Showing posts with label NaNoWriMo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NaNoWriMo. Show all posts

Sunday, August 14, 2011

This and That and The Other

It's a bit strange not to 'have' to post everyday.

There are a few things I wanted to talk about: This and That and The Other.

This:
I've loved having so many comments! Do you ever go back and check posts you've commented on, to see if you've had a reply? I do. Obsessively. Some of you have written comments on my posts that I just had to reply to - feel free to see how VEHEMENTLY I disagree with you all! haha

That:
I find that I tend to judge movies differently to other people. In a nutshell, this is how I sum up whether or not I like them: "did I enjoy it?" 
Deep, I know ;)
Movies are something I watch when I relax. Because of this, I make a conscious to 'turn off' the critical side of my brain. I do enough thinking already with uni work! Also, I am the sort of person who actively looks for what I like about things, rather than what I don't like. It's become a bit of a habit, and now I don't realise how much I do it.

The Other:
NaNoWriMo.
I've done it once. I didn't reach 50K. More like 25K.
It's hard work.
It's exhausting.
It's full on.
I'm planning on doing it again this year, but trying to reach 50K this time!
Why?
Because it's creative.
It's challenging.
It's fun. 
It's rewarding.
If you're considering taking part, I really encourage you to give it a go.

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

The End of NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo:
- National Novel Writing Month
- it's actually an international event... not just a national one
- a challenge to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November

Liked:
- that I got halfway! 25,337
- the idea behind it
- the support I recieved from friends, new and old, from all over the world: Poland, UK and South Africa, Australia
- how much my husband encouraged me and believed in me
- that this is the longest thing I have ever written; it is over twice the length of my English Honours thesis
- that the story is interesting, and that I still love it
- that three of my five writing buddies reached 50,000 words! WELL DONE!!!!!!!!

Disliked:
- that I only got halfway
- having a sore wrist for several days, which hampered writing
- Getting so far behind that it would have been really hard to catch up, though still possible

Next year?
- I want to try again.
- Now that I've done it once and learnt a bit about it, I think I'm more likely to reach 50,000 if I try again.


Wednesday, November 10, 2010

A World-Wide Community

Usually it is not until we admit that we are struggling that we are surrounded by community. 

I have found this to be true many times, in several different situations. When I failed my teaching prac I was given so much support and encouragement by fellow students, friends and my family. When I cut off a destructive relationship, unsure of what would happen next and of being alone, I was immediately surrounded by friends who pretty much fell over backwards to support and help me, offering me comfort and wise advice as I needed it.

I've lost count of the amount of times I've been at breaking point, feeling discouraged and depressed, and someone has come along and given me an encouraging word which was just what I needed to hear, even though they had no idea of what was even wrong.

This is all a big long introduction to this:

I am so grateful for the support I am receiving as I attempt NaNo, and I love that it is coming from all over the world. Specifically:

1. The UK. A friend who I met during uni moved to the UK to be with her man, and we are in contact nearly everyday via facebook.
2. South Africa. A person from Ravelry contacted me and we are emailing each other back and forth, encouraging and keeping accountable to each other.
3. Poland. A guy (hehe) who I used to go to church with now lives over there with his wife and two children, and is doing NaNo for the second time. He has offered a lot of encouragement to me. On Sunday he sent me this:
Well done!
He has also figured out how to include my dare of having a real recipe in the book:
"You will be pleased to know that I have included cake as a crucial part of my novel and I plan to have the recipe included in chapter seven." 
He dared me to include an alien abduction in mine... I'm still working out the details...

Sunday, November 7, 2010

On the NaNoWriMo Front...

Tell me, are my posts getting boringer now that Blogtoberfest has finished?

Actually, don't answer that. I'm not always the best at taking criticism (however helpful).

On the NaNoWriMo front...

1. I was doing well for the first three days.
2. I then started resenting it because it had changed too much in fundamental ways from my original idea.
3. These changes meant that details I had envisioned and some scenes I had imagined could no longer take place.
4. This made me a little depressed.
5. I have had three days break from writing.
6. Yesterday I realised why I was feeling so "blah" about the writing (see points 2 and 3)
7. Today, I have started editing and changing the necessary details of the story so it aligns with my original idea.
8. I am halfway through this process.
9. I am feeling much happier.
10. I like even numbers, and so needed to have a 10th dot point.

I hope all you other Nano-ers are doing well and feeling happy with your progress and with what you are writing!

 

Thursday, November 4, 2010

My Creative Space

My creative space is on my laptop, typing away on my story in Scriviner.

Truth be told, I have fallen a little behind on the necessary wordcount for my NaNo writing. Not by too much though. Enough for me to feel a bit too much pressure. I thought that I'd give you a little excerpt. 

Please remember that this is a first draft, and so a little crappiness is to be expected!


       Lily was a clumsy girl. She was always spilling juice down her front and tripping over and landing on her face. Lily’s clumsiness wasn’t due to hands or feet that were unnaturally large. Rather, Lily suffered from an overdeveloped imagination.
In Lilyland, as her parents called it, cups of juice became goblets of poison, so how could Lily keep her hands from trembling as she bravely tried to stand firm against her pirate captors? Likewise, how could she help tripping over when she was walking along with her face pointed up at the sky, looking for pictures in the clouds.
It is fortunate that Lily’s imagination had such an effect on her, because if she had been looking where she was galloping one sunny morning, she would never have tripped over and landed with her face a few centimetres from a toadstool.
Lily looked at the toadstool, a little dazed from her fall. Why, it looked like it had little arms! How could that be? Toadstools are toadstools and never have arms. Lily knew this because she found toadstools Very Interesting. This was, unfortunately, because Lily’s parents had told her never to touch a toadstool, saying that they can make you extremely sick. Lily was not a disobedient girl, and so she never purposely touched one after that first incident of bringing a basketful inside so as to decorate her bedroom. Every now and then though, on warm days which make you feel drowsy, Lily could often be found lying on her tummy staring dreamily at a toadstool.
Lily had looked at many, many toadstools, and none of them had arms like this toadstool did.
“Hello? Mr Toadstool?”
Lily waited for a reply. There was none.
“I can see your arms, I know that you must be able to move and talk!”
There was still no reply, but Lily thought she saw one of the arms twitch. She tilted her head to the side. A tiny foot came into view.
“I can see your foot! Please say hello.”
There seemed to be a movement. Lily wondered why the toadstool still refused to reply. She remembered that if she was feeling afraid sometimes she would refuse to talk.
“Oh, don’t be scared, dear Mr Toadstool, I would never hurt you. I love meeting new people.”
The arms disappeared and for a second Lily thought she had frightened the toadstool even more, but a moment later a very small person came out from behind the toadstool stem, hands on hips and glaring angrily.
“I’m not afraid,” squeaked the tiny person. “I wouldn’t be afraid even if you were a cat. I’m not afraid of anything! And stop calling me ‘Mr Toadstool’! I’m not a toadstool!
Lily jumped in surprise. This little person was even smaller than her dolls.
“Sorry! I didn’t mean to upset you. I’ve never seen such a tiny person before. What is your name? And why are your ears shaking?”
At this last question the little person glared even more.
“My ears are shaking because I’m angry. Any intelligent Gendle would know that. I suppose overgrown beasts like you are rather stupid.”


That is the first part of the story. I hope you enjoyed it! No doubt you'll hear more soon enough!

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Before I Wither Of Exhaustion

I can barely type properly, and I apologise if there a* are typos in her* here that I didn't manage to fix (I've already fixed four... make that five). Six, I just noticed I had spelt 'apologise' incorrectly.

I have officially written 2354 words of my NaNo novel. I need to write just under another 1000 today to reach the target of 3334. It's going well despite the wonky typing. Though I'm not really sure if I have another 1000 words in me quite yet... maybe I should make some pikelets?

I drew pictures.


This is Dimitria. She is three inches tall (name comes from the word "diminish" hehe) and is the main character in the story. She is a Gendle (which explains the big ears), and lives in a land known as Gendlewune where no one ever worries.

(I've already fixed up another dozen or so typos.)

This is a 'cover' (haha, getting ahead of myself much?).



When I have time (which I don't think is going to be until Friday) I'm going to play around in GIMP (free!) to edit (and maybe colour?) these pictures.

Unless my brain is a totally frazzled mess by then, in which case I'll probably be watching The Sound of Music and/or rocking back and forth while muttering incoherently about Gendles, big ears and double crossings.

*And oh my, just noticed two typos in the first paragraph but can't be bothered fixing them. Enjoy.
No, I should fix them (I'll do the strikeout thing!). Otherwise my husband will get home and start telling me about them write right away.

Monday, November 1, 2010

NaNoWriMo Begins!

October and Blogtoberfest are over, and now November and NaNoWriMo have arrived.
NaNoWriMo is a worldwide event in which people do there best to write a novel in the month of November.

 

As they say: 50,000 Words in 30 Days.

My novel concept stems from a little idea that I wrote a page several years ago, about little people with ears so large they can be used as blankets. If you like Winnie the Pooh, Enid Blyton books and the Narnia series, there is a chance you will probably like this. Though the chances of it actually ending up in book form are rather slim!

No doubt you will get little snippets of the story on here now and again, seeing as it will be occupying a large amount of my waking time.

If you are also joining NaNoWriMo, add me as a writing buddy! Write a comment, making sure you fill in the email field, and I'll reply to your comment and give you my user name.

Okay, now I just need to fugure out how to use Scrivener and then I can start.