Breath of Fresh Air Award and The Victor

I decided to try my hand at photoshopping to make an award. So here it is. Hope you like the image.

Because I deeply appreciate blogs that revive me, make me think, challenge me and add to my life, I hereby present this "Breath of Fresh Air" award to.......

CKHB!

Thanks for your wonderful blog and for making the electronic air seem less stagnant.

And because I always like to breath more than one breath of fresh air, I would also like to give this award to....

Cindy Wilson!

Your Wednesdays Excerpt or Action posts have been a ton of fun and very refreshing. Not only does your blog make me smile whenever I read it, but the community you've attracted is unique and wonderful. Thank you!

HEADS UP:

There's a book giveaway of The Victor over at Whispered Roars. It looks pretty awesome.

Week 4 of NaNo

Hey! It's the last week!

This is exciting, relieving, and sad all at the same time.

I got pretty stuck on my story, so I decided to add in a few extra plot twists. For instance, now my MC is in the middle of a tunnel maze after having found a gigantic pit of skeletons and a test-tube containing the black plague that she has to get to the surface.

I know a lot of people rail against NaNoWriMo because it promotes reckless abandon. And the point is valid because assumedly we're all trying to write something that will eventually be publishable.

And it does seem comforting to say that life should be all about quality and not quantity.

But the truth is, writing with reckless abandonment and making up crazy plot twists is just plain too much fun to pass up. It might be drivel. It might have taken up a lot of my time. But I find myself even now thinking back to last year's NaNoWriMo and remembering scenes I wrote during that time. Those scenes have now grown in my head and make a little more sense. But I wouldn't have had them if I hadn't tried to write crazily.

If NaNoWriMo doesn't work for some people, that's cool. But if it does work for some of us, that should be cool as well. I have always ALWAYS brought something away from writing crazily that was useable later on, even if it was just learning about how I write.

Sheer volume of words doesn't equal quality. But it sure helps in getting to that quality stage.

So what am I going to do with this mountain of words after November? Well, I have a second story I want to start on so I will probably file them away for a month or two, work on the other story, then bring them out when I have a fresh perspective on them again.

Happy Writing everyone! And Happy Thanksgiving! May your turkeys be big and make you sleepy, and may you find some time to settle down and enjoy family. And to write.

NaNoWriMo stats:

Words total: 43,676

Words left: 6,324

Average Words Per Day: 1,985

At this rate I'll be done on: Nov. 25th

Percent complete: 87%

Week 3 of NaNo!

I think I missed week 2. Oh well.

Chris Baty is right: the second week of NaNoWriMo is the toughest!

I'm not exactly sure why this is. I do know that last week I was down in the dumps about my story, and today, Monday, I'm happy as can be and was able to write 5k+ words today. :D

NaNoWriMo Update:

Total words: 41,626

Average words per hour for November: 469.31 (whoah, that's low!)

Words left to reach 50k: 8,374

Average words per day: 2,602

At this rate I'll be done on: Nov. 19th

Percent complete: 83%

Am I obsessed with numbers and figures? No, not really. I just happened across a really cool Excel spread sheet publiushjm made for NaNoWriMo. Thanks publiushjm!

Writing Buddy

You know how flies only live a short period of time, and you can tell how long they have left to live by how fast they move?

There's a fly that's been bugging me for awhile now where I write. Today I noticed it's getting more daring and flying right onto my keyboard while I'm typing! It's also getting really slow in its reaction time.

I was tempted to catch and kill it, but I figure, it's going to die soon anyways. I guess I'm just overcome with compassion today. For now, it's my writing buddy. The fly on the wall that, even if my inner critic says my story is bad, will look on from above. I'm kind of glad it stuck around. Makes me think my story must be great if it chose to spend the last moments of its life reading it.

NaNoWriMo update:

I got a little stuck the last few days. Am just now wiggling my way out of it.

Word count: 33,211 as of this afternoon.

Ok, back to the, er,.....writing board.

(I guess that would be keyboard.)

Possible Kindle Winning!

Hey everyone.

Just wanted to let you know about a Kindle drawing over on Lisa and Laura's blog. You gotta hurry though. Contest ends Friday.

Thanks to everyone for your advice about my plot holes. I'm still not decided but I think I'm going to go with the princess. Either that or kidnapping the princess AND an attempted assassination on the cult leader.

Happy writing!

Plot Holes

I've run into a bit of a problem. I originally intended my main character to kidnap a princess. But as I started writing, it morphed into my main character trying to kill a cult leader instead. Both of these scenarios have plot holes. Kidnapping the princess I am more prepared to deal with, but it's a little cliche. (Okay, maybe a lot cliche.) Killing the cult leader has a lot more plot holes, but it's different and more exciting (at least the way I've written the two scenarios).

I need your help. Would you rather read about a princess being kidnapped for political reasons?

Or would you rather read about an attempted assassination on a cult leader?

(Note: No matter which scenario takes place, these two things happen: The princess turns out to be a murderous wench and the villain. The cult leader turns out to be an ally.)

Please vote in the comments. Thanks for your help!

Day 7

It's been a week filled with NaNoWriMo.

Here's where I stand:

Total word count: 19,896

Average number of words per day: 3,316

At this rate I'll be done on: Nov. 15th

Percent complete: %40

My goals:

1. Write 50k words on Dragons of Windsor, my historical young adult fiction.

2. Write 50k words on A Difference in Magic, my sci-fi fantasy fiction.

To copy Cindy Wilson's blog, I'm going to post an excerpt or action. Feel free to post your own excerpt or tell me about an action one of your character's is doing.

Action:

My MC has just witnessed her first embalming session, and shortly afterwards was kidnapped.

Excerpt from Dragons of Windsor:

Hannah watched with excitement, curiosity, and a little bit of melancholy. She had waited for this. She wasn’t entirely sure she was ready to take it all in, but was determined to do her best.

The embalmer, when Hannah first saw his face, looked very hollow. His face was a mixture between wrinkles and wrinkles that wanted to come out. They were barely held back by some invisible force. His eyes were clear, though he had barely any eyelashes. When he blinked at her, she saw a newborn’s eyes in the head of a bloated man. Still, he had done what he could with his appearance. He wore expensive slacks and a suit coat. When he removed it, she could see he already had on an apron underneath.

“I come to work prepared. Saves time.” He explained. Hannah wondered if he kept a box of disposable aprons near the front door or if he took the used ones home and washed them then brought them back. She didn’t ask. All in all, he was a sad man who seemed to slump forward from years of slow melancholy weighing him down. Hannah regarded him as a man who had probably faced death one too many times and was gradually succumbing to a sad truth about the human race. Is this how I will become? She wondered.

NaPoBoMo

I was perusing pop-up books the other day. I'm always fascinated by them.

They hold great wonder and inspire the imagination in a way that nothing else does for me.

So I have this crazy idea: What if I made a pop-up scene for each chapter of my NaNo novel?

I present to you: NaPoBoMo! National Pop-up Book Month!

I'll not say more now 'cause most of you are too busy with NaNoWriMo to think about anything else. But sometime in the future, I hope to host a NaPoBoMo on this blog. Anyone interested? Any ideas for rules? Got any better acronyms for it?

It's kind of crazy, I know. But so is NaNoWriMo.

Anyways, more on this later.

Mottos and Dragonish Stuff

Found this interesting link through Carrie's blog about character mottos. It might prove interesting.

The character mottos from my book and their consequences at the end:

Main Character: Follow your dreams no matter what = satisfaction

Secondary Character: Do the absolute best that you can = safety

Villain: Do whatever it takes = death

Plot mover: Follow your heart = selfish and insignificant paradise

My NaNoWriMo novel has taken off! Or, at least one of them has.

I had a story in mind that I wanted to write and was really excited about. But then there was this other story that my writing buddies and friends asked me to do for NaNoWriMo. Short story is I'm going to try to do both. Which means I'm attempting to write 3,334 words per day instead of the regular 1,667.

Yesterday I got on par with 13,748 words. It's been a lot of fun.

If you scroll down to the bottom of the blog, you'll see the banner I made for "Dragons of Windsor."

How are your NaNo novels coming? Want to post an excerpt? I'd love to see a snippet of what you all are doing.

Here's an excerpt from my secondary character's journal:

The Castle definitely needs to be bolstered in several areas. The general look of the place is at best outdated. I understand why the King has been advised to change it. This is the creative opportunity of a lifetime and I intend to use my full force on it. I did not think once today about how I might serve the Dragons or how I might be a better spy, blacksmith, husband or father. For one day I was simply an inventor. Though I gladly fulfill the other roles placed on me, I am thankful for the chance to immerse myself in one thing only. Though I don’t doubt the requirements of a spy will surface soon enough. And I wish but do not expect that my role as father and husband will come back to me someday soon.

Sorry I don't have any incredibly compelling moments yet. No tear-jerking scenarios or emotionally charged scenes. But they will come.

How are your NaNo Novels coming?

IT'S HERE!!!1

NaNoWriMo has started!!!!

I will post more once I have a significant word count.

What are you doing reading this blog? Get to writing!!!

Or, just use the Metaphor of the Day Assignment to help your writing along:

MDA:

Come up with a metaphor for a procrastinator. Yeah, I know. Not an original prompt here, but hey, I've gotta get to writing.