Glad to Report!

Our vending machine at work used to dispense a cranberry drink - I forget which one. They had a game going, and one day I popped open a jar, to find the phrase "You are not a winner" transcribed in the top. The first time I saw it, it gave me pause. Who are the cranberry juice people to judge me? My dad thinks I'm cool! Of course, once I got over the initial, albeit unintended ramification of my beverage choice passing judgement on me, it gave me a giggle.

Regardless, I have told you that to tell you this :

I am a Winner!

Whooooooooooooooo!

I hit my 50,000 words on my NaNo novel today, actually, a nice round 50,200. Ironically, the last three days have been a slog, and today, I wrote about 200 words of useless ramblage just to try and get somewhere (which I did omit, the notes I wrote to myself, consisting of "What the fark do I put here? What is Jale thinking? Does anyone care what she is thinking? got taken out and put in my notes)

I'm not done with the book of course, I've got probably another 30 -35k to write, but I'm proud of my accomplishment, it's a goal I set and made. I came up with the grand plan of writing my Dragongar trilogy many years ago, but I put it in action on December 16, 2007. I finished writing the second book August 16, 2009 (the irony! I didn't realize it was the same day of the month!) So it took 1 year 9 months to write two books.

I have now written at least half a book in less than a month. In less than another month, I should be done!

Yay me! Hope everyone's NaNo is going well!

Embrace the NaNo. Be the NaNo.

So, how is NaNo going, you ask?

Super! Thanks for asking!

Seriously. The first week, I got 20K! The most I've ever gotten in a week. I'm now at 34,751 (according to the NaNo bots). The secret? The Alphasmart Neo, and not reading and/or editing over what I've written. The Irony! It's probably going to be the best thing I've written and I know it reads like a barely literate third-grader right now. But that's ok! I'm embracing the write, write, write, and polish, polish, polish later, later, later.

This is seriously freeing! I'm jamming between 2-3k a day and NOT stopping to read, to meddle, to try and make mah werds be all purteh - I'm just getting the story on the paper. Sorry. I don't think I'm makin' any sense, and this blog post is for crap - but I have a good story goin'!

Also - a shoutout to Wayne. You guys know Wayne. In case you didn't know, he's got an agent, who says he will soon have a publisher, a movie deal, and probably a harem-full of women following him around to try to get him to be their babeh daddeh. Suck up to him now, so you can say you knew him when.

NaNo Preparedness

How I prepare for NaNo : for to see picture below

#1 is Drangongar book, filled with secrets, inner workings, plot ideas and other lies.

#2 is the AlphaSmart Neo supercool Angie from AW gave to me. It has no internets connection.

#3 is my ipod

#4 is my new sparkly pen with editing purple ink still in it

#5 (hidden under the headphones) are my notecards for important character notes and the suchlot.

How kitty tells me that all this NaNo is cutting in on her "special" time.

but idn't she purty?

Past the 10,000 Word Barrier

Greetings, blog readers. Five days into NaNoWriMo and I am at 11,888 words on The Spiritcaster. I'm really diggin' it.

Tonight, for example, I wrote about 3000 words that might not make the final edit. It's personal, family stuff around my female main character. And I didn't got all wingerific over it - bemoaning the fate of my 3000 words. Since this is the prequel to the trilogy I was writing, I have tons of backstory, I am crazy about the world, I know this is The One, like Morpheus knew that Neo was The One, even thought Neo wasn't convinced he was The One. I know there is no spoon. I wrote something that might only be for myself (depending on if I can make a Dragongar look guilty of a crime.... that part of the plot is a little bit up in the air.) But I enjoyed the words. I enjoyed the flow. I found some real depth of character, and... I am sorry to go all artisty, I think I delved into some stuff about myself. We all put a little bit of ourselves, our history and our hang ups in our work, right? Dysfunction. I has it.

Also, I have a confession to make. Ok - big intake of breath. I. Am. Writing. From. An. Outline. I don't know how it happened. I didn't plan it, like that whole sparklepeaches, tt42 throwdown challenge (inside reference to mah AW Crew - what up, AWers?!) I just started jotting my first few scenes, like always (cuz if dummy doesn't write it down, dummy doesn't remember it) and next thing I know... I've got two pages of an outline. For reals. I have added a few scenes, and I'm keeping my outline updated (so there isn't that 29 page synopsis fiasco that happened last time.)

So. In short: NaNo - goin' awesome. Wordcount: on track. Writing from an outline: Not dead yet. It's a miracle.

NaNoWriMo 2009... I can has story?

Greetings, all. Don't know why I have let the blog go all cold and moldy. Guess it's because I missed a huge writing goal. I petered out on doing edits of book II and gave in to the emotional and enjoyable splurgitude of the tv. Ah... Ace of Cakes. Animal Cops. Flash Forward. Project Runway. And who doesn't love Ghosthunters?

But, alas, NaNoWriMo 2009 has begun, and I stayed up late to greet it. If you don't know what I am talking about, get you hence to http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/whatisnano and learn all about it. Basically, you begin a novel and write 50,000 words in a month. This is 1667 words a day. I am increasing my goal to 2000 words a day, since that is what I did way back in the old days, and I want to get that mojo back. Since NaNo starts Nov 1, I sat up to write and got 2028 words in 1 hr 54 minutes. If I can keep up with that, it should be no problem. That means, no sitting and drooling and looking off into the distance. Fingers must move, and move constantly.

I did pretty good at that tonight, but of course, I now have the "It didn't quite meet expectations" afterglow. I must resist the urge to fiddle. I shall resist. Because I'm rarely any happier after the fiddling. I'm also going into this with more of a plan than I've ever had on any other novel! It surprises me... but also feels good, since I have this "no drooling" rule, I have a direction to write in.

Well, I'm going to try and get myself tired so I can go to bed. Happy NaNo, everyone.

Randomness, a picture, and a link

First of all, I would like to apologize for the venom of the last post. I still mean what I said, and said what I meant... but this is supposed to be my writing blog, not the sick pathway into what I watch when I am bored and should be writing or editing...

On that note: the Edit of book I is done, the edit of book II has begun. I'm having trouble sticking to it again... I work for a day or two, take several days off... and sit there thinking, what the fark are you going to do when NaNo strikes? There is no putting off at NaNo time!

And speaking of foolishment right before NaNo - you have no doubt noticed the lovely journal picture, yes? I have written the words "By Bettie Lee Turner" on the first page, on the 2nd page I have written "Chapter One" and beneath that, these words:

The enemy came to him, craven and wasted, as they all became in the end.

I don't know what that means, it might be completely destroyed and rewritten at some point, but I'm sure it has to do with the lovely lady on the cover of the journal (by artist Selina Fenech - she is fairy magic!). I don't think she's the enemy, and obviously, she's not male... but I have a story I plan on handwriting in this journal. Just a paragraph or two at a time. I'm sure no one will care about it until I'm a famous, in demand author. (Aw, you look so cute when you grab your belly and laugh!)

Speaking of laughing... ok, I have no segway into this last bit, but I do have a song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFVlJAi3Cso

I see people talk about "soundtracks" for their writing projects all the time, and I never quite got what they meant. My responses to questions of "soundtracks" were probably way off the mark, because I thought they meant "what do you listen to while writing" - which is far different from having songs that MATCH what you are writing. Well, I finally have a song for Jale and Baerwen. Except their love is not ill fated. Sorry. I guess that's a dealbuster, telling folk they aren't going to break up, but the song does match what's going on in the story, and I'm even bein' all writerly and adjusting some of their backstory to match (coming in Spiritcaster: stay tuned!!) Much of the Dragongar stories, which people assume have "tropes" because I have dragon/human bonding, prophesy, etc, was about bucking tropes. Jale and Baerwen are FOREVER! If you don't like it, you can suck it. (and just because they don't break up... doesn't mean that one of them doesn't die! duh duhh duuhhn.....)

Last random thing: if someone comes to me with a button to push to get a million dollars, I'm pushin' it. Sorry. I'm a bad, bad girl...

/random

Sorry guys...

As a blogger, there are times when you have access to people and you also have access to giving off your rage.

I am sorry this is not a writing entry... this is about that dumb ugly bitch Julia on Rehab Party at the Hard Rock.

She's not a nice person.

I don't like her and think she should get over herself.

Now I'm going back to watch ghosty tv.

More editing later.

This is why you shouldn't watch pop culture crap, when you are not a pop culture fan. You lash out inappropriately on your blog. Live and learn, kids. Live and Learn.