Category Archives: NaNoWriMo

If you stop for a 4 day break, it’s REALLY hard to get started again. I tried writing the other night and only got about 400 words out. Tonight? I’ve got my Nano document open and I’m just staring at it, completely at a loss for what to write.

Here’s my dilemma: I still have about 45,000 words to write, both to finish Nano, as well as to have a full-length novel. At the point I am in my story, I could probably end it in more like 20,ooo words. This is unacceptable. I think part of my problem though, is that I’m not totally sure how I want my story to end. I’ve tried skipping around while I write, but I just can’t do it. (yet, anyway) My brain works in a linear fashion, and I simply cannot wrap my mind around scene-skipping.

I need advice, people.

That’s what’s been happening with my writing the past 4 days. I was doing so well the first 3, and then life happened. More precisely, photography happened. I went to the Arts Institute for my 4 day photography retreat and I got ZERO writing done. I guess I had to trade one art form for another.

I’m about to start hammering out some scenes, but before I do, I thought I’d leave you with a peek into my writing habits. Many writers have things that they NEED to write. I only have a few requirements:

1) My Mac. Yes, any old computer would do, but why on earth would I settle for any old computer when I could have my Macbook? I wouldn’t.

2) Candy. I’m not a huge gum person, and I need something for my mouth to do while my hands are busy working. Okay, that sounded WAY dirtier than I intended it to sound.

3) Caffeinated beverage- be it soda or coffee, I must have something to keep the eyelids from drooping on nights like this when I’ve been at work for 12 hours and then have to come home to write.

Pictures:

Caffeine in the form of Strawberry Crush, skittles, and dinner mints. My tastes in candy are a little bipolar: 12 year old girl meets 80 year old woman.

How is your NaNoing going?

Day 2 of NaNoWriMo isn’t quite done yet, but I’m going to go ahead and post my recap. I suffered from major writer’s block writer’s ADD tonight and couldn’t focus. My word count was a little low, but on the bright side: I got a fairly difficult scene out of the way and expanded on a subplot that I’ve been struggling with.

I shared this on my facebook page, but I wanted to put it here for those of you that aren’t facebook friends with me:

What I learned tonight:

If suffering from writer’s block: add 2 cups coffee, a handful of teenage angst, a new love interest for the main character, and a stalker. Problem solved!

Writerly things I’m struggling with:

• Dialogue, of course! I had to write a scene where the MC was basically doing a soliloquy but that didn’t seem right. I had to turn it into a dialogue between FMC and MMC, but that seemed forced. Bah!
• I have 1 main plot and 2 subplots. I’m struggling with how much play to give each one. I know there will be a ton of revision involved in this.

New word count after day 2: 3723 Total words: 22,173

Edited because I decided to finish a chapter:

New word count after day 2: 4121       Total words: 22,571                                  Words written today: 1963

Day 1 was successful. I ended tonight with 2,158 new words written and a total of 20,607 all together. Success!

Just for fun, I pasted my entire novel (thus far) into Wordle to see what I came up with. Here it is:

And in random news, here’s a picture for Smash (Ashley, remember her? She’s the one with the cute purple top.):

I have naturally curly hair, but I have a hard time getting it to stay looking decent for an entire day, so I put a perm in it a week or so ago. She said perms remind her of the 90s. Hopefully, my hair isn’t very reminiscent of the bad 90s perms we all remember.

Well folks, it’s here! NaNoWriMo 2010 has begun! To start of the month, I thought I’d show you how I’m starting:

Since I’m adding to my current WIP for Nano 2010, I felt like I needed to get back into the characters’ heads. So, I took my 18k or so words and did a little revising (I’m using the word little VERY lightly here).

And of course, everyone needs goals. Here are mine for this month:

By the way, that pen there…it’s fabulous. I love the new clicky Sharpie pens. Go buy them. Now.

I couldn’t wait until “technical” November to share this with you. I worked pretty hard tonight and wanted to show it off.

It’s not perfect, but for 9pm on a Sunday night, I’m calling it good. It will help my track my progress from my current count of 18,450 to 68,460, where I shall be a winner.

Do you have a calendar?

Okay people, so I have this novel sitting around that I started last year, and I’ve done basically nothing with it since last November. I took it with me to Arizona this year hoping to get some high-quality writing done, but let’s face it: I’ve got nothin’. I did some research (in the form of mine and Becca’s adventure to Jerome) and some editing, but that’s about it.

Currently, I’m sitting at 17,988 words. I’ve read quite a few different opinions about the length of a novel. I’ve heard anywhere between 60,000 and 90,000 words. If I write 50,000 this November, I’ll be in the prime place to start editing and revising (which I’ll need a TON of). My stuff right now is literally crap.

So here’s the basic premise of the plot:

17 year old Rebecca is forced to move from her beloved hometown of Salem, MA to Sedona, AZ after her mom accepts a job at the local university. When her photography class visits the local former copper mine-turned ghost town, she catches some very interesting images on film. With the help of the main male character (her possible love interest), she searches for the identity of the mysterious stranger on film, all while battling some inner demons she’s facing and a past that comes back to haunt her (no pun intended).

What do you think? Too cliche? Too cheesy? If you saw this, what questions would you have for me as an author? I’m really interested to know.

Just for some added fun, here’s a picture of the spot that Rebecca catches the ghost on film:

This was taken in July when I went to visit.