I'm a NaNo winner for 2020

 

Tis official - I am a NaNo winner for 2020!

This has been a pretty good year NaNo-wise. I first finished one of my unfinished projects, a novella that is part of my SUNDOWN series and one that has been hanging around for years.

Next, I moved back into another unfinished project (FOLLOW) which I had been struggling with somewhat, having neared the 'saggy middle'. I got over that hurdle and moved into calmer waters, so the writing went well.

I've hit 50k, and will keep going for the rest of November (and beyond, I assume). I'd love to get this story finished as well.

I'm a little sad that I didn't get to start my new project (titled HOME), but maybe I can do my very first Camp NaNoWriMo next year and work on that story for that.

My critique partner has also had a great NaNo, and has already hit 50k as well. So we're both pretty happy with how we've gone, and no doubt we'll be helping each other in the critiquing department with what we've written sometime in the near future.

How is your writing going? I hope you're having some successes too, even if you don't do NaNoWriMo!

A FOLLOW playlist: https://www.last.fm/user/earthcrossing/playlists/11908723

Has it really been a year already?? Gosh! [NaNoWriMo 2020]

Hello all. I can't believe it's been a year since I last updated this blog. Admittedly it has been one hell of a crazy year, and not just because of the whole COVID-19 situation.

 

Here at home, I have been involved in a huge project at work which has taken up a lot of my time and concentration. As a result, my creative work has really taken a side seat and I've missed it so much. Only in the last month or so did I get back to doing some writing (mostly revision of an existing work), but for the most part it's been a quite creatively 'barren' year.

But of course I'm back to writing for NaNoWriMo 2020! No matter what situation I'm in, I just can't ever seem to miss this event.

I've got three projects I'm working on, and two of them have already been started. I'm hoping to finish at least one during NaNo this year, but time will tell. The third project is a brand new one which has been largely plotted out so should be good to go, but I'd rather finish these lingering stories first.

I hope all of you are doing really well! I haven't forgotten you, trust me - it's just been one of those years. Actually, no, it's not been like any other year that any of us have personally experienced. I'm sure you all understand.

I'm NaNoing this year too

I just wanted to quickly update to say that I am indeed participating in NaNoWriMo this year.

The new site has taken a lot of getting used to, and I know that many users are grappling with the extreme bugginess of the site. Clearly it wasn't quite ready to go at launch time on November 1st, but sometimes you get lucky and find workarounds that work for you.

One of the biggest problems people are facing is the inability to use the default type of word count updating method - the "total words" option. For me, adding words written during each session is working, but it doesn't work for everyone. And for me, adding my overall word count total does NOT work. It looks like it's updated, but when you refresh and go back to it, the word count has reverted to the old count.

I count myself lucky to only have that problem, where other people are having what sounds like an infuriating issue with their projects being deleted / disappearing over and over again. They've had to add it back repeatedly, and some seem just about ready to give up.

I'm hoping that many of these teething issues will be resolved soon, but it seems like the NaNo team is very short-staffed, and they're dealing with what looks like thousands of complaints. So it can't be a fun time for them right now!

As for my actual writing? I am working on adding words to pre-existing projects. The main project is one that I had to do some corrections for before November 1st, because I had previously stalled at a certain point of the book. I had to revise my plan for how the story was going, as it just didn't seem to be working. So that was done before November began, and while it was a little slow getting back into the story, I feel like it's flowing nicely now. These are my first projects where I'm writing to a beat sheet, and I'm hoping that when I get to the revision stage, I'll find myself with far less of a mess than I have in the past (in my pantsing days). Time will tell!

I went to a kick-off party which was a lot of fun, and I'll go to the November 30th Write Night for my region too. All in all, I just love NaNo and always get sucked into doing it, even in those years when I'm not sure I should.

Is anyone else doing NaNo too?

Point Book re-reads - 2019

This year I am continuing with my goal of re-reading titles in my vast collection of pre-teen Point books that were super popular when I was in primary school. The purpose of re-reading these books is:

1. To love how extremely late-80s/early-90s the books are now, in hindsight
2. To laugh at the ridiculousness at some of the plots/descriptions/etc
3. To bask in nostalgia
4. To remember what the heck those books were actually about.

So far this year, I've re-read these two:

My Secret Admirer (Carol Ellis)

General thoughts:
I actually didn't remember much about this one, except I had a vague recollection of the cliff area (the Rimrocks). This book wasn't too bad, but wasn't one of my favourites either.

Jenny had a case of insta-love with David, but then he didn't really show up much in the whole story. Still, I was oddly convinced by their love. Ha.

I liked that every guy Jenny knew was a suspect - it wasn't one of those lame stories where the stupid heroine suspects everybody except the one that she should suspect. That said, Jenny was pretty stupid, for a number of reasons which I listed in my GoodReads review.

The 'Aww' factor:

Things that made me go 'aww' tended to be things that related to the sheer 80s/90s-ness of the story.

Dean and his "computer print-out", the telephone booth being a lifeline, everyone calling around on their house phones (no mobiles, no social media), Jenny's fashion wins (white shorts and a rainbow-striped shirt; later there's a washed out denim jacket).

Oh, and the VCR!! "Let's watch a tape." The mere fact that the telephone with its "built-in answering machine" was something fancy at the time.