National Novel Writing Month!

Wow did anyone else completely and totally forget about Nano (www.nanowrimo.org) this year??  Lucky for me L. over at Viva Carlos mentioned it in her post so I was able to get started instead of remembering halfway through the month like I did during my second year of Nano lol.  Thanks L!

So after some brain storming while cooking chicken chili for supper I came up with a very vague idea and started writing.  I've done 1,340 words so far which is shy of what the daily total should be, but I'm just not feeling inspired to write so I'll catch up tomorrow.  Here is my one sentence synopsis...

"Scientist create a biosphere habitat full of mythical creatures... what could go wrong?"

Hehe, so let's see how well I do flying by the seat of my pants and writing with zero ideas, outlines, characters or plot.  :D  Good luck to everyone who is participating this year!

NaNo Update - I'm Finished (for real this time!)

I finished writing 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo (www.nanowrimo.org)!!!  I actually have 50,252 words.  :)  I haven't even thought of a name for my second book, but I can tell you I already love it and the characters.  I'm definitely planning to edit it and not just put it in my throw away folder (that I never actually delete).  In fact since there are still eight days left of November I'm going to keep writing.  I have no idea how much I will actually get written, but I'm having so much fun with this story I'm going to keep going until November ends or maybe even beyond.  :)  

So my first story was 26,573 words and my second one is 23,679 words so far.  The second one was so much more fun to write.  :)  I'm definitely not quitting now!  

I hope everyone who is trying NaNo this year is doing well and I wish you success in completing your novel in thirty days.  :)  It's late and I'm cross eyed from staring at the computer screen for so long, so I'm going to bed.  Night!

NaNo Update - I'm Finished!!!

Haha I totally just tricked you.  I'm not finished with NaNo, but I am finished with that book.  I skipped to the ending and had a lot of fun writing the end.  I wrote 4,047 words in the last hour and a half.  My total word count is up to 26,573, so I'm over halfway there.  The cool thing about NaNo is that if you finish your novel (or novella since this one is so short) before hitting 50,000 words you can just start another one!!  I'm going to spend today thinking about what I want to do my next one about and I'm going to try to make it something funky, fun and exciting.

I have never given up on a novel in the middle of NaNo before, but I just really was not loving my story at all.  The idea has potential and is fun, but I couldn't figure out what to do with the middle of it to make it fun and not boring.  I will probably come back to it sometime when I don't have a deadline and work on it again, but for now I need a break from it.  So if you have some fun, silly ideas for my next one I am all ears.  :)

P.S.  Appydoesdressage I used your ideas with some slight modifications!  So thank you for the inspiration.  I really appreciate it.  I had a lot more fun writing the ending than I did the beginning.  :D

NaNo Update!

Yay!  I got to 20,000+ words today.  It was a total grind.  I spent hours writing today to catch up.  On day 12 I had 12,642 words.... then I didn't write for FIVE whole days!!!  Not a single word in five days!  So I wrote 7,650 words today to make up for it.  So I am back on track, but barely.  I have to be more careful.  It is just so hard to sit and write some days, especially since I am still getting things done in my new house, like installing interior doors!!  So, I'm done writing for today.  I've been staring at the computer so long I'm cross eyed!  I'll update again soon.  How are your NaNos going?

NaNo Update

I finally broke 10,000 words (10,101 to be exact)!  I'm sort of feeling frustrated because every word is so much effort.  This story is not flowing well at all.  I decided this year not to plan out my story at all, because the very first year I did NaNo (I wrote 50,000 words in 14 days because I forgot about Nano until halfway through November) I didn't plan it and I did so well!!!  It's not working as well this time around...  The idea really intrigued me at first and now it's just really boring.

I decided to write about a spoiled rich girl with a fancy warmblood horse that she can barely ride because he's unruly.  Suddenly she finds herself transported to a world where horses live free on the prairie and people have to work hard every day just to survive and provide the basic necessities to their families.  She has to learn what it's like to work for her things instead of just flashing around a piece of plastic and buying whatever she wants.  She also has to learn to communicate with her horse (yeah he ended up there with her too somehow) without saddles, bridles, bits, spurs, whips, fences, etc.  That's it. That was my whole idea when I started this.  It was a nice idea, but there really is no plot yet.  I have no idea how she got to this place (or if she is even there, maybe it's a dream) or what my end goal is for the story, so I'm just cranking out words while I try to think of a plot.  :)

If any of you want to throw around plot ideas I welcome all suggestions!  I'm going back and forth between this all being a dream at the end of the story or it being real and her deciding to stay with her new friends in the new world.  Oh and it's fantasy by the way, if you hadn't guessed by the whole transporting to pretend worlds part.  :D

Well, back to writing!  Oh I forgot to mention I've only been writing one or two  hours a day because I've been so busy!  I'm hoping to have more time to write tomorrow.  Good luck to my fellow bloggers who are participating in NaNoWriMo this year!  I'm rooting for you guys!

House Building Update and NaNoWriMo

Guess what!  We get to move into our house tomorrow!!!!  I'm so excited!  We finished installing the shower today and turned our water on for the first time.  :D  I can't wait to move in.  We still have some stuff to do, such as some baseboards, painting and installing the interior doors, installing a bar light in the bathroom, etc., but the majority is finished.  Once we finish all of the ends and odds I will take pictures to show all of you.  There are still tools all over the place right now.  I have a lot of cleaning and picking up to do.

I've decided to participate in the National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo.org) challenge again.  The challenge basically is writing 50,000 words in 30 days.  It's a way to help writers just let go of everything and write whatever comes to mind.  It can be a huge help for writer's block and it's fun!  I won in 2009, 2010 and 2011, but I skipped 2012, so I'm excited to do it again.  I waited until yesterday to decide what to write about because a lot of times it's easier to write if you have no plan.  It worked out better for me in past years when I did that.  I'm not in love with my story idea right now, but it could get better! :D  Yesterday I wrote 4,310 words... today NONE so far.  I was too busy working on the house.  I'm going to go write as much as I can in the next two hours before it is tomorrow.  Night guys!

NaNoWriMo Winner!!

I don't know how I did it, but I did! 50,090 words with only a little over an hour to spare! That was cutting it close. Third year in a row winning NaNo (www.nanowrimo.org) and definitely the hardest one yet lol. Thanks for the encouragement guys. I am so glad November is over this year!

Day Twenty Nine - NaNoWriMo Word Count

Good thing I didn't have to work today, because all I did was write, write and write some more. I wrote a total of 5,892 words today for a total of 42,246 words for day twenty nine of NaNo (www.nanowrimo.org). So I have 7,754 words left to write. I hope I can finish it tomorrow! It's going to be tough!

Day Twenty Two - NaNoWriMo Word Count

I wrote 1,295 words today for a total of 31,438 for day twenty two of NaNo. Not a lot, but I can still catch up in time I think. :D

Cute Dogs Make NaNo Difficult - Day 21 NaNo Word Count

Okay, these adorable faces make writing very difficult. However, today I resisted. I wrote 6,357 words today for a total of 30,142 for day twenty one of NaNo (www.nanowrimo.org). I'm still about 8,000 words behind schedule, but I'm off tomorrow and it's going to be raining all day again so I'll try to write a lot again. For now I need sleep!

Oh and yes I wrote ZERO words the last three days. You probably thought I just forgot to post about it, but nope I'm a slacker lol.

Day Seventeen - NaNoWriMo Word Count

I wrote 2513 words today for a total of 23,785 for day seventeen of NaNoWriMo. Much better! I'm feeling a little more inspired, so maybe I can catch up.

Day Sixteen - NaNoWriMo Word Count

I keep dozing off, so it's time to call it a night. I wrote 1494 words tonight for a total of 21272 for day sixteen of NaNoWriMo.

Day Fifteen - NaNoWriMo Word Count

I wrote 1,111 words today for a total of 19,778 for day fifteen of NaNoWriMo (www.nanowrimo.org). I was really hoping to reach 20,000 today, but it's almost midnight and I'm totally exhausted and uninspired lol. This may be the first year I don't complete NaNo . . .

Day Twelve - NaNoWriMo Word Count

I wrote 1233 words today for a total of 18,667 words for day twelve of NaNoWriMo.

Day Ten - NaNoWriMo Word Count

I'm coming down with something (cough, headache, exhausted) so I only wrote 541 words today for a total of 16,595 for day ten for NaNoWriMo. Hopefully I'll do better (and feel better) tomorrow.

Day Nine - NaNoWriMo Word Count

I got the second coat of paint on the first section of cabinets. Sadly parts of it will need a third coat. I didn't realize how dark that yellow was. Luckily the cabinet facings and doors will only need two coats. :)

I also wrote 1,382 words in my novel for NaNoWriMo for a total of 16,054 for day nine. :) I'm still having trouble getting into it. I keep procrastinating starting writing and feel like I have writer's block, but when I start writing it usually starts to flow okay. Normally though when I get in the groove I can easily write 5,000 plus words in a sitting. This time however my inspiration is short lived (usually 800-1000 I have to force anything beyond that). I'm not sure why I'm having trouble with this one. It's a fantasy novel of a world I made completely myself from the ground up, so it's completely unique. Sometimes I think I've spent so much time planning out the planet, climate, races, societies, flora, fauna, calendar, etc. that I get bogged down in a "thinking" mode and lose my creative flow. Luckily that's what NaNo is for, forgetting all the planning and details and just writing! So NaNo is forcing me to push through the procrastination and writer's block. :)

Day Eight - NaNoWriMo Word Count

Yay! I finally got some writing done. I wrote 2,054 words for a total of 14,672 words for day eight! I was getting worried I was falling behind, but I pushed through my fatigue and got caught back up. :)

Busy!

I didn't write yesterday or today and I haven't worked out all week. I think I'm going to take a break from working out for November since I'm so busy. We're working on doing some improvements to our fixer-upper house since my husband has the time for it now, so that has kept me busy the last two days and tomorrow too probably. I will try to write tomorrow though. :)

Edit: Wait I did write some, but it was only 429 words. Hardly worth mentioning lol.

Day Five - NaNoWriMo Word Count

Since Saturdays are always so slow I took my laptop to work and got some good writing in. I wrote 1951 words for a total of 12,189 for day five. :)

Day Four - NaNoWriMo Word Count

I wrote 1461 words tonight for a total of 10238. :) I still can't believe it took me four days to reach the 10k mark, but I'm not complaining. I'm trying a new approach this year as in I'm writing a lot more descriptively. I get caught up in moving the plot along that I tend not to spend much time describing each scene. Let me tell you it's been difficult lol! I think it's one reason I've had trouble getting motivated this year. :)

I chose a good novel to try this with though because this particular one I've been working on for over five years because it's a fantasy novel with a completely unique world and races. I've written one version of it years ago that I actually completed (and didn't like), but since then it has morphed into a completely different novel, but with the same planet and main characters. The story line is totally different, so I am writing this novel from the beginning as required by NaNo. No cheating allowed lol. Well I'm off to bed. I have to get up at 5am and I'm not looking forward to it (or the time change for that matter) lol.