Thriller

I think I'm going to call this NaNo a fail and take it as a learning experience. Not much of it I haven't learned before, but maybe this will actually get it into my head.


I don't do very well keeping at a story if I've talked it out too much. I spent a year forcing myself not to even think too much about my story line, but then come the beginning of November and... BAM, I talked about it. Too much. And all kinds of thoughts came flowing in and now I'm just like '...no.' It SUCKS, but ya know what? It's a learning experience. I'm just going to call it that.


There's also been a bunch of other crap that's been happening that I'm not even going to get into here. It's just a bad month... a rather cruddy year but a really bad month.


BUT! I am going to save this story for next year, hopefully think it out a little more and get things more worked out and plan out something for it and use it for the 6 novels thing. It'll be fine. :)


I'm going to get back to cleaning up my first NaNo, do that instead. Then hopefully when I'm done with it I can start sending out letters about it.


All right, I've got to go to dog training class.


Laters!

Les Poissons

I'm going to start this post with a quote that actually pops up in my head a lot and I'm just going to steal it, right here right now. And whenever it applies to the conversation. When I first came across Qzie's blog, I read all the posts she has posted before (as I do with most blogs that I read) and while doing so, I found on one of her older posts, a quote that, like I said, has stuck in my brain. I'll give a little context with it:

I know what I want to do with my life. I think people think I'm joking when I say, "I'm gonna work dead-end jobs and write novels my whole life," but I'm being perfectly serious. I could not care less what my day job is; I just want to write. 

The bolded part in there is what always pops up in my head. I actually really like this. All of it. Granted, I'd like to sell novels and eventually be able to live off of that and make writing my full time job, until then I've got to do something for money. I wanted to share that quote and let Qzie know I'm stealing it! :P

In other news, NaNo is soon (like, 3 days), and you know what I hate? When plot bunnies pop up and totally give me a new plot and title! Now, I've had this idea in my head for a few months now, but last night, I came up with more of it and even a title was born! I'm not going to talk about it, because I don't want to forget it or get bored with it, cause I want to write it really bad. And I will, probably as one of my 6 novels for next year.

*dances around* I can't wait for NaNo!!!

Ok, I have nothing else to say for now.

Laters!

Candyman

I'm loving the Writing a Romance Novel for Dummies book. I suggest this book to all of you (yes, even you Gilbert) even if you don't write romance. It covers a lot of stuff in it that works for all writers, like what you can use for tax write offs as a writer. Now, I don't suggest buying it if you're not a romance writer, but I do suggest getting it from your local library and flipping through it.

Aside from that, I think I'm going to try getting into category romance (aka, series romance). At least to get into the publishing business. I can move up from there to regular long books. But series romance books aren't as long (typically between 50,000 and 100,000 words, more on the shorter side of that) and writer's publish more of them a year (like 5 or 6 sometimes). Sure, the books don't get the big advances regular novels get, but between the advances, the royalties, and the amount you end up publishing a year... it could look pretty nice. Also, i gives me practice on writing more words in my stories so I can build up to the length that a normal romance novel is (100,000 words plus) and I get my name out there (or at least things I can put on a query letter).

I'm going to need to do some research though, because in series romances, the publishing house wants a particular type of story to sell it in a bundle with other books like it; so I have to find the publishing houses and  find out about their series. Shouldn't be too hard though. It'll be fun.

And it works with 6 months 6 novels, writing a book each of the six months that's at least 50,000 words (though I'm hoping to aim for 75,000 words this NaNo).

Jeez, I'm using a lot of parenthesis.

Another thing I wanted to blog about was this post posted by the guy who made Write or Die: [The 48 Minute Rule]. Basically, you write for 48 minutes then take a 12 minute break. It gives your mind something more solid to hold on to rather than "I'm going to work for 3 hours today". He says that can get you into thinking "well, I need to do the dishes, and I'm hungry..." which leads to other distractions and so on. But if you're going for 48 minutes with a 12 minute break, you can look at your timer and say "hey, I've only got such an amount of time left until I've got a break, so it can wait." I want to try this when I get back to writing which will hopefully be soon >.<

So, has anyone else tried the 48 minute rule? How'd/s it work for you?

Laters!

Toxicity

So, I want NaNo to start. Really bad. I need to be working on other things, but all I've got on the mind is NaNo. And a plot line that isn't even for NaNo. It'll be for one of the months next year when I'm writing. I'll have to pick a month. All in all, this distraction is giving me a mild case of writer's block >.< Not good when I have paying customers to make happy!

I also can't wait for all the writing to be done next year. It shall be great. I doubt all of the 6 novels will come out any good, but hopefully at least one of them will! I have faith!!

And now, the reason for this post.

On the NaNo boards, there's a thread about posting pictures of where you write. So many people have such pretty areas! Mine... looks like a prison. I've posted these pictures on the thread already (and had people say it looks like a prison), but I decided to share it here as well. :)

The door to the writing area. We (being me and my roommate) write in our building's community room. This is the door. Ain't it lovely?

This is the window on the door. I have a smiley face on there cause people like to look in and it's annoying. There's actually more paper there now, seeing as I took this picture last October or something.

This is a view through the window. The table isn't set up right in this picture, but you see that table with the chairs? That's where we sit. The room is all white and looks a lot like a padded cell.

This is a shot through the window. The chairs are set up right in this one. I sit in the one by the wall and my roommate sits in the chair facing the wall behind my chair. My view is a lovely white wall and a black couch, as well as the door.

So that is where I write. Despite it's bareness and how friggin COLD it gets down there, it's great for focusing on writing. There's no net connection to distract me. Yey!

Also, I wanted to share this next picture. It's going to be my desktop background during NaNo cause it's awesome!

Ain't it awesome! I love it more for what it says on it than the picture, but it all works together so well. There's more NaNo/writing related wallpapers [here]. Go check them out, they're great.

Oh! Something I forgot Check out [Write or Die]. It's awesome. I want to get the desktop version so I can use it in the room I write in and not need to be hooked up to the net for it to work. Go look! Now! >:D

All right, that's all I've got to say for now. Laters!

Something

Why yes, that is a song title, not just me being really, really lame, lol.

So, this isn't about writing, but I've started working on one of my cosplays for Anime Expo next year! Well, not putting it together yet, but I've printed up a picture of the vest and I'm deciding what I can use for the pieces of it. It'll be AWESOME!

On to writing news now:

You know what I hate? Plot bunnies. Don't know what a plot bunny is? Well it's a term I stole from the NaNo boards and basically, it's when you have a plot, and then another plot pops up, and another, and another, and each plot is called a plot bunny cause they multiply like rabbits. It's evil. I keep getting plot ideas popping up and I don't know whether I should write them down or let them sit and stew in my brain until they either fade away or work themselves out. Or maybe even turn them into an rp storyline. My options are endless. And it's not like I can work these plot lines into my NaNo story because, well, they just don't mesh.

I can't wait for NaNo. I love NaNo. I want to write my story, though I'm scared it won't stretch! I'm shooting for 75,000 words this year. Last year I shot for 100,000 words and fell short and burned out horribly. So this  year I thought I'd only go up 25,000 words then next year I can try again for 100,000 words. Not all too sure on that though because I want to try the 6 Novels, 6 Months challenge. Basically, you write a novel every other month. It should be fun. I need the practice. On top of the 6 Novel, 6 Month challenge, I want to do WriYe and Milwordy. WriYe, from what I understand, is you set a certain word goal for the year and write all year long to reach that goal, doesn't matter what you write. Milwordy is when you write one million words in a years time. So they all work together!

Only problem is trying to get to a million words in one year.

Maybe I should rethink milwordy and just do the 6 novel, 6 month and WriYe challenge and save milwordy for another year.

Things to think about, things to think about.

You know what's hard to do? Find schools offering a BFA in Creative Writing via online. Sure, I can find MFA programs, but you have to already have a BFA in the subject to get into it! Like I've mentioned before, I've found two schools, one I'm more interested in getting into than the other. This is just more stuff to think about.

In other news, I missed the writing group I wanted to go to today. Totally forgot. But it meets weekly and I can just go to it next week. I've even set an alarm in my phone to remind me about it next week.

Still reading Blogging for Dummies. Why yes, I am a slow reader. And easily distracted.

I think that's it for today. Laters!

PS
[WriYe Site]
[Milwordy Site]
[6 Novels, 6 Months Site]
[NaNoWriMo Site]
List of [Timed Writing Contests] With Links