December 8, 2008
A few summers ago, between one semester and the next, I picked up No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days at the library. I remember a general sense of being amused and intrigued, but not enough to be really inspired. When I found out there was a website, I was even surprised.
Now as you know, I attempted to join this year’s NaNoWriMo challenge but dropped out after I decided to apply to graduate school. Tonight I sent off two portions of the text I wrote at that time to Shiver who was pretty amused by it. She said my writing had improved. When I was researching writing tips, I had gotten a few ideas on how to make my writing more accessible and less sucky and incorporated them. The basic idea there was: sentence variation.
I still haven’t picked back up on my book because [click to continue...]
November 8, 2008
Since I have officially decided to embark on applying to grad school as of today, I am postponing my NaNo which means I won’t be a winner for this year’s competition (nor next year since I’ll be in grad school…), but I’ll pick it up later. I’m disappointed that I cannot meet my goal, but this is a little bit more important. I will finish it in December.
So my new plans are that I have to take the GRE on 11/17. I will be studying intensively to try and boost my score. I need a min. of 50% to be accepted into UNC or UNCG. Tomorrow I will be writing up my essay and asking three people to write my recommendation letters.
My choices:
1) Susan, my work supervisior.
2) Mrs. Thompson, my high school librarian who arranged my informerical interview
3) Ida, my teacher from UNCA in costume construction and design. I did some research projects for her last year.
I’m nervous but I know that once I apply myself to something, I will pursue it full-throttle.
November 2, 2008
1556
I’m behind since I’ve gotten sick. Not sure if its a cold or the flu. I used MindTweak’s suggestion to use WriteItNow as the software program for writing my NaNo book. It’s working pretty well so far.
I’ve gotten a little bit lost on how to work on the beginning so I’ve skipped to another section. Thank goodness for not writing this in Word! I’d just get lost trying to keep up. I’m hoping to break even before I go to bed.
November 1, 2008
I’m writing my first novel this month. I’ve joined the National Novel Writing Month challenge. At the end of these 30 days, I’ll have a short novel to proudly show off. One of the rules is that I must tell others what I’m doing to keep the pressure on me to not falter and give up. So here is my proclamiation that I will do this! :-)
Care to join in?
October 29, 2008
A couple years ago I came across this book about writing a novel in 30 days. Little did I know at the time that there are thousands of people who participated in this challenge each November. For the last few years I’ve been too busy with school to participate. However, now I’m out of college and still have not found that non-retail job so I have some extra time on my hands. I’m going to do this.
Then tonight I found MindTweaks, a blog that had this inspiring article on how to prepare for NaNo. I’m batting around a couple ideas, but it’ll be a challenge either way. It’s a good thing I’ve already written 35+ short stories so far this year. Now to hammer out a novella-length piece? That is going to be a challenge.
I am ready!
