I'm all like... Whoa. Or maybe 'woohoo' is better

So, for all you lovely new people (and maybe the old ones. I can't remember if I mentioned this recently), for Camp Nano, I wrote my first YA novel. I know I recently mentioned that I think YA is my real niche, etcetc (check it here).

I finished it a few days ago and sent it to my dad for him to edit.

He finished it in three days. He said he didn't want to put it down. (Now I know that parents are supposed to do this, but my dad is a writer as well (find him here) and he doesn't believe in telling someone that something is good when it's not. He admits that he's bias because I am his daughter, but I trust his opinion completely.)

I am in love with this novel, but because it was my first YA novel, I was afraid it wasn't that great. So when he said this, this was my reaction:

There are some problems with it, of course. What first draft doesn't have problems? But he liked it! I figured it would take him a few weeks to get through it. Three days, though? Three days?

Obviously, I am very excited about this. I was all tense waiting for his opinion, wanting to call and ask him like every other moment to find out what he thought about it. I am so in love with this manuscript that I think it may have actually hurt to hear that it sucked.

I told him to go through it again and give it another look over and make sure that he caught and commented on everything that needed to be. i also want some more time away from the manuscript so when I go back to it, it's like looking at it with fresh eyes.

I can't wait! GAAAHH!!!

I wanted to share with my writerly people. Because it makes me feel AWESOME!

Ok, I think I'm done.

Laters!

Platform Building Campaign!

Woot! I'm going to be a campaigner this coming session over at Rach Writes...

You should go check it out :D

EDIT: I will be going around following and introducing myself once the groups are solidified. Otherwise I'll get confused, lol. I look forward to meeting you all!

Drop it like it's hot

That's right. I won. It's awesome.

And not only did I win, but I finished by story at a whopping 64,129 words. I was afraid that I wouldn't make it far past 50,000. Well look at that! I kicked my own worries in the bum with 14, 129 words!

Now it's time to edit, edit, edit. And hope it's good. I think it's good. I like it. I'm happy with it. It needs some work, but it'll get polished then queried out!

Now to think about either writing part two in November (if I do November, it depends on if I get a job and school and all that) or writing the other idea I have. Both of which are int he works as far as plot.

Any how, good luck to all of those who are still working!! YOU CAN DO IT!!!

Laters!

Party Tiem!!

I spelt that wrong on purpose. Yes, yes I did.

I am going to party hardy now!

I have breached the 50,000 word line and still have tons to write! Or at least another 10,000 words or so. Or maybe 5,000, I don't know.

All I know is, I am going to party. Right now.

This is my party music

*dances*

How's everyone else doing? Going strong I hope?

Laters!

It's like a snow day

Sometimes writing comes easy as pie. It flows like water through a stream, just pouring from your brain to your fingers and onto the (digital)paper. At times, you can hack out five thousand words in a day (or more if you're just that awesome) and still want to write more but you're so tired that you have to close up and go to bed.

Other times, it's like a snow day. And not like those good snow days when you find out school is cancelled and you get to stay home and veg on the couch with a cup of hot cocoa with marshmallows. No, it's more like those snow days when the snow is up to your hip and still coming down and you still have to go to work.

Sometimes, writing is like sloughing through that long expanse of space from your front door to your car. Then you have to dig a space large enough for your door to open so you can slip through and into the car. But it's freezing in the car and your engine doesn't want to start because it's so damn cold out, so you're shivering inside your own car, trying, begging, crying, pleading for the car to start so you can turn the heater on. But that all comes after you fight your way through all that snow.

Now, I don't live in an area that actually gets snows, so I don't know if places of work actually make their employees come in to work with snow that high, but I'm going to say your boss is a dick and making you come in. Cause I can. I have an artists license to do that kind of thing.

Right now I'm sloughing through that snow. I'm not sure what I'm going to do to remedy it. My brain is so scattered that I'm lucky to have the few hundred words I have down.

There's a lot of reason I could be stuck here in all this snow.

• I'm restless, though that could be the ADHD. 
• My semester technically started yesterday, though because I'm doing school online, I don't have to worry about that yet. 
• I got my itouch in the mail the other day and I'm still learning all the ins and outs and having a grand old time with it.
• I went out with my bff yesterday to an old western movie set and we made a little movie type thing and I need to edit the pieces together. And I really want to do that.
• I don't know what's going to be happening in my story. Like seriously, I've come to that spot where it's like, I know what's going to happen down the road, but I can't just jump into it. They have to plan, Lauren needs to talk to Bernie in the hospital. I'm thinking of introducing the MC for part two at one point, though she's just going to be making a cameo in this. And she's only going to be like, ten.
• My brain keeps trying to sway over to the two other ideas I have placed on the back burner until after this month is done. Or at least until after this story is done.

I could go on and on, but I'm sure you guys don't want to read that. It'll probably get kind of boring.

So what do you guys do to get through all that snow and get rolling again? I really want to know. maybe it'll give me a shovel through all this.

Until then, I will push on and find my way to work, where hopefully they have hot water, cocoa packets, and the heater is on.

Laters!

Whistle while you work

Hitler was a jerk
Mussolini bit his weenie
Now it doesn't work!

*clears throat*

I can't whistle. What does this have to do with writing? Well... nothing. I just wanted to use the title. But yes, I cannot whistle. Thusly, I will be singing and humming while I work! Or spewing off rhymes about Hitler to the tune of Disney songs, lol.

Week two of Camp Nano went great! I am now two days ahead of myself. It's amazing, really. I've never shot through NaNo this quickly.

But like I said before (at least I'm sure I've said it before), I'm really loving this story. I love finding out what's going to happen.

I started today stuck, though. So I did a little art project, stared at a blank sheet of paper in my note book, and came up with what was supposed to happen.

And I will say that I am in LOVE with the scene. It turns out that I'm being more violent towards my MC than I ever thought the plot was going to be, but it can't be helped. The plot calls for it.

I am at 38,571 words and I will say... I'm afraid of how much longer (or lack there of) this story is going to be. I want to get past the 50,000 mark. I'd love to get way past the 50,000 mark. I don't care if it reaches 75,000 (though that would be nice) I'm afraid it's going to fall short and no one is going to want it because it's a piddly little book.

I know, 50,000 words isn't piddly. It's a very good word count. I just want mine to be longer than that. Maybe it's because I've never really written a book longer than just above 50,000 words. I don't know.

All I know is, I love this story.

Love.

Hope all is going well with everyone else!

Laters!

PS - I wrote 5,003 words today :D

Halfway to NaNo goal, Third of the way to my goal!

I hit the 25,000 mark today! Yeey!

I'm feeling pretty good. I keep fearing that I'm going to rush through the rest of my plot, but I know if I just take it a day at a time, it'll all work out fine.

But I am so proud of myself!

I ended up bombing out of last years NaNo. Didn't even make it close to winning. I just couldn't get that story to work out like it should have.

But I am so in to this story! I love it! I'm having so much fun with it!

I'm back on track for the most part with my word goal (I had been a day ahead). I'm looking forward to writing more tomorrow and the day after and every day after that until it's done! Then I have to edit, but... I'm actually kind of looking forward to that.

My dad explained something the other day. I don't really know how to explain what he said cause, well, I'm not good at respitting out peoples words, lol, but it had something to do with really finding what you were meant to write. Like he had been trying to write Sci-fi and Fantasy and he had written a few manuscripts, but it wasn't anything he was overly excited about. Then he started getting into crime and he's really been gnawing at the bit to get to writing each day and looking forward to editing it and making it the best it can be. He says he's found what he really wants to write and what he's supposed to be writing.

I think I've found my place in YA. I was writing M/M romance and I still love to read and write romance, but I think it'll be in a YA stance from now on. Unless I can find my feet in adult romance, then maybe I'll dabble in that, but who knows.

For now, I am a proud YA writer.

Yeey!!

Laters!

End of week 1

I am very proud of myself. I wrote 4,111 words today. I was really in to the scene and having fun with it. Even more proud that I wrote all that after sitting here fearing that my main character is boring. Maybe she's not boring. Maybe she's just different. Things are really going to pick up now, though. I'm moving into the main part of the story. Fingers crossed that I have enough to fit in!

I think I do though. I keep trying to look at the plot as the few plot points I have firmly decided on and thinking "omg there isn't enough there! I'll never make it long enough!" but then I look at the 18,595 words that I've written so far, and all that just to get to the main part of the story line? Almost half way through 50,000 words and I'm only just not getting to the main point of the plot. If I can bull my way through that many words, I can so make the rest of the story last!

And I don't like putting in things that don't move the plot along. If it doesn't have something to do with the plot (or in this part of the story, showing what their life is like right now) then it doesn't go in. And if I need fluff, I'll make some random scene work.

Like in my first NaNo novel, there was a dare in the dare thread that was to send your characters to a theme park. So I did, I sent them to the theme park, and had one of the MCs get kidnapped, because it needed to happen anyways. So I got words AND moved the plot along.

Anyways, first week of Camp NaNo is over and I am doing great! Woohoo! I'm actually only like, 700 words off from my goal for tomorrow, which is good. I may be going out with a friend for her birthday tomorrow, which will, of course, take up writing time. But friends are important!

How's everyone else doing?

Laters!

Attack of the plot bunnies!

Though this little plot bunny is more like the nice little tomato in the Attack of the Tomatoes cartoon, or Gizmo from Gremlins.

This cute little plot bunny has brought to me an idea for a sequel to the story I am working on.

Not sure if that's a yey or not, but I will be putting him in a little cage to wait until I need him.

In other words, word count is going great! I'm not so over whelmed about the thought of not having enough to stretch into the word count, because I have found that I can bullshit my way pretty damn well. And it's not even bullshit that'll have to be cut later.

How's everyone else doing?

Laters!

All it took was a dream

I wrote 2767 words today for a total of 7548 words. That's just under 400 words over my goal word count for today. Yey!

I won' be writing tomorrow 'cause I'm going to Six Flags, but on Thursday I will be writing another 2422 words towards a goal of 9602 words. According to the Camp NaNo site, I will have 50000 words done by August 13, though my calculations says I won't have 50000 words until the 21st. And I'm writing more than the 1612 words recommended to be written a day. So odd.

I had gotten stuck though. I had to move around my time line for the story, because I didn't have anything for them to do for about 4 weeks and I didn't have a reason for what the guy who's using the kids to do what he was doing when it was against his own rules. I also got stuck with 1000 words left to write, unsure where to go. So what did I do? I put in a dream sequence. A very odd, kind of bloody dream that's actually kind of foreshadowing towards what's supposed to happen later in the book. I don't know how she had the dream, other than the fact that her brain took things that were said that day and found the hidden meaning. Hey, I'm sure it happens. She's not psychic or anything, she's just a normal girl, putting things together subconsciously.

All in all, things are going good. I didn't want to get started because I didn't know what to do (I do that a lot) but once I got in to it, I did pretty well, save for that one area. But it was good! I'm proud of it and the kids.

Though, I can't tell if two of the guys in the group of kids are just super awesome bffs or if they're gay for each other. I'm not sure. I will have to explore them closer.

Good luck to all of you doing Camp NaNo! I hope everything is going well!!

Laters!

Day one was slow but... Awesome

Woohoo!! I finish today with 4781 words!

Now, before you guys go "oh em gee, you wrote THAT many words in one day?!" No, I didn't write that many words in one day. I wrote just over 2,422 words today. I started with 2,336 words that I wrote about a month ago or so. So I wrote 2445 words in total. I am counting the 2336 into my final total for the month BUT I am planning on writing 75000 words this month and I DID do the math for how many words I have to write to get to that total not including the original 2336 words. I'm also going to be missing a day of writing because I will be out at Six Flags on the 3rd for my brother's birthday.

I have also basically figured out my plot in little points on a piece of paper. I just don't really know how to get from where I am right now to the first real plot point. There's nothing for them to do. I am so excited!

I also realized today how weird I am. I figured out how to put in that my kids are bank robbers without making it completely obvious that I needed to explain that. I made it work! Yeeey!

Now, in other news that is not writing related at all: My great grandma was diagnosed with cancer a few months ago. I forget which kind but it was on her spine and was wrapped around her heart and liver (or kidney, I never got confirmed truth on which one). It was impossible to remove surgically, so she started either radiation or chemo for it (I think it was radiation). As of today, my great grandma is cancer free! Yey!!! And of course, through her treatment and such, she was spending 6-8 hours in her garden, volunteering, and never once changing her life around for the cancer. She's a real trooper.

All right, that is all for today.

Laters!