Nano Challenge Day 30

Wow.  Just.  Wow.  Bye, November.  (I mean, granted, I've got about three hours and some change of minutes left, but still.  I just validated my novel on NaNo at 80,304 words.

80304 words in 30 days.  Not including the papers.  (I did actually take a break from writing all fanfics.  Posting them was another story.)

So... yeah.  Granted.  Novel rewrites (which is what this really is all about) are only about halfway done.  Give or take.  Doing this for NaNo was really just a way of getting started, and a means as to feel accomplished, too.  Which every writer needs. To feel accomplished every now and then, that is.

So... I shall continue into December and January with this and hopefully be done by the time the new semester starts.  Then, it's off to sending it to people to read.

And then MOAR rewriting.  (yes, I intentionally spelled that wrong.)  (Know the rules you are breaking.)

So... yeah... I should go... write more... or work on Christmas presents.  One of the two.

Nano Challenge Day 27-29

Wow, November has flown.  Tomorrow marks the end of NaNo.  My goal is to be at 80K by then.  I'm a few hundred words shy of 75K at the moment, so I am pretty positive it's doable.

So, the biggest things that have gone on are the fact that I decided (for now at least) to keep the  virtual reality sequences.  They're kind of a grey area, because usually, people don't associate magik with technology.  In my universe, magik runs the technology, but I'm always afraid people will think it weird.  (Though, in all honesty, I shouldn't be worried in the slightest.)

I'd taken out all the other virtual reality sequences prior to this one.  One or two of them were replaced with scenes that served the same function, they just weren't in virtual reality.  All other mentions were simply taken out.  A few chapters ago, I let Alice and William mention that the school had an arcade, just in passing.  It wasn't weird or anything, it just happened.  

It ended up working out, because I have a particular scene that involves LOADS of character development... that can really only happen in virtual reality.  There is no way I could write it WITHOUT that aspect, so I left it in, merely adjusting for the fact that this would be the first time the characters go virtual in the book.  To take out the virtual reality would mean to lose the character development.

Which, overall, I could maybe achieve a different way... but why take it out when the only reason I was taking out the virtual reality stuff before was because it was either A) filler or B) I didn't want to start the BOOK with it.

So... yeah.

Nano Challenge 23-26

So, long time no post.  I know.

Thanksgiving Break happened.  And while you would think I'd have loads of time to write... I did.  Except, I was writing papers.  I had four essentially to write over the weekend.  Have I talked about this? *goes and checks previous posts* Right.  Yup.  I have.  I did get all of the papers done, except the outline, which got done earlier today.  It's cool, it's not actually due until Wednesday, my goal was to just have it done over the weekend.  Whatevs. 

So... yeah.  I pretty much didn't write for three days in a row.  I kinda started getting twitchy.  It happens.  But, I've written LOADS today to make up for it.

I broke 60K!

Also, things that have happened!

I've further developed one of my characters.  She's a minor-ish character.  However, she's an ANNOYING minor-ish character.  And, I've just made her all the more annoying.  It's really quite excellent.  She also ended up being rather shallow, a tad stupid, and a bit brain-missing... but... those people exist....

Other things that have happened....

More talk about why my main character's eyes change color, the colors they change to, and why they do that.  A particular aspect of this was rather glossed over in previous drafts and I'm going into it more now, with a level that my characters would actually nit-pick it.  (Because, Alice would.)

Also... got to talk to one of my old friends who read the original draft.  That was good, a combination of fresh and old ideas got bounced around.

Like, (not that this matters in this book, but in the sequels) why the Balls keep getting put on if bad things keep happening at them.  Oh, magik.  It's beautiful.

Magik and blackmail.  And spells and hexes.  Oh yes!

Anywho, that's all for now.

Nano Challenge Days 20-22

So... these are kinda hard to do I've decided.  I want to talk about ALL THE THINGS, but only two people (okay, maybe like five, but I know only two people (one, really, actually, at the moment)) read this who have already read my books.  For everyone else, this is new stuff.  So, I can talk about characters all I want... but you won't get it.  Rar's even paranoid that someone could steal my stuff.  But... honestly... not too terribly worried about that.  Just sayin'.  

I could do character corners or post up scenes... but... i mean... *sigh* It's just not the same.  And since I want to publish the book, I can't really make it available free online.  Le sigh.  

Oh well.  Rewrites are still going quite well.  I did have a slight problem the other night where I was writing a scene with two particular characters and everything has to be JUST RIGHT with them.  It's important for everything to be just right, because he loves her SO DARN MUCH and she's just so oblivious to it.  Regardless, I couldn't write the scene because  I was irritated and I didn't want the irritation to make it into the scene.  So, it had to wait.

Honestly, a lot of times, I can push my emotions aside and focus on the emotions required of the scene... but not when I'm irritated and I need to be subtly cute--or subtly anything, really.  Subtlety is hard to do when you're in any way irked.  (Or angry, or upset, or... yeah, you get the point.)

But yeah, for the most part, I'm that person who's making faces as my characters are making them.  I honestly sat on the floor with my laptop in my lap crying as a wrote a death scene of a character.  (This was like, more than a year ago, so it's nothing I'm CURRENTLY doing.) (*SPOILER ALERT* No one actually dies in this book!)

Though... yeah... ANYWAY...

Today was Thanksgiving, and I actually spent most of today writing a paper for class.  I came into Thanksgiving with essentially, 4 papers in various stages all needing to be to varying levels of DONE by the end of the weekend.

Paper 1 was literally in the last editing stage, got finished last night and then I submitted it.  

Paper 2 had one paragraph written (which got rewritten) and then I wrote all the rest of it and submitted it tonight with just a basic level of proofreading--credit/no credit paper.  Sorry, not going to put that much effort into it with other things to write.

Paper 3 has not been started yet.  However, it's the second-easiest thing to talk about in regards to Frankenstein after "the other".  So yeah... writing of that paper will commence tomorrow...

Paper 4 only needs an outline done over Thanksgiving Break.  But... it's also an outline for a very theory-intense Marxism critique on "A Rose for Emily".  Ugh, my life as a Lit minor.  

So.. yeah... but... I'm still rewriting Book 1 in the midst of all this.  I would go insane if I didn't!

Nano Challenge Day 19

I broke 50K!

Am I in any way near done with this? Nope.  I'm (more or less) a little less than halfway through.  Depending on how things expand, I may only be a third of the way through.  Depending on how you break it up.  

I also had an epiphany about a particular character and his magik.  Which, explains quite a bit, but also leads to problems (for the main character) later.  It's cool, it's cool.  He's just a twit.  

Nano Challenge Days 16-18

There has been a lot of writing, just not for my book, sadly.  It's getting down to the end of the semester and all of my final papers are coming due.  So... yeah...

However, because I KNOW I should have one of these posted SOMEWHERE, here's a synopsis for my book: 

It's about magik.  The protagonist, Kat, is sent to a magikal school (note, magik is commonplace) after being home-schooled her whole life.  In addition to learning new magik, she also learns that there is a family history that her parents were keeping from her.  Then, it's all up to her to decide what she's going to both do with that information, as well as a prophecy that she might just be the one to fulfill.  

I totally ripped that from my fanfic blog where I spewed that out of pretty much nowhere for one of my reviewers.  Yup.  Totally just happened.

Anywho, rewrites are going well (when I'm at them).  As natural, the Ball sequence took forever.  (They always have in the past.)  Now that that's over with, things should move along fairly quickly (until the next Ball, at least.)  I've acquired a couple of more people willing to read this for feedback, which is awesome! (One was rather unexpected, so that's really nice.)  

I'm really close to 50K.  If I'm really awesome, I'll hit 60K by the end of November!

This is exciting!

Nano Challenge Days 12-15

Quite obviously, I've been needing to do one of these for days.  However, there hasn't been really much to write about.  Most of this has just been writing, writing writing.  There is some level of "is this really necessary to the overall plot?" or "someone's character development" or "foreshadowing for a later book"

Then, there's the balancing, "well this isn't really necessary, but it's funny, so maybe it should stay for at least this next draft, I can always take it out later...." Which is true, there will undoubtedly be at least ONE more draft after this.  I'm not going to take things out purely because they're potentially taking up too much space.  All of the characters would be flat if I did that all the time.

Besides, this is either going to go one of two ways once I've got the projected 150K words done: take out what I can to get it to a publishable length, or split it into two or three parts. (Which, would turn my saga from 5 books to 10 or 15 books... but... Robert Jordan.)  

I broke 39K.  Which is like... twice what I'm supposed to have where I am? No.  It's the 15th, I should have a minimum of 25K.  But I'm still 10K words ahead. 

Unfortunately, I won't get to write as much this weekend because I'll be too busy writing for school and work.  (It's amazing how 1K words is such a pain in the butt when I'm not making it up out of my head.  Writing fiction is like breathing to me, writing anecdotes and academically THINKING is like pulling teeth sometimes.  Don't get me wrong, I've written scenes with characters that it's like pulling teeth too... but... still!)

Anyway, everything else I want to say will make sense to like, five people because they're the only ones who know half as much about my characters as I do.... soo.... yeah.

Nano Challenge Day 11

The day of ALL THE WRITING.  Quite seriously.  I'm almost at 28K words.  (Remember that part about this potentially being too long to publish.... yeah....)

Anyway... I have actually been nixing things though.  It happens.  

Like that scene mentioned quite literally in the last blog where I was rewriting it? Yeah.  Nixed.  Rar told me it didn't flow and if it wasn't really necessary, it would just make more sense if I took it out.  Well, I ended up not really needing it.  So I took it out.  (I did replace it with a sequence later that served somewhat of the same purpose without flow issues.) 

I know, I know, this is nanowrimo and I'm supposed to just get it all out there and then edit later.  Well, this is probably my fourth draft on the computer, not including countless partial drafts in notebooks.  I should tell you about some of them someday.  Anywho...

Completely unrelated, but one of the problems of thinking in sign: Alice and Kat (on two separate occasions) both have tried to use sign now.  No joke.  I honestly contemplated (for about two minutes) of seeing if there's any possible way to include it.  There's not.  So, stop, Alice.  Just stop.  I can't put that into words.  Stop.  

Anyway! Stopping now for the night because I'm at that point where I'm honestly going to write better tomorrow.

Night, ya'll!

Nano Challenge Day 10

Kay, so my book's based off of this really old Game that my sister and my best friend used to play.  Most of it weaves together into a coherent story.  But I still catch things that are OBVIOUS Game stuff.  The problem with the obvious things, is that the Game was a mashup of EVERYTHING the three of us found amusing at the time.  Everything from N'Sync (dating myself) references to Harry Potter.  I find little Easter Eggs that I wrote in that are so totally Game.  Many of them I can keep because it still works.  I found one today that totally doesn't.  A really obvious reference to Harry Potter that just can't stay if I ever want to get this published.  

Am I trying to make my books like Harry Potter? No.  Am I writing them as a Potterhead that grew up on those books? Oh yes.  It'd be impossible not to.  

In reference to the scene I was just talking about, I probalby could have taken it out entirely if it wasn't for the necessary character development that it leads to.  So, rewiting the scene it is!

Anyway, so, this novel has the potential to be ridiculously long.  The draft I'm revising from is 132+ thousand words.  I will certainly increase that length by the looks of things.  I am going to make more of a conscious effort not to include filler and fluff.  Not everything has to stay.  (There's nothing wrong with a long novel, I don't think... but I do want it to be a reasonable publishing length....)  *sigh* #writersproblems

Anyway, a bit of trivia for you: originally, I had two sets of twins.  Leah and Alan were twins just as Alice and William were.  However, now they're not twins.  I have to decide who's older and younger.  It also complicates things because Jon's his roommate, and I liked Leah and Jon being the same age (ish.)  If, however, they were different ages but still managed to be the same year... like.... Alan (or Leah, whoever was younger) just happens to be just a tad bit more bright or just close enough to the other to warrant being in the same year.  (The first thing I think of, actually, is Caleb and Tris from Divergent.)  I like the idea of Alan being younger, and still desiring to protect Leah like she's his little sis.  But, the two of them are close enough in age that they end up in the same year.  Jon ends up being Alan's roommate, despite being closer to Leah's age than Alan's.  Yes.  I like this.  Teehee! *claps excitedly*

(I'm not crazy, I swear.)

Nano Challenge Days 8-9!

I feel really bad! I forgot to post yesterday! It hasn't been really all that interesting though.  Not until just now as I'm planning to go to bed.  (Of course.)


The past couple of days have been a whole ton of curriculum planning.  I want to make the classes in school matter more, rather than just being mundane school.  I changed up literature classes a whole ton and I know I'll be pulling from all three books that I've previously written for it.    (Granted, literature doesn't particularly matter except for the fact that it's something that would be taught.)  As for science, I thought about changing that.  Rar asked if I was going to go through all the different species.  And I thought about that, but decided against it because I wasn't sure how you would teach such a thing in my universe.  (Plus, I think I touch on that a bit in book 2... maybe...)  So anyway, I'm sticking with just your average overview of insect and animal life.  (Besides, I liked the line where Alice was complaining about it.)  I haven't changed Language of Magik in the slightest.  Don't need to.  Algebra always has had the edge of Kat hating it, so that doesn't need to change.  History will stay much the same, mostly because I just love Professor Logozzin.  

Another thing I've done, which I'm excited about! Is find different onomotopoieas for different magikal signatures.  !!  (Yup.  Totally.) 

Oh, and I've decided that time is military-time--or Disney time :P

Anyway, recent exciting developments is that I'm actually getting to Leah and Victoria's backstory in-story now! Yay!

Erm, that's pretty much it.  I broke 20000 words!

Nano Challenge Days 6-7

The days of the writing sprints! Well, rather, today was.  Yesterday wasn't.  Yesterday was "catch up on everything else" day.  I front-loaded my homework before the con as much as I could.  But given the fact that my one-year-anniversary happened the day after the con ended, I didn't get much done.

Technically, this all goes under day 5, but I got my days all mixed up and didn't post it then.

We (my boyfriend and I) saw Wreck-it Ralph.  Excellent movie.  Loads and loads of layers.  Fun even if you're not a huge video-game fan like I am.

Anyway, I also have a clay TARDIS that lights up.  :)

Moving on, yesterday (Day 6), I didn't get much done because of elections and stuff.  Yay.

But, today, writing sprints! I'm... close to two days ahead of par, I think.  So yes, I've caught up.

The writing is getting easier, I guess.  Especially since the meat is already there because I've gotten to a point where I'm not completely rewriting, I'm just... editing.  

My major focus right now is character development.  I have this nice, interesting little backstory for Leah and Victoria--though neither one of them has technically been introduced in this draft.  I'm also making Alice and William more like twins and making their characters generally more rounded at this stage.  (Like, they're round in my head, but I've also written through book three.) I'm also working on Spike and Justin's characterizations.  And... sorting through Jason.  I'm making Belinda more well-rounded.  Oh, and I spent quite some time figuring out who is good with swords and who isn't.  (This matters, I swear.)

Anyway, I know some of you have no idea who any of these characters are, but I hope that one day you do!  I really enjoy this universe I've created and I hope that one day, you all can too!

Nano Challenge Days 2-5

So... I spent Nano days 2-5 at a con, basically.  My sister, hereby known as rarmaster, came down to Tucson where the con was.  (Tucson Comic-Con.)  Tiny con, but I am part of the group called AZ TARDIS, which was invited to the con and we used the whole thing as a fundraiser for  JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation).  We raised a lot of money for them, which was pretty darn sweet.  (AKA, we sold raffle tickets and raffled off Doctor Who paraphernalia.)  I cosplay as River Song, my boyfriend cosplays as Eleven.  (For you Doctor Who fans out there.)  

Then, combine that with Dungeons and Dragons... I didn't get too much writing done those three days.  I pretty much was drastically under-part.  (And I didn't catch up during that time.)  (I won't say if I'm caught up yet now or not though, because that's another blog post!)

Regardless, I had loads of fun.  

Most of my writing was more along the lines of research and stuff.  I completely came up with different names for the months and days of the week.  My book takes place in a completely different universe, so it makes sense for things like that to have different names.  Yes, I could continue to use things like August and September, Saturday and Monday, but what I came up with is pretty cool.  If you want to know, I can put in a completely separate post as to what I've done.  (I might do that anyway, but it'd still be nice if someone expressed interest...)

Nano Challenge Day 1

I still consider this day one, even though it's November 2nd where I am now.  I haven't gone to sleep yet, therefore, it's still day one.  

I'm about 300 words shy of the daily goal, but that's all right.  I wasn't even sure if I'd get to write at all today, what with trying to front-load all of my homework because of a con this weekend followed by my anniversary with my boyfriend.  

I'm really loving my project.  I'm already pretty well acquainted with my characters, because I'm rewriting a book I wrote in high school.  (It's not cheating, I swear!)  (See below posts for more info on that bit.)  

But really, it's not cheating.  I'm completely rewriting it entirely.  Like, so far, the only thing that's stayed relatively the same is the prologue, and that could change, even.  I've changed so many things about the first scene, even! The setting, in particular.  Therefore, the events happen differently.  The exposition comes in a different order.  And I'm totally cool with that! I'm liking how it's turning out.  

I may go finish that 300 words when I'm done posting this.  It depends on how tired I am.  And I'm pretty tired.  

Ah well, not a bad first day of Nano in the slightest!