Something I learned this Year

Listening to: Love the Way you Lie - Eminem ft Rihanna

Writing: Nanowrimo 2011 Novel

Mood: disappointed



First off: CONGRATULATIONS to all the passionate writers out there who made it to the golden 50k words!

Nanowrimo officially ended for me yesterday. I got to a whooping 26 000 (and some other numbers) words. So another year gone by where the goal line is just out of my reach, but I gave it my best shot with the little time I had. I'm not giving up on my story either, I'm still trudging onward like a good little soldier. If anyone else out there didn't make it either, KEEP GOING! Good stories never end, they live on in our minds and if your muse is anything like mine( he likes to keep dumping everything in my head onto paper) you'll finish writing your novel yet! Just... not in November. Maybe December, but realistically I'll probably complete my Nano next year March.

And then start planning for Nanowrimo 2012.

A friend of mine recently lost a family member of hers. It was strange because only a week prior we were talking about funeral songs and how her father wanted them to play Frank Sinatra's I did it my way at his funeral. In that one simple request, I could tell that this man had a lot of character. He must have been one of the most stubborn, most self-motivated people to walk the earth. He must have accomplished his life's goals because, as you'd imagine, the song wasn't referring to the way he passed but to how he'd lived his life.

This December I'm going to be blogging every day (yea, EVERY day!)(-edit- well, no, not every day) listing things I learned this year. Maybe you'll find some of it useful in some way or another, and if you do, please do share your thoughts and experiences with me in the comments section.

The one thing I learned this year is to never give up on yourself.  Do your best and give it your all, put up your best effort. Even if you trip over your own feet, even if you come last, even if you're voted out, even if you've got a low wordcount, even if other people have a negative opinion, even if you think you're not worth it, none of that matters as long as you don't give up on yourself.

Pick yourself back up, keep running, keep playing, keep writing, keep trying, keep going. Never give up. Believe in yourself. Give yourself a break. This will become my motto for the new year, I think. Never give up.

Because, one day, wouldn't you also want to be able to say I did it my way?

Catch you guys tomorrow!

At this rate you will finish on December 8,2011.

I have a prologue and I have my first two chapters down. I'm on chapter 3 at the moment and it feels like I've only started picking up momentum now.

I met my MC, Haley, where she was leaving the principal's office after some incident (earlier that day she slipped and smacked her head into the floor and her sisters' friends laughed at her - Haley didn't appreciate that much so there was some teenage slapping going on), that had her suspended from school. On the drive home, her parents inform her that they're sending her to a special summer school a.k.a. Christian Bootcamp. Haley will have none of it and runs away. She decides to take the 'short cut' through their local reserve to avoid running into the authorities (or her parents) on the main road, but she stumbles upon a tunnel that seems to have appeared out of nowhere. Curiosity gets the better of her and she goes inside for a looksee, wacks her head against a rock wall (again, poor girl) but then the dark starts to make her paranoid (or maybe she's just smacked all the marbles out of her mind?) and she's 'chased' by whispers (yes I was listening to Skillet while writing that part).

She makes it out the other side of the tunnel, and follows a lonely road to a creepy house in the woods, where she steps into something that might have come out of Alice in Wonderland. Or not. It's pretty weird anyway. A blind boy tells her where she needs to go, and Haley, wondering if she is in Wonderland, follows his directions. She gets snatched into this underworld by a witch who wanted to use her for a spell to keep the cold from her house/hut/cave (there's clearly confusion between myself and my characters about what to call it), but then just as suddenly and inexplicably the witch lets her go again. Haley doesn't wonder why because nothing is making much sense to her, and she believes she'd knocked her head one too many times that day (whether she has or not I haven't decided yet). So Haley is let lose in this underworld but then! She's chased by a ginormous worm. And I mean this thing is huge, and I did not enjoy writing it because worms are just... ick and make my toes curl in disgust. Like frogs - with those soft, squishy bodies that only needs a little squeeze to make them.... Wait. I'm digressing. Where was I?

Oh, the ginormous worm chasing Haley. Right, so she runs off with this worm chasing her and suddenly this wolf comes out of nowhere (or I might have written about the wolf before, my memory's already foggy on the details) and starts chasing her, too. She manages to lose the worm, but the wolf keeps on her heels the whole time until she accidentally falls into a river of blood.

Of course she doesn't know right away that it's blood. Haley wiggles her way out of this river and tries to outrun this persistent wolf. She stumbles upon this small little town and goes into what appears to be a bar. The people in there are pretty creepy, in varying degrees. That's also when she realises she's covered in blood, whatnot with the light on her and all. So she goes to this tiny bathroom to try clean up, but this weirdo follows her. She dodges him but then the whole bar seems to have turned against her - and then she kind of really does lose her marbles.

Haley believes that she's in a coma of sorts and this is all just in her head.

I think I'm going to go with the first idea, but not the second. I'm contemplating bringing astral projection into the mix to explain some things. She's reincarnated at the end of the novel so I might as well.

So, Haley believes that this is all imaginary and that she's really in control, and she starts spewing some crazy smut at these people. But then, just as this weirdo guy grabs her, her hero arrives! Tararum!

But he's nothing what she had expected and she's disappointed. However, I'm pretty happy with how he's turned out, appearance wise anyway.

At the moment, he and Haley are having a bit of an argument. He's trying to explain to her that everything is real, and Haley is being very difficult. Not exactly how I'd pictured the first meeting between girl and guardian angel would go down, but hey, it beats cliche.

I have 22 days left to get 38,383 words written.

And aren't those numbers just funny? Like tomorrow is the 11th of the 11th of 2011. I'm going to make a wish at 11:11:11am tomorrow morning. And then again at 11:11:11pm, just for good measure.

Nope, not wishing to win the lotto.

I wish I can win Nanowrimo this year.

Good luck everyone! ^_^

Day 1 - Hello Nano, meet my Life!

I'm fairly sure that since midnight last night, just about everyone in my region has a word count higher than 0. Everyone except for me. It's lunchtime and that 0 is still there.

But you know what, I'm not going to sweat it this year. There's no pressure. It'd be nice if I could finally make the 50k, of course, but I'm not going to lose sleep, weight and a social life because of it. So on my agenda for the day - shopping!

I might write something when I get back home. We'll see.