It's Camp NaNoWriMo!

So... I'm a little late writing about it, but oh well. The wonderful people of NaNoWriMo are bringing a NaNo to us now not just in November, but in July and August as well! Anyway, I was planning on participating in this camp-themed NaNo in August, the second month, but next thing I know I'm starting July 1st, despite the fact that it means early mornings writing, interrupted by a bit of work, then late night shooting fireworks... and I decided to finish by today, because tomorrow morning I leave on vacation. Woo. WriMos make me crazy. So anyway! I kept planning on blogging from the time I heard about Camp NaNo being ready for July until now, when I'm actually getting the dang post written.

Anyway! A 14-day writing adventure requires 3,572 words per day. It was higher stress than I thought, since I usually go for 2,000 words per day, and 3,000 means it's a pretty good day. Of course, there was that weekend where I wrote 10,000 words every day, but that was only for three days and there was pretty much nothing else going on... anyway, I managed it, even with a day off and finishing a day ahead. Now I just want to finish my story before I leave, and pack, and... yeah.

It was originally going to be kind of a crash course/tourist's guide to Yavn, the country I made up. Of course, that hardly makes it to 50k, so it's full of tangent stories and things. That's fine, one of the main purposes for this was to do some worldbuildng before I go off and focus on the neighboring countries, and I get a lot of that done while writing a story. I'm going to do a quick editing swipe, getting rid of fluff and the like, and then translate it into that country's language so it can be used as a reader, and get me quite a few words made up for that, since I need to be building the vocabulary. But before I can do any of that I need to wrap up the storyline I have and get quickly through the language portion of the book. Just a rundown of Ganyi grammar and some vocabulary word placeholders and the like. A few thousand words. I'm not going to be done by the time we leave, especially since I keep chatting on Skype with all of the spiffy cupcake Camp NaNo people.

So anyway, I've managed to write 50,000 words in 13 days. Personal best, even if the words per day isn't, you can't expect to sprint a whole marathon. Back to writing!

Merry Christmas Eve Eve!

Surely that makes some semblance of sense. Christmas Eve is tomorrow, which is the day before Christmas, so it's Christmas Eve Eve today. Anyway, I had actual content today, at least a little bit... oh yeah! I managed to tear myself away from Minecraft enough to get my BFS goals sorted out. Here we go, in order of when they're to be accomplished.

• Participate in NaBloPoMo (January)
• Take the ACT again (February 12th)
• Finish Fictionpress story (February 25th)
• Finish Latin Course (March 11th)
• Edit Crystal Frontier (May 25th)
• Complete Italian course (March 13th - August 11th)
• Write/Translate a story in/into Ganyi. Say, at least 5,000 words? (October 31st)
• Participate in NaNoWriMo (November)

There. That gives me all of December off for relaxation and finals, since I imagine I'll be in college then. That's why the majority of these goals are before school would start. I can only cram so much into those months though, so I've got my Ganyi goal just to be finished before November. November is November, after all.

I should probably explain and quantify these goals. NaBloPoMo will be not quite daily. I'll take Sundays off, but I'll plan to post every other day of the week. The ACT is the ACT, but my goal is to get a better math score, since I now know at least something of Trigonometric Functions. That Fictionpress story just needs finishing, and I'd like it to be done by March, which is NaNoEdMo. I plan to start editing Crystal Frontier then, and I just figured I'd give myself extra time for that.

Wow, the school year's not even quite done for me yet. I'm a little tired of not finishing things, so my latin course will be done before school's out, and then I start my new Italian book, which I would like finished by the time I start college, wherever that happens to be. It probably won't start until after the 11th, right? They already start sickeningly early. Anyway! short summer for me.

My Ganyi goal may be put off for a while, and/or just take a long time. It doesn't have to be long, just 5,000 words, but it's in a different language, and one I'm making up, no less. That doesn't particularly make things easier.

November is NaNoWriMo. This is an invariable law of the universe. I will participate in NaNoWriMo, and then I will pass out, wake up, and most likely begin studying for finals. Thus the empty December.

Just because I want to rehash everything, my month-by-month schedule looks like this:

January: NaBloPoMo, Latin, Fictionpress, School

February: ACT, Latin, Fictionpress, School

March: Crystal Frontier, Latin, Italian, School

May: Crystal Frontier, Italian, School

June: Italian

July: Italian, probably at least start on the Ganyi thing

August: Italian, Ganyi, College

September: Ganyi, College, plotting?

October: Ganyi, College, Plotting

November: NaNoWriMo, College

December: Finals

Ok then! June is empty. That'll probably be when any summer noveling gets done.

Uhm, that's probably enough for now, yeah?

Prep Moves Forward!

Finally I have my plot finished up. Now I just need to chat with my characters, if I want, and get my room clean. And I need to get most of my origami made for the 12th of NaNo... and I think that actually is all of what's left on my to do list. I have my wordcount spreadsheet printed off, and a sheet for tracking word war scores. Um... I need to make sure I can stay caught up on school and stuff, but interestingly enough I seem to recall I work better when I write in the morning. Rationing my time helps me ration my time better, I guess. I figure I'll be all right. I get Thanksgiving week off, if I'm not at 50k by then already.

I'd like to finish the novel this month. I don't think it'll be an issue, though. It's a pretty short story. I can get it to 50k though. This has at least a little more meat on it than my weekend venture, so I think I can stretch it, if it comes to that.

I should go clean my room.

I'm Lazy...

I've hardly started on my NaNoPrep... I did make a to do list, but now I need to actually work on the thing. I still have to clean my room thoroughly, and timeline my plot, and keep up with school, and make sure I have enough origami made for the thing... I have more, but now I've lost my to do list. I guess I should find that, huh?

I'm thinking about putting music stuff on my blog... I could probably upload little songs and compositions and stuff right to the blog. If Blogger doesn't have an easy way, it's only a Google away. But maybe that's a bad idea. Too many family members read this thing every once in a while. I'd be all embarrassed... not to mention the fact that anything I've managed to do something that doesn't sound like total and utter crud is at least prompted by a bit a friend of mine has already come up with. I need to get beyond theory, I guess. I always end up just doing boring stuff, and I can't get myself to do anything interesting. Or maybe I'm overly critical. Maybe a little bit of both. I have no problems with first drafts of novels, so why do I care about first drafts of songs? Fail.

The Pictures, as Promised!

Can I have my kitty back now? Oh wait, she’s just still in her room, meowing to be let out.

First up, you can see my writing hat over to the right, on my Neo. It’s a $200 dollar hat! Luckily, we got a ton of fireworks with it too. A Black Cat outlet we go to has stuff like that for spending enough money at the store. Last year my brother got a hat, this year I got it, kinda randomly, I don’t even really wear hats! Anyway, I never intended it to be a writing hat. I wore it shooting fireworks and such-like, worrying a bit that I’d stop wearing it, since I don’t usually wear hats anyway. I took it out to the woods with my Neo for writing though, and since then it’s taken over the position. I forgot about it during the Weekend of Insanity, until Sunday, when it was really Go-time. My hair goes back in a ponytail, my hat goes on, and I’m in the writing zone. Kinda like Chris Baty’s viking helmet. I should try and wear this on Day One of NaNo, to help boost my wordcount for a good buffer. Anyway, can I move on to my bromeliad now?

 

 

 

 

 

This one gets to be extra expositional. I don’t know the actual species of bromeliad this is, but I can at least give an overview.

Bromeliads are plants that hang out in the understory of a rainforest. You know, the ground level. They like to be in the Tree-Fall Gaps, where a tree’s fallen over and there’s a little patch of sunlight. Their root system is pretty much used only to hang on to the tree or dirt they’re in. They don’t particularly get water or nutrients from their roots. They form a little cup in their leaves, though (which are kind of cactus-like, by the way), and they’ll hold water in there. In fact, in a rainforest, they’ll have entire mini-ecosystems in there. Tadpoles, bugs, all sorts of stuff will hang out in that tiny pool. Anyway, it makes them really simple to water. All you have to do is make sure there’s a little water in that cup. There’s no reason to have their roots be wet or anything.

After a few years these will bloom (we don’t have any blooming right now, so the picture for this is from here). First comes up this kinda spiky cactus-y flower thing, and it’s pretty cool-looking, but then, a day or so later, these little flowers appear on the pink spiky thing! There are flowers on the flower! It’s the

best thing ever. Mine won’t be blooming for a while yet, but anyway. After they bloom, the bromeliad will start making pups. They just grow straight off the mother plant. Eventually, the mother dies, but my mom’s has given off something like 6 of them, and it bloomed last year. It might finally be done, though. I don’t know much about them.

Oh, and it should be noted that I haven’t particularly researched any of this stuff. It’s what my mom told me and what I remember from playing “Magic School Bus Explores the Rainforest.”

 

I had more news… oh! Yesterday was a particularly productive day. I got up early, blogged… that afternoon I went out to the woods and my treehouse to do some actual plotting. Now all I have to do is timeline it, and do some chatting with my characters if I so choose. In the evening I went to the lake with my dad, and finally accomplished what’s been my goal for two summers now. I got up on the long line barefooting! And faceplanted about six times in the process. It was a lot of fun though. Less frustrating than usual.

Today, I should make a to do list… the NaNoWriMo site relaunches tomorrow!

Maybe I Should Make a To-Do List...

To Do Today:

• Get up early -- check.
• Plot -- uh...

I awoke to... What random song played on my mp3 player? I think it was "Tears in Heaven" by Lynyrd Skynyrd. I listened to it for a while, some weird dream logic drifting through my head.

Eventually I managed to get up, but instead of plotting I read a book all morning, and then kinda just lay around... I dozed off eventually I think, but not for very long. It's a step better than yesterday, when I didn't even get out of bed until 10, right?

I need to finish up my plot and do some character-building exercises and worldbuilding exercises, and, and...

Make a list. That too.

I had another topic today... It involves taking a picture though, and I'm too lazy to do that today. Maybe tomorrow, then.

It's a Little Scary

I hit 40k day before yesterday, and pardon me if I say I always find it thrilling and a little scary to have less than ten thousand words left until I reach the month's goal. I'm hoping to hit 45,000 today, and then it's just a short hop to the finish line!

As for my story... I have twelve (long) chapters, and so far I'm on the... fifth or sixth? I'm not sure anymore. It's nowhere near done, wherever I might be. I did accidentally get the wrong character mad at someone, but I managed to turn that around into being some sort of practical joke/helping out thing (with some help from my wonderful mother).

I have another write-in with a friend today, and hopefully I can make some more of that number go up. To 45k and beyond!

Oh, in other news, while I was writing I decided that the word "glew" should be used as the past tense of "glow" instead of "glowed." I just don't like the way glowed sounds, when pretty much every other word in English with that structure doesn't use it. The exception being "hanged," but then, that's only used when referring to a hanging, when you're executing a person, anything the word "hung" is used.

So there! Glew it is! Unless you're referring to a "glowing," where you uh... hm. When you're dumping a person into a vat of radioactive waste in order to give them glowing superpowers? That's a "glowing," and then you "glowed" someone.

NaNo Time is Here...

...and I guess I should post something. Not that I don't like NaNoWriMo! On the contrary, it makes November one of my favorite months of the year. It's just I haven't been feeling the bug for blogging lately. It's my problem I guess.

Anyway, for a recap: I did very little plotting the rest of October, because it was virtually all done back in June (note to self: do not do that again. EVER). As a result, I had trouble getting all excited and happy like usual. My mom helped me out with that though, whens she finally signed up for NaNo and took me goodie shopping. I got candy (of course) and some fluffy socks for writing. After that... I dunno.

Day one of NaNo was rather interesting. We were out of town for Halloween to see family, and it was me, my parents, my two brothers and a friend of my brothers all staying in this one room guest cabin. I somehow manage to get my Neo and such early in the morning and go out to the car, in the cold, writing by flashlight. The worst part of this was I had caught a rather nasty cold the afternoon before, so I was rather unmotivated. I didn't get all of my words that morning, and had to finish them later. It was cold!

The whole first week I either couldn't get up early like usual, or if I did I couldn't get as many words as I'd like. On Saturday, I didn't get up early, and we mowed on top of that, but from four to seven in the evening I wrote like mad and got a good 3,000 words done. Spurred by this, I managed to write 5,000 words yesterday. 2k in the morning and 3k afterwards. 5k people! On Sunday! With church and junk taking up my schedule! So there! I'm happy.

Victory! Though a Small One

I actually did some plotting today! I have most of it done already, and I've just been trying to remember what in the world I was doing when I left off. New rule: no major plotting until October 1st ever again. At least I need to plot straight through and then start writing that same story not too long after that.

At any rate, my timeline is finished and my story is divided into chapters accordingly. All that's left is some character polishing and sub-plot that should be added. I need to think of some for that. But that's a job for tomorrow morning.

Let me see, I also have to stock up on candy and other treats, I might write myself a few letters again, and then there's always the getting ahead in school that I'm so happy I can do. Hooray homeschooling!

Of course, getting ahead on school requires me to do at least what I'm supposed to...

Vote for OLL to get $10,000!

I feel strange plugging such a thing, but I'll get over it I suppose.

All of you fans of Office of Letters and Light (bringers of NaNoWriMo and the Young Writer's Program and Script Frenzy and the like) need to go here and nominate them to win $10,000! Whichever charity gets the most votes wins that cash, runner up is $5,000 and the next ten charities after that each get $1,000.

As for my NaNoPrep, I uh... hmm... haven't really started yet. I was out of town Friday and Saturday, and of course Sunday is a day off... but I did some worldbuilding over the weekend, and tomorrow I'll do more yet, or plot, or something. I have to get my head into that mode. I've been writing on one thing for so long, and now I have to skip forward some 800 years in my world, and there's quite a bit of change between there.

A while ago I got so far as plotting out my timeline, but I'm not sure if I should return to it stright away. Those only seem to work if I have the plot in my head anyway. I'll have to read through my notes - and probably rewrite them - before I remember what's going on. Oh well, I could use the practice. I quite enjoy plotting mode when I get into it. And then there's the cleaning and organizing and setting up and various other things to be done... It's really more fun than it sounds. October is full of anticipation for November, and it's all part of the NaNoWriMo experience. I can't imagine November without any of this. Woo October prep + November madness + December relief!

Happy October!

Just one month until NaNoWriMo...

I attempted to get up a little earlier than I have been this morning, and it failed utterly. I instead got up at nine o'clock when my other alarm went off telling me it was time to start school. So the getting up thing will have to start tomorrow instead. Except for the part where tomorrow my mom and I head out west to talk at some sort of mother/daughter retreat about some Africa stuff... I don't know exactly what, but my participation will be limited... I hope. I'm not so great at public speaking is all.

I don't know if I want October to go quickly or slowly. There's so much to do, and yet NaNo is so close I can almost taste it. I don't feel at all ready. I should fix that.

Finishing and Plotting

One thing straight to another... Good news though (that I should have posted before)! On the... 22nd of September, I finished up my current project, at least as far as first drafts go. It came in at about 98k. Not bad for under two months, eh?

I've been sleeping in during the mornings since I finished, as a treat to myself. I'll have to get up again in October to start on my NaNoWriMo prep - aka NaNoPloMo. I've got a to-do list somewhere, I'll have to put it up in a while.

I meant to put up updates with my goals, didn't I? Sorry. Um... I don't like the Italian program we have right now, because despite the fact that it brags of lots of grammer, I don't like when it tell us - after we do all of the exercises. I don't know... I want to be told the rule, and then I'll be all right. I might fiddle with the different modes of it a bit, and we'll see how we do.

Writing's been going all right, since I managed to catch up and all. I'm just taking a nice break, like I said, and I'll put my nose back to the grindstone in October and get plotting.

Speaking of... It's not cheating if I do a total rewrite during NaNo, is it? I won't be saving a single scrap of manuscript from my previous novel, but I'll be using it basically as plot, so I should be all right, right?

Done!

I actually managed to finish it! At 2:30pm (my time, CST) I finished my novel. It's awesome. My plan now is to take the rest of the month off and start editing last year's novel on the first of December. That gives me about 5 1/2 months to edit the thing. I hope that's enough time...

But it doesn't matter right now! 'Cause I'm DONE!!!!

A Late Happy Thanksgiving!

But now I can ask everyone how theirs went.

We had family over and ate the turkey, ham, stuffing, mandarin oranges in lime jello, etc. for Thanksgiving dinner at noon. I got my morning writing done, but it's strange...if it hadn't been Thanksgiving, I think I could have finished my novel that day. Last year if it hadn't been Thanksgiving, I think I would have hit 50k on Thanksgiving day.

I don't begrudge it, I really enjoy being with my family. But now, in keeping with my semi-tradition, I have to see about finishing my novel today. I'll probably post as soon as I do it.

If I Could Ever Write Two Scenes in a Day...

I'd be more ahead than I am now. Hopefully I'll finish up the scene I'm writing now so I can be two ahead and feel better about myself...

Family should be coming over tomorrow, and today was spent cleaning the house...now I get to settle down and watch a movie with the immediate fambly though!

And that's why this is a short post. Nothing really to report.

Verified!

I finally got onto the laptop with my novel at 50k (I'm still afraid to plug my flashdrive into the other computer since I don't know if the virus is gone yet or not), and verified my NaNo on the website! See the spiffy badge? -pokes badge on sidebar-

Anyway, as far as finishing the novel, I had been hoping that I would get to write two scenes today, since I did a little extra yesterday, but I was lazy and instead cleaned my room a bit and took a nap before surfing the net on the computer...so yeah. I'm still on schedule though! Just not ahead.

NaNo Day 23 and A Call For Help

I slept in today, as I always seem to do on Sundays whether I want to or not. Anyway, I'm still on track for finishing my novel, but I need some help. It involves the forbidden word of NaNo. Editing.
I've never really edited before, much less something that's the length of my NaNo. I need to have last years novel edited by mid-april. I've read up some on big picture editing, but I still don't really know what I'm doing. So if anyone reading my blog has tips or resources, I would love to see them. Thanks!

EDIT: Heh, I have a few more questions actually. How long does it take for you to go through your novel one time? And when you go through, do you edit majorly, or do you mostly do little stuff? I've looked online a bit, and I found this editing recipe, and it's kind of what I'm going by, but like I said, I still don't really know what I'm doing.

Also, I don't actually need to have this done by mid-April, I'd just like it to be done by then.

NaNo Day 20

I totally forgot to post until just now. Sorry! Anyway, today I joined the growing group of NaNoWriMo winners. I hit 50k! Now my goal, like I said, is to finish the thing. I actually did two plot sections today, so if I need to I can take Thanksgiving day off. Or I have wiggle room for somewhere else. Anyway, good luck to everyone!

Plan And NaNo Day 18

So yesterday I did some calculations, and figured that I had 13 days of November left, and 13 plot sections left, not counting epilogue, which should be quite short. So if I write one plot section every day, I should have a finished draft on the 30th. So then I don't have to worry about it. So I'm gonna try it. So far so good.

NaNo Day 17

I'm sorry, I kept meaning to post and meaning to post, but I never did it. And so you missed probably about 10,000 words. I'm at 40k today. That means that I only have 10k left to write...scary thought for me.

I've been wondering about how close I am to finishing my novel, since they say it's best to be done by the end of November, even if a few scenes were just sketched or shortened. I kinda hate to do that, but since I would like to be able to edit Crystal Glare without worrying too much about this one, I made up a checklist/story arc thing. I have eight sections counting the prologue, and I've totally finished three of them, and I'm probably a little less than halfway through the fourth. So I'm a little over 3/8. I guess if I broke it down further, I've done ten of twenty-four sections, which can be reduced down to 5/12. But like I said, I'm part-way through another section, so I might be closer to 6/12, which puts me halfway through.

But then, the sections probably won't be that even, and I arranged the chapters so that each of my three POVs gets one showing per chapter. I might actually start making things move a little faster, and added details and bits can be in later. I don't want to skip over scenes though, too many fun unexpected things happen for me to trust myself to just color in the lines.

Oh boy...40k though...50k is just around the corner...