This weekend was really hard for me and I put my novel on hold for a few days.
I'm back in it now. I am determined to finish my 50,000 words if it kills me, and it just might.
But I'll do it.
At the moment I'm almost halfway into week 3 with only 21K or so. Not good. But I have a few secret weapons up my sleeves, which I intend to pull out this week. These weapons are my determination and my pride.
Fact: If I am determined to finish X, X will be finished.
Fact: I am determined to finish my NaNoWriMo novel, therefore it will be finished.
When I am focused on something, nothing will stand in my way.
Nothing that will stand up very long anyway.
I'll explain how my pride works next time.
Back to writing with me! See you next post,
~Kia
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Novel on hold
I'm taking a temporary break on my NaNoWriMo novel.
David has been my friend since sixth grade. His dad died yesterday.
I'm baking cookies to take over.
I can't write right now. I'm hurting for him so much.
He's been my friend for so long, and maybe more.
I'm also refusing to even look at my pile of 'to read' books. If I start reading, I'll forget my life for three weeks. Which isn't good.
Til next time,
Kia
David has been my friend since sixth grade. His dad died yesterday.
I'm baking cookies to take over.
I can't write right now. I'm hurting for him so much.
He's been my friend for so long, and maybe more.
I'm also refusing to even look at my pile of 'to read' books. If I start reading, I'll forget my life for three weeks. Which isn't good.
Til next time,
Kia
Monday, March 9, 2009
How difficult is too difficult?
Hello again, just here to talk about some thoughts I've had about my novel recently.
I'm about to start my writing session, and I'm wondering, "How hard is too hard?" I'm putting my protagonist, Danthien, through a lot. In addition to mental/emotional stresses, fire has started raining from the sky, setting everything on fire. He's trying to get to Li, and has had to avoid raining fire, consider knocking someone out, rescue someone else from a burning building, navigate a burning corn field, and get over a 10 foot wall when the fire is closing in and the tree he normally uses is on fire.
Now that he's over the wall, should Li be right there? I mean, he's gone through plenty of trouble, sure... but would it be too much to send him after her through another burning corn field, into an enclosure full of burning buildings, hostile mages, and still raining fire? To find her in an unfamiliar place when he has no idea where the heck she is?
I may be biased, but I think isn't. I mean, it's the beginning of the novel and the reader knows he's not gonna die yet. So why not put him in totally impossible circumstances?
I just wonder how he feels about it... poor Dan. Being a character in my novel is tough.
Anyway, just wanted to talk about this real quick. Now I'm off to fufill my wordcount!
I'm about to start my writing session, and I'm wondering, "How hard is too hard?" I'm putting my protagonist, Danthien, through a lot. In addition to mental/emotional stresses, fire has started raining from the sky, setting everything on fire. He's trying to get to Li, and has had to avoid raining fire, consider knocking someone out, rescue someone else from a burning building, navigate a burning corn field, and get over a 10 foot wall when the fire is closing in and the tree he normally uses is on fire.
Now that he's over the wall, should Li be right there? I mean, he's gone through plenty of trouble, sure... but would it be too much to send him after her through another burning corn field, into an enclosure full of burning buildings, hostile mages, and still raining fire? To find her in an unfamiliar place when he has no idea where the heck she is?
I may be biased, but I think isn't. I mean, it's the beginning of the novel and the reader knows he's not gonna die yet. So why not put him in totally impossible circumstances?
I just wonder how he feels about it... poor Dan. Being a character in my novel is tough.
Anyway, just wanted to talk about this real quick. Now I'm off to fufill my wordcount!
Friday, March 6, 2009
Ugh, must update...
Hey, its me again: the dying blogger. And I'll assume its you again: my invisible reader.
NaNoWriMo is proceeding apace. I just finished chapter 3 yesterday. I've been behind my quota by a few hundred words over the past two days, but I plan on making it up over the weekend. Twice over.
This is because I have a secret weapon: my new writing technique. I'll explain later, because first I have to tell you about my insane friends. I've mentioned how several of my online friends have joined me in my out-of-season NaNoWriMo adventure, but lately we've been coming up with even crazier stuff.
There are four of us online: myself, Zekey, Jojo, and Kami (in order of joining). We decided that in order to motivate ourselves further, we needed some sort of punishment for having the lowest wordcount on each Friday of the month. My friend Riia and I put our heads together and came up with the following:
Week 1: The wordcounts will be compared on Friday, March 6th as late as we're allowed to be up. The person with the lowest wordcount will have to draw a picture of themselves wearing their favorite underwear and make it their deviantID (for our accounts on deviantart.com) for the rest of the month. The picture must be posted by the 9th.
Week 2: Wordcount comparison is on Friday the 13th. The person with the lowest wordcount will have to write and sing a song to the rest of the group via Skype. The song must be romantic/embarrassing in some way. Everyone in our group must hear it by the end of the month, but due to scheduling junk only one person must have heard it by the 16th.
Week 3: Comparison is on Friday the 20th. The person with the lowest wordcount MUST draw a sharpie moustache on their face in the style of Haru from Avatar: The Last Airbender AND wear it to school for a day. They must do this by the 27th and have three pictures as proof that they did this.
Week 4: Comparison is on Friday the 27th. The person with the lowest wordcount MUST write, "PENANCE" on their forehead, in sharpie, in giant capital letters and go to school like this for Three Days Straight. They have until next friday to do this. They must have three pictures as proof for each day they do this.
That's it for the punishments. We're currently trying to devise an evil, horrible punishment for whoever doesn't make it to 50,000 words by midnight, March 31st EST. If you have any suggestions, leave them here. It must be legal in the US and Canada. Preferabley non-fatal. My best idea is forcing them to shave an eyebrow off. Those things take forever to grow back.
Finally: my new secret technique.
Usually, my words per hour rate fluctuates between 800 - 1000 depending on my mood and such.
Last night, using my new technique, I managed to write 1300 words in 46 minutes.
That's 1600-ish words per hour.
Oh yeah.
With this, I'll be able to catch up on my quota easily. If I keep up the pace this weekend, I'll make 15,000 easy.
1300 words in 46 minutes. And did I mention that I did this blindfolded?
Yep. I did this blindfolded. You see, I'm an obsessive editor and even when I'm not trying to, I end up wasting my writing time editing as I write instead of embracing NaNo's principle of exuberant imperfection. This has been slowing me down immensely. When I'm blindfolded, however, I'm not worrying about perfect grammar or spelling. I'm not turning my sentences around in my head for a minute and a half, trying to make them sound perfect.
It's a good thing I'm a decent typist and don't need to look at the keyboard. XD
Anyway, see ya next time. I'm writing this from my Creative Writing class and it's ending in a minute.
Write on,
~Kia
NaNoWriMo is proceeding apace. I just finished chapter 3 yesterday. I've been behind my quota by a few hundred words over the past two days, but I plan on making it up over the weekend. Twice over.
This is because I have a secret weapon: my new writing technique. I'll explain later, because first I have to tell you about my insane friends. I've mentioned how several of my online friends have joined me in my out-of-season NaNoWriMo adventure, but lately we've been coming up with even crazier stuff.
There are four of us online: myself, Zekey, Jojo, and Kami (in order of joining). We decided that in order to motivate ourselves further, we needed some sort of punishment for having the lowest wordcount on each Friday of the month. My friend Riia and I put our heads together and came up with the following:
Week 1: The wordcounts will be compared on Friday, March 6th as late as we're allowed to be up. The person with the lowest wordcount will have to draw a picture of themselves wearing their favorite underwear and make it their deviantID (for our accounts on deviantart.com) for the rest of the month. The picture must be posted by the 9th.
Week 2: Wordcount comparison is on Friday the 13th. The person with the lowest wordcount will have to write and sing a song to the rest of the group via Skype. The song must be romantic/embarrassing in some way. Everyone in our group must hear it by the end of the month, but due to scheduling junk only one person must have heard it by the 16th.
Week 3: Comparison is on Friday the 20th. The person with the lowest wordcount MUST draw a sharpie moustache on their face in the style of Haru from Avatar: The Last Airbender AND wear it to school for a day. They must do this by the 27th and have three pictures as proof that they did this.
Week 4: Comparison is on Friday the 27th. The person with the lowest wordcount MUST write, "PENANCE" on their forehead, in sharpie, in giant capital letters and go to school like this for Three Days Straight. They have until next friday to do this. They must have three pictures as proof for each day they do this.
That's it for the punishments. We're currently trying to devise an evil, horrible punishment for whoever doesn't make it to 50,000 words by midnight, March 31st EST. If you have any suggestions, leave them here. It must be legal in the US and Canada. Preferabley non-fatal. My best idea is forcing them to shave an eyebrow off. Those things take forever to grow back.
Finally: my new secret technique.
Usually, my words per hour rate fluctuates between 800 - 1000 depending on my mood and such.
Last night, using my new technique, I managed to write 1300 words in 46 minutes.
That's 1600-ish words per hour.
Oh yeah.
With this, I'll be able to catch up on my quota easily. If I keep up the pace this weekend, I'll make 15,000 easy.
1300 words in 46 minutes. And did I mention that I did this blindfolded?
Yep. I did this blindfolded. You see, I'm an obsessive editor and even when I'm not trying to, I end up wasting my writing time editing as I write instead of embracing NaNo's principle of exuberant imperfection. This has been slowing me down immensely. When I'm blindfolded, however, I'm not worrying about perfect grammar or spelling. I'm not turning my sentences around in my head for a minute and a half, trying to make them sound perfect.
It's a good thing I'm a decent typist and don't need to look at the keyboard. XD
Anyway, see ya next time. I'm writing this from my Creative Writing class and it's ending in a minute.
Write on,
~Kia
Sunday, March 1, 2009
March Madness begins...
My insane March NaNoWriMo has started! Just a quick entry before I head to bed.
Current Number of Participants (including moi): 7
2 continents
3 countries
2 states
I'm quite proud of myself. I gave people 3 days warning (at the most!) and I've managed to disrupt the lives of people across the globe.
Not bad for an aspiring novelist/world dictator if I do say so myself. ^_^
Day One ends and my word count is: 2,043
Current Number of Participants (including moi): 7
2 continents
3 countries
2 states
I'm quite proud of myself. I gave people 3 days warning (at the most!) and I've managed to disrupt the lives of people across the globe.
Not bad for an aspiring novelist/world dictator if I do say so myself. ^_^
Day One ends and my word count is: 2,043
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