I Have A Confession To Make

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It is now Day 3, and I have a confession to make.

I’ve barely written anything.  Nor have I really wanted to write anything. 

As excited as I am about NaNo, and as much as I love it…I’m having trouble getting actually writing.  It’s like I lost my NaNo mojo!  The horror!  I can’t be a word ninja if I don’t write anything! 

I’ve been staring at my novels, and I feel rather uninspired right now.  I love my ideas, but my ability to sit down and write just hasn’t been there. 

I have managed to write, but it’s more of a forcing myself to do it kind of thing as opposed to something that I want to do.

I’m at 1,684 for the mermaid one, and 1,384 for the mistaken identity one.  That leaves me with a total of 3,068.  This means I’m a day behind on my word count.  I can catch up, though, it’s just a matter of actually getting myself to write. 

There’s really not much to report right now, so maybe (hopefully) I’ll have more tomorrow.

Wildflower Hill

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Book: Wildflower Hill by Kimberley Freeman

Pages: 544 Pages (Paperback)

A Review: This review is based on a copy of Wildflower Hill that was won through a goodreads giveaway.

Wildflower Hill is about the intertwined stories of Beattie and her granddaughter Emma.  Upon Emma’s forced retirement from her career as a ballerina, she returns to Australia, and learns that Beattie left her a farm in Australia.  We learn more about Beattie, and her story unfolds.

I loved it!  There was something compelling about Beattie, and I found myself wanting to skim over Emma’s story just to get to Beattie’s story.  Emma does learn about her grandmother and the life she led before settling down and getting married. 

I don’t want to discount Emma, but she seemed a little cold and her story was a little boring.  This is in comparison to Beattie, whose life had so many hardships and yet she managed to be very successful and happy.

The narrative itself was very strong, and the 2 stories went together so well.  The 2 “voices” were very distinct, and you had no problem knowing who was narrating.  Plus, the weaving of the 2 stories was really well done.  There were several parallels between Beattie and Emma, and there were definitely some issues scattered throughout the book, like being a single parent and racism in Australia in the 1950’s. 

I loved the detail that Freeman put into Wildflower Hill and it was a very vivid and rich book.  The characters were very vivid as well, and I could picture everything so clearly. 

Review: 5 out of 5.  I loved it!

And It Begins

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NaNo is off to a roaring start this year!  I had a lot of fun at the midnight kick-off, and I was really glad that I reserved a couple tables, since it was busy at our party location! 

I’ve only worked on one novel so far, my mermaid one, and wrote for about an hour at the kick-off.  Actually, that’s what I’m doing right now…writing a blog post at the kick-off.  At least it’s NaNo-related! 

There’s not much to report right now, other than my word count is currently at 1,230 words. 

This is definitely going to be a short post, since there’s really not much to report right now, and I’ll definitely have more of an update tomorrow morning.

November feels as normal as it’ll ever be!

Good Luck!

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Today is the last day of October…Happy Halloween everyone! 

Halloween is also the last day before I lose my mind writing an insane number of words while drinking an insane amount of caffeine. 

I have a few loose ends to tie up before I start talking about NaNo.

My binder!  I have this binder full of stuff related to my various novels.  I have characters, plot bunnies with varying degrees of planning and notes, potential character names, and random notes.  It’s helpful and I love handwriting my notes.  I like spreading out my notes and my characters, and it’s much easier to refer to them when I need to.  It’s nice having notes that are organized.

I’ll be writing at home, at the library and the Living Room.  It’s one of my favorite places, and I love writing there.  The library is great too, since it’s generally quiet and I can go look things up when I need to.  Plus, I can stay as long as I need without worrying about hogging a table or needing to buy something every couple of hours so I don’t feel bad about buying one thing and staying for a few hours.  And at home, I can write in my pajamas with the t.v. on in the background and walk back and forth to the kitchen as much as I want. 

I don’t have a handwritten sheet of how much I need to write each day, but I do have a spreadsheet ready.  I need some way to keep track of all these words I’m writing and a spreadsheet worked really well last year, so I’m keeping up with tradition!

I don’t know what time of day I’ll be writing, but I figure it’ll be afternoon or the middle of the night…if it’s anything like last year!  But I won’t know until I start writing, and I may find that I’m most productive at a completely different time than I was last year. 

It’ll be a great month, and I’m looking foward to everything that happens next month!

No Plot? Let’s Make It Up As We Go Along!

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Remember that plot bunny I had about the family who only saw each other at events like funerals? 

I don’t want to do that plot anymore.  After coming up with a family tree and working on characters, something that I was excited about is no longer exciting.  And if I’m not excited about writing something, I’m not going to spend a month writing it.

Since I want to have a back-up, what am I to do with all these characters?

Just write and see what happens.  That’s my plan if something doesn’t work out.  I’ve done it before, and the result was hilarious.  Hopefully, everything works out, but if it doesn’t, this could be a very interesting novel.   

In fact, I may need to start looking through the dares thread for ideas.  Another novel based on dares could be very interesting, although I may have to work some in anyway. 

I think that’s it for today, so I’ll be back tomorrow, wrapping up loose ends!

The Official Survival Kit For NaNo

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I’m really becoming a big fan of the NaNo Survival Kit.  It’s different for everyone, but I like having an assortment of things that help me get through the month. 

  • Something to listen to: Whether it’s t.v., music or podcasts, I need to have something to listen to when I’m writing.  It provides inspiration, and sometimes distracting when I feel the need to sing along. 
  • My binder!  I believe this is the first time I’ve mentioned my binder in preparation for NaNo…and I may talk about that on Halloween.  But for me, it has all my characters and plot ideas, plus other useful stuff like names I like.  It has everything I need, complete with index cards, post-its, and pens and sharpies in various colors.  If I need to refer to something, it’s probably in that binder.
  • Food: I’ve going to gloss over food, since I talked about that yesterday.  It’s there and it’s important.  Writing when hungry is not good.
  • I have a writing hat!  It’s this green headpiece kinda thing.  I think I’ll have to post a picture of it…it’s green ribbon, in a circle, with more green ribbon that hangs down from it.  Something a fairie would wear.  I have worn faerie wings in the past, and I think I may need to start wearing them again.  But not in public, because that might look weird.  But then again, who cares about looking weird?
  • A computer wins the obvious award.
  • A flash drive, and any possible way to back up your work.  I’ll be using a combination of my flash drive, dropbox and email to save my work.  And a text file plus Word.  I might be working on multiple computers, and weird things sometimes happen when I save stuff on my flash drive.  At least in Word.  I am not taking any chances, and I will back up obsessively if I have to. 
  • Random things like Pandora, Spotify, Q10 and Write or Die also help me get through NaNo.  Stuff to listen to, and writing software that minimizes distractions and keeps me writing?  That’s pretty cool in my book!
  • Write-ins and the NaNo website: There are some pretty supportive people in NaNo-land, and knowing there are people who will mock me for not finishing my novels is a big help.  Write-ins are helpful too, and I’ll be at a lot of write-ins this year!

Well, that’s all I can think of for now, but I’ll be back tomorrow with a post about my back-up plot!

Guess Who Has A Menu Planned?

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I finally planned a menu for NaNo!  I guess this goal of cooking new things every month actually came in handy in that I put some thought into what I wanted to cook next month.

I’ve decided I’ll my using my Crock-Pot next month!  It’ll be easy: just prep everything the night before, put everything in according to the recipe, and a few hours later, I’ll have food!  I have a few recipes for tofu bookmarked, and a few soup recipes that are also bookmarked.

I decided to abandon my idea of cooking everything this month, freezing it, and then thawing it out as needed in November.  I came across this blog a while ago where the blogger used her slow cooker everyday for a year, and figured that NaNo would be a really good time to actually use my slow cooker.  And the less time I have to worry about food and cooking, the more time I have to procrastinate!

I still have no idea about snacks, especially since I ate some of the snacks I got at the grocery store.  But it’ll be the typical snack stuff: pretzels, maybe some cookies or fruit snacks, popcorn and those fruit cereal bar things.  Some sort of snack-y dessert, like cookies or brownies.  Or other bars.  Cake balls!  Or cake pops.

As for drinks…water.  Hot chocolate and apple cider!  Any drink I can make in the slow-cooker.  And no NaNo is complete without my beloved COFFEE!  Well, caffeine in general…but it’s pretty hard to compete with coffee.

I definitely want to make pumpkin pie…completely from scratch!  It’ll be a good way to procrastinate on my writing.  It’ll be a good break from writing, like when I’m switching from one novel to the other.

Oh, who am I kidding?  I’ll be procastinating like it’s going out of style.  Back to food, though, I have nothing else to add!

Have a great day, and I’ll be back tomorrow with a post about my NaNo Survival Kit.

This Year’s Music, Part 2

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Since I mentioned most of the other things I’ll be listening to this year, I’m going to focus more on the music I have set for my 2nd novel. 

I did want to mention Spotify since I forgot to talk about it when I did my last music post.  It’s fairly similar to Pandora, and while I haven’t used it very much, I think I’ll definitely try to use it next month.

I had a lot of trouble coming up with a playlist for it, because most of what I have doesn’t seem to fit.  I ended up putting a lot of random songs on my playlist, and I’m hoping I’ll be able to add to it as I figure out what’s going on. 

So here’s a sample of what I’ll be listening to next month:

1- The Big Lie by Sara Haze

2- Ordinary Day by Vanessa Carlton

5- Snape To Malfoy Manor from the HP And The Deathly Hallows, Part 1 Sountrack

10- Summer Overture from the Requiem For A Dream soundtrack

16- Criminal by Fiona Apple

17- Flight Of The Order Of The Phoenix from the Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix soundtrack

21- How We Operate by Gomez

22- Virtual Insanity by Jamiroquai

33- I Believe In Nargles by The Whomping Willows

34- Caught In The Lie by Michelle Chamuel (From the Little White Lie soundtrack)

I’ll be back tomorrow with a post about food!

Plot # 2 For 2011!

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So, I was going to do the novel about the funerals, but I decided over the weekend that I didn’t want to write that one.  Instead, I’m switching to the 3rd plot I had.

This novel is about a girl who’s being followed by a group of men in black suits.  I have 3 characters, and I only have the basic details on them.  I think I’ll need to add a few characters, and they’ll just be there.   

The main character is Kaylee, and she is the one being followed.  The direction that I’m going in- at least for now- is that she works for a diplomat (or someone really important) and gets mistaken for someone else.   

Something that’s a distinct possibility is that she stumbles across something she wasn’t supposed to and they realize she could be useful.  Only there’s someone else who stumbles across this mysterious something and they send an assassin out to take care of it.  And of course, the assassin tries to kill her because they somehow mistake her for someone else.       

I still need to add a few characters, and I also need something mysterious that she can stumble upon.  Maybe I should steal an idea from my other novel for the year and have her stumble on a magical creature sanctuary.  I’ll go with that if I can’t come up with anything else. 

This is going to be a short one, since I’m still working out some of the details.  Tomorrow’s post will be about the music I have for this novel.

NaNo Music, Part One

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I have a playlist for The Mermaid Pact!  I don’t know how much I’ll listen to it, since I have an assortment of things to listen to.  I’ll be listening to my podcasts, of course, and I’m sure I’ll be listening to Pandora too, especially since I added a few new stations yesterday.   

I went with a variety of songs this year- there isn’t any particular reasoning behind most of the songs.  I just went with things that seem to fit the characters and the novel itself.

I started making playlists for my novels back in 2008, and while it’s not the only thing I listen to when writing, I have found it useful to occasionally add in music that the characters might listen to.  Basically, I listen to whatever I feel like listening to: whatever may help me keep writing and is providing some inspiration is what I’ll listen to.

And here, we have a selection of songs from a 61 song playlist:

1- Lily’s Theme from HP And The Deathly Hallows, Part 2 soundtrack

3- Lovely by Sara Haze

4- Wave Bye Bye by the Gin Blossoms

6- ’til Death by Oliver Boyd and the Remembralls

8- If I Die Young by The Band Perry

10- Heart of my Own by Basia Bulat

21- Don’t Know Why by Norah Jones

27- The Big Lie by Sara Haze

37- Miss Invisible by Marie Digby

41- Sing by My Chemical Romance

48- Boys and Girls by Pixie Lot

53- Painting Pictures of Egypt by Sara Groves

59- My Sweet Song by Toby Lightman

60- Shine by Sara Haze

61- Dumbledore’s Army from the HP And The Order Of The Phoenix soundtrack

That’s it for this installment of music, and I’ll be back tomorrow with a post about my second novel for the month.