New Years Resolutions Update

Last week, I said that there were two things I was going to do to stop myself procrastinating, but it is actually a third thing which I didn't mention that I have found most helpful. It's a bit like a clock-in, clock-out system. I write the date on a piece of paper, and I write the current time. Then I start my school work. When I finish that piece of school work, I write down the time again, and write down what what I did. Depending on how long the school work took to finish, I might at this point write down the time again, on the line underneath, as a starting time, and do some more work, or else I might have a break.

Like this:

On a school night, the minimum I try to do is two hours, and I generally manage it, although admittedly I have rarely done more than about ten minutes extra. But two hours a night is an improvement; I feel like I'm getting things done, and I'm not leaving work till the night before anymore and having to rush it and panic.

On the subject of New Year's Resolutions, one of my other resolutions was to finish a novel this year. The past couple of years, I have attempted NaNoWriMo (the online write-a-50,000-word-novel-in-a-month challenge, which takes place in November) and not finished my novel, but I do find NaNoWriMo a good way to write, and the stats page is very good for tracking your progress. But what I figured I needed, especially this year when I have important exams which will decide whether or not I go to uni, is more time, so I made a spreadsheet on Microsoft Excel. It's not a very good spreadsheet, because I don't use Excel very often so I can't remember how to use it properly, and I don't think they taught us in school what I would need to know in order to accomplish a NaNoWriMo-style word count tracker thing and graph anyway, but I did my best.

Basically, I worked out the daily word counts that would be necessary to reach to 50,000 word goal in two months instead of one (834 words per day). Of course, you don't have the feeling of knowing that while you're typing your heart out trying to write a novel in a month, thousands of others all over the world are doing exactly the same thing, but you do have to write less each day, which is helpful.

I didn't intend to start using my spreadsheet until the summer, after my exams, but alas inspiration and imagination stopped listening to sense, and two days ago I started my novel. Another new novel. That's just what I really needed, wasn't it? Another one.

However, technically, it's not a new one. My currently unnamed novel (the document on which it is saved is titled "Just Keep Writing") is to be a rewrite of what was probably my first attempt at a novel. I remember when I was about thirteen being at my grandma's house and having the urge to write but having no paper, so my Grandma found me a little black and red notebook with squared paper that nobody had used, and said I could keep it. So I opened it to the first page and started writing. I never finished it, in fact I never got to the end of that little notebook, but looking back, it's just as well, because it was terrible.

But I loved it, and upon rediscovering it, and rediscovering some later attempts at rethinking and rewriting it which are saved on my computer, I decided that this was what I wanted to be the novel I write this year, despite having not much of an idea of where my plot is going (I have a sort-of beginning point, I have an end point, but I have no middle except the vague idea from my first draft that my characters go on some sort of journey - which is why I named the document "Just Keep Writing", because then I'll just see where it takes me, and hopefully eventually end up in the right place). This is slightly annoying, because I already had three ideas for novels (two of them rewrites) that I wanted to write this year.

So far, I have written almost two and a half thousand words (and not very much has really happened yet), and my word count for today is 2,502. Wish me luck. This may well be a long two months.

The Last Dream: NaNoWriMo 2013

When all else fails, you still have your dreams... don't you?

When you have come to despise the fairy-tale figures that dominated your entire childhood, it's just your luck that the alien invasion that comes to tear your world apart brings the characters that have haunted you for years quite literally to your doorstep - and right after you discovered your sister has been lying to you (again). Seriously, it's just not your day, is it?

I thought I'd share the synopsis and cover art for the novel I'm writing for NaNoWriMo this year - The Last Dream, originally called The Cloudmaker. The inspiration for it came from driving past a small white building in a field in Scotland somewhere between Edinburgh and the English border which I think was some sort of mini power station (I can't really remember what it looked like so I can't tell you what it was), but it looked to me like it should be a cloud factory. I was annoyed at myself for wanting to write about this cloud maker for NaNoWriMo, because I'd wanted to write a novel about a fangirl this year. And then I had a weird dream which involved an alien invasion, and I'd wanted to do my NaNoWriMo novel about that too. So, I combined the three together, and this is the result. :)

Will be the result. Will be the result, when it's done. (I'm currently about 2,000 words behind but there we go).

The book cover is a pretty picture of some clouds that I found on Google Images, and I used the programme Paint and the font Shelley Volante BT (the Nightwish font) for the text.

Also, I am putting the link to my NaNoWriMo profile in the list of links down on the left of the home page. Visit it if you wish. :)

NaNoWriMo

I don't know if you've heard of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, which is actually international), but it's an online challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in a month (specifically, the month of November). Anyone can participate, and it's free to join.

I took part in NaNoWriMo for the first time in 2010, when I was fourteen. My novel was called The Children of The Forgotten and I completed it (albeit thanks to it snowing and my school being closed towards the end of the month, so I had a couple of extra full days in which to write). It wasn't very well planned and I never managed to finish the second draft but there we go.

In 2012 I took part in Camp NaNoWriMo, which is the same thing but in the summer - like an American summer camp, but online, and for writers. That was also fun (however I believe I prefer the November event; I think because it is more well-known, so there are more people and I felt like I was part of something bigger and grander.), although again it wasn't very well planned (I began the novel on an impulse with an idea that I forced out of my head specifically so I could take part). I did finish it, but I got bored with my main character halfway through, and I'd got quite far without very much actually happening, so I killed off my annoying protagonist, threw my plotline (metaphorically) out the window, and continued the novel by following some much more interesting characters who consequently had run-ins with dancing trees, cheese-on-toast running away, people with extremely long names made of up numbers, and a disappearing donut-seller who was actually a murderer (he poisoned his donuts). It was all rather amusing, but absolutely terrible.

I also attempted NaNoWriMo in 2011 (getting little further than perhaps 5,000 words) and Camp NaNoWriMo in 2012 (I got to 41,000 words before giving up - except that I didn't give up on the idea, because I'm still working on it now. Just very, very slowly.)

Generally I'm not very happy about there being no more January examinations, because it means we have to do ALL OF THEM in the summer which just adds to the pressure (thanks a lot, like we really need that), but what it does mean is that if I have no exams in January then I don't need to spend every second of November and December revising. Which in my books can only mean one thing. NaNoWriMo. Which is particularly good because NaNoWriMo is really the only time I have ever finished a writing project that isn't a short story.

I do have an idea already prepared for this year's novel, but the likelihood is that things will get pretty random (when one has 50,000 words to write in a month and a novel with serious themes, possibly the only way to get through it is to keep oneself entertained with the occasional light-hearted and plain crazy scene. It's gonna be great.). Fingers crossed for completing it, though. :)

Why you should always reread what you last wrote the previous day before you start writing again

I just found this saved on my computer - it's a 58-word extract from my novel which I wrote last summer. I thought I'd post it on here for your entertainment. You'll see why I removed it. :)

"He worked here, once, before he died. It will have been sold from here, made in this very workroom behind me here.” He pointed his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the curtained archway.

                “Does he still work here?”

                “No,” the shop keeper said bluntly. “He’s dead.”

                “Oh.” Saffie was a little taken aback. “I’m sorry.”

Friends and novels

Last year, probably in June, I had a vague idea of something I wanted to write inspired, I think, by Kristin Cashore's Bitterblue and Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus.

I don't know if anyone has ever heard of National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo as it's informally known, but it it's an online challenge in which you have to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November and it is awesome. There is also a summer version of this online challenge called Camp NaNoWriMo, and last year Camp NaNoWriMo took place in June and August. I had exams in June, so when I started this novel, I did so in August. I got to 41,000 words. I didn't even get to halfway through my plot. So I gave up.

At some point I told a friend about this novel on Facebook, and a while later - I don't remember if it was days, weeks, or a couple of months - he asked me how far I'd got with it. When I told him I'd never finished, he was disappointed, because he said it'd sounded good. And this has stuck with me. If ever I finish this novel, I have one potential reader. Hopefully.

So recently I started rewriting this novel. For a while it was called 2012 Novel, or Untitled Novel, or My Novel, you know, the one about... And then my friend Emma named it Barnabus. And then I named one of my characters in it Barnabus, because I didn't want to lose the name when I replaced it with the proper title, and because it made naming that otherwise nameless character so much easier. And now I finally have replaced that name with a proper title. First I called it Our Parent's Faults. I didn't like that, but it was a title all the same. I have renamed it in the few days since then. I wouldn't be surprised if there was already a book with that title, but I am much happier with it.

I hope to finish my novel one day. Maybe within a year. The first draft anyway. It's a fantasy story set in a fictional city, about a girl named Saffie, and her mother's past. I'm afraid I can't comment on whether or not it'll be any good, and I can't promise you that it'll ever get published, or ever get finished enough to consider being published, and I'm not going to tell you any more about it either, but I thought it'd be nice to share that I am writing a novel, and a little about that novel that finally has a satisfactory title.

Also, I said that I'd post a short story every Wednesday, and today is Wednesday, but I have been busy, so I will post you all something tomorrow instead. And luckily, I do know what I'm writing for you all. I just haven't finished it yet. Happy Wednesday evening, guys! :)