Tag Archives: Reading

NaNoWriMo 2014 Week Four

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NaNoWriMo 4Tomorrow is the last day of NaNoWriMo and many people have already reached 50,000 words. Like I said last week, I won’t be one of these people, but I’m okay with that. I’m only a little ways away from my personal writing goal to reach more words than I did last year and I intend to complete that this weekend.

This last week has been pretty crazy. I have had some new opportunities arising and they have taken up most of my time, preventing me from being able to do much writing at all. I didn’t post a book review or poem this week and even missed updating my fanfiction. So, while I absolutely love participating in NaNoWriMo, I think it’s probably good for my sanity that it’s almost over. I have so much I have to do and I think this’ll definitely be a bit of a weight (however fun it may be) off my shoulders.

I intend to do what I did last year and complete my novel in the upcoming month, hopefully before Christmas. I found it really refreshing last year to be going into the New Year with a completed first draft and am hoping to do the same this year.

How has your final week gone? Did you reach your word goal?

Current Word Count: 34,266 words

Excerpt:

Herro wasn’t sure how long they had been driving, but he was having a serious case of deja vu right about now. He hoped they weren’t bringing him back to that prison. At least if they went somewhere different there was a chance no one would know who he was. If they went back to the prison they would know him and they would want to know more about Katya. They may even do what Katya had said and go looking in that area for more people. Damn her for being right.

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NaNoWriMo 2014 Week Three

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NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo week three is ending and there is only one week left. Where did the time go?!

It was another slow week and I’m actually a little behind, but I have almost reached my writing goal. I said at the start of week one that, while I would love to reach 50,000 words, what I really wanted was to write more than I did last year. My final word count for last year was 35,870 words. This year, I am already at 33,361 words and firmly believe I will beat my number from last year.

My story has taken some interesting turns and my characters have definitely taken over. It started out as a dystopian fantasy novel and has somehow developed into a dystopian fantasy that deliberately uses clichés and references films and books to essentially make fun of itself. I have no idea how I reached this point with it, but I’m enjoying it.

How is your novel coming so far? Have you reached your word goal?

Current Word Count: 33,361

Excerpt:

Herro glanced over when he heard Will’s footsteps. “It’s not working! Come do you magic trick and fix it.”
“It’s not a magic trick and that’s the wrong radio,” Will said flatly. He walked across the room and grabbed the radio that was tucked away in the corner. He turned it on and turned the volume up. “It should already be on the right channel so don’t touch anything.”
“Alright, awesome,” Herro said, staring at the device intently as if willing it to come to life and tell him where he had to go.

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NaNoWriMo 2014 Week Two

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NaNoWriMoWeek two is coming to a close and hopefully by this point you are close to the halfway point.

 

I had a pretty slow writing week this week. I spent three days writing the same infuriating chapter and was so happy when it was done. It literally got to the point where I was just writing it to get done and reminding myself with every line that once November was over I could edit and rewrite to my heart’s content. Once I was done I was already past my word count goal so I gave myself a couple days to just breathe and then got back down to it yesterday. I’m hoping to get some serious writing done today.

 

How has your week two been? Have you met your writing goals for the week?

 

 

Current Word Count: 28,941 words

 

Excerpt:
Maverick stopped suddenly, looking over at the door. Seraphina looked too and knew immediately why he had stopped. She could hear voices getting closer and closer.
“Back to bed!” Maverick hissed and the children ran back to their bunks. Maverick clenched his hands the room was thrown back into darkness. Seraphina had just slipped under the blankets when the door opened and two men paused in the doorway.

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NaNoWriMo 2014 Week One

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Week One is over! How are we all doing so far? Have you reached your word count goal for the week? By the end of today you should be at about 13,333. If not, DON’T PANIC! It’s okay. You still have three weeks to catch up.

The first week of NaNo is usually either really exciting or really stressful (or both!). Now, as we’re going into week two, hold onto that excitement and let go of the stress. Whatever you’ve written so far is fantastic, just make sure you keep writing! Don’t give up yet! There’s still three weeks to go!

Good luck to everyone on week two!

Do you have any goals for the week ahead?

Current Word Count: 26,106 words

Excerpt:

“Destiny?” Herro scoffed.

“Yeah,” Will nodded, “You know, you saw my video and you were looking for me and then we just happen to be in the woods at the same time. You save me from the bad guys and then find out you actually need my help. Plus, you’re name’s Herro, come on dude, that’s gotta tell you something.”

“Yeah, it tells me my parents had high expectations when I was a kid,” Herro mumbled, not really paying attention.

“No, it tells me that this was destiny. Most people don’t remember the kids that go missing, but you do. And you’re name is Herro…”

Herro turned to face him. “So what?”

“So you’re clearly the hero of this story,” Will said and Herro rolled his eyes.

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NaNoWriMo: What is it and why do it?

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Happy NaNoWriMo to all my fellow participants! How are you doing so far on Day Two? And to all non-participants or anyone who has no idea what NaNoWriMo is, Happy November Second! How are you on this fine day?

For those who don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, it is National Novel Writing Month. During the month of November, thousands of people participate in this writing challenge to reach 50,000 words in 30 days. For more about NaNoWriMo, you can check out their website here.

I participated in NaNo last year which is when I wrote the first draft of Brave Young Boys. I didn’t reach the goal of 50,000 words, but I did make it to 35,870 which I was really proud of. This year my only real goal is to get high than that. Even if I don’t reach 50,000 words I would like to at least reach 35,871.

In order to reach whatever word goal you have a lot of people set a daily goal. Typically, if you’re trying to reach 50,000 words in 30 days, you need to write at least 1,666 words. However, a lot of people like to set their own word goals, whether it be 2000 per day or 1000 on day one, 2000 on day two, and so on. For me it’s usually just writing as much as I can.

Well, now you know what NaNoWriMo is and a little about the word goal, but why do it? Why subject yourself to the pressure of writing 50,000 words in 30 days? Well first off, it’s fun. It really is. I know it sounds like a lot of work (which it also is), but at the end of the day it’s just fun to sit down and create something. The second reason is that feeling you get at the end. It doesn’t matter how many words you reached whether it be 50,000 or 15,000 or 5,000. You wrote those words. You sat down and wrote them and that feeling of accomplishment is something you will always have. Finally, the third reason is that you may make something out of it. Who knows, you could write the next great novel, the one kids will learn about in school however many years from now. Whatever your reason is for doing NaNoWriMo, just make sure to remember that you like what you’re writing. You may not like certain aspects of it, but make sure you like the story itself because if you don’t then your readers might not either.

I’m going to be posting updates on my currently untitled young adult novel ever Saturday and I’d love to hear from you guys too!

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Are you participating in NaNoWriMo this year? What type of novel are you working on? Do you have any word count goals?

 

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NaNoWriMo 2014 Day One

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NaNoWriMo is upon us!

Day One is not quite over yet, but I didn’t want to wait until 11:59 to post this so here it is!

How are you all doing so for? How is your day one going? Did you reach your word goal yet?

I don’t really set daily word goals for myself, it’s mostly just write until I can’t feel my fingers, take a break, then write some more. The only goal I really have is writing more than 1,666 words on Day One. As the average number of words required per day is approximately 1,666 I always try to get more than that one the first day. Which I did.

As of this moment that I’m posting this I have 6,819 words.

I started at midnight last night and wrote until about 1:30am and then got up this morning and kept going. It’s crazy because I did NaNo last year and didn’t write this many words on the first day.

My novel this year is a Young Adult/Dystopian/Fantasy which, aside from the YA aspect, is totally new territory for me. I’ve never written a dystopian or a fantasy so this is pretty crazy and I have no clue what I’m doing, but that makes it a lot of fun.

If you’d like to hear more about my NaNo experiences as the month goes on you can click on the links below for my Twitter and Facebook where I’ll be posting my daily word count each night and random things that happened that day.

I’ll also be uploading a post every Saturday about that week of NaNo with updates on word count, weekly happenings, and maybe even a quote or two.

 

I want to hear from you! What is your book about? Are you having a good NaNo 2014 so far?

 

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Brave Young Boys: Prologue

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I reached 100 followers on my blog (now 114! You’re amazing!) and 200 followers on Twitter! So I’m celebrating by posting the prologue to my novel Brave Young Boys. Thank you so much to everyone who has followed and you can find out more about Brave Young Boys here.

Prologue

October 6, 2013

The rain fell in a steady downpour as the limo pulled into the gates of the church, the gravel crunching audibly beneath the tires. The car carrying the family pulled up behind the limo as the minister walked down the steps, umbrella in hand, to greet them. Stepping out of the car, Aimee was oblivious to the fact that her outfit was slowly becoming soaked through. Her husband stepped out behind her and opened their umbrella, holding it over Aimee’s head. The fresh October air bit at her face, but she didn’t seem to notice that either.
“Come on,” her husband said gently, “It’s time to go inside.” They walked up the steps and Aimee paused at the entrance to the church to turn back and watch as the men pulled the casket out the back of the limo.
“Mom,” her daughter said, “Mom we need to go sit down.” She turned back around and followed her family into the church. Taking their seats at the front, Aimee looked around. The church was full of people, many of whom were in uniform. She was actually surprised by the amount of people there considering they hadn’t advertised the funeral in any of the local papers. All of this was hard enough to deal with without the whole town knowing. She saw her sister, brother-in-law, niece, and nephew sitting in the pew across from theirs and her sister gave a small wave of greeting that Aimee did not return.
Music began playing and everybody stood as several more men in uniform entered the church, carrying the casket between them. They set it down at the front where it was surrounded by flowers.
Something grabbed the sleeve of her coat and she looked down to see it was Nathan. He was crying. She put her arm around her thirteen year old son, trying to draw comfort from the fact that he was still here with her. But she wasn’t sure if the closeness did much for either of them. Aimee looked around and saw a lot of people were crying. Not the men in uniforms though, they weren’t crying. They had no expression at all.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the minister began and Aimee turned back to the front, “We are here today to the honour the too short life of a brave young boy…”

When the ceremony was over, everyone in attendance made their way outside. The rain continued to fall and the mud made the ground slippery beneath their feet. Nathan nearly fell over twice, and would have done had it not been for his sister grabbing his arm and keep him upright. Everyone gathered around and stood in silence as the casket was brought closer. As they lowered it into the ground, the music started again. She watched the soldiers line up and raise their guns in the air, firing three shots as the casket was lowered further into the ground.
Wait, no, they couldn’t do this. BANG! He was only eighteen, he couldn’t be gone now. BANG! He wasn’t gone, why were they holding a funeral for someone who wasn’t dead? BANG!
“No,” she whispered and her husband looked at her, “No please, not my son… Not Kyler…”

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One Lovely Blog Award

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yaymeSo, I was nominated for the One Lovely Blogger Award by Theodora Zheng. Not totally sure what that means or how this works, but I haven’t had this blog for very long and I thought it was pretty cool.

So the rules for the nominees are to:

  • Thank the person who nominated you for the award.
  • Add the One Lovely Blog logo to your post.
  • Share 7 facts/or things about yourself
  • Nominate 15 bloggers you admire and inform the nominees by commenting on their blog

1) Thank you to Theodora Zheng for the nomination. I love your writing, I think your poetry is absolutely amazing and the fact that you noticed my blog amazes me so thanks so much!

2) Yup

3) Seven facts/things about myself:

  • I have a puppy named Frankie
  • I didn’t like video games when I was younger, but I started playing them more a couple years ago (Mostly Zelda and Marvel)
  • When I was in first grade me and my friend dressed as Batman and Robin for Halloween, I was Robin and my friend (who was a foot shorter) was Batman
  • I wanted to be a doctor for several years before I realized that would mean I actually needed to be good at science
  • I recently started watching The Walking Dead and Lost
  • For my first summer job I was a sample person at a grocery store
  • My favourite number 4

4) I nominate:

Planning for NaNoWriMo

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NaNoWriMoHappy October everyone! October means many different things, Thanksgiving (in some places), Halloween, Pumpkin Spice Lattes, and the final month before NaNoWriMo. Now, some people prefer to jump into NaNoWriMo headfirst without any planning. This is what I did last year. However, some like to have some idea of what they’re going to be writing about. This is what in doing this year and this is why October can be a very important month to NaNoWriMo participants.

Planning your novel for NaNoWriMo can mean many different things. Some writers plan chapter for chapter, some map out the general plot, others create their characters and go from there. But how do you start?

Well, everyone starts their planning in much the same way: confused and not totally sure where they’re going with their idea. Depending on which method you choose, you may actually stay in this web of confusion for some time. Planning chapter for chapter may sound like it would be the easiest method, and I’m sure when all is said and done and you have the plan laid out in front of you it’s great. But reaching that point can actually be difficult. For my novel this is the main method I’m using and as great as it is it can be hard when you get stuck at a certain point and don’t know how to move forward. Sometimes you have chapters 1-10 done and you know what you want to happen in say, chapters 15-20, but what about 11-14? What happens then? What do you do when you don’t know where to go with your story? Well this is where the other methods of planning can help.

If you map out some of your characters or maybe even your setting, sometimes they can speak to you. The more you know about your characters, the more you know about their motivations and this can help move the plot along even when you don’t really know where it’s going. Of course, the important thing to remember here is that NaNoWriMo is about sitting down and writing. You don’t need to have the entire thing planned out. The truth is, even if you plan and plan and plan, stuff in your story is inevitably going to change.

So what do you think? Are you going to be doing NaNoWriMo this year? How are you getting ready?

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