I'm going to go and work on brainstorming my story, which! I'm doing by hand using pen and paper. lol

A Common Thread

Well, I'm not sure what day this will fall on. It's technically 1 am my time, but apparently Blogger posts these on its own time. So, I might be writing two entries on the same day. However, I came across something interesting and this was as good of a place to write it down as any.

First off, my headache was apparently caused, in part, by dehydration. Figures. :-P So, after drinking some water, I'm feeling much better. :-) I even got some reading done, which is what lead to my marvelous thought.

One of the books my friend loaned me was, "Get Known before the Book Deal" by Christina Katz. I'll admit that I almost blew it off as she likes to talk about how creating a 'platform' applies to nonfiction writers. I'm not a nonfiction writer. Though, I do have a nonfiction book planned for the future... but that's currently beside the point. Thankfully, she had a chapter in there on how what she was saying pertained to fiction writers as well and gave a few examples, so I suppose I'll keep blundering my way through the book and try to apply it to my writing.

Anyway! I was thinking about the book I wrote, and the book I'm going to write next month, and realized that there was a common theme in them. One I didn't even realize existed until tonight. That common theme was someone helping another person, whether a friend or not, to avoid a terrible fate, whether the main character knew it was going to happen or not. In the end, the person helping expects nothing in return. In my first book, the character who helped did receive a gift, though she didn't ask for it. In my second book, the character helping gets an odd "present" out of it, whereas the main character benefits the most. However, "selfless helping" is the underlying theme in both of them. I believe my third book also runs along those lines, but it's not fully planned yet, so there's no telling. Though, it would appear that I enjoy writing books like that.

In our day and age, where we wonder, "If I help you, what do I get out of it" this theme is possibly an out of place one. However, I'd like to think that there are more people out there that would help their fellow man (or woman) without expecting anything in return. I'll admit that I'm not always that altruistic in my motives. I wish I was though.

Anyway! That was my amazing discovery this evening. I personally found it to be an interesting one. I thought my books differed quite a bit and didn't have anything in common. So, it was exciting to find that they did carry the same message, just in different ways. :-)

With that, I guess I'll turn in now. I'm looking forward to heading to bed and praying that my headache stays away. I'd greatly appreciate that since tomorrow is "Halloween Carnival" day. We're going to be busy trying to keep track of 3 boys in a crowded place. Oh, well. They're going to love it, so it will be worth the effort. Night!

Quick Entry

Today, nothing happened. That could sum that up perfectly. I woke up extra early with a nasty headache and it's hung in there all day long. It's about to drive me nuts! I'd done everything I can for it, from taking my Sudafed/ibuprofen combination, to getting a neck massage (thanks, honey!), to drinking water in case it's from dehydration. I've also drank some extra coffee in case it's caused by lack of caffeine. Never know with me. ;-)

It did stop long enough for me to help my friend go to Office Depot. That was fun, even if both of us were a little out of it. It was funny, actually. Thank goodness I remembered paper and ink while I was there. That would have been terrible to run out of that during NaNo! I like to print out each chapter as I finish it. I don't read it. It goes straight into a 3-ring binder, but it's my ultimate backup in case something happens to any of my digital copies. I also picked up some fun Post-It flags. I was needing some about a week ago, so I'm glad I have them now. I also picked up index cards. So thrilling... ;-) However, they're handy and hubby's eyes lit up when he saw the bundle I brought home. lol He loves index cards.

Well, darn. That will have to be it for this evening. This headache is knocking me for a loop and I'm sick and tired of it. Time to heat up the ol' rice pack to put over my eyes and go to sleep. I think I might see if I can find a sleeping pill so that I can stay asleep no matter how bad it gets tonight. I don't know why I have it, but I do know our barometric pressure is up. Looking at a weather map on weather.com, I see that we're right in the path of a high pressure system. That's probably causing it. Dang. It looks like it's going to hang in here for a few days as well. I hope I get used to it and my head stops hurting. I hate being so sensitive to pressure like this. *sigh*

Now, off to hunt down a sleeping pill and my rice pack.

Kick-Off Party and New Thoughts

Darn. I missed posting yesterday. Okay... that's a lie. I thought about it and blew it off. lol Last night, a friend and I went and hung out at Barnes and Noble. Do you know what it's like to find someone who loves office supplies as much as you do? It's awesome! I think we spent at least an hour in the journal section alone, looking in all the journals, comparing the lines, paper quality, etc. Then, we meandered over to the writing section and talked about good writing books. She was so sweet and loaned me three good books on how to become a freelance writer, and I turned around and loaned her my "No Plot? No Problem!" and the Gotham Writer's Workshop Fiction book. It works so well. She bought a journal that I would have loved to have owned myself. There were two of them there. If I'd had the money, I so would have bought it and done NaNo by hand this year. lol

I got to play with some moleskin journals. You know what? I do not like the feel of that paper. It felt kind of oily or something. My hand kept "hitching" on it and it didn't move smooth across the paper. Nope. I like normal paper better. :-) In a way, my pocketbook is happy about that. lol

Tomorrow night, we're talking about hightailing it off to a REAL office supply store and looking at pens and pencils. Ooh! There's a new Sharpie Pencil on the market that I want to try, so I'll definitely get one of those. Otherwise, I'm good for pens, darn it. lol

Tonight was the Kick-Off party. You know, by necessity, they're usually held during dinner time, so it makes sense to do them at a restaurant. Unfortunately, you're isolated to who you can talk to at the table. I wonder what it would be like to do a pot luck kind of get-together at a community center. That would be worth exploring in the future. It would allow people to walk around and talk to everyone, see what they're writing, etc.

What else? Umm... I did no writing today. *hangs head* I did come up with an idea for my book though, I just didn't write it down. Bad me! I should do that right now while I'm thinking about it! *ponders how to "weave" a book within a book and mark it in Scrivener*

Yup. I think that just about covers the past two days. Can you blame me for not posting yesterday? lol In all realities, my life is fairly boring. Well... minus any major drama from my boys, but that's normal for me. hehehe

I'd better head out. I need to sew some labels to something for hubby. Thank goodness the first print worked! I'm so low on ink I don't think I could have done it again. hehehe Oh, geez! I still need a picture of my fingerless gloves. I swear, I think I'd lose my head if it wasn't attached! Nope... I still lose it from time to time. Man. There's no hope for me. lol ;-)

Sad Realizations

I've been playing with the new Scrivener for awhile and I came to a sad realization. Well, it's only sad in the fact that I adore new technology and playing with new software. :-) Otherwise, it's still fine. I came to the conclusion, while trying to figure out how to make Scrivener work for me, that I'm a pen and paper writer. I do all of my best thinking and writing when I'm doing it by hand. So, I'm now looking at this year's NaNo and wondering if I shouldn't be doing it by hand. I can't seem to figure out how to enter in my "plot line" into Scrivener. Mind you, I've been reading my major brainstorming session here and I can see it's not a true outline at all. It's just a progression of ideas that will get me from the beginning to the end.

"True outline." That's funny. I don't outline anything. ;-) However, they're not even true plot points. I think I need to sit down with it this evening, with or without Scrivener, and hammer out the plot points. I'm also thinking it's time to blow off "The Dark Rider" for this year. I can tackle it later on. And, in all realities, with true plot points, I think I can get Scrivener to work. lol Though, it is still true, that I love writing by hand. Maybe I'll do a 50/50 kind of thing. Or something. I'll just sit and write however I want to when the time comes. Without "The Dark Rider" waiting to be written this month as well, I can slow down and do a better job on "The Day SHADE Came to Call."

I'll post a picture of my fingerless gloves a little later today. I think I'd like to be wearing them so that you can see what they look like on. Unfortunately, I'm not talented enough to wear them and take a picture of both of my hands at the same time. lol

Ooh! The plot points I need for "The Day SHADE Came to Call" are flowing in to my head. I'd better end this so I can concentrate on that. :-D

Scrivener Windows Beta has been released!!

OMG! I was right there on the front lines today to download the new Scrivener Windows Beta. It is an open beta if you're brave enough to try it. ;-) First thing I did, after I got out of the tutorial was to crash it. I'm sure my friend Mark would be so proud of me. LOL I'm working with it now and trying to see how I can get it to work for me. What I love about it so far is that the tools it has, while robust, get out of the way. You only use what you need. I like that a lot. I'll keep fiddling with it and see what I end up with. ;-)

Crash count: 1

I'm going to close this down here in a minute and work on my last fingerless glove. It's almost finished, so it will get done tonight. I was going to watch an episode of Stargate SG-1 while working on it. :-) Makes it so much easier to get things done. It's just a nice distraction.

Unfortunately, I was hit by a fly-by napping today, so didn't get near as much done as I'd hoped. *sigh* Tomorrow, will be better. Or rather, it had better be because I don't have a choice. I'm hoping to get some house cleaning done, hang out with my new NaNo friends in the morning. Get Scrivener installed on my Netbook, and get some brainstorming done on "The Dark Rider." Yes, it will be busy, but fun!

With that, I'm off to finish my glove. Hopefully I can get a photo of them to post tomorrow as well. Then you can all see how awesome they are. lol Just keep in mind, mine are adjusted to fit my hand specifically. So the pattern and what I have are not exactly the same thing. Anyway! I'm off to finish it. Later!

A Day Off

I'm hoping to sneak this in on a different clock as Sunday's post. I'm getting bad about that. However, nothing exciting happened today. Well, not in the NaNo world anyway. Today, I took the day off and went to visit my brother and my new SIL. That was fun. It was nice to meet her and see my brother. :-)

The only NaNo thing I did today was set up a meeting time with some ladies in the region and to start my second fingerless glove. I'll finish that up tomorrow and I'll be ready to go. The new Scrivener also releases tomorrow. WHOO!!! I'll definitely be doing NaNo things then! The Day SHADE Came to Call will be fiddled with a bit and entered into the beta. I'm excited to finally get to play with it. :-)

With that, I'd better head on out. It's going to be an early morning and I will have to be sure to get up in time to get the kids to school. I'm sure I'll be back early rattling on about how much I like, or dislike, Scrivener.

There's a Problem...

As with any writing project, you run into problems. I'm sure that I'm not the only one who has that happen. My recent problem has been in the form of 'The Dark Rider.' Nothing is wanting to click, none of the characters are wanting to play nice, nothing. Perhaps it's pouting over the fact that I literally threw away the 3 chapters I'd written so far. It is supposed to be in the spirit of NaNo after all. Not that it matters that I threw away the printed copy. I still have the digital copy. lol I was going for the symbolism and an empty 3-ring binder to hold the new physical copy.

As usual when I'm having problems, a shower helped shake a few things loose. You see, I was thinking that part of the problem might be that 1) I found out that the genre the book is mean to be is a difficult one to write. 2) The idea is an old one. As a matter of fact, it's the one my husband gave me back when he found out I used to write. It is this one that turned me back into a writer. So, it has had plenty of time to sit in the back of my head and percolate.

While taking my shower today, I realized a few things that can combat those ideas that were stuck in my head. First of all, this idea has been in my head for so long, that I know the way it is to be woven is the perfect blend for a Christian fantasy. I mean, I am a Christian! I'm writing it from that viewpoint, not from someone who normally writes fantasy and "reaching" for that ideal. Nope. The reality is that I'm reaching for the fantasy side because I normally don't write it. lol Okay. So the idea is balanced and it works. Moving on to the next point... Now that I think about it, the characters never did settle in my mind when I thought of it in the first place. As a matter of fact, when I picked it back up this time around, only 2 of them agreed to stick around as what they were before. Too bad neither of them were my main character. LMAO Okay... He's still there as the Dark Rider... but his name is gone, his physical description is semi-there, but not quite. Oh, boy. I'm in trouble if I don't have my main character to work with. It was at this point that I realized the story idea wasn't complete. It's time to sit down with it and brainstorm the bits and pieces out of it until I have a good working outline. Until that happens, this book can't be written.

NaNo starts in about 9 days. If "The Dark Rider" doesn't have its outline or character sheets by then, it won't be written this year. So, I'd better get a move on. With the Scrivener Windows beta releasing in 2 short days, I have my work cut out for me. I know I'm going to want to lay out "The Day SHADE Came to Call" when it releases and get it ready for the start of NaNo. So, yeah... I need to spend some good quality time with "The Dark Rider". This should be interesting. Today is practically gone, though my husband is on his way home from his mandatory day of fun. Tomorrow will be spent with us going to meet up with my brother and his new wife. I have no idea how long that will take. Oh, well. Family needs to come before NaNo, right? Well, at least before NaNo starts anyway. lol

Yeah. Tonight, I need to focus on my book. Now, to find my headphones for my iPod... I have a feeling I'm going to need them.

(copied verbatim from my writing.com blog)

Today's "Prep" Work

Today, I went about things a bit differently. I was sitting here and I realized that my hands tend to get cold when I type, especially over long periods of time. So, I decided that I had to have a pair of fingerless gloves. In the course of running a simple search on "fingerless gloves" on Google, I came across the coolest Etsy store! All she makes is wristlets and fingerless gloves of all lengths. It's called "Zen and Coffee". I definitely recommend checking it out. It's so neat! Needless to say, I fell in love with the most unlikely pair. lol Though, I did like several of them out there. Unfortunately, with our money the way it always is, I had to pass. Though, I definitely have it bookmarked to visit again in the future. ;-)

After I suffered that disappointment, I went on with my original goal, which was to find a knitting pattern to create my own fingerless gloves. I came across a great pattern here. Had I found this before Zen and Coffee's gloves, I would have been thrilled, as it's a two needle pattern that creates a glove that is form-fitting. Unfortunately, it feels like the pair I'm now making are below par. However, they'll still get the job done and will most likely last a lot longer. Not to mention I didn't have to spend any money to create them as I have plenty of yarn in my yarn bucket.

Also, last night, before I went to bed, I felt the need to write something, anything! My mind began to cast around for something to work on, and I'm happy to say that it settled on another part of some background information for my second book, "The Dark Rider." Every little bit I get done on that brings it one step closer to being ready to write. So that's thrilling stuff. :-)

So, here we are. Only 3 days from the release of the new Scrivener Windows beta, and 9 days to the start of NaNoWriMo! Whoo!!! Wait. 9 days? Or is that technically 10? Yeah... I'd better spend some good quality time with my second book tomorrow. I need to get that information in place. Once Scrivener releases, I'll be busy playing and getting it ready for NaNo. Time to get back to knitting! I don't want my fingers to get cold this November!

NaNo Prep?

Okay. My goal was to make at least 1 post every day until the end of NaNo. So... here's today's post in the nick of time. :-D It will probably be a very short one as my preparation towards NaNo consisted of... extra sleep! Hurray for naps! I ended up going to bed rather late last night and then couldn't fall asleep for another 2 hours. I hate it when that happens. I wanted to do some planning today, but there was no hope for me. I HAD to sleep. Needless to say, today went by in a flash. I am now getting ready to go to bed for the night. I hope I can get some good sleep tonight. Tomorrow is a short day for the kids, so I have limited planning time. Oh, that's a lie. I can plan whenever I want to. It's just easier when the kids aren't around. Imagine that. :-D

So. Yeah. Boring post. But! I got my one in for today! I win. :-D

NaNoWriMo 2009 WIN!!

Whoo! I can post pictures now. :-D I'm going to go digging for that lovely snip I took of my screen showing I won last year.



Tada! My proof! As a matter of fact, "Whispers of the Past" is currently undergoing rewrites and I'm hoping to enter it in the 2012 ABNA (Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award). We'll see how that goes. First though, NaNo 2010.

My overall goal is 2 books in 1 month. However, I'll be perfectly happy with 1 book, 50K+ words, too. So, tag along and see how that works out. I'm sure you'll see a lot of weird comments and random lunatic raving. Most likely, that will happen more around the end of a book because, by then, the characters are doing all sorts of crazy things that there were not supposed to do.

This will certainly be a crazy ride. Last year sure was! I can't wait.

And It Begins

So! Here we are, ready for another thrilling year of tackling NaNoWriMo. For anyone who doesn't know what that means, it stands for "National Novel Writing Month." However, that's misnamed now. It's no longer national, it's international, and it runs through the month of November. The goal is to write 50,000 words in 30 days.

This is my second year attempting this. Of course, Blogger has photo uploading disabled right now. I was going to show you an exciting little snip that shows off my win from last year. ;-) Obviously, my goal is to win again this year. Only, instead of writing one book, I'm going to write two. Or, rather, that's the plan. We'll see if I actually pull it off.

The first to be written is "The Day SHADE Came to Call." If you're a registered member of Writing.com, you can have the privilege of reading my amazing book as it's written. Okay, it's probably going to come out disjointed and horribly messed up, but what do you expect of a first draft? Oh. The genre of this amazing book is technically mainstream fiction, but I guarantee the idea is different and unique!

The second book to, hopefully, be written is "The Dark Rider." That's the working title as of right now. The genre of this one is Christian fantasy. Rumor has it this genre is hard to pull off, so we'll see how I do. It was the first idea I ever had that required something the length of a book. Unfortunately, I had no faith in myself and it has sat, collecting dust, for years. This book is, technically, the one that drove me to try NaNoWriMo last year, though I used a different book. I was hoping to return to it and write it later on. That never happened. It's getting all whopping 3 chapters cut off and rejuvenated for this year's NaNo. Maybe. ;-) It all depends on whether or not the 1st book gets finished in time. Either way, I hope to at least start it this month. I'd love to use the energy of the event to get a boost.

I'm happily planning and plotting and getting ready to leap out of my skin waiting for November 1 to arrive. I am also on the edge of my seat for October 25th when Scrivener releases their beta version for Windows! Their main version is for Macs and has been around for years. I've always wanted to try it out, so this is exciting! I'm going to help test the beta this year, along with hundreds, if not thousands, of others. :-) I am definitely looking forward to that. :-D

Last year, I used yWriter5 to write my book. It worked well for me, and if Scrivener turns out to be something I can't work with, heaven forbid, I will return to it. It is a free novel writing software and is well done, though not as 'pretty' as some others out there. There are huge discussions on whether or not you need novel writing software to write a book. The end line is, "Of course not." However, it works for me and that's all that matters. :-)

I think that is good for now. Tomorrow I hope to return to ramble on a bit more about something NaNo related. :-) This is my favorite time of year, so it shouldn't be that hard.