NaNoWriMo 2013!

Yup, it's that time of year again guys! NaNoWriMo time!

This is my third year taking part in NaNoWriMo. The first year went well, or so I thought, until I read back over what I'd written. Ha! What a total mess -  but I was a 'winner', so YAY! Last year was kind of a mess as I decided to keep blogging as well as participating in NaNoWriMo - so that didn't go so well! (I also decided to do some editing as I wrote, which I know is forbidden, so I will try not to do that again!)

This year, I'm more organised, at least blogging-wise. It'll probably be a little quieter around here during the month of November, and reviews may go on the backburner. I have some pretty great guest posts lined up, though, so keep an eye out for those!

Okay, so since I'm SO organised this year, I'm actually writing this post like a week in advance of NaNoWrimo kicking off, and as such, I haven't really given much thought to what my novel will be all about.  Usually I write contemp with a paranormal twist and lots and lots of romance, so this year I'll probably do something similar. I'm thinking witches this year. I've always wanted to write something witchy! I was actually going to write a 'New Adult' novel this time round, but I've kind of gone off the idea now. However, it may still happen at some point!

To keep up with my progress, add me as a friend and we can be writing buddies! :) I'm shutterbug_99 over there.

If you're taking part in NaNoWriMo, let me know. I'd love to hear all about your novel and if you have any top tips, feel free to share! 


P.S: If you'd like to take part in NaNoWriMo but don't quite feel like writing a great, big 50k words, why not check out this collaborative novel idea from Grammerly called GrammoWriMo - it sounds pretty cool! First and last lines of the collaborative novel will be provided by published NaNoWriMo author Gayle Brandeis. Follow grammowrimo on Twitter to find out more!

NaNoWriMo 2012 - Here I Go Again!

Current Day: 4

Word Count: 4,298 / 50,000

At This Rate You Will Finish On: December 16th 2012. 

(Better get writing!)

Hi guys! It's that time of year again - NaNoWriMo time!  NaNo 2011 was the first time I had ever really tried out creative writing and I had a ton of fun with it, so much so that I'm participating again this year.

I got to 50,000 words last year, but you know what - those words sucked. All of them! I read over my manuscript from last year now and cringe!! I'm not churning words out this year at the same rate as I was in 2011, but the words I am getting down are definitely not as sucky as the crap I wrote last year. So that's good!

Also, my big struggle last year was with dialogue. I had written essays forever, but I'd never written dialogue. It was so alien to me. I'm glad to say that the dialogue is flowing much easier this year!

Are you participating in NaNoWriMo? How's it going for you? And what are you writing about? I'd love to hear your NaNo journey!

My story is Paranormal YA.  Here's the synopsis I posted over on the site: 

Secrets never spoken....promises broken....dark parties....a dance with the devil....and you can never tell...

Paranormal YA - hot guys, bad girls and the summer when everything turned strange. 

 You can add me as a writing buddy! I'm Shutterbug_99 

Because I'll be spending November on NaNoWriMo things will be quieter than usual on the blog.  I won't disappear completely, but I won't be posting every day.  Jen, Liz and Emily will be along with some great reviews this month and I also have a bunch of author interviews and some giveaways lined up!

Now, back to writing!

NaNoWriMo 2011 - I'm a Winner!!

 Yay! I did it!

NaNoWriMo 2011 proved to be third time lucky for me. This is the first time I've ever actually written a word towards NaNoWriMo but I first signed up in 2009, and then I thought about it again last year. I guess this year I was ready!

To everyone who got to 50k this year - Congratulations! It was touch and go with me for a while, but I got a writing spurt a few nights back and wrote 5k in two hours and that's what saved me.  Then, and yes, you'll laugh, when I went to validate my novel yesterday I missed a chunk of paragraphs at the end of my WIP (this tells you what a mess my WIP is!) and ended up with 48,000 words instead of 50,000. Panic stations! It was pointed out to me on twitter though that this shouldn't have really happened, so I went and double checked, and phew, I made it!

If you didn't get to 50k this year - then better luck next year and be proud of those words you did write!

What do I do now?

I'm going to re-read my 50k in a few days and see if it all makes any sense to me. I know it's a total mess right now, and the story is totally unfinished but maybe there's something there...you never know. I'll keep working on it!

Also, now the search for the hot boys name begins. I've already brainstormed with my sister and we came up with nothing that suits him just right. My boyfriend told me to call him Ernest(?!!) I think naming him could take forever!

Will I do NaNoWriMo 2012?

Yes, I think so! I thought it was a lot of fun! 

Did you participate in NaNoWriMo 2011?

How was it for you?

What's next for your novel?

Oooh, and look! I got this pretty certificate too.

I think I should frame it! ;)

To anyone who left encouraging comments and helpful advice on my NaNo progress reports - Thank You! It all helped! :)

NanoWriMo 2011 - Almost there!

Current Day: 23

Word Count:  40,014

Almost there!

With just over a week to go until the end of the month, I'm sticking to my daily word counts and still enjoying the whole NaNoWriMo experience. Why didn't I try this before?

First of all I'd like to say a special thanks to AshHadAns. In my last update, I was fretting about dialogue and worried that it wasn't coming naturally to me. I was re-reading and nitpicking and doing all the wrong things, and then this piece of advice:

I have a lot of problem with dialogue, too. I kept going back and obsessing over what I had already written that it was really slowing my word count down. So now I just write it as it comes out and don't look back. At the end when you do your edits then you can re-read it and see how it flows and if stuff needs to change. The whole point of NaNo is not to produce a publishable ready book, it's just for the word count. And that thought has really helped my writing a lot. I'm getting through the story faster and skipping to my favorite scenes and shooting them out in just a couple days each.

Totally worked for me - thanks!

Will I make it to 50,000?

The word count shouldn't be a problem. I still have so much of my story to tell (probably too much - more on that later), but I'm away this weekend, and I won't have time to write. Well, I will, but I don't know how well I'll be received if I shut myself away in my room and write for the whole weekend. Hopefully I can sneak an hour or two, though. Even if I don't get to 50,000 I plan on sticking with this thing and finishing it. I've had a lot of fun with it, and I've kind of got a book crush on my own book boy (I still haven't given him a name - ridiculous, I know!) I have to find the perfect name. Sometimes I'm so turned off characters in books because they have the wrong name, although I get over it if they're hot enough!

I Go Round in Circles

I thought that writing 50,000 words or getting anywhere near it would be impossible for me, but I haven't even gotten to the fun part of the book yet, and I'm at 40,000. I'm well aware that there's a lot of trash in there though - abandoned story arc's, a lot of notes to self and TK's. I'm also concentrating way too much on the relationship, which is fun, but I've definitely been drifting way too much into soppy territory at times. Both characters have said a couple things that have made me cringe! I'm still avoiding Insta-Love, but I've given into Insta-Lust. Hey, it happens! Still, this is something of a summer romance situation, and they tend to happen quickly. 

Also, I now totally get what authors say about their characters talking to them, invading their dreams, invading their lives! They totally do that!

The Paranormal Element

I've been concentrating so much on all the relationship stuff that CHAOS has turned into something of a contemporary romance, which, er, its not meant to be. I want the paranormal element, and it is still there, although I can't write detailed account of this particular paranormal element here without research, because I don't really know what I'm talking about.  Still, the relationship stuff is cute, and the boy is cute, and I've just discovered that he's been hurt pretty badly in the past. I didn't know that about him before. This led me to some very interesting discoveries...

What do I do if I get there?

I have a question. OK, this is probably explained on the site somewhere...If I do get to 50,000 do I just automatically become a winner with my word count or do I have to verify it somehow? I could probably figure this out myself if I looked for an FAQ or something, I know...

That's all for now! 

I will update next week when I'll either a be a winner or a loser! ;)

To anyone else taking part let me know how your NaNo is working out! Good Luck in the final week!

NaNoWriMo 2011 - Progress Report!

Current day: 10

Word Count/end of day 9:  15,287.

Hello from NaNoWriMo!

After a whole two years of my participation in NaNoWriMo resulting in a grand total of ZERO words, I'm really surprising myself this year by sticking with it, and finding out that writing is actually fun. Who knew!

Before I embarked on NaNoWriMo I had a couple of concerns. While I knew that ideas wouldn't be a major problem for me,  I was worried about the sheer quantity of the words required for this project. 50,000 words! Eeek! It seems like such a lot, and it is, especially when you consider that the most I'd ever written before now was a thesis, and I had a whole year to write, research and perfect that. The words don't seem to be a problem, though. I'm not going to lie and say that I'm not just a little bit impressed with my word count, because I am. I'm pretty shocked too. I haven't even spent all that much time on my project. That said, I haven't read back over what I've written either, and I know if I did, then I'd probably laugh. A lot!

My second concern revolved around writing dialogue. I was and still am slightly intimidated by writing dialogue. I'm used to writing a certain way, and it's a way that has never involved dialogue between characters, so that is all new to me.  If anyone has tips to share on writing dialogue,  I'd love to hear them!

A little bit about my WIP :

I started this without a plan.  I knew I wanted to write YA and I knew I wanted to include some kind of paranormal, magical or fantastical element in the story. I also knew that I didn't want to write anything involving vampires, werewolves, angels etc. I love all of that stuff, but I wanted to do something different.  I was maybe 5,000 words into the story and getting along quite nicely with my MC, (I'm going to refer to her as L here) when I started wondering what strange element I would add to the story. Not gonna lie, I researched a little(I hear you are not supposed to do this! lol!), and I think I stumbled on a pretty fun idea. At least, its nothing that I've read about in YA before, although I'm sure its out there somewhere, in some form.  The working title of my project is CHAOS which lets you know that all sorts of bad stuff is going to happen! Poor L.

Some discoveries and a confession:

Remember when I said I was going to read my teenage diaries while participating in NaNoWrimo? Well, I read a few entries of mine and *confession* while I have complained quite a few times in my reviews about Insta-Love in YA novels, I discovered that as a teen I was quite prone to the odd bout of Insta-Love myself. *cringe!!* Also, L keeps on getting herself into situations where her possible love interest might kiss her, and I keep having to pull her out of that situation and tell her that she'll have to save it for later. This girl needs to learn how to play hard to get.  She's suffering from a bad case of Insta-Lust, and I don't want that to happen. Not yet anyway.  It's not going to be an easy road for L and mystery boy.

The name situation:

L's mystery boy doesn't yet have a name. I resisted Jay. I so wanted to call him Jay! And then I so wanted to call him Alex! And then I realised I couldn't do that because my favourite book boys are Jay and Alex, and well, I was never going to call him Patch after another of my favourite book boys. Uh, no. There might be a dog in the story - maybe I could call him Patch instead. Ha! So, I started referring to this hot guy by his surname, which is believable as a whole lot of guys I know are called by their surnames. Thing is the surname seems to have stuck, which is a good thing in a way because I love the name, and it works as both a first name and surname. Then yesterday I decided to google the name to check its origins and to take a look at the meaning of the name (just out of curiosity - his name doesn't have to have any special meaning) and I learned that the meaning of the name is something hideously ugly! Actually, it kind of made me laugh a lot, but now I don't know if I'll use the name, even though I've become quite attached to it.

If  I was planning this thing properly I would probably spend hours and hours researching names, but for now I have L and a boy with a dirty (it's seriously nothing that you're thinking right now!!) name.

p.s L does have an  name. I'm just not sure if that's her actual, final name as I just went with the first name I thought of when I started writing this.

p.p.s No, it's not Leanna.:D

That's all for my update. I'll try to update again soon!

I hope everyone else who's participating in NaNo is doing well and having fun with it, especially all my awesome writing buddies on there!

NaNoWriMo 2011 - I'm taking part!

As usual I'm late to the party!

 I decided just yesterday to sign up to NaNoWriMo and as I'm not a planner, I really have no idea where I'm going with this.  However, I just completed my word count for the day (2,128 words so far!) and it was fun! My novel will be YA, but I don't have a title as yet, nor do I have a synopsis. I do have a whole load of ideas though, and a whole load of teenage diaries to delve into. If nothing else, reading back through them should be, er, interesting!

I've thought about doing NaNoWriMo for the past two years and I've never written a word, so I'm already making more progress than I've ever made before. If it continues to go well, I'll update with my progress here. Most of my writing up to now has been academic (I have a degree in History and English literature) but I've never done any creative writing before, and I have no background in it, so wish me luck! 

If you want to add me as a writing buddy, my username is shutterbug_99. I know a couple of my blogger buddies are taking part in NaNoWriMo, but since I wasn't paying attention until yesterday, I haven't found any of you on there yet.  I'd love to have NaNo chats as the month progresses so add me if you like! :) I'll be updating my progress on Twitter too.