NaNoWriMo Final Week

So here we all are 50,000 words and 30 days later. I have successfully won NaNo with 50,054 words! Yay! I was so excited I was in complete shock! So now the next step is editing, which I will continue in January (or maybe mid December while I'm on vacation)!

This has been an amazing month! This is my first year doing the complete 50,000 words and it was an amazing experience! I'm still in complete shock that I am now considered a novelist, I'm just in shock! Congratulations to those who have finished or who are well on their way to finishing! Or if there are those of you who have not finished yet, keep at it even after NaNo and remember there is always next year! :)

I love the quote from the picture that's on this post (For those one Tumblr it reads: "NaNoWriMo: a novel in 30 days. An achievement that lasts forever. ENJOY!" from www.SydneyWritersCentre.com.au). It is so true! I swear once you finish that 50,000 word novel in 30 days you will feel invincible! It has to be the greatest achievement for all writers (and non writers who did NaNo for fun)!

And now I will be celebrating my victory with my friend tonight as we dine on pie! :)

Good luck to you all and congratulations once again!

NaNoWriMo Week 3

The last week of NaNo! Some are glad to see the hectic month come to a close, others are sad, and other's have nothing to fear because they have already finished their 50,000 words. For myself, I'm still in the 30,000 words area soon to arrive in 35,000! So for now on it is going to be 2500 words a day. Unfortunately I am a serious procrastinator and have just discovered the great TV series Once Upon a Time. If you haven't seen it yet... Watch it! I, having an addictive personality, latch onto any TV series that is even worth watching and become unhealthily obsessed with it. This occurred when I discovered Doctor Who and Sherlock earlier this year. But this post is not about my addictive personality to TV shows. This is about NaNoWriMo, I am sad to see it go. I wish there was at least one more day in November, just one more day to finish up this stupid novel.
As for the novel, I have completed the beginning, the end, and the epilogue, and now it is time for the filler. Doing the middle parts have always been one of my weaknesses, because it is the middle. What do write in the middle when all of the action is in the beginning and the end. So I'm going kind of slowly with that.
Until the last day of November! Congratulations to those who have finished already! And good luck to those who, like myself, are still anxiously writing at hyper speed.

NaNoWriMo Week 2

So this week has been quiet the success! Rewarded myself with pumpkin pie after I reached my goal of 25,000! Yay! At the half way point! I had plans to write all weekend, but unfortunately my mortality got in the way. On the night before the weekend officially started (we all know as Friday) I caught the sniffles and Saturday resulted in myself sleeping, sneezing, blowing in various tissues, taking medicine, and laying on the couch as my sinuses ached. It was a miserable Saturday. Then Sunday I was still recovering and my brother and his wife took me out which resulted in watching Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes with my mom for the rest of the day. So I did not get much done this weekend, but hopefully this Saturday and Sunday I will catch up to my word count. At the moment I am super busy, I have mid semester exams so that means study study study! And of course Thanksgiving is coming up! Yay! So after all of the exams and the holiday is done for this week I will be able to be at peace with my writing and left overs!
Hope you all are doing great with NaNoWriMo! Regular posts that are NOT about NaNo will be up after November. And Happy Thanksgiving my American readers! :)

NaNoWriMo Week 1

So here we are first week of NaNo finished! It has been such a roller coaster this first week. I found myself nearly two to three thousand words behind on my word count only two days ago so I had to sit down and write and write and write. I am now (as you can probably see from my word count widget to the right) over 15,000 words in. It has been fun and I have been enjoying every minute of it, even when I got seriously blocked; I had no idea what to write. It was awful!

But enough of my complaining about writer's block; right above the last paragraph are two pictures of the covers I made for my NaNo novel, The World in Orange. And I decided to give you all a summary of what it's mainly about:
Lucy has been a graduate of psychiatry for three years and works in a bookshop not knowing where she wants to go in life. She lives in Washington D.C. and finds herself almost estranged from her close knit family. It isn't that she doesn't want to, she was just afraid of feeling different from them. She wanted to be her own person.

Okay, kind of a terribly summary, but I kind of just came up with it.
So for daily (and sometimes minutely) updates on how NaNoWriMo is doing for me, follow me on Twitter, there is a follow button on the side bar. I also have a Tumblr, follow button also on the side bar. And leave a comment on what you think of the covers or send me an email via the Contact Me page. Hope my fellow NaNoWriMoers are doing well! And a shout out to a fellow NaNoWriMoer that I follow on Twitter who finished!

NaNoWriMo Day 1 and 2

It has been a little while since I've written on my blog. I had been meaning to write an update for Day 1, but I  unfortunately ran out of time. So here is an update for Day 1 and 2!

I did not reach my goal sadly for Day 1. But I hope to catch up for Day 2. If you check out the side bar you will see a NaNoWriMo box that shows how many words I am currently on. Follow me on Twitter for updates at all times of the day and procrastination tweets!
I was very worried because when I first started writing my novel (the title is The World in Orange) I had no idea how to start it. An odd thing about myself when I write, I know how the middle and end is going to be like, it's the beginning that's the problem. Or I know the beginning and the end and it's filling in the middle. One or the other!

But thankfully since it's Friday night where I am I can stay up for the rest of the night and catch up with my word count (3,333 is the number of words I hope to reach up to soon). So coffee and sit on my butt and write. Then I can take a break and maybe watch Ghostbusters or maybe just sit on my bed and read The Grapes of Wrath. All set up for one CRAZY Friday night!

Music has really helped keeping me inspired (and keeping me awake). If anyone is interested in what my NaNoWriMo playlist is, leave a review or send me an email via the Contact Me page!

Till the next update or post! :)

Survival Guide to NaNoWriMo

And so that time of the year again; when authors and writers (including us amateurs) everywhere pop their knuckles and warm up their fingers for NaNoWriMo that starts in nearly 16 days.
Now some of your may be wondering what this even is. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month that takes place during the whole month of November, starting at the first and ending on the last (at midnight of December 1). Each contestant of NaNoWriMo writes a 50,000 word novel in this time span. Crazy? Yeah, but whoever said writers were sane?

Starting this November will be my second year doing NaNoWriMo, but my first year doing the 50,000 word limit (For more on NaNoWriMo follow the link! :). I am still a rookie when it comes to NaNo but hopefully I can share what I did wrong last year and help you all avoid having a mental and/or emotional breakdown from stress during November! :)

1. Don't start late.

    I did start late last year, because I didn't actually hear about NaNoWriMo until November, so my book ended up being a total mess because of bad planning. But if you haven't heard about NaNoWriMo until now, it's okay, just try planning for the next year. Or if you haven't started planning your novel until now... well better get cracking and FAST!

2. Avoid procrastinating

    If you are in school, procrastinating during November will lead to nothing but ultimate disaster. It's okay to take breaks, but if you have a schedule keep to that schedule. Balancing writing a 50,000 word novel in a month, school work, and a social life (that for many writers suffers during November) is tough and it is very easy to lag behind on your word count and school work.

3. Never over drink on ANYTHING!

    Too much caffeine will make you over jittery and for some people (like myself) unable to think because of too many stuff running through their heads at a hundred miles an hour. So good to stick with water or tea.... 

4. Calenders are your best friend

    The month of November on my calender has become my best friend. A lot of contestants for NaNoWriMo follow a technique of writing around 2,000 words a day. So it's good to mark down how many words you wrote a day to make sure you're keeping up with your word count (believe me it is very easy to start lagging behind)

5. Try not to stress out

    If you've done NaNo before you probably heard this before, "Don't to stress out. There's always next year." I hate it when people say that. But seriously, try not to take it too seriously, there is always next year and NaNo is meant to be fun... kind of. But try anything to de-stress yourself at the end of the day or at anytime you feel stress; yoga, tea (avoid the coffee at night), Pilates, a good book, anything to calm yourself. Especially if you are an already stressful person.

So here are some of my tips on what to do during November! I hope you will check out NaNoWriMo, even if you aren't a writer you can try it. It is seriously fun and helps get rid of your inner critic for at least a little while! :)