December comes rolling in...

First and foremost, I'd like to say one thing:

I really didn't enjoy NaNo.

From what I've heard, most of the population of NaNo writers love or loved NaNo. I guess I'm not of the majority. Not sure if that's a good thing, or a bad thing. But the truth is, I suppose I just didn't really get into the writing zone, or my NaNo novel. Everything felt dull and pointless, and I wasn't motivated at all. It didn't help that schoolwork (a whole lot of schoolwork) was in my way. I suppose either Shadowed or Thumbelina didn't work out for me. Or maybe, it was because I was still so caught up in Depravity and Incandescent that all I could think about were demon slayers and not faeries and shadows. And what-not.

Which is why I finished NaNo with a messed up 30,535 words.

Am I going to start back up on Shadowed again? Maybe. I've never gotten such a creative idea before, and I'm still somewhat excited about it. But I'm not known for going back to old, unfinished novels. So maybe not.

As for Depravity, I'm doing fairly well. I'm more than a third in with my revisions, which are really tedious and annoying, but interesting all the same. For Depravity's sequel, Incandescent, I haven't written much, but I've gotten some pretty good ideas. This must mean something, right? I might not have won NaNo, but I at least had gotten somewhere with my Ascendancy Series.

Along with Depravity and Incandescent, I'm starting a third, 8,000-word novel for a Fiction Novel Writing Contest. Winner gets $1000. I'm not doing it for the money though. Not...really. I'm doing it because I'm just curious. I've never entered a contest before. It'd be good experience, wouldn't it? I have some pretty good ideas for my 8,000-word novel, but I don't have at title, and not many character names. Ah well. It'll happen soon enough. The submission deadline is January 15th, so I better get a move on.

Oh. And it's snowing over here...unfortunately.

- E

Being Dormant...

A quick notice before I get to writing for awhile.
This blog will be dormant until, pretty much, nano is over. I'm seriously behind and I can't afford to update anything anymore at all....aggh. Not that my updates would be lengthy anyway. They'd probably just consist of a bunch of word counts and such. Nothing too important or big.

So! If you want to know how I'm doing, just drop by on Nano. My username is, creatively put, "writerella".

Thanks a lot guys and I hope to be posting more in December!

- E

Way Behind.

Today marks, pretty much, the 7th day of Nano. And how much have I written?
Well so far: 3,600 words.

If that isn't sad, I don't know what is.

With Depravity, I had procrastinated, but I had written more than 100,000 words in a few months. But with Nano, I won't have a few months. I only have one. And being the careful planner that I am, I've realized that I need to write 1,800 words each day in order to reach my more-than-50,000 words goal. With this being day 7, I'm supposed to have around 12,000 words already.

But I don't.

I need 9,000 more, which I can't do in one day. I'll have to stretch this out again, like I had during my first draft of Depravity (when I reached 90,000 words). I'll be less busy now, at least.

- E

And Nano Begins.

It's almost 7 PM where I am, which means Nano is definitely underway. There are probably thousands of witers out there right now, writing furiously, their pencils or fingers flying across the paper or keyboard. Their minds are going at least a mile a minute, concentrating only on the goal ahead of them: to complete a 50,000 word novel in the span of the month of November.

At least, that's what I'm assuming right now, being a newbie in this whole Nano business.

I'm not sure how to take this whole entire thing--the first actual writing event I've ever entered willingly. Should I be jumping up and down, squealing in excitement and anticipation? Should I be slamming on my laptop, pounding those deep beginning scenes I've pictured over and over in my head of my novel? Or should I be writing this blog post, talking about nothing significant?

I know what I should be doing, and it's definitely not the last one.

But even with that in mind, I don't know what the heck is wrong with me. I keep on saying, Come on Ella, you need to get to Word and start typing away. I keep on telling myself that, but both my mind and body won't obey. It's pretty ironic, but I think it's my procrastinating self speaking to me.

However, once I do get everything under control, I swear I'll start writing, right after I dig up those sheets of paper and notebook that have my plans in. I don't have much of a feeling of how this month will turn out, but I hope it'll be a nice first experience.

And I wish all of the Nano writers out there luck--and enough coffee and chocolate to last a life time.

- E

Depravity: Wordle.

From FictionPress and Let The Words Flow author/contributor Julie Eshbaugh, I've discovered a new way to revise my drafts: Wordle!

I've only used Wordle once in my whole entire life; I don't usually use generated softwares or anything too much. Instead, I'm more of a GIMP or Photoshop (though I stick with GIMP) type of person. That's how I release my technological creativity. I don't tend to use sites such as Wordle or anything.

But then, I discovered this revision process! I'm not going to get into it too much since Julie Eshbaugh already took care of that, and you can view her blog post.

And now, here's mine:

- E

Problems with Action Scenes.

So after finally getting to my draft 6 revisions, or making notes for draft 7, I've realized something.

I'm pretty awful when it comes to action scenes.

Going through my first official action scene, I've ended up with about a dozen notes on one page. It's pretty sad:

That would be half of the page.

I wonder if this'll be what Shadowed looks like, once I revise it. Well, if I win Nano, anyway. Hopefully I do. There's less than 2 weeks before Nano begins, and I'm getting kind of worried...

- E

Revisions Commence

I was supposed to have started my 7th daft a long time ago, but decided against it through all of homework and other sorts of things that just got in the way. But right now, I'm going to start. I'm going to read Depravity from start to finish, without taking down any notes. I'm going to focus only on what I have right now.

And then I'll figure out what to do from there.

I think it's a pretty good plan, although I've never gotten this far on any novel before. Hopefully I'll also get this far with Shadowed, unless I finish the revisions way before draft 7th. Depravity is, in a way, much more complicated than Shadowed. Which is good, because it took me 2 years to write Depravity's 1st complete manuscript. And I only have 1 month for Shadowed.

So here I go. And wish me luck!

- E