Haha!!

I'm alive again!  School 'bout nearly killed me though!

Anyway, started editing (rewriting) again today.  Doubled what I'd started months ago and then had to set down because school happened.  But now school's over and while yes, I have summer reading and a job, there will be time in the day to get these rewrites done.

My goal is to do this in a month (hopefully not too much more.)  I absolutely HAVE to have it done by June 30th so I can get nice and shiny 5 free copies off of create space because I won nano all those months ago.

Currently, things I'm working on is being more descriptive as well as makings sure the main characters' motivations are clear.

Expect more updates soon!

Not wanting it to end...

Sometimes I have to wonder why it took me a whole month to write 20K words when in the previous month I wrote 80K in the same amount of time (technically, a whole day less, too).   

I mean sure, December meant finals and Christmas and The Hobbit and finals and paperwork and crazy stuff at school and seeing family and all that stuff.

But November had Thanksgiving and seeing family and final papers and stuff too!

Though, November was NaNo, which means more of a drive, I suppose.

Regardless, I honestly think the main reason why it took me so long to write the last 20K is because I didn't want it to end.  Would it be the same way had I not split it and just kept writing for another month or two? Maybe, I can't say for sure.  But I came to the end of this draft a few days ago.  And I think I was stalling to spend that much more time with the characters this time around.

I'm serious about this, guys. 

Wordness

It's been a while since I've posted.  But... see... I've been busy.  Finals really takes it from you.  And then, after finals, there was going and seeing the Hobbit with my friends (which, was amazing, by the way, though I do need to re-read that book--when I have time!)

Then it was the last-minute holiday shabangs in my college town before heading back up to see my family for Christmas.

Oh, and then there was Disney! I went to Disneyland with my boyfriend and some of our mutual friends.  We had a blast.  (Though, this can kinda be filed under 'last-minute holiday shabangs'.)  Whatever.  I went to Disney.

Then Christmas happened.

Then I was writing.  Boy did I write!

And then there was New Years.

And some more writing!

And now I'm here blogging.  I hope to be blogging a tad more regularly, but... the semester starts next week, so I really can't make any promises based on my track record.

I'm here really just to make a note about how different it is for me to reach a word count with my books as opposed to my papers.  

A professor assigns me a paper, usually with a word count anywhere between 1,000 and 5,000 words.  (Depending on the type of paper.  1,000 words double-spaced is about 3 pages.  5,000 words is about 15 pages.  Ish.)  I always get the first few hundred out pretty fine... but then I'm struggling to continue.  It's ridiculous! I think to myself, 'man, this is rather hard'.  

But then... 1,000 words is less than a chapter for me in my book (or fanfics--I feel the need to mention those.)  Usually my chapters are between 2,000 and 4,000 words.  And I can write a chapter in a day if I'm in the mood.  I strive to write at least 1,000 words a day with my book.  Though, NaNo had me doing at least 2,000, really.  It comes easily to me most days.  (I do have my days where I'm like 'nope, this is not happening'.  But, I still write SOMETHING.)  

For me, writing my books just comes easier than writing papers.  It's who I am.  I'm more invested in my books than I am in papers.  And I think it's just funny the way 1,000 words seems really hard for a paper, but virtually nothing for my book.  

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!