nanowriwho?

workworkwork!

2005-11-02T01:51:45Z

eeeegh

2005-11-02T01:31:29Z

what am i supposed to do? I have TWO books i want to write and there is all this other shit going on like taking care of connor, trying to be his full-time for real parent, going to three classes, STUDYING for three classes (yikes that reminds me i have to read for psychology tomorrow boo!) and working all of the time at a place where people are not very nice....

but it is like, it is the first day of nanowrimo and i thought i would do it and then i thought i could not do it and then i got this half of an hour to do stuff after work and here i am. so i will just TRY to remember that it is not really up to me, it is up to the universe and the only part that i have to worry about is am i going to use time to write when the universe hands it to me all easy like this. on a silver platter.

i want to write a young adult novel about a kid in a multiple system and i have a lot of the stuff in my head that i want to write about in it but i have not decided what it's supposed to be like. like i keep imagining that the kid is in an adult body and seeing it like a zine or a journal or a book project but then i get tripped up on it. i guess i can try that and change it as i go along. also i want it to be fiction but it's hard for me to decide where it starts to be fiction and how much of me to put into it. how close do i want it to be to an autobiography? i don't want it to be an autobiography at all but it is confusing to see how i am going to change it. i need a MAIN CHARACTER.

i guess that nanowrimo.org is sposed to have things that people can use to help them make characters so maybe i will do that. and start writing!

here we go again!

* I FINISHED **

2004-12-01T00:56:01Z

50,553 / 50,000
(101.0%)

I DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And there's so much more to write! I can't believe I never arranged everything into an order! I mean i decided what order stuff would go in but i didn't put it there! And I finished when it was still daylight out\!!!!!!! First time ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And now I've finished nanowrimo three years in a row!!!!!!!!!!!

I am teh awesome!!!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I thought I was going to spend today arranging it and filling in holes so that I could (a) upload it and (b) squeeze out my last 5k words but then I didn't need to because I was so busy ranting about abuse and my last relationships!

It was so great!!

!WOOHOOOOOOOO

I wil lprobably write and post more later too! and make a thing to download! omgomgomgomg
This is only the beginning!!!!!!!!!!!

*fireworks explode*

eek eek eek eek eek!!!!!

2004-11-30T09:49:04Z

45,028 / 50,000
(90.0%)

I'm so close!!

Fun fact. Funny thing. Even when I'm writing on the novel, I keep on stopping and going, "Crap! I'm supposed to be writing on my novel!"

It's not that I think that so often that it just keeps happening. Well, it's not JUST that. It's also just that writing feels so natural and constant that I don't even realize that I'm writing novel stuff and not email or a journal entry or I don't know what else. Or reading someone's journal. Or perusing the funnies.

The latest big chunk isn't done, but I assure you that what is finished of it brings me up to 45,028 words ;)

Tomorrow: the big finish! I hope!!!

And the next day: my new job starts!!!!!!!! And I get to eat chocolate from my advent calendar and it's the first day of the advent calendar prizes on neopets and it's my 12-step birthday!!

my goodness!!!!

i like exclamation marks. !!

So Close!!!

2004-11-28T08:50:30Z

40,038 / 50,000
(80.0%)

And that's not counting the 5,000 word piece on ritual abuse that I want to rewrite for inclusion in this. I hope I can pull that off! it's so much more factual than anything else in here. But I bet I can! Go me!

SO CLOSE!!!

It won't be done at 50,000 words, but it'll... there will be a lot there! And more time to finish it later. Maybe tomorrow I can do the ritual abuse thing and then do the thing I want to do where I rearrange everything in the manuscript so it's in order and fill in parts that I think could use more information and storytelling. That would be great! Beacuse I damn well don't have very much time to write on Monday, and Tuesday is the last day!

kaleidowrimo @ 2004-11-24T22:49:00

2004-11-25T06:50:32Z

30,572 / 50,000
(61.0%)

Gnnnfffffff.... that's the bare minimum that I thought I would get out of all my notebook pages. I guess I have more writing to do!!

work work work!

2004-11-20T10:02:41Z

25,397 / 50,000
(50.0%)

Woohoo! Halfway there!
My dream is to write a ton this weekend and get this huge leap forward.
We'll see!
but no matter what i hope i can have a GOOD weekend. cause if i don't write it can be for a good reason that is all fulfilling and helps me write more later!

Oh my god

2004-11-19T07:14:31Z

I've surpassed where I was this time last year. I don't have a number for last 11/18, but 11/20/03 I was at 20,002 words.

Well, blimey. If I keep writing I can kick my own ass!!!!

Now my goal is to finish a week early ;-) except that that would be something like 28,000 words in five days. :-o

look at me starting to be healthy!

2004-11-19T07:12:03Z

Check it out.

Even though I feel like I could write more tonight, I'm choosing not to (trying to choose not to!) because I know that I'm really tired and that I did a ton of stuff today and I have this theory that if I do nice relaxing things instead and then go to bed, I can be enthusiastic about writing and it'll be easier tomorrow. Than the usual grind of constantly trying to do as much work as possible and then not being able to and having it all be either 3000+ words a day or nothing.

I also have this companion theory that maybe the best way to do this is to pay attention to how I feel and always have a sort of basic desired minimum of good feeling. Like, right now I'm in a good mood and I have the heat on and the food I bought and I finished two knitting projects (!!! scarf scarf finally scarf! tassels and all!) and I learned interesting things in class and blah blah, and I'm also really tired and I am hungry and so on. It's easy for me to ignore those things and be like "i'm intellectually alert! i feel creative! i should write!" But maaaaaaaybe if i DIDN'T ignore those things, I wouldn't get to the place of "I'm totally triggered by what I'm writing! I'm stressed out! I am wandering around the house wanting to take a nap but I have more stuff to do!"

Balance. Theoretical balance. And on top of that, usually it's late at night when I'm all "okay! things feel good! I am tired but there's so much interesting stuff to do!" and the middle of the day when I'm like "aa! too much to do today!" I want to change that so that it's calm all the time.

Novembers have become such an interesting time of CHANGE for me since Nanowrimo. didja know that it was the day after my first Nanowrimo ended that I first went to a 12-step group? it's true! Hey, that means that I get another year after each one! I never thought of that. This December 1st I will have 2 years!!

I read a book that suggested that it takes two years of recovery for people's lives to approach livable, sort of. liveable? whatever. For things to get appreciably better. I think that's kind of GRIM and it's definitely not my experience :) but it still makes it a more exciting milestone.

and i get another big heavy chip in CoDA then! I wish stupid SIA got stupid chips. It WILLLLLL though. You just WATCH.

I hope my sponsor will be back then. I mean, she is, but maybe right before that? the moral here is that I forgot where I put my datebook.

Also:

22,019 / 50,000
(44.0%)

Jesus, 44.0%. That's insane. That actually makes me feel like I can finish this :) I don't know why I keep going back and forth about that. It's the whole "all or nothing" thing. Like I either have to be working as hard as my hardest work on this, or not at all. And then I think "well, I just have to work as hard as I have been to finish! just about!" and then I think "But that's such hard work!" because all I think about is the sitting here writing for four hours or whatever, not the parts where I'm doing other things for days at a time!! I can only focus on one thing. that must be what that addiction theory woman meant by "tunnel vision"!

wooohoo!

2004-11-16T23:57:14Z

18,201 / 50,000
(36.0%)

I'm bored with this now! ;) But after I clean and eat and get dressed and get Connor and help with his homework, oh and go to my step study meeting, maybe I can come home and do more before I apply to two jobs for the day and go to bed! Wheee ;)

Wheeee

2004-11-16T22:45:52Z

Hey, if you're reading this, take note that I welcome comments on anything in here. Like "I love this sentence here" or "Wow, I can't believe you wrote so much today" or "What is this part about?" or "Is this one true?" or "Uh, this doesn't make sense. You said this and then that and what the hell?"

Also: they're all true. Everything. All of it. Nothing here is not true. In this year's Nano, that is. Last year's, not so much :)

16,328 / 50,000
(32.0%)

I'm hoping to hit 20,000 tonight, but maybe I shouldn't even say that :)

Okay, I'm not that worried

2004-11-13T08:42:22Z

I looked at last year.

On the 20th of last November, I had like 20,000 words.

On the 22nd, I posted this:

Do you know, we found an entry from last November 22nd that said we had hit 30,000 words?
That gives me hope. I'm all, dude, I could totally hit that by Saturday. And then all the slacking off wouldn't matter, cause I would be caught up to where I was then and I finished my novel in time last year!

I only had 26,000 words.

Four days later, I had 40,000 words. I was very impressed. I'm very impressed now. But even more importantly, DUDE. if I only wrote 2,000 words a day right NOW I would have 20,000 words on the 16th. I would have like 24,000 words by the 20th. I would... well, I would have the same amount this Nov. 22nd as last year's. But anyway, numbers are silly. The point is that I totally don't have to pull any really self-abusive ridiculous all-nighters. Woohoo!!!!

Wow!

2004-11-13T08:30:06Z

I just wrote one scene (if that's what we're calling them these days) that was over 2,000 words long all by itself. That was awesome. It took about an hour, I guess. Not counting the time it took me to stop chatting and start, or the time that I spent watching the end of Will and Grace and realizing that it's far less entertaining to me than any stories I can tell myself. (But I was supposed to be knitting!)

In an unrelated story, lately I keep feeling as though there's a third eye in the middle of my forehead. I realize that that's where it's supposed to be. But I mean, I remembered a dream I had when I was little where I was growing a third eye right there. I think it actually was spawned from a Ghostbusters cartoon episode where they grew lots of different body parts and it was very disturbing to them all. Or maybe their ears or noses grew really big. No, I think it was like extra ears and eyes and noses and whatever. Egon had a giant extra nose. I want to see that again.

It's a weird feeling.

12,552 / 50,000
(25.0%)

On the disturbing end though, I realized that even though I was at this same point this time last year and still finished, I also spent a lot of nights staying up till 4am writing.

Hmmmm.

I don't want to do that this year. But I can look over my different writing totals from then and see if I can do it in a healthier way this time.

ha ha!

2004-11-12T09:04:04Z

I checked... I was at the EXACT SAME POINT on this day last year! (Actually, I was a few words behind where I am now. But both of them were "20%.") And I totally made it last year. I kick ass! Screw all you people who write your little 2,000 words a day and sit around with your "ooo I'm at 36,000 words already!" "oh, I only have 16,000! ohhh nooooo!" Shut the fuck up! :-D

I still worry, but look at this

2004-11-12T08:59:56Z

10,463 / 50,000
(20.0%)

About 2,000 words yesterday, 3,000 words today.

D'OH AGAIN

2004-11-10T01:33:12Z

Cross-referencing by character and time and stuff... Gee. You mean like the "memories" tool?

D'oh, d'oh, d'oh, d'oh, d'oh.

All I have to do is save them all as memories with specific keywords!!

This is ridiculous!

2004-11-10T01:30:20Z

This is me:
"La la la! I don't really want to write anything else because it's so weird to dump a bunch of unrelated scenes in my Word file! I don't like all these page breaks! I wish I had some big database kind of thing where I could just have each story in a separate kind of file and look at them all at once but have separate spaces for them!"

I looked for a free database app for several minutes and was on my way to dreamhost (because I think I have free database stuff there) before I realized that what I was basically looking for was fucking Livejournal.

I will now, I think, dump all my scenes in here, locked, and go back to writing. It would be really nice if I COULD have a database and cross-reference them based on characters and times and stuff, but that can be a toy for later.

wheee! 5,119 words!

2004-11-06T21:32:44Z

5,119 / 50,000
(10.0%)

This is very handy!

2004-11-06T20:46:39Z

What I'm writing is a novel that's sort of a memoir too. It's a collection of my/our different memories. And so I have this list of things to write, which eventually I assume will have to be expanded when I finish these ones. But you know what's cool?

Everything I start writing turns into something else. I think I'm going to write about the time I got in trouble for watering down the Play-Doh, and I end up writing about the table and chairs on which that happened. I think I'm going to write about the willow tree at school where we used to play, and I end up writing about the kids who followed me around and why I hated that school. It's very lucrative, word-count-wise!

I have the best icon

2004-11-06T20:20:14Z

My journal is hot. you should go see.

Anyway.

Know what? Austin is moving out and he just gave me his 2003 nanowrimo shirt!
rock!!! I totally wanted one and i never got one!

i feel like i should x-post this to nanowrimo :->

Here, you can have a whole paragraph this time.

"They could do anything with that tree. They skinned fallen branches and bent them over and over again in an attempt to make bows. They fletched and sharpened others to make arrows, the green juice from their bark staining everything with its odd sour smell. They climbed up it and sat in it to read, pretended they were in a ship at sea, pretended they lived in a giant treehouse and never had to go back to school. They swung from the branches as if from vines and tried to weave them to make baskets. Every few months, some yard duty or irate teacher would notice them and invade their sanctuary to tell them it was out of bounds. They would innocently insist that they had no idea, even argue the matter, and finally scatter, to return a few days later as if nothing had happened. All in all, it was a very satisfactory existence. "

From anotheryourself

2004-11-05T08:10:48Z

If you happen to be working on some creative writing project, fanfiction or NaNoWriMo or what have you, post exactly one sentence from each of your current work(s) in progress in your journal. It should probably be your favourite or most intriguing sentence so far, but what you choose is entirely your discretion. Mention the title (and genre) if you like, but don't mention anything else. This is merely to whet the general appetite for your forthcoming work(s).

She thought it was the light of streetlamps, giving everything an eerie and inadequate orange glow.

or maybe

She got down on her knees and set her teeth to the seat of the chair. "He did it! 'Ike 'is! Wi' his tee'!"

Comments appreciated. Maybe I'll post these every day or few.

Alternatively:

2004-11-05T04:25:10Z

3,049 / 50,000
(6.0%)

Pritty.

I have a new usericon, too, because I couldn't keep using last year's "Winner!" icon! This fountain pen one is very pretty. It's from avalon_spirit, on the nano_icons community.

Well, here we go!

2004-11-05T03:46:52Z

I started yesterday, actually, but mostly in the "I wrote this elsewhere and I can use it here!" vein. Now I'm writing the novel on purpose, which is much more exciting.

I forgot how much fun this was!

Writing nonfiction may be interesting and exciting, but it's not fun in as many ways as this is. And it doesn't inspire pride and excitement and joy as quickly.

How poetic of me ;-p Hee.

I've heard many and various things about copyright problems with posting the whole thing here, but more importantly a lot of this novel is going to be personal and probably graphic, so I'm thinking about posting excerpts friends-only. Maybe I should just say that if people want to read it, they should friend this journal and I'll friend them back. What a weird verb. Sound good?

the Push novel contest

2004-10-25T23:06:50Z

So I was rereading this journal a little and I tried the PUSH website again. Well, NOW "Write PUSH" says:

The 4th Annual PUSH NOVEL CONTEST

Want to write a novel for PUSH? Well, if you’re a student in grades 7-12, here’s your chance. In conjunction, with the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, PUSH is happy to announce the fourth annual PUSH Novel Contest. We will work with the winner on the winning manuscript, with the hope of publishing it in PUSH. (If it is published, you will receive an author advance and royalties.)

Want to enter? Fill out the entry form, and send us at least three chapters of your novel (fifteen pages minimum, fifty pages maximum) as well as a summary/outline (two pages maximum) telling us where the rest of the story goes. The deadline for entries is March 11, 2005. And, again, the contest is only open to students in grades 7 through 12.

Grrrr! I'm in grade, like, 21!

Fuck them anyway. I'll get published without them! :-)

If only they had goddamned submission guidelines on their site. Well, maybe my book wouldn't have enough angst for them anyway.

annoyed

2004-04-17T19:53:03Z

I just finished Born Confused and found a page in the back telling me to go to thisispush.com to find out how to become one of their authors. I was all excited and mentally analyzing whether either of my nanonovels would be their kind of thing, cleaned up a little. But nowhere on their site do they have submission guidelines. No. Instead they have a page to which the link reads, "Write Push: Submit your work for a chance to be a PUSH author," which says, " If you have something to write and want to add your voice to the mix, here's how to do it," and then offers a slogan-writing contest. Along the side are a series of links which appear to show the entries to past contests - one-paragraph character sketches and songs and so on.

Why are they tormenting me like this?

Also: when I send them a question through their webform, which asks for my name and email address as well, it then gives me a page saying,
"THANK YOU FOR TELLING US WHAT YOU THINK.
Check back soon to see if we are really listening!"

Um. Excuse me?