Finally Over

Half an hour before December 1st, I am happy to say that I finished my 50,000 words. The book is by no means close to finished and I haven't even reached the climax, but I got a good chunk written of this book. In fact, that's the most I've ever written in a month. I got to know my character better and wrote a bunch of terrible scenes and some good-ish scenes that I may not have gotten by "regular grown-up means." That was an Anne Lamott quote, by the way. :) Between college classes, family obligations and getting behind nearly 6,000 words at the end, I actually got it done. Thank goodness I don't have a job yet. Which I'm seriously considering getting, because of a reason I'll probably post on my normal blog soon, once I've actually have time to post, which I'm hoping will be tomorrow after my exam...and practical.

Now that it's over, though, I'm finding, I lack the motivation to write. Maybe it's because I just wrote fifty-stinkin-thousand words and I'm all worn out. Maybe it's because now I don't have a goal. Maybe it's just because of finals this week. I'm literally taking an exam every other day and studying the days in between. Thus is the reason this is a short post, because I've got to study my butt off for two tests tomorrow. So much fun, right? What every the reason is, I'll overcome it and hopefully by the end of Christmas break, I'll be done. We'll see, though, won't we. Pray for me!

Last race to the end!

I've got my music. I've got my milk and cookies. I've got my candle and I've got my prayers. I'm preparing for my mad dash to the finish line. My sisters have already crossed it and I'm plodding along behind, delayed by such roadblocks as schoolwork, finals, procrastination, writer's block and days when I didn't do any writing.

I'm tired, I'll say that. This story has been exhilarating and exhausting. Oh, it'll need major rewriting. I've developed this habit over the course of the last month of closing my eyes and letting my fingers fly without letting me know what they're typing. So, quite honestly, much of what's happened this month is largely unknown to me. I know for a fact though, that it's terrible. Terrible writing. Generic verbs. Adjectives galore. Whiny characters. Oh, heaven help us! In the words of Anne Lamott:

"The whole thing would be so long and incoherent and hideous that for the rest of the day I'd obsess about getting creamed by a car before I could write a decent second draft. I'd worry that people would read what I'd written and believe the accident had really been a suicide, that I had panicked because my talent was waning and my mind was shot."

I'll fix it though. All bestselling novels began like this. Climax is drawing near. Soon. Soon.

Don't be silly. I have a plot. I just need to
figure out how to execute it in an
 inspiring way. A way that does justice to
 the real story. That's my problem...

I want to put a couple quotes about writing on here, to inspire those of you who are like me and are putting everything in them toward that finish line.

"What one writer can make in the solitude of one room is something no power can easily destroy." --Salman Rushdie

"The goal, I suppose, any fiction writer has, no matter what your subject, is to hit the human heart and the tear ducts and the nape of the neck and to make a person feel something about what the characters are going through  and to experience the moral paradoxes and struggles of being human." --Tim O'Brien

"For a true writer, each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed." --Ernest Hemingway 

"I am not a consecutive writer." --Dr. Seuss

"As a writer, one of the things I've always been interested in doing is actually invading your comfort space. Because that's what we're supposed to do. Get under your skin, and make you react." --Stephen King 

"The writer has to force himself to work. He has to make his own hours and if he doesn't go to his desk at all, there is nobody to scold him." --Roald Dahl

"A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer." --Karl Kraus

"A writer uses a pen instead of a scalpel or blow torch. --Michael Ondaatje

"A writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. His problem is to find that location." --Flannery O'Connor

"A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom." --Roald Dahl

"Every human being has hundreds of separate people living under his skin. The talent of a writer is his ability to give them their separate names, identities, personalities and have them relate to other characters living with him." --Mel Brooks

"All the writing elements are the same. You need to tell a good story... You've got good characters... People think there's some dramatic difference between writing 'Little Bear' and the 'Hunger Games,' and as a writer, for me, there isn't." --Suzanne Collins

"I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities." --Dr. Seuss

"To be a dramatic writer takes hard work, talent, and discipline. And that's why I just make up crap." --Colin Mochrie

"You can mope and cry all you want, but it won't help you write a better novel." --Gilbert Blythe 

 

 Come on! Let's do this thing! We can do it. 

*cringe* this is 3-4 days late

Okay, so I'm the terriblest blogger ever. And yes, I's a writer and I's knows my grammar and my vocabulary, and terriblest is a word. (not really) I think I might be going just a little bit crazy. No seriously. Okay. Maybe not. But crazy people don't know they're crazy. I know I'm crazy, therefore, I'm not crazy. Isn't that crazy. (Jack Sparrow, anyone?)

Don't forget school,
homework and school.
Oh, and wait! School!

Ooooohhhhhh....I'm so tired. Guess what all decided to happen in the month of November. Thanksgiving and...wait for it...finals! Yay, right? Well, in all technicality finals aren't in November, but they are in the first week of December. Or is it the second? I don't know. I'm tired. In any case, I've got to be studying my butt off to make sure I actually pass them. I've got a four page paper due (I know it's not a lot, but I haven't even started on it and it's due next Monday. Heck, I don't even know hardly anything about my subject.) Biology has been taking up all my time. I'm supposed to have memorized 65 muscles by tomorrow. I was supposed to do them at the beginning of the semester and *ahemdon'ttellmyprofessor* I only know about half of them. It's not a problem of where they are. Oh, no that's easy. I've also got to memorize the technical name of where they insert on both ends, some of which have three or four each. And I've got to memorize what they do, which often also have three or four different answers. All that to say, I'm behind on my word count. I'm consistantly 3000-3500 words behind. For example, I have 3500 to get in one day. I do 2000. Okay, so I've got 1500 to do tomorrow. But wait, I've got an extra 1700 to write on top of that. So I'm now at 3200 the next day. It feels like I'm treading water and going nowhere.

Anyone struggle with procrastination?
Ooh, look I haven't blogged this week
like I'm supposed to. *ahem*

You might be able to easily tell I'm in the middle of NaNo. The part where you ramble on for pages on end just to meet your depleted word count. The part where you can't go back and edit, because you'll end up reading all 160 pages before you get to writing and who knows how long that will take. So...forgive me for my rambling.

I diagnosed my character finally. 120 pages into the novel, I finally diagnosed her. I have a feeling that half of my novel is going to have to be removed at the end of NaNo. I'm writing so many pointless scenes. My character also keep repeating herself with I-suppose-es and I-can't-seem-to-s
and I-wish-I-didn't-have-to-blah-s as well as way to many adjectives, -ly words and cliche descriptions like 'good' and 'nice.' It's getting on my nerves quite honestly.

The thing I'm struggling with most is coming up with plot points. In my interview with Bekah, she even told me, "Lyme disease is really boring." Think about it: you've lost mobility and you can't be around a lot of people. You can hardly even move. And that's my problem. I'm having trouble with making a interesting story out of this. B
ecause even if having the disease is boring, your readers can't be. And the story, itself, isn't boring at all, just the little in between parts. Like having to lay in bed for a month watching TV. Every scene is supposed to push your story forward in some way. Laying in bed isn't doing anything for the plot. A lot of it has to be dialogue and inner thoughts.

So, needless to say, this story is hard. I'm hoping to publish it once I'm done, though, so I'm pushing through. Because the point of this story is written to be read. I mean, most stories are, but this one more than others I've written. Because I'm writing it to make a difference and if no one can read it, there's no difference made. So...yeah. It's my battle. And I'm going to fight it bravely. Or maybe not so bravely. :)

Lastly, I need help: My character's dad needs to stalk her and eventually take her. I don't know what his motivation is, though. That's a problem, right? Could she maybe have seen him do something illegal that could send him back to jail so he's trying to make sure she doesn't call the police on him? If so, what could she catch him doing? Ideas anyone?

So, I'll let you go about your day. Pray for my sanity. :P

First week of NaNo

So, first week of NaNo. This was interesting. :) I have 10,600ish words so far. That was a third of my goal for last year. It's been a really up and down first week. 

Midnight, November 1st: lit a candle, made some tea and cranked out 3,000 words. Later that day I got in another 1,000 words in a kickoff party my writer's group had. 

November 2nd: Fairly normal. I had a practical and school, so all of the writing I did, I had to do in the morning. 

November 3rd: Lost my head start. Only wrote 400 words. 

November 4th: Somehow I got 2,000 even though I had school that day. 

November 5th: Got another 2,000 be cause every Thursday our writer's group goes to one of our houses, sits around the table, drinks tea, eats scones or cookies or mini pumpkin pies (those were good) and writes their heart out. 

November 6th: Nothing

November 7th: I've gotten all of 500 words down. 

 This scene I'm writing is absolutely worthless, but if I discard it, I loose everything I did today. Blegh. So not in the writing mood today. Which is kind of weird. I'm being the procrastinator we all know me to be. :) See, I even won a procrastination badge!

I'll give you a sample of my thought process today: 

'Okay. Gonna write.' Opens document. 'Nothing's happening.' Opens NaNoWriMo. 'Maybe I can word war. Okay. Going in at :45.' Writes for fifteen minutes. 'Only 274 words. Seriously? That's the best I can do. This scene is useless. I need to delete it. But it's in my outline, so I can't. Dang. I need a shower. Ooh! I wonder how I can start a thread in the forums. I have something I want to post.' Spends the next forty-five minutes trying to figure it out. Spends fifteen minutes actually posting in the forum. 'Ooh, ooh. There's one of my old books. I'm going to read it.' Reads through the next hundred pages. 'I don't like this part. I need to go clean my room. It's a mess.' Goes upstairs and spends two hours cleaning the room. 'I'm going to organize my PJ bin. It's spilling out all over the place.' Organizes PJ bin. 'Oh, I should probably clean out my closet. Mom and Dad wanted me to bring my hope chest upstairs so it's not in the walkway.' Cleans closet and brings hope chest up. 'I need to do my sheets too.' Strips my sheets and puts them in the wash. Sits down at the computer again. 'I'll try another word war. Just five minutes this time. Going it at :25. This scene is useless, but who cares? Still churning out words. 95 words? That's pathetic. Oh, look there's my blog. And it's Saturday. I need to post.' 

And here you find me. Some how I managed 500 words, though I can't really see how...

Anyway. This story's chugging along. It's not the story it's me. I'm just not in the mood right now. Maybe I will go and take a shower. I'm babysitting in a half hour. I have time. Hmm.... I have an idea. I'll make this productive and brainstorm in the shower. That's an idea. Okay, well, I'm out. Wish me luck!  

 Sort of...

Understand

Sorry for that delay. I think part of my problem for this post is that it's so difficult to put in words what I'm feeling right now. A lot of you writers know this: that words are so inadequate to get a feeling across. But I'll try, so here goes...

I'm sure I'll never quite grasp the pain Bekah had to go through while battling Lyme. But I think I may be beginning to. I've intensively read most of her posts from the time of her diagnosis to the time of her healing and I've been putting my character into her situation. Now those insane writers out there know this, that characters are a part of your heart. Like your baby. Your word baby. So, putting her through this lets me grasp the pain and the heartache it took for Bekah to get through this. I'm drained from simply outlining this story and I haven't even started writing yet. I mean, I don't even know if I'd survive if I were put in her situation.

This is an amazing story and I just hope I end up telling it right. :)

I would suggest going to her blog, here, and reading her story.

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) starts at midnight tonight and I'm going to bed early (hopefully) and getting up at midnight to write like the wind. I'm ready to get all these stinkin' words out on the page. Wish me luck! :)

I'm going to try and figure out how to post a widget on the sidebar to track my progress as I enter it into NaNoWriMo.

Here's to NaNo!

Can't Kill Me

Pain

I’m gonna fight.

Pills for pain; pills to kill what’s killing me

Pain

I’m gonna fight

Inhaling hurts; exhaling hurts

Pain

I’m gonna fight

Can’t walk; can’t run; can’t barely eat

Pain

I’m gonna fight

I’m taking me back.

I’m gonna fight through the pain

Through the tears

Through the lonely

I’m gonna fight

Because it can’t kill me

Pain

Can’t kill me

Tears

Can’t kill me

Lonely

Can’t kill me

Pills

Can’t kill me

No matter how hard they try

Courage through pain

Finding me

Copyrighted to Hannah De

Book covers

Swing left. Swing right. Bruised and black-eyed. Half alive. Bleeding. Choking. But not broken inside. Somehow through it all I'll stand still undefeated...You can knock me down with body blows, but you cannot break my hope.                                                                                                                                                          ~Undefeated by: Daughtry 

I'm working on an outline for this story at the moment. My mom bought Scrivener, so...yay! I'm preparing for NaNoWriMo. I'm going to attempt to do the 50,000 word goal, which will only work if I can't get stuck. Thus, the outline. Last year I wrote half that, so....yeah. We'll see how that goes with college and all. Wish me luck.

I don't have a ton to post on, since I haven't had a lot of time to write. :'( Sometimes I don't like growing up.

A thought, before I go: One thing I've been noticing about writing this book is the power of names. The lies my character believes are solely based on names she's been called in her past. People tend to slap a word on your forehead before they've even met you. Everyone has been called a name. Whether it be good or bad. It affects the way we think about ourselves.

I'm going to post a bunch of book covers and you can vote on which ones you like in a poll I'll put to the side. I know a lot of them are the same-ish. Comment and tell me why you picked which ones you picked. :)

1. 

2. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

6. 

Finished!

Here's to the memories. These are my souvenirs....I close my eyes and go back in time. I can see you smiling. You're so alive....Nothing lasts forever.     ~Souvenirs by: Switchfoot

 I guess I probably should let you know that I've finished Dawn. This book marked a couple of milestones in my author journey.

1. I officially went insane on this book and talked to the characters. They haunted me and ignored me and got mad at me and talked to me. 
2. At 254 pages and 68,264 words, it's the longest book I've ever written by more than two times. 

My characters came alive and I love them to death. I almost cried killing Chris in the beginning and as much as I enjoyed writing this story, I was tortured along with Ray and Aura. I'm sorry, both of you. I love you, if that helps anything. And I'll miss you. 

View my synopsis here. 

If you're interested in reading it, comment and I'll send it to you. I need help editing. Major help. :) 

Farther along we'll know all about it. Farther along we'll understand why....We'll understand this all by and by.... I wondered why the good man cried, the bad man thrived.      ~ Farther Along by: Josh Garrels

Winner!

I've officially reached 60,000 words! I've got 220 pages and 76 chapters. My characters are officially grating on my nerves and I hope to finish Dawn by this weekend. Wish me luck!