Where I've Been (and Links to Prove it!)

As you may have noticed, I've been rather silent for the past, oh, around 1 1/2 months? So, some explanations are in order.

Photo Credit

Firstly, I know several of you have commented on the fact that I stopped Camp NaNoWriMo last month. This is because we went on a vacation for a week and I was thrown off track by shiny other projects (non-writing) I've been meaning to get done. In my defense, I did and still have been plugging away at writing the new plot-line featuring the 2nd POV of Lia, but at a very slow pace. The point is that I never ground to a complete stop. However the initial torrent of Camp turned into a trickle.

Secondly, there will be a new feature appearing on this blog on a monthly basis. The first appearance will be late in August. More on this in a later post.

Thirdly, another feature! Maybe. This one might be a weekly/bi-monthly blog serial...Once again, more info later. Stay tuned!

And now onto the links! I've still continued to read and collect links in the meantime so here's a list:

Patricia C. Wrede on whether or not to preach in one's writing.

Rayne Hall lists 13 mistakes writers make in fight scenes.

Query Tracker's Ash Krafton gives tips to conquer cliches and how to use writing contests to improve one's game.

Inkpunk's Andrew Romine tells how he applied gesture drawing to writing to capture the essence of ideas.

John Yeoman reveals the secrets of Kathy Reich's excellent writing.

Do short stories have a higher payout than novels in the long run?

David Sims guests posts a series on structure featuring the heroic journey (20 posts in the series to date).

When should one kill their story darlings? Natalie J. Damschroder helps unravel the how and when.

K M Weiland lists the top 25 ways to blow a book and suggestions for fixing and avoiding the problems.

How does one define success as a writer? (with a Weird Al Yankovic illustration!)

And finally, a cute (but relevant) poem going around on tumblr: I Once Dated a Writer and

Until next time!

Camp: Day 4

And splitting the chapters into scenes is done! I realized I'd written a lot more of the plot than I'd thought so that was the happy discovery of today.

Also, I started in on the scene summaries. They will be my "outline" I refer to while I'm editing. Once I'm done with the scene summaries, then I'll be able to focus completely on rewriting and writing the new material.

Camp: Day 3

Well, I have managed to actually write something! No revising or editing done, but I wrote the first of the new scenes for the new POV. And I finally know (or think I know) where Lia's POV is headed. Yay! Also, Lia's personality and motivations are coming into clearer focus. Same goes for Lwyn. So I think I'll be well prepared by the time I get around to writing/completing the climax and book.

Camp: Day 2

So, not as much done today (mostly because of a combination of procrastination and job hunting). But I accomplished some work.

• I split up to chapter 14 into scenes
• I removed two chapters and moved the scenes to other chapters tagging them for rewriting.

I hope to finish splitting the chapters into scenes tomorrow but we'll see. However, I'm going to attempt to start writing the new portions tomorrow as well! Lia's story begins tomorrow. :)

Camp NaNoWriMo: Day 1

The first day is over! So, I set out today to finish getting Kaja ready for revision. This meant breaking up the manuscript into chapters and scenes and identifying where I need to write new material from the new POV. I'd also hoped to write scene summaries today, but I didn't quite get to that.

Here's a brief summary of what I did:

• I broke it up into 22 chapters.
• I split up to chapter 8 into the separate scenes.
• I identified 6 new chapters to write and 2 chapters to rewrite according to Lia's (the other MC's) POV. (I think I'm going to have to write around 30-40k words of new material just to finish the story and write in the new POV. That's almost a NaNo in and of itself.)

Another idea I have churning around is the possible addition of a 3rd POV which would be a villain, but I not sure yet as to whether that would work.

Oh and on one final note, here is a lovely cover that a friend designed for me upon my request. Isn't it cool!

Until next time.

N is for NaNoWriMo: Camp Version!

For those of you who somehow missed the new program by the folks who bring us NaNoWriMo, Camp NaNoWriMo is upon us. The first session is taking place in June and the second in August. It might be a little too close for comfort to sign up for the June session, but that's what the August session is for (and you get one extra day!).

I've already signed up for the June session, however, I'm not writing a first draft. I'll be working on writing the 2nd draft of my old 2008 NaNo novel Kaja Colony Crisis. I see camp more as a method of making me sit down and write versus an opportunity to write a new novel. I'll be posting my progress here throughout the month as well as silly sentences from the original draft (maybe). My brief skimming of some of the book has shown these sentences to be in abundance.

For editing, I'll be trying a new method: editing using the free software yWriter. It should help me organize and edit the novel without having to print out the whole document. Hopefully.

Are any of you doing Camp NaNoWriMo? If so, why and what do you hope to gain from it?

What are your New Year Resolutions? Here's mine!

Happy New Year! Welcome to the year 2009! Many of you, as I did, stayed up till midnight to ring in the new year. This post is a reward for you staying up all that time. Anyways, I've decided to join in the popular custom of making resolutions for the new year. Or at least, I have a few writing goals I'd like to accomplish. And here they are:

• First and foremost, my biggest goal by far is to write, edit and self-publish Dream of a Dream, the allegorical novel about NaNo. Since this goal is so large, I have divided it up into monthly goals which are as follows:

January - Write the first draft.
February - Send the manuscript out to readers to get feedback and also finish writing Lwyn: A Space Trader's Daughter Book 1 and 2.
March - Edit second draft of Dream of a Dream.
April - Send second draft out to readers for feedback. Also create a cover for the proof copy and layout the text.
May - Get CreateSpace to approve the documents for the proof copy and print it. Edit the third draft of the novel.
June - Send out third draft of novel to readers for the last time.
July - Make the final changes to the novel. Start laying out the text and alter the cover for the second proof copy.
August - Finalize the proof copy and order it. Finalize the layout, design, and content for my new authors website, Sittybus. Make the graphics for marketing Dream of a Dream.
September - Launch website on the first of the month. Change and order another proof copy if necessary. Launch marketing for Dream of a Dream.
October - Release Dream of a Dream on the first and continue the marketing campaign. Try to get book into a bookstore and arrange a book signing.
November - Continue marketing and hold book signing if arranged.
December - Continue marketing but relax otherwise.

• As I said, that's a big goal and it's all divided up. Also mentioned in that goal are my other goals to finish Book 1 and 2 of the Lwyn: A Space Trader's Daughter Series.


• I will also be participating for the first time in Script Frenzy in April of this year. So I'd also like to win that by writing the 100 pages of script.


• I have already started writing a film script adaptation for Prince Caspian and I'd like to finish that in the new year. I know, a new film has already been made of it, but I feel that I need to work it out myself so I'll feel better, especially if it turns out to be the last Narnia movie made.


• Finish my short story Erlkonig and submit it somewhere.


• Finish The Old has Passed Away... and submit it somewhere.


• Work on my novel with my friend via the letter game and maybe finish it


• Write poems for school and, if any are good enough to publish, try to submit one somewhere, maybe the Q.


• Enter some sort of writing contest.

And I think that covers it! I know, I've got a lot on my plate and some are rather vague, but I think they are reasonable. Enjoy the new year and I hope many things come true! Just remember, your new year's resolutions and goals won't come true unless you work on them, step by step.

Oh, one last thing. This new year I will launch a monthly newsletter that will contain updates about my writing and upcoming events. Sign up by clicking on the button below or the button in the sidebar. The first mailing will go out on January 31st.

Until next time!

12 Days till Christmas!

Day two of being home and we're already off to go and do something. The church is putting on a concert tonight and we're off to go and see it (we definitely have to go because my Mom is singing in it). Work on the costume site progresses as slow as yesterday. Last night before going to bed, I resolved to try to start writing an hour every day at least. That way I can write around 2k a day and that will be good for finishing my NaNo novel, Kaja Colony Crisis, and for writing the next one in line. Wish me luck! (After I thought it all up I realized that if I suceed then I'll complete 50k in 25 days which is better than how I did in NaNo! Wierd.)


The picture for today is again taken on campus. In the other girl's dorm there is a small ficus tree that they have decorated with lights and ornaments. My picture for today and tomorrow are both of something on the tree. Today's is a snowflake ornament that made a pretty picture as it hung next to some lights.




Until next time!

School is over and 14 Days till Christmas! (that's a fortnight you know)

Ah, it feels so good to be done at long last! Exams are over and an extremely long Christmas break awaits me before I have to face the dreaded spring semester. Now I can focus more on finishing Kaja Colony Crisis and writing the first draft of the new novel. However, I shall also endeavor to design more costumes, update my costume website (Door in the Sky) and work more on my own personal author's site. So much to do and so little time!

Today it rained again, however it was more interesting this time. Instead of light, steady rain it either poured heavily or didn't rain at all. As I went outside several times today I made a point of looking at the creek. It was very nice to actually see water in there. Granted it was muddy, but there was enough water to blast away all the leaves clogging the creek bed and that much water is a rare sight. A still picture does not quite do it justice, but I did take a few videos. I shall include a picture that I took, and I hope to get a video working soon so I can post it up here.

The Christmas picture for today is quite appropriate in that it is the wreath on the ground level door to the staircase. This was one of the last few things I saw before I left campus. Why I like this picture of it (I took quite a few) is because due to some odd reason, the picture looks like it's framed or has had some effect added to it.

Until next time!

The End has Come!

The end of NaNoWriMo that is. And I made it at 50,046 words! I dragged my poor tired fingers over the finish line late last night shattering my record of 6k words in a day. The new record is 10,623 words in a little over 5 hours writing. I'm very exhausted from all the late nights but also very proud of myself. Now, my goal for next year is to not only write a 50k word novel in one month, but also to finish sooner and write more. Perhaps 60k would be a nice even goal. I'm glad it's over though. I'm still very busy, but now my task is to catch up on all the homework I ignored over the month. Nice thing is, I'll be out of school next week. Then I'll attempt to finish writing the first draft of Kaja Colony Crisis. Oh yes, it is not done yet. I haven't even reached the climax scene and there is quite a bit left after that. Another 10k may wait for me to write it. However right now I must turn my attention to writing a paper due tonight and finishing my one act play. The latter is going to require a lot of work to get done and I've only got 3 more days to finish it completely and rehearse it. The problem of finding 3 actors still remains and is causing a lot of trouble.

Another aha moment hit me for the new novel I'd planned. I was reading a pep talk for NaNo and the person called us writers fools and dreamers. I now have the perfect name for my allegorical writer. They shall be called Dreamer. The name fool will also be applied, but by others and it won't be their real name.

Now I'm going to try something new for the countdown till christmas. I'm going to try to post one picture a day that has something to do with Christmas or the season. So to start us off, here's a picture of my little artificial Christmas tree that I set up in my dorm room today.




Until next time!

First update from the NaNo front line

Sorry I took so long to post an update, but life has been very busy what with school pulling at me from one side and NaNo from the other. I've had no time to sit down and write a simple blog post on here. However, now I have time! Though I can't guarantee when the next post will be.

Alright, for progress update, I'm currently sitting at 33,410 words which I achieved on Tuesday. I haven't written anything yet today, but I will. I usually write late at night so there's still time.

For storyline, I'm currently getting my characters out of the secondary problem/climax. However, they have devised another detour for themselves as Lywn and Lia are about to solve the mystery of the howling noises that the wind makes and the myth of the strange creatures. Of course, all this is a secondary plotline and was totally unplanned. Due to this, I'm finally confident that Kaja Colony Crisis will make it to 50k and beyond. Yay to that!

Now, as soon as I have Kaja finished, I'm going to embark upon another novel writing journey. I won't say too much at this point, but I hope to self-publish it (with a tentative release date of Oct. 1, 2009). For the storyline, think Pilgrim's Progress with a NaNo twist to it. For now, the novel is titled 'The Journey of a Lifetime'. The title might change, but at least I have one at this point. Now onto doing homework, so I can write later without too guilty a conscience.

Until next time!

It's Update Time Again!

As I haven't written in a week it is most certainly time for another update. I have things that are new. First off, you know that short story I was writing based on Erlkonig by Goethe? Well the first draft it finished! I haven't had time to go back and edit it, but I'm sure the finished length will be well under 1,000 words (typical of my fantasy shorts).

Second of all, after much deliberation and searching I have come up with a name for Book 2 in the Lywn: A Space Trader's Daughter Series. It is...Kaja Colony Crisis. Yes I know, I purposely put the alliteration in there, this time at least. It's so it matches Book 1 - Adventure at Anwar. Again, alliteration of initial sound. It's just a little less noticable when it's a vowel than a hard consonant (like a 'k' sound). I'm very glad that is settled and out of the way because it was really bugging me.

That's it for this update. The only thing left to say is...6 MORE DAYS TILL NANOWRIMO! Ah, now that I've got that off my chest I can end this. (I can't wait for NaNo to start, can you tell?)

Until next time!