WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER

I WIN I WIN I WIN WINNITY WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN-TASTIC WINNER.

All right. Got that out of my system. WINNER. Sorry, needed to be said. At 50,073 words (according to the NaNoWriMo counter; I would've won 200 words ago according to MS Word which has apparently been lying to me this whole time), I have won NaNoWriMo 2009. A day early, in fact. I just put my nose to the grindstone and got about 3,000 words today instead of the normal 1,667. Do I feel good? YES. I feel like I could fly. I feel like I could jump out of my window and FLY. I won't do that, because feelings can be DECEIVING, but the broken bones are not when I come to my senses. 

I have now, believe it or not, crossed one thing off on my bucket list. Two, technically. One was to participate in NaNoWriMo, and the other was to win. I never thought I would win on my first try! I think my thoughts are too scrambled to have a good blog post. So, some other things to do before I die:

1) Move to Seattle. I spent three glorious days in this city two summers ago, and I'm pretty sure we're soulmates. Me and Seattle. Seattle and me. Someone asked me the other day if my reason for this is because I would be closer to Forks (and vampires). I was totally offended! yeah, not really, but on principle, yes. My reasons are much better than that. Well, firstly, Seattle is ranked #1 on the NaNoWriMo regions. It also has seafood and pretty rain (not gross rain, pretty rain). Furthermore, Owl City has a song called Hello, Seattle. There's no song called Hello, Bloomington-Normal or Hello, Champaign-Urbana. Admittedly, the latter two do not roll off the tongue as easily, but small details aside, SONGS THEY DO NOT POSSESS. Therefore, Seattle is better.

2) Learn to para-glide. This is self-explanatory, right?

3) Become a published author. On the way. I am on the way!

4) Be Libba Bray* minus the glass eye, because happily, I have both of my eyes. You might say that this is a ridiculous goal, but you, my friend, would be wrong. This is a completely non-ridiculous goal. I can totally become white, move to New York City, complete goal #3, and develop a phobia of dolls. Also, then I would be able to move into the YA author mansion and have sleepovers in J.K. Rowling's wing. It will happen one day.**

I have a lot of goals, but:

5) Win NaNoWriMo.

YAY.

Yay also to greenconverses who won too! I wouldn't have signed up for NaNoWriMo by myself. I mean, who would I have complained to for a whole month?

Thanks for listening to my drivel about NaNo for the month of November. And an extra YAY for everyone who participated in this month of insanity!

*Author of "A Great and Terrible Beauty" etc. In case you didn't know, but I don't know how that would be possible since, EVERYONE KNOWS LIBBA BRAY.

**Okay, really, I am not that much of a stalker, so if Libba Bray & co. ever read this, please do not stick a restraining order on me or report me for identity theft.

PS I have a cool award, and I will post about it later when I am more coherent.

What I'm Thankful For

Man, I thought I was going to be all original with this, but it seems like several of you have beat me to the punch. And I think we're all thankful for similar things, but that's okay. Great minds think alike. I'll share my list with you.

1) Your condolences. That was really nice, guys. Thank you. Even though I've never met any of you in real life, you did make things easier. There really is a lot to be thankful for, because at least my dad got to see my grandpa before he passed away. So I'm thankful for non-delayed airplanes and the financial ability to get to China in 20 hours!

2) My family. Most of my big, gigantic family is always overseas, so I don't ever get to spend Thanksgiving with them, but at least I have a big, gigantic family somewhere. And I love being able to come home from college--I'm only about 50 minutes away by car. Very close. Much more fortunate than the 'burb kids from Chicago. My family feeds me, does my laundry, doesn't make me do chores when I get back, and always loves me!

3) Friends. I am grateful and happy to have people who care about me, find me mildly entertaining to be with enough that they continue to spend time with me, make me laugh at the best and worst of times, and make life richer and well-worth enjoying. I hope I can be a better friend to them too.

4) Food. You know that food was going to be highly ranked on my list. Thanksgiving is way up there with Christmas, because of turkey! and cranberry sauce! and mashed potatoes! And of course, a variety of non-traditional food, like dumplings and various Chinese dishes that are delicious year-round. There are two kinds of people in the world: ones who treat meals as something to get past in the day, and those who thoroughly look forward to eating as an activity. And I fall solidly into the second camp.

5) Writing. This has been a great year for me, and I am so thankful for it. Thankful for my God-given passion for this art and thankful that I've had lots of experiences (and improvement!) along the way. I love writing, and I hope I get to do it for the rest of my life. This is what I really want to do.

6) You! So predictable, but hey. I AM thankful for you. I started this blog in February in an attempt to motivate me to write, and it has become so much more than that. I love reading about other people's lives (because I am a stalker, but you know that already). I am so thankful that you find me worthwhile enough to read sometimes, the crazy wacky things that come out of my mouth (and fingers). This is pretty much how I behave in real life. So thank you, if you've ever left a comment or ever even dropped by and not said anything. This blog (and therefore YOU) has kept me going all of these months in writing, kept me accountable for continuing to write, and helped me find a better voice.

Even though I don't remember to be thankful year-round, at least we have this great American holiday to help us one week of the year. I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with laughter and food and family. 

Weeks Two and Three

I meant to post this over the weekend but it didn't happen. Really, really busy. I mean, you can ask anyone. All I've done is do homework and write since break started. It's ungodly. Also, it's kind of depressing that my dad is in China, so he won't be here for Thanksgiving. We've had a death in the family, unfortunately. I am grateful to have known my grandfather for the little time I did know him, all across the ocean. Like whenever these things happen, I wish I had talked to him more. I miss him. I hope that my grandmother is doing okay. My brother has been having some problems at school. It's been a not-very-good year for my family. So I guess it's kind of selfish that I spend two hours a day holed up writing and another however many hours doing my homework.

I think, though, it gives me the ability to not dwell on the sad things in life. Writing has always been an outlet for me, and I'm grateful that I have one. Some people don't have such a beautiful and rewarding way to express themselves. It gives me routine, a kind of comfort. So, again, I don't like to talk too much about my personal life on my writing blog, but I have an added need to finish NaNoWriMo this year. 

It's the beginning of Week Four. I never, ever thought I would get this far. Week Two and Three were hard. There were times when I thought I wouldn't finish. Really, really wanted to quit. I knew the middle of my story had started to ramble, speed up, slow down, sometimes not make sense at all. I survived on pep talks. I don't know how I would've gotten through without those things. I survived by stalking other people's blue progress bars and thinking, "I can do better than that." I wrote in one huge chunk. I wrote in small pieces. I wrote in the morning, when I woke up, in the afternoon, sometimes (shamefully) when I skipped class, and I wrote into the wee hours of the morning when I drank inordinate amounts of tea. I wrote when I was really inspired, and I wrote when I wanted to throw my laptop out the window.

There was one day around three o'clock in the morning, when I knew no force on earth could get me to write another word. I stopped writing. I took a shower and cried about how shitty my story was, and I went to bed. The next day, I made up for it by writing extra. No more tears for me.

But now that it's Week Four, there is one thing that I know. I will make it to the end. There is no question that I can write 50,000 words in one month. I am not afraid. The number 1,667 does not scare me anymore. I can do that, easy peasy in an hour and fifteen, or lumbering along in three, but either way, I can do that.

Here at the beginning of Week Four, I have fully and completely defined myself as a writer. Maybe there were times I wasn't sure. I wrote, but was I a writer? I wrote sporadically. I wrote well, and I wrote badly. I wrote in notebooks, and I wrote on my hated/beloved MS Word. I wrote fan fiction and sometimes, I wrote original fiction. Then, it switched. I was a reader. Was I a writer? There were weeks when I didn't write at all.

Here at the beginning of Week Four, I know what it means to be a writer. I took the first step to 50,000 words. I had the sheer dumbassery of believing I could try this scary thing. And now, I know that writing does not scare me. Writing frustrates me, it makes me believe in the world and lose faith in it. It is beautiful, it is ugly, and it is everything in between. But - I am not afraid of it. And I think, this is something I will take with me for the rest of my life. Because now, at the beginning of Week Four, not even at the end of the month: I am a writer.

Are you?

38784 / 50000 words. 78% done!

Because It's Friday

...before Thanksgiving break and I have nothing to contribute, why don't we all enjoy a little more Logan Lerman in our lives?

Move aside, Taylor Lautner. I got my new illegal, 17-year-old crush. Badass water power is way better than turning into a smelly, hairy wolf.

How freakin' good does that look, huh?  If you have a non-positive answer, don't even say it. I love you, Percy Jackson! <3

Also:

31852 / 50000 words. 64% done!

Still on track. I have three papers and a final project to do in the next week, but today, I'm just going to concentrate on the fact that I have no classes, and I just signed my lease for next year! Yay for not being homeless!

Have a great weekend!

Creating Tension

When my friend asks me, "Why is your physics exam at 7:30 pm? That's kind of an odd time. Why not 7 or 8?" I don't think anything of it.

"Why not?  It's only an hour exam." So I go upstairs. It's 7 pm, on the dot. For some reason, my roommate, who is in the same class and taking the same exam, isn't there. I have a panic attack. Crap! I think. What if I got the time wrong? I mean, that would be a really stupid thing to do, seeing as I've already had two exams in physics, and they're always on Tuesdays at the same time in the evening. I'd have to be a grade A idiot to mess that up. Plus, it's been on my radar for at least a week.

But just to be sure, I get online and check the time. 

PHYSICS EXAM: 11/17 @ 7 PM IN LOOMIS!

#$%&?! What? It's now 7:03 pm. 

Pencil. Student ID. What else do I need?! Dammit! Tripping across the room, stumbling over various shoes that I have not put away. Attempt to steal a pencil from the roommate's desk. Of course, all of hers are gone. I find pink hair extensions, a handkerchief, a tube of canker sore medication, and at least forty million pens on my desk, but not a single #2 pencil. Doesn't matter. No time. It's 7:04 pm. My grade will be royally effed if I miss this exam.

Throw on a coat. Shove my keys and ID into my pocket and run for my life. Discover that it is really hard to run in boots down the stairs. Outside, it is raining, because it has been raining every mother#$%&ing day in Illinois since October. I didn't have time to grab an umbrella, and besides, mine is broken. God, why do you hate me? Quickly apologize to God for pinning the blame on him. Because now I have to pray virulently while running in boots across campus. Why is Loomis so far away? Leaping over puddles. I take my glasses off because I have no magical rain repellent spell like Harry Potter. Can you envision this? I almost crash into three people. My eyesight sans corrective lenses is horrendous. I am like a bat. Except without echo-location. I didn't even bring a cell phone. I have no idea what time it is.

My lungs are about to explode. I had sloppy joes for dinner ten minutes ago. Bad life choice. Bad! I think I'm going to puke. I stop running and settle on a fast walk. I'd rather not walk into the test room with vomit dripping down my chin. 

Nope. Not good enough. I run again.

I run several traffic lights. I am verbally begging Jesus to let me into the room now. It's the bargaining stage, where I swear I'll be a better person, if only I can take the exam.

I crash into Loomis, and thank heavens, the door is open. I don't question why. It's one of those huge lecture halls where the seats sit on a steep incline and the doors are at the back of the room. Everybody is already there, and my heart sinks a notch. Up until now, I've been secretly hoping that the time on the website was wrong, and it was all one big happy mistake. But no. I am officially, utterly, completely, not even fashionably, late. So I have to walk past everybody, and it is the longest walk in the world. I have no mirror, but do not question the hot-mess-ness of my appearance. I check the clock on the wall. 7:15 pm. #$%& my life. 

My TA stares at me.

"Can I--can I still take the exam?" I sputter out. It's like someone started a fire inside my chest. I need water. 

He looks at me as if I am a bug that just had the audacity to crawl up on his arm. More specifically, like I am a soybean aphid who has flown into his eye. Whoops. "No."

I stand there like he has just murdered my grandmother. "Are you serious?" I am quite sure a lifetime passes as I feel my grade sliding down the drain like clumps of hair in the shower.

He relaxes. "No, I'm kidding. Yeah, you can take it."

"Oh my gosh, thank you so much. I thought the exam was at--"

"Shhhhh."

"Oops."

He hands me the materials with the kind of mild reprimanding look, and I try to put on a suitable expression of guilt. Oh, also. "Can I borrow a pencil?" I ask timidly.

"Wow, you're just really prepared today," he deadpans.

"Yeah...you could say that." No. I love you? Would it be strange/illegal if I said that? I decide to quit while I'm ahead and find a seat. I drop my ID and pencil. I am the biggest klutz in the world, and NO I will not look back to see if he is laughing at me, because my face is the shade of a turnip. Sit down. Some people look at me. Yes. I am a grade A idiot.

But all is well. Because I am taking the exam. At this point, I don't even care if I know all of the answers or not. At least, I am seeing the answers and filling in bubbles. I am on cloud nine.

Crap. I have to pee. Story of my life.

-

True story. How do you create tension in a novel/scene? I'm struggling with it in my NaNo. I want my story to be as exciting as it was when I was racing across the Quad like a lunatic. It was exciting in a horrific way. And it will never, ever happen again. 

Probably.

Progress

Jenita started this week with the question that plagues every writer: how do you evaluate your progress?

I tried to answer this question many times throughout this week.  I found I couldn't come up with one.  Maybe at the beginning of the month, I would've proudly had a response for you, but right now, at the middle, I got nothing.  I don't know what I'm doing.  If progress is feeling good about what you've written, I don't think I've progressed since Week One.  I'm not going to define progress as that, because I would feel like I'm wasting my November.  Instead, I'm going to consider progress as my word count.  It's a pretty lame way of measuring it, but even if I haven't accomplished anything else, I can at least say I've written more than I ever have before in fifteen days.  And that is:

25065 / 50000 words. 50% done!

I'm counting on the fact that I'm going to feel better about what I've written in December. Maybe.  I haven't gone back and read any of it, so what seems bad on one day only continues looming in my head as a bigger and bigger nightmare as time passes.  By the time one week has gone by, I am pretty much convinced that everything I've written is the most appalling thing to ever be put on paper.  My personal (and professional) career as a writer is over.  And I know that they say this happens to every writer during NaNoWriMo, that everybody flails hopelessly during the middle, yet somehow I am egotistical and dramatic enough to believe that my situation is UNIQUE and SPESHUL-er than everybody else's.  That is to say, my middle is the worst middle that has ever been put in any novel since God invented the written word.

So it's probably not the greatest time to ask me about progress.  Although, Maureen Johnson's pep talk has made me feel marginally better about it.

Some people, unlike myself, have made tangible progress.  For example: Elana Johnson, who has a wonderful blog, is a wonderful person, and no doubt a wonderful writer (I DON'T HAVE A THESAURUS ON HAND OKAY, IT'S 2 AM, BUT BE CREATIVE AND INSERT SOME POSITIVE ADJECTIVES OF YOUR OWN), has scored an agent.  Which is wonderful because hopefully one day soon, she'll have her wonderful book in a wonderful bookstore, so we can all buy it with our wonderful money.  Let's all wish her the best of luck.  Man, this has been a great year, apparently, for Lisa and Laura, Sarah (with a chance), and now Elana.  That's progress, guys.  I'm going to call that progress.  

Word Count Freakage

This is a guest post by greenconverses.  She is working on a fan fiction novel for NaNo, titled "Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Demigod Snatchers."  If you don't mind my saying, she is one of the best for this fandom.  She's fixed my stuff many a time.  I'm really glad we're both doing NaNo, because I wouldn't be able to handle doing it all by my lonesome.  

If at any point, you've found yourself struggling with word count or feeling overwhelmed by the hugeness of the task or despairing over the people who have goals to write 30k a day (and yes, these people exist; I won't link this person because it would probably kill your self-esteem, just like it killed mine), this is the post for you.

(So, she emailed me this over the weekend.  There are some discrepancies over the days, but like I've said before, you're a bunch of smarties.  You can figure it out.)

The other night, I sat down and wrote 1,000 words of a fan fic that had nothing to do with my NaNoWriMo project. I didn’t freak out too much about this temporary lapse into insanity, though, as I had already met my word count goal for the day and I’d been cruising along right on schedule throughout the first week. But it was then I realized something important.

I have not seriously freaked out about my NaNo project once this year.

All right, that’s not exactly saying much, considering it’s only seven days in and I’ll probably be sobbing into my keyboard by Day 20 because I’ll be 10,000 words behind and will have written myself into a plot hole that no amount of infodumping will get me out of, but I’d like to consider it a win. Learning to step back, take a deep breath, and not freak out about what you are (or not) writing is an important step in the NaNo process.

This is my second year competing in NaNoWriMo, and I know that taking the time to do things like homework instead of my project last year sent me into fits of hysterics last year. I remember frantically scibbling in all my notebooks during my classes, trying to squeeze just a few more so I’d be better prepared when I got back to my computer later in the day; I’d hole myself off from my roommate for hours on end so I could get the daily word count; I’d feel guilty when I went to hang out with my friends because I’d constantly be worrying about the 432 words I’d have to write before midnight that night. The constantly worrying didn’t make NaNo fun.

There’s definitely a difference in my attitude this year. For example, after hanging out with some friends last night, I realized I had only written 3 words for the entire day: “Percy sat down.” I took this information in, shrugged indifferently, and then tried to squeak out a couple of hundred more words before midnight instead of doing the Word Count Freak Out.

The main difference this year is that I’m more confident in my ability to write more than 1,666 words a day, so if I get behind, it’s really no big deal. Of course, I might be singing a different tune come November 29, but that’s still 22 days away.

So, my point is, if you’re in the early stages and you’re getting behind, don’t get bummed or do the Word Count Freak Out. If you’re stuck on a part, take some time out to write 1,000 words of Something Completely Different instead of soldiering through just to make the word count for that day. Take a break for a couple of hours and hang out with your friends or family so you can come back, ready to tackle the NaNo challenge with enthusiasm. Don’t feel guilty if you don’t make the word count for the day – there’s always tomorrow.

NaNoWriMo shouldn’t be about the freak out; it should be about having fun. And if having fun means watching TV for a couple hours before buckling down and writing, then go ahead and go it.

Week One: Tips and Tricks

It's fashionably late, but it has arrived.  Here is where I stand at the end of day eight:

13865 / 50000 words. 28% done!

It's crazyface, for sure.  That's my weekly word: crazyface.  Because it describes how I feel about making it to the end of WEEK ONE.  I'm still alive.  I still have all of my limbs.  My fingers are tired, but they're always tired.  They're just a bunch of whiny babies.  I have gleaned some life lessons (if writing = life, then they're life lessons, I suppose) from surviving one-fourth of November.

1) Baby steps.  Don't think of it as, "I have to write fifty-effing-thousand words in thirty-effing days."  Just typing that freaks me out.  I try very hard not to think of the number 50,000 in general.  Think of it as 1700 words a day.  Actually, what I have learned is to not think of NaNo at all through the day until the time when I sit down to write.  Because thinking about the writing psychs me out.  I don't even plot in my head.  I have two (or more) hours a day to write and those are the only hours I will even think about word count or characters or plots of my novel, period.  It's working well.  I'm playing a crafty mind game with NaNoWriMo, and I'm winning.  Greenconverses will have more to say on this matter on Tuesday, because I feel like a lot of people are stressing about their word counts.  So if you're stressing on your word counts (because I know you are; I KNOW ALL OF YOUR SEKRITS), tune in on Tuesday for inspirational speak.  Or tune in on Tuesday because you're procrastinating; whatever works.

2) Kill the Internet.  No, seriously.  You don't need it for research.  The only thing it does is make you look at the clock after Wikipedia-ing gerbils and realizing that the hour hand magically moved another notch.  Where did it go?  The Internet stole it.  The Internet is a sneaky TIME THIEF.  I have yet to master this tip myself, but I thought I would share so someone who has much better self-control than I do will be able to make good use of it.

3) If you have write-ins, go to them.  I get so much done during write-ins, because it's mildly embarrassing if your ML looks over at your screen and you're casually creeping on, "If I get 1,000,000 people to join this group, my girlfriend will let me turn our house into a PIRATE SHIP."  You obviously have your priorities straight if you're living vicariously through some guy who is a) thinking about adding sails to his house and b) promoting it on a social networking site.  And you OBVIOUSLY have your priorities straight if you actually join that group. Therefore, go to write-ins.  Did that point even make sense?  I'm going to go with it did.  Also, your ML has cool stickers.  Don't you want cool stickers?  You know you do.

4) The first and last 500 words of each day are the hardest.  Is there something to be learned from this point?  Probably not.  I'm just throwing that out there.

I don't know how everybody else feels, but I'm feeling pretty good.  NaNo is a lot less stressful than I thought it was going to be.  Not to say I haven't had my fair share of days staring at my laptop at 2 am and freaking out that I'm still at 300 words.  This has happened.  More than once.  But overall, it's good.  I'm still here, aren't I?

For everybody who is interested (which is everybody), Lisa and Laura are holding a Kindle giveaway because their fabulous mystery novel sold to a publisher and is coming out Spring 2011.  I'm not entering because I personally would probably never use a Kindle (I don't hate them, I just don't like reading on screens because I have easily stress-able eyes), but if you want to congratulate them on their wonderful book deal and/or enter the contest, please do so.

Catch you on da flip side.

Writing Community

Topic by Lin.

I don't know about you, but when I started out writing, my idea of being a bonafide author was sitting in desk by myself, clicking furiously on a typewriter (because come on, typewriter screams author SO MUCH MORE than laptop) with several half-full cups of coffee and yelling over my shoulder, "JUST LEAVE ME ALONE I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR FOOD RIGHT NOW OKAY?!"  Oh, and artsy hats.  You have to have artsy hats.

Granted, when I started out writing, I was young enough to still be watching Blue's Clues, so my notions of the world might've been slightly off.  Well, then I grew up (figuratively speaking).  I realized that people don't use typewriters anymore.  I realized that coffee is expensive and causes headaches if you drink too much of it.  I realized that I cannot write on an empty stomach.  Food will always trump writing.  And I realized that my head is way too big for hats.  Just look at it.  I'm like an Asian bobblehead doll.  I will never be able to wear cute beanies and berets.  Yes, it's emotionally scarring to me.  Let's not bring it up again.

I also realized that authors have writerly friends.  This was a shocking discovery.  Authors are supposed to live alone except for their twenty-seven cats (twenty-seven is the magic number of cats that screams perpetual loser-dom and loneliness; you're good if you only have twenty-six) and shun the rest of the human race.  Well, really, I discovered that Libba Bray is friends with like...every other YA author ever and they all live in NYC.  And that Scott Westerfeld and Justine Larbalestier are married.  I mean...whaaaaaa?*  Authors can't MARRY each other! That's like...against the rules of authordom.  There are rules, I swear.

What was the question again?  Seriously, I forgot.  Oh, right.  Do I associate with other writers?  NaNo was the first time I met other writers in real life.  IRL, writers are pretty much as you expect them to be.  They carry around laptops and notebooks and stuff.  And sometimes they stop whatever they're doing to scribble random things down like psychopathic hall monitors.  I like write-ins.  I think they make me more productive.  They also give you a nice sense of community, so you don't feel like you're the only person who engages in this somewhat odd hobby.  One of my MLs gave me a ride home so I wouldn't have to take the bus, which was pretty nice.  Of course, my biggest source of associative-ness is you guys.  My blog is where I hash out my secretive writing life.  I think it's important that everyone has one person as an outlet.  There's one of my real life friends who actually knows my ideas, and she listens to my ranting (more in the summer, since we're both in different cities now).  The other person I go to is greenconverses.  Just an online friend, but I always go to her when I need help.  We're Facebook friends too, so we can go crazy on each other's walls during NaNo.  

Anyway, I'm going to spending some quality time with my novel tonight, because I can't go out. Was going to, but these three canker sores in my mouth have made it impossible for me to interact with people without sounding angry or like I have a serious speech impediment.  It hurts a lot to talk.  Or smile.**  And it's causing me to have weird facial expressions to minimize the pain, so I think it might be better for me not to go to public places, even public places where people are too boozed up to notice your face.  So it sucks.  But at least The Office is on tonight.

Monday: Flames and Shadows

Tuesday: Somewhere Nowhere In My Kingdom

Wednesday: Sometimes Helpful Nonsense

Thursday: me

Friday: Girl With A Notebook

Links are on the side.

*It also didn't help that Justine is Australian and Scott is American.  I kind of assumed that Justine lived in Australia.  I guess they switch countries every couple of months.  Is it sad that I know this much about their lives?  

**I'm hoping really hard that the sores won't hurt as badly tomorrow.  I'm getting baptized tomorrow night (woooo hoooo), so I would like to be able to pray out loud without sounding like I'm using a *tone* with Jesus.

One, Two, Three, Four

Day Four results:

7503 / 50000 words. 15% done!

It's so hard to believe how fast I'm progressing.  I'm only on Chapter Three, but it's only been four days.  It's almost like I'm living the story in real time.  I think my schedule of writing 1,000 words per day in the summer is really paying off.  There's no way I would be going this fast without losing my sanity if I hadn't kept up my writing habit over break.

Certainly, it is taking pretty much all of my free time.  But so far, other than TV time and wasted time, nothing else seems to be suffering.  Today was just a crap day, mostly because of circumstances out of my control.  The added stress of the words kind of threw my emotions out of whack, and I almost started crying in the undergrad library.  It's unfortunate that sometimes, the non-writerly people in your life seem to take it for granted that you can move things around at their convenience whenever.  I can't.  NaNoWriMo is not necessarily a stressful thing in and of itself, but it's stressful in that I have to be a lot more economical with my time and planning out my day if I still want to see people.  Sometimes, I feel like I'm the one doing all the giving in give-and-take situations.  I just wish people could be a little more considerate of what is admittedly a hectic month for me.  But I don't like to dwell on unpleasant things.  Tomorrow is another day, as Scarlett, the queen of getting over shit days, likes to say. 

I have to say that writing is one of my favorite parts of the day now (even if I'm freaking out trying to get some time in).  Just the ability to let my mind go wherever without the pressure of having to make everything sound perfect is incredibly freeing.  I always end writing sessions in a good mood.

Last night, I came up with this new idea for an urban fantasy, and I'm completely in love with it.  It took a lot of self-control to shelve it, because it's so tempting.  I've been wanting to write an urban fantasy so badly.  Ah, that's okay.  It'll have its time.  Besides, Tommy* is giving me the evil eye.  He says he can't make two stories suck at the same time.  I agree, Tommy.  I agree.

In case you're wondering, Tommy basically looks like a mixture between the Weightwatchers Hunger Monster and Oscar the Grouch.  I bet my suckmonster is cuter than yours.

*my suckmonster, the little guy who takes the beautiful ideas I have in my head and suck-ifies them once they get on paper; we're friends.

Meet My Suckmonster

Here are pictures of Halloween as promised.  I'm not going to swamp you with photographs of my non-writing-related life so I'm putting up two.  These are pictures we took before we left. There are pictures from after we got back...but I don't think you want to see those.

Also, Day Two of NaNoWriMo has come and gone, and I have spent entirely too much time on the computer today.  After over four hours of fussing and writing and procrastinating on various sites completely writing related things, I went to work and spent another four hours editing news articles.  I think I'm going blind.  This is the end result:

3852 / 50000 words. 8% done!

I'm well on my way to embracing my own adorable little suckmonster.  I have duly named him Tommy.  Just gotta find that leash...dammit!  Come back, Tommy!  Ahem.  Anyway, he's running loose in the room ripping everything to shreds right now and eating the leftover food in my fridge.  I guess this is what comes of doing NaNo.

My new favorite hobby is staring at other people's blue progress bars.  Even if I don't know them.  Today, I found someone with 25,000 words.  I kid you not.  But I am not disheartened! I'm still good.  When my word count is in the red, I will be worried.  I know you're concerned that I am obsessing over quantity over quality, but I'M NOT.  The best part about NaNo is those few moments when I get lost in the story and it flows.  That's when the word count really flies.

Day One

[Currently Listening To: The Other Side of the Door (T Swift); added to soundtrack for The End of You and Me]

Halloween was fabulous.  But it was probably the most unproductive weekend of my life, and I will not be attempting that again in a while.  Time to put my nose to the grindstone and get back to work.  

In the afternoon, I wrote 1,685 words, which is just over the 1,667 you have to get per day. Except then I noticed other people BEING OVERACHIEVERS and getting more done.  Some people have freakish word counts.*  I'm not even sure how that's possible.  So, later I tacked on a bit more so my final progress for day one looks like this:

2118 / 50000 words. 4% done!

I'm probably going to treat NaNo like I treat other aspects of my life: just enough to get by.**  So as long as I hit the 1,667 mark every day, that is it.  I am good to go.  The first day, I went a little extra, but I doubt that will be a common occurrence.

I'm a tad obsessed with the NaNo graphs.  They're so cool (and depressing) to look at.  Go, little yellow bar!  

My story has no title.  This is bothering me.  I'm really bad with titles.  What I need is some kind of random title generator.  Or maybe I can be like Margaret Mitchell (Gone With The Wind) and just draw some random line from the text and make it a title.  GWTW is like a super-bestseller-classic, right?  Hmmm.  I'm going to do it now.  I'm going to point at the screen randomly and see what I get.

From His Heart To His Fingertips.

Sounds like bestselling material.  I'll take it.***

*By some people, I mean Jenita.  Just to make things perfectly clear.

**No, that is not how I treat my life, children.  You should always overachieve!  Shoot for the stars and all that!

***No, I'm not giving it that title.  That sounds like an awkward romance novel or like I randomly pointed at my screen for a line of text.  Oh wait...