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!

Programming Languages

Uhm... I think I've decided to learn one. It might be fun, right? Wait, I tried this last year, for a little while. I don't think I blogged about it though. It was like a week before my Weekend of Insanity noveling bit, and I was working on learning Python. Everything was happy, until I wanted to download this program for programming called Pygame. Well, at the time (I haven't checked lately) it didn't have a good edition for the Windows I was using. It did for Ubuntu, though. Ok! I'd put Ubuntu Linux on a computer before, it was easy as pie. The thing was happy to do all the work for you. I did that, and my little netbook was on a dual-boot for a while. I started noticing, though, that the Linux portion didn't always start for me. I do a little research, and I think I find a solution. I end up accidentally wiping my hard drive, right before I had to write 30k in a weekend.

I was a little to distraught and busy to mess with Python for a while, and by the time my computer was working happily again (thanks to my awesome mother, who's now fixed at least two more computers than she's broken!), I'd totally forgotten about the thing. I only recently got reminded again, and I figure it's a good way to to get more familiar with Linux, so I'm learning to program there. Yay!

So far not much exciting stuff to report, just learning some of the basics again. Except I haven't logged on to Ubuntu in months, and now that I just updated it, it won't boot. Again. I think this is a different problem than before, though. Instead of giving me an interminable blank screen, this just boots me out to the BIOS again and again and again. Grar. I'll work on it later. Maybe. I really love the idea of Linux, it's just actually getting it to work for me isn't working out. When I do get it to work for me, I can't get it to talk to the other computers on the network, or even use a printer properly. Flash is always slow to update, so I can go forever without being able to access anything that runs with Flash. I'm probably just too much of an idiot to get it to work (anyone out there know what a "tarball" is? It seems like I need that explained to me every single time, and I still can't get one to unzip or unpack or whatever for me right).

Whatever. Latin goes fine, I wrote a little bit on my Fictionpress story yesterday, maybe I'll do some more today. I should at least upload a chapter. If I end up with 30 chapters (pretty reasonable, methinks), I need to be uploading two chapters a week to finish up on time. I'm still getting into the swing of school. Someday I'll get up early again. That'll be nice. Particularly on Mondays. Long post. Disconnected thoughts. Going away now.

Merry New Year!

Obligatory wishings of wealth and happiness go here.

Anyway, this month is NaBloPoMo, which means I post every day this month. Except Sundays. I'm going to try and keep Sundays as electronic-free as possible. Anyway, six days a week you should be hearing from me, and hopefully that's long enough to get me in the habit of writing something every day or so for a while.

What else do I have, BFS-wise? I should print of that calendar I put in my last post. Latin, right. I need to finish up that lesson today, so Monday I can get to work on the next. I was at a Christian youth conference Wednesday through Friday, so I'm not quite done with that piece of Latin. The conference was awesome, though, a lot of cool Bible study sessions and stuff like that. I'm still processing quite a bit of it.

Um... I also have that stupid story I'm putting on Fictionpress. It doesn't fit anywhere into the Yavn timeline now, what with the mission of the MC having already been fulfilled in another story, and because of the rewrite of Crystal Glare most of the facts in the story are inaccurate, and then when you add in the fact that I'm going to radically change Crystal Glare again, the whole thing becomes absolutely inaccurate. So I don't know what to call this dang thing. Fanfiction of an earlier setup? Maybe.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to enjoy my last day of Minecraft before school starts on Monday (don't forget, Sundays are as electronicless as possible. That means I might be able to finaggle some Minecraft time if someone directly asks me to help them out xD)

I Need to Write Better Description

So maybe November isn't a good time to be working on my writing skills, other than churning out high wordcounts (although I don't know that I need a lot of work on that), but if I don't work on this sometime I'll forget or get lazy. But in the spirit of NaNoWriMo and not editing first drafts, my goal is to just actually write some. No scene should go by without some description. I should actually know what my characters look like.

I'm a story driven person, and so I'll usually end up writing action or dialog or even internal monologue (why are dialog and monologue spelled so differently? Maybe my spellcheck is thinking of a computer dialog box or something), which I suppose is all fine and good, except that a little description helps keep things realistic. I suppose I don't have to be all that poetic or anything (I fail at poetry), but a person should be described, locales should be made more real with description, stuff like that. So my goal is to specifically insert description into my scenes and areas in this November's draft. I suppose that means I need to actually think about what all that looks like...

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.

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.

So Maybe I'm Insane. Who Cares?

I meant to write this yesterday, but I was too tired to think straight by the time I could.

I won! I got all of my story written, and it came in at 30,213. I didn't finish until near 9:00 at night, but I did it.

Overall, the weekend was rather stressful. Getting up extra early, staying up later than I should have. Friday night my family and I went to Olive Garden to celebrate my brother's birthday, and so I didn't get to bed until a lot later than I wanted. I managed it though! I don't want to do that again very soon though. There are people who write 800,000 words in November for NaNoWriMo. How on earth do they do it? They have to write over 26,000 words every single day! I didn't even write half that and I was about to drop dead!

Anyway, next thing to work on is fixing my computer, and plotting for NaNoWriMo. I've convinced a friend of mine to do it with me this year, so I'm going to try and help her out with that, too. Wordcount charts, a copy of "No Plot? No Problem!" to lend her... I need to get things planned out or I'll never do them.

Yes, I Must be Insane... Day 2

Yesterday went fairly well, I suppose. I managed to get all 10,000 words that I needed that day, though I would've liked more buffer. As it was, I was only 238 words ahead of schedule. That's ok though, I'll build it today. My morning went on schedule, not as well as yesterday morning, but I won't be too picky so long as I get the requirement. I'm at 16,000 words for the weekend now, over half done. Today I build buffer for the trial of tomorrow...

I don't have to play tomorrow morning at church, but I'll still be there from 9:00 until 12:30, which is a sizable chunk to steal from me on the last day of a writing challenge. My plan is to have as much extra done as I can handle without killing myself, and then I'll get up early and write before church, and get writing as soon and as hard as possible after. If I could get about 2,000 extra today I'd be on schedule, since I can probably get 3,000 done before church.

I guess that means I should stop wasting words on blogs and get to writing the actual story, huh? There is the secondary goal of finishing the story, but things are going about on schedule there, too. I finished chapter six (marking the halfway point) at 16,564, so I'm not worried about finishing the story. What worries me is that I'll run out before I get to my 30,000.

Onward and upward!

Am I Insane? Day 1

So it's day one of my totally insane weekend of writing. So far I'm at close to 5,000 words of my daily 10,000. Still working chapter 1, though of course before that I had a prologue, and before that I had an introduction, because I like prologues and introductions are helpful to get me in the groove before writing, and they add words. Which helps.

I'm not a programmer, but that doesn't stop me from messing around with my computer. I recently got a little netbook, which came with Windows 7 Starter, which is kind of a lame operating system. I like Linux for messing with, and I figured that since I could install Ubuntu Linux right alongside Windows, I could make a switch easier, since I'm not very good with the whole coding thing. I've done this before, on another computer. So I install Ubuntu, but I see that it doesn't like to boot up very well. I look for a fix, and to do it I go to the root file system, which is where the computer keeps its really important startup files and such like. Actually, everything is ultimately in the root, but certain folders are protected, and certain things you can only do from the root. Anyway, I input the commands like I'm told, and I do something wrong, I don't know what, probably when I was trying to find the command to shut it down again. In the end, I deleted every scrap of data on my computer, not just Ubuntu but Windows 7. Facepalm.

In the end, I lost every file, but not really. I should have my OS and stuff backed up to an .iso CD, so I can restore everything just like it was. Minus some stuff I downloaded since then, but I can get those things back easily. The only thing I lost... one recording I made, and the music editor files for about four more. That's ok. The one I lost I never particularly liked anyway, and I wasn't going to edit the others any more, I didn't think. I wasn't quite happy enough with them for it to be worth that.

Anyway, I'm procrastinating. Right now I have about 6,000 words today, so 4,000 to go. I'd like to have some buffer, too, since I'll be at church about half the day on Sunday, it'd be nice to be ahead.

I shall write my words or die trying! Write or Die!

News!

I’ll just go ahead and skip the usual speech about habits and wondering where they ran off to, shall I? In fact, I’ve been getting back into the habit of getting up early in the morning. I’ve written another story this summer, a worldbuilding exploration tour of sorts, and now I’m finally editing my story from last summer. Other than that, not a whole lot’s been happening. Language making has been going well enough, I keep coming up with words and idioms, if I can remember to.

The 10th-12th of this month I’m embarking on an insane weekend writing project. There’s a contest that evidently is every Labor Day Weekend, called the 3-Day Novel Challenge. It costs money to enter, but there’s a chance of getting the story you write published. Too bad for them, I don’t particularly care about that kind of thing. A few friends and my mom and I are going to give it a shot the weekend after. There’s no official word goal, only that the story be started and completed in the same weekend, but I’m going to try for 30,000 words. Yikes. I tried to schedule my time for when to write and when to break, but I don’t know how well it’s going to work.

This should be fun.

Looking for Motivation

Ideas have arrived, and yet I have this problem of getting up early in the morning. Again. It's like exercise. I hate starting, but once I get going it's not so bad. The first few days though... I have the hardest time convincing myself it's worth it. Surely I can get that writing done later in the day, it's Summer. I don't have a job right now, no school to speak of... I can do it during the day, or at night or something, right?

Of course not. While my parents will often retire earlier, my brothers don't, in typical teenager fashion. If I stay up I'll never be able to stand not to hang out with them... the only option is to either wall myself away for the months I write (which will drive me crazy) or I can learn to get up early again. Curses!

In other news, things are a bit better. Somehow I stumbled upon a Language Construction Kit (I make it a link so that I feel very fancy). I think it was something about wanting to make an alphabet for Yavn, and wand'ring round the internet for ideas, up comes a link for said kit. Now I'm obsessed with it. I really should learn another language before I try and create my own (say, finishing up my Italian course, or maybe getting my parents to help me learn Swahili or something), but be that as it may, I've already made up most of my grammar. Right now I'm trying to generate some semi-random words to get some vocabulary, so I can move on to translating and writing and speaking it somewhat to find holes in my grammar rules. I've eliminated or combined some tenses, and I'm hoping that doesn't mess me up terribly. I'll never know until I start using it. I found a handy program that will let me define catagories of letters and then put in patterns that I want, and it'll generate random words based on that. It's quite helpful. It could be as vague as just Consonants and Vowels, or as specific as typing the words yourself. I've got fricatives (M, N, V, F, etc.), vowels (vowels), plosives (P, B, D, T, G, etc.) and approximants (like R and L). Using names I've got so far, I'm generating words from their patterns. I can't replicate the entire dictionary in a day, and I've got to assign each word to an English word. The vocabulary of course will have fewer words than English (English has pretty much the most of any language I know of), but even so I'll need hundreds. I've got about 300 printed off on a sheet for easy reference, but I still have to find the best words to assign them to. Some are more important than others, and I'll probably do those first. Right now I'm picking out some for prepositions, and next I'll probably get nice words for the important ideas and objects in Yavn. Wow. Work.

I have another project to work on writing-wise that should help with world-building yet more. If I could just get work done on it... I'm slotted to start today, and I will do it. I didn't get my rear out of bed this morning? Too bad.

Well, no more procrastinating. Music, writing, work.

Ooh, it generated one that goes "umpyiu." How on earth do I pronounce that?

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?

Drama: A Rant

I'll have an update on my writing in a moment, but first I'm feeling rather ranty, so I'm going to have a nice little rant about drama.

I'm not talking about plays and theater and such, that's perfectly fine. I'm talking about people in life who seem to feel like it's too dull and have to go around hacking people off so that things are harder for everyone, but apparently more interesting.

I find this most at internet forums. People will bring up something about a brand they like or don't like, and then everyone loves to come and join in a big fight about what's good, what's bad, and why. And the original issue brought up was something totally stupid. And all that gets done is people look like idiots, people get mad, and a point is maybe made that's been made many times over on that very forum. Who wants all that trouble?

I guess people on the internet who are apparently anonymous, so they like to cause all sorts of grief. But what can you do with a drama-free afternoon? You can go for a swim, you can talk nicely to friends, you can write a book (or at least work on writing a book, maybe not a whole book in an afternoon...), you can enjoy the product of the brand you like, and stop caring about the brand you don't like. And I'm sure it's better for your blood pressure. It's not boring. It's infinitely more productive than getting people mad who odds are you've never met before, and you'll never meet in your life. Why bring the grief?


-ahem- Ok, now I'm done. On to the update!

I started on that Monday, as I planned, and things went well until the... 11th of August. Then I started getting behind. It took me three days (the 11th through the 13th) to write two thousand words. After that, it took me another three days to write another two thousand words. I have reasons for the second set, what with stuff going on over the weekend, but still. I wrote a few extra words today, so I'm only (only, heh) five and half kays behind now. My challenge runs through September... I can catch up, right? Right?

At any rate, I'm going to do my best not to miss any more days, and to do plenty of extra to catch up. I've never been this far behind before though... I'm just glad this didn't happen in November.

The Start Looms...

I think I really do like deadlines. This Saturday starts my personal writing challenge... 2k every day. I need to finish up my plotting so I can have a day or two of break before I start.

I had to put a few of them on the rack, but I finally got my main characters to talk to me, and I think I know a little more of what goes on in their heads. Enough to be getting on with anyway. I just need to set up my timeline then, and I should be ready.

Deadlines though... They're such good motivation for me with writing. My deadline for plotting is Friday, my deadline for writing this is every day, in a way. I have to write 2k every single day. That's my requirement. The goal is either 116k by October, or a finished story (preferably a finished story. 116k would a little long of a manuscript for me). Hopefully I can make it.