Tag: dreams

Powering Through

Sorry, it’s been a while… bit of a busy week.

I will be doubling up my writing time today and tomorrow, because I was unable to complete any chapters over the weekend. The good news is that if I am successful in writing 2 chapters today and another 2 chapters tomorrow… I will be completing my book on Thursday!

I didn’t write over the weekend because I had to work all day Saturday and all dat on Sunday. Usually I have time to write while I am at work, but it just didn’t happen this weekend. I also had to complete my portion of a group project for my college, so that was all of my free time. I have doubled up in the past, and it can be exhausting, but to me, it is well worth it to stay on track.

So, that brings me to today’s topic: Powering Through.

I’ll admit, that I have struggled with the last couple of chapters I have written. When the story was new and exciting, words just seemed to flow through my fingertips… I have finally gotten to that point that I fantasize about this story and its characters, but now I’m having a hard time getting to that finish line. I recently wrote a chapter that took me over 3 hours to write, which is ridiculous when you consider for the purpose of NaNoWriMo, my chapters are only 2500 words. The chapter didn’t take nearly as long, but it certainly felt like work.

When writing begins to feel like work, it is easy to say “just walk away” … “I’ll come back to it”. The truth is, at least for me, when I walk away from my designated writing time…. I am unlikely to go back and finish that later. I write between 9AM and 11AM every day. That is my time. I have had my coffee, eaten my breakfast, and there are no distractions. Once I get past lunch time, the entire atmosphere of the house just seems wrong to write. Suddenly there are things on TV to watch, other things I need to check on, groceries to buy, and list goes on and on. My writing time is my golden time, and I have to use it to its full potential.

I have read many of the Pep Talks for NaNoWriMo and they suggest that when you are stuck, to simply write the scene or chapter that excites you… I do not recommend that, and I’ll tell you why. I used to do that very thing, all the time. I would hear a song on the radio and envision a scene so strong that I could cry… and I would be inspired to write it down immediately. I would re-read it and think “this is perfect! I can’t wait until I get to the point in my story that I can use this scene.” The problem is that when you (.. I..) write a scene that you have not built up to yet, you’re not taking everything into consideration. The characters may go through things that you had not originally intended. I’ll give you en example of my prediction writing for NaNoWriMo:

NaNoWriMo asks for a synopsis of the story and also for an excerpt when you list it on your profile. Looking at my story now, the synopsis is not even entirely accurate. For the excerpt I used immediately, it was obvious that I initially planned to write the story in the 3rd person, but when I began actually writing it, I switched to 1st person. I couldn’t even use most of the excerpt that I used because it didn’t fit my storyline by the time I got to that part. I thought I knew exactly how my story ended, and if I would have spent part of my writing time to write the ending while it was fresh in my mind…. it would have been wasted… ALL OF IT. My ending now, is not even remotely close to the original ending.

I know not everyone’s story goes through so many major changes as my current story has… but I think it is more useful to power through the writing rut and keep the story on track. Yes, you will probably have to go back and edit the scenes that you forced, but at least you have something to work with now. There is no promise that if you skip that scene now…. that you will be any more inspired to write it later. Sometimes scenes that are necessary just aren’t fun to write. 

This is just my two cents, and it is what works for me. I can’t believe that I am going to win my first NaNoWriMo this week! I am beyond excited, and I’m looking forward to starting the editing process and having a publish ready story by the end of the month.

 

Thank you to all of you who read this blog. I feel like you reading this helps me to be accountable to my goals, and if anything that I have written helps you, then that is icing on the cake!

 

Happy Monday, take care!

Post NaNoWriMo write-a-thon and Veteran’s Day

First things first. I promised an update about how Saturday’s write-a-thon went. I did not achieve as much as I hoped I would. I really thought in 4 hours I would be able to hit 3 chapters. Unfortunately, since I don’t usually write in a busy coffee shop, I found myself distracted by unimportant things… things I usually don’t worry about. I thought that the chair was uncomfortable, I thought about if I should take my laptop with me if I wanted to order food and a drink. I thought the jazz music was too loud and ultimately had to throw in my earplugs and listen to my IPod… but I normally to write to music. 

Once I finally got settled to begin writing I got 2 sentences in and got stuck. When I had been setting up, I quickly changed my chapter guide because it no longer follow the path I was taking for my book and I didn’t know what to write. I took me a little while to get words on paper but slowly ideas started flowing, page by page, the chapter was finally getting written. I took me over two hours for that first chapter. The second chapter I wrote was a little bit easier, but I took a break to order lunch and then another short break to eat my lunch. I finished the second chapter with about 7 minutes to spare from my 4-hour pledge. So, I completed two chapters and wrote just over 5,500 words. I had hoped to write more, but I am satisfied with what I achieved.

What’s the most you’ve ever written in a single sitting?

I know the point of the write-a-thon was to write continuously for the entire day, but my husband had planned a party at out house beginning in the early afternoon, so after leaving the coffee shop, I was done writing for the day. I did write another full chapter yesterday though… I’m only 2000 words shy of being 1/2 way done and that is very exciting. So far, if I keep writing like I am, it is projected I will finish my novel on November 22. That will leave me over a week to edit and re-write anything. I’m astounded by well my first NaNo is going!

And now: Happy Veteran’s Day to all those who have served and are currently serving.

I am a Veteran as well… I served 6 years active duty in the Navy and deployed twice: once to the Philippines and once to Afghanistan. I know a lot of Veteran’s share my sentiment, so I’ll share that with you now. I have a hard time accepting thanks from people. I go to places like Sea World and on a Carnival cruise and they want the military members past and present to stand up so we can be acknowledged and thanked. Most times I would rather stay seated and clap along with everyone else. To me, I haven’t done anything worthy of being thanked. I was really great at my job, but that is all my service was to me: a job.

When I was 18, my Dad gave me to options. I could go to college or I could join the military, but I wasn’t staying home. I didn’t get into the college I wanted and I had already participated in 4 years of Naval Junior Reserve Office Trains Corps program at my high school, so joining the Navy made sense. I was in Intel, meaning that I was a glorified Google searcher and I made A LOT of powerpoint presentations. It was my job to keep the Commanding Officer and staff updated on every threat to our battalion or give them the specifics of an area we were traveling to. I had a desk job, that is all. I didn’t drive on the roads rigged with explosives and I didn’t shoot at things. Yes, my desk was sometimes in a war zone and sometimes I had to hide out in a bunker while our base was threatened with rockets, but nothing bad happened to me on deployments. My Commanding Officer and staff were always pleased with my work ethic and sometimes they said the safety of our battalion (no casualties) was in part thanks to what I did. But I just can’t see it that way.

Looking at pictures of me with a rifle slung across my back just seems strange. I was definitely not one of those girls that liked to shoot. I am in the Navy Reserves now, but I still consider myself to be a civilian. I am proud of the work I did in the Navy, I just don’t think it is deserving of thanks. If you look through my photos of deployment you would see people having a good time, and that is all I really remember, I don’t dwell on the bad. Here is my Afghanistan: Sundays we played Volleyball and went shopping at the boardwalk, for Christmas I decorated my room and my workspace, one night Carrabas and Outback cooked up restaurant quality food and it was AMAZING! I remember the night it flooded and me and my roommate had to jump over small rivers to get out laundry, but it was too flooded to go get dinner. I remember countless hours of watching TV shows on my laptop and being excited when we got satellite TV in our room. My favorite night was our over the hump party. We had a DJ come and play us music, and we danced and sang on the back of one of the trucks. I had fun in Afghanistan, though I’m sure you never hear those stories…

I don’t mean any disrespect to those that did have a hard deployment and suffer from it’s effects, you are the ones in my mind who deserve all the thanks. I was lucky, and I know that, and again that is why I have a hard time hearing the thanks.

For those of you who still wish to express me thanks, YOU’RE WELCOME, I’m just a girl doing a job to the best of my ability and I appreciate that you appreciate what we (the military) are doing.

 

-Christina 

And the story evolves

The problem with taking a concept to a chapter guide in a matter of hours is you don’t allow yourself enough to get to know the characters. At least that is what is happening to me with NaNoWriMo (nano). I needed some sort of guideline to help towards the finish line of this adventure, and so before the competition began I spat the chapter guideline.

I mentioned it before and now I will say it again: A chapter guide is great tool to assist you in writing your story, but you should not stick to it 100% My story has evolved. It was just a baby concept in the beginning. The idea is there is a girl who is so beautiful that Death (the Grim Reaper) had fallen in love with her. Death kill’s the girl quite frequently to spend time with her. Now when I wrote my chapter guide, I assumed that the girl would be extremely resistant to all of Death’s advances all the way until the end. I was wrong.

I have gotten to know more about my Death character, who I have named Renn, and I quite like him. Renn is a gentleman of all eras and he is very kind to the girl, Annabelle Joy. Death is lonely, he lives in Limbo and all he does for all eternity is reap souls. Annabelle is the only person in all of eternity that brings him happiness. 

Because Death is now a more likable character, my main girl, Annabelle is able to see him in some human light and she can develop different emotions about him. I now know that she is going to go through phases on how much she trusts Death, whether she believes she could love him, why she must hate Death, and why she doesn’t want to stay in Limbo with Death. My story was originally a three point story with some fluff holding it together, but now it has real emotions behind it.

I’m really looking forward to seeing how my story turns out. The title is “The 50 Deaths of Annabelle Joy”. I’m sure I’ll share a chapter or two on here once it is complete.

Enjoy your Friday!

1/5 Completion!

I’m titling today’s post in celebration of achieving my first NaNoWriMo victory. My Dad was teasing my excited facebook post about being 1/5 done with my book. The only reason I am celebrating by calling it 1/5 complete is because today achieved 10,000+ of 50,000 words required to “win” Nano. I don’t think I’ll be celebrating 2/5s and 3/5s, I probably won’t comment about my word count again until I reach the 1/2 way point.

Saturday is the write-a-thon… so basically I pledge to write for either 1 hour, 2 hours, or 8 hours. Don’t ask me why there is nothing in between 2 and 8 hours, I really don’t know. Honestly I think I’m going to pledge for 4 straight hours of writing. My computer and I have a love/hate relationship… especially with the keyboard tray which digs into my wrists as I type. So if you have any words of encouragement as I strive to kill myself with long hours of consistent writing, I would love to hear them. Fear not, I will let you know of my success and how much I was able to accomplish in said time.

I’m enjoying where my story is heading, though I fear that I may be repeating myself a lot… but that will be discovered during the editing phase. I am tired, and could really use a break, but I am committed to this journey with Nano. I read an inspiring post from a fellow Nano competitor who joined Nano in its 2nd year, she actually committed to the 50,000 word count in a 10 day period, and she achieved it! This I think is something I may try for in the future. I could accomplish so much more if I continued to push myself.

I’m looking forward to my next Nano celebration, but I’m sure I’ll be venting my frustrations before then.

 

Have a wonderful night!

The end and the beginning

I was so excited about everything going on yesterday that I didn’t realize I had forgotten to post until about 10 PM, so I thought I would save it for today.

October 31st: Halloween to everyone else, but for me, it was my deadline day. I had one chapter and and an epilogue to write and I still had pages from my notebook to type. I sat down at my desk and looked at wall of inspiration and as I prepared to type, I was nervous. Why? Was I channeling my main character’s fear or was it my own as I was preparing to conclude this story I have been working on for years? When I typed “The End” it didn’t feel like I had imagined. All week long I was excited as I prepared to tell the world that my story was complete, but as I looked at the final words on my screen I was actually a little sad. Bittersweet, I suppose. 

Still I would like to pat myself on the back. While I have known the story in its entirety for quite some time, I have never written it from start to finish. This is certainly a personal victory. I have not gone back and read through my book all the way yet because I know that once I do, I’ll immediately start making corrections.

So that was the end, now for the beginning.

November 1st: I saw many of my Facebook friends posting that it was time to begin the 30 days of giving thanks. For me, at mid-night, I was at a coffee shop with many other NaNoWriMo participants. We met around 11 PM as we talked to discuss any issues we were having with our stories before the midnight hour arrived. When midnight arrived, I went right to work on my new novel. 

For those of you who do not know what NaNoWriMo is, let my introduce you briefly. NaNoWriMo = National Novel Writing Month (www.nanowrimo.org). You sign up and pledge to write 50,000 in 30 days. You have from midnight on November 1st through 11:59PM on November 30th to submit your final word count. Everyone can win, there are no real prizes, but there are lots of opportunities. Nano is great for people that need help find publishers and literary agents, or authors that simply want to know other aspiring authors. I really recommend it if you enjoy writing. If you can commit a sporadic 2 hours or so per day, you can easily make your word count goal for Nano, it is only about 1700 words per day.

So, we have not reached the end of day 1 for Nano yet… but I have already finished my prologue and first chapter and submitted a word count of around 2300. I’m off to a great start. My goal is to write 1 chapter per day so that I have time to edit near the end. There are too many great publishing opportunities, and I would hate for my story to be a discombobulated mess if I can help it =)

Is anyone else out there participating in NaNoWriMo 2013? If you are, please add me. My username is ChristinaW87 and my story is “The 50 Deaths of Annabelle Joy”

I wish you all a fantastic weekend. Happy November!

Writing the unplanned

Writing the unplanned.

 

The other day as I was giving myself a mini celebration for almost reaching my goal and deadline for my book, I noticed an error in my chapter guideline. The portion I had slated for my final chapter, which keep in mind should be about 3000 words, was honestly about a paragraph’s worth of material. I was 3 chapters from the end when I realized this and had to figure out what to do. So I knew that had to combine the material chapters 39 and 40. What I was left with was an empty chapter.

 

Why am I so stuck on my book being 40 chapters? I don’t know I read somewhere once that a fantasy novel should be about 40 chapters and about 120,000 words, so I made that my goal. What am I doing about the empty chapter? Well that is what I wanted to talk about today. Writing what you never intended to write.

 

The way I had my story originally outlined, I did not feel there was anything that I had left unaddressed, however, I looked at where I could elaborate instead. For my story in particular, chapter 38 happened to be the ending of a war and chapter 39 was intended to be the coronation ceremony of the Queen. I decided to fill that space, since the coronation became chapter 40, by elaborating on the emotions following the war.

 

Now that I have completed that portion, I see a lot of content that many would say should be cut from the final product, but I also value in some of what is there. I believe that when I go back and edit/re-write other chapters will grow and split and the missing chapter will be something else all together, but at least I have more material to work with.

 

I think it is best to avoid large gaps in writing if at all possible. I would say the best way to prevent this is pay attention to your chapter guideline, storyboard, or whatever you use as an outline for your writing. My error could have been spotted early on, but I was only looking at my outline chapter by chapter. So go back every few chapters and look at your guideline as a whole. Your story will likely change as you write it so you may need to revisit your layout and shift things.

 

Tomorrow is D-Day, deadline day, celebration day, more importantly my day of victory. I’ll be finishing up my novel tomorrow morning and I look forward to sharing my victory with you.

 

 

Let your story do the writing

I am an advocate of planning a story out. I may not be as detailed as some authors who can detail everything that happens on each page… but I do know what are the instances that pull my story together. That being said, as I mentioned in my first post, my story is now is almost unrecognizable when compared to the original story I was writing in high school. Honestly, I have the proof in paper form!

To me, what is exciting about writing is letting your characters show you what is happening. Countless times I have told my husband with great excitement “I finally know why this happens!” or “I just found out that this is going to happen.” It is quite exciting. Some people give me strange looks and say “You’re the writer, how do you not know what is going to happen?” It is simple, I don’t. I hope that I never tie myself down with a guideline so strict that my creativity cannot leak through, it far too important.

In high school, I can easily say I was not one of the popular kids…. but everyone  knew that I was a writer. My characters live and breathe in my mind. I was then and am still now actively plagued by the daily lives of my characters, most of which would never make it into my story, but it is important to know them on a personal level. Sometimes my friends, co-workers, my husband will catch me pouting or looking angry as I stare off into the distance and I have to explain that the characters are having  an argument, or I just discovered that someone is going to die. I enjoy the experience, even if others find it strange.

If I did not allow my characters to sometimes take over my thoughts I can promise you that I would have no clue that not only will there be a 2nd book, there will be a 3rd, and even more recently I discovered there will be a 4th. I always hoped there would be a sequel, but I could not decide how I wanted my story to end. Some versions of the ending I know would have upset my readers. Now that I know the storyline of the 2nd book, I know the proper ending for my first. I came up with the idea for my next book sitting in the car, a new song came on the radio,  “Lights” by Ellie Goulding. There was one line that struck me “the Queen has been overthrown.” That line rocked my world and spun many many ideas running amuck in mind and suddenly I knew that one of my characters was that actual villain. My story already had a villain, but from that song I learned who was the even bigger threat to my main characters.

I wanted to talk about this today because as I summing another chapter, two of my characters were able to have a touching moment that I had not originally planned. Looking back, I can’t believe that I almost missed this opportunity and I think it will give the readers a better sense of closure for the affected character. This little detour took no more than 1/2 page, but I know that it has improved the ending of my book.

So to those of you who read my little blog… I would like to encourage you to actively give in to your characters and let them help you develop your storyline, you may surprised what you come up with.

I hope you’re having a great Monday, even if its is cold and cloudy where you are, it is still only 4 days until Friday.

I’ll have another post for you tomorrow, good day!

Just catching up…

I normally refrain from writing on the weekends, this is simply because I think we all need time to relax. I once read a book on how to write a book within 30 days and one thing that I read has stuck with me ever since. “Don’t force your writing.” Often times I think people have a goal in mind and they don’t want to stop until they achieve that goal, which is fine… Sometimes though you can tell that you’re just writing non-sense and you know when it comes time to edit, most of it is going to get cut or re-written. So I try now not to force the words, the only exception to this is when I’m at a bit of a roadblock. I have a lot of signposts for my book, the chapter titles and also little things that I’d like to happen within the chapter, sometimes though, I don’t give a section enough detail or the scene doesn’t take as long as I thought it might. I can’t just start a new chapter so I have to continue that scene and sometimes I have to force that a little bit. Who knows, maybe I’ll end up scrapping it later, but the point is that I still got to my next chapter or main point and didn’t just sit there stuck in the current chapter.

I suppose you could call me old-fashioned when it comes to writing. I actually prefer writing with pen and paper vice typing on the computer. I hate typing, honestly. I bought some dictation software to assist me in moving my story from my notebooks to my laptop, but right now, after wiping my computer, the program won’t reinstall. So today I will be hand typing the last few entries from my notebook. This was how I started writing. I wrote all kinds of stories beginning in middle school. I would write every chance I had like lunch break, 3 mins before class began, 10 mins before class ended. Just whenever I could. I don’t have those same habits now, but I do still prefer writing in my 70 page, college ruled, spiral notebooks.

Tomorrow begins my final 4 days to write my final 3 chapters. It’s a tight deadline, but I know that I will make it! After that though, I have to start my prep for my NaNoWriMo story. I have no idea what the layout for the story even will be, its only a concept at this point, and my 30 day 50,000 word journey for that book begins on Friday!

For those of you who read this, I hope you’re having a wonderful day! 

More for tomorrow now…

The end is near!

I have been writing and re-writing my current novel since I was a junior in High School… so that’s about 8 years or so now. When I was deployed to Afghanistan in 2011 I made it a goal of mine to finish my story in the form of a movie script. I accomplished that goal, but I was more than a little upset. Even though I have always pictured my story to be a movie, I was devastated by how much of my story I had to cut out to fit the confines of 120 minutes of screen time. So I once again declared “by the end of the year, I will finish my book”. It of course has never happened.

Every year I vow to finish my story, but unless knowing it cover to cover in my head counts, then I never have. This year, my husband and I started college together. In our first class we were supposed to provide an example of a detailed goal. What specifically we would like to accomplish, how it can be accomplished, and when exactly will it be accomplished by… Out of habit I chose my story, but I gave myself a wide birth. I declared that I would finish my story by my 27th birthday, giving myself 1 1/2 years to do it. I quit my full time job in September. I promised my husband that since I was not working full time now, I would commit equal parts of my day to writing my book and working my part-time job. So I drafted a new goal. If I could commit to writing 1/2 chapter (appx 1600 words) per day, I would finish my book  by the end of October. So today is October 26, I have 3 chapters to go! I’m supposed be further along, but we went on vacation and I slacked for a week. I’m so excited to be almost done that I have been over writing lately, so I’m sure I’ll still make my deadline.

Now this is not the “let’s send this to be published” version of my book, this is the “Hey, I wrote every chapter” version. It has many errors, probably a couple holes that need to be addressed, and my word count is nowhere near my final goal (120,000) but the story will be complete. I am a perfectionist at heart, so I would often start re-writing my book around chapter 10. I always knew it could be better. My story is completely different now then when I started writing it 8 years ago… but I mean, I was 17 back then, and now I’m 26 and married, life is different.

To go from consistently starting over to having the complete story is a miracle for me. I look forward to letting a couple trusted friends and family review my story and let me know where it needs work. Most of all, I’m excited to see if my story affects others the way it has me. Yesterday I wrote the scene where my main character dies, it is no secret, it is declared outright near the beginning that death is expected. To write the actual scene and the characters present and how the death affects them was beautiful, to me. It moved me nearly to tears, but as the creator of the story I can watch it like a movie in my head, so I look forward to knowing if I translated the emotions in my head correctly to paper.

It is bittersweet to be reaching the end, but I am proud of myself. I’m trying to commit to blogging daily and to be honest with my struggles. I am imperfect and sometimes I don’t feel inspired enough to write, but I assure you that I love it. There are two things in this world I know that I am meant to do. One is to be a mother and a wife, the other is to share my book with the world. Will my story bring my fame and fortune? Chances are it will not. But how I can I have a story in my heart for so long that is so important if it is not meant to be shared?

If your looking for tips and tricks on how to be a great author… you probably don’t want to listen to me. I’m untrained, I just like to write. If you’d like to join me on my journey to achieve my writing dreams, stay tuned!