NaNoWriMo 2022

 

Oops. I finally got here, better late than never right?

I did participate in NaNoWriMo this year (still going of course). I hit 50k already, but will keep going for the rest of the month and hopefully beyond.

The difference this year is that I participated in NaNo as a rebel - rewriting/revising a novel that was already mostly finished many years ago.

With advice from my excellent critique partner, I devised a beat sheet in the days beforehand and then got to work on November 1. I've revised the beat sheet a few times as problems cropped up - thankfully none too major.

I was a bit distracted leading up to November, because I got the sad news late in October that my high school best friend had passed away. Because of certain factors, her funeral has not happened yet - it's next week on Tuesday. So it's been quite a wait for her family as well as all of us, her friends left behind.

Anyway ... that's been on my mind since I got the news. But NaNo has been quite a nice distraction as well.

I had a week off this week which was very nice, although I'd like at least two more! Thankfully the holiday season isn't far away, and so I'll get more time off then.

In between then and now, there is a lot of stuff that needs doing at work, so no doubt I'll be exhausted again by the time the holidays roll around.

I have not been feeling particularly creative this year, due to work being full-on as usual, and my "second full time job" the animal rescue still being busy as well). But I'm glad I managed to make myself do NaNo, as it feels good to have at least achieved something creative this year.

My hope is that I'll be able to focus mostly on revising existing books into the future.

I hope everyone out there is doing well. I wish that I was still heavily involved in this wonderful writer community, but alas other stuff in life has taken over. Maybe someday I'll get back to posting here more. I might try to make that a priority.

Back for NaNoWriMo 2021

 

Wowee! I managed to make it back here for another blog post in another year. How good am I?

It's been another year of slight mayhem, partly because of COVID-19 still being a thing, and also because of work craziness still being a thing. I'm still involved in the cat rescue which is as crazy as ever as well, especially when you mostly have three people running the show and most of those three are burned out perpetually!

I have a headache right now, but that's not important. What's important is that it's November, woohoo, and I'm writing for NaNo again! Last year, one of the novels I had on my to-maybe-do list was titled HOME. Well, that's the one I'm writing this year - I didn't start on it last year at all, as I was busy enough with the other two projects I'd set myself.

I'm at 7,533 words after completing Day 3's writing, and I am just taking it easy. I only just got to over the daily word count today, and I could easily have kept going but decided to stop for the night.

I must say, I still have the same old problem I have struggled with for years - not doing enough editing, while I keep writing new stories. But at least the new ones have a decent structure behind them, meaning that in theory, when I do get to editing it shouldn't be TOO messy. Of course, that doesn't stop me getting stuck in revisions when one particular chapter proves a little too pesky for me to know how to fix.

 

Really though, the main thing that got in my way this last year and a half was:

 

1. COVID-19

2. Work being cray cray!

 

Even now, as we head for the end of the year, we are still having new projects flung at us at work, so there's really no rest for the wicked. Let's just say I can't wait for my holidays! (I have a week off next week, and three weeks off over Christmas)

Anyway ... Is anyone else out there participating in NaNo? If so, good luck and I'd love to hear about your project! If not, I hope you're having success with whatever you're working on right now!

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?

A quick word count update!

Time for a quick revision update!

My initial 2017 revision of DAPHNE took me from 107,902 to 126,249 words.

Last time I checked in about word count, I had shed around 3.5 - 4k of words, but today I have a more encouraging update. I'm down to 116,968 words. So I've shed 9,281 words so far.

I'm not entirely sure where I want or need my word count to be, honestly, and I'm not usually the type to worry more about word count than about the story making sense and flowing well. I'm sure there are a lot more words I can cut simply because they're not needed. And some parts still need rewriting.

I don't have much more to say, I suppose, so I'll leave it at this very short update. For now...onward!

DAPHNE revision update

I'm still going with this revision thing. I have next week off work, and the week after my studies begin, so my time is short. There was a point recently when I did a "mega-tweak" on my first chapter, and I thought I was almost there with fixing it. But as I read it on my Kindle, I got really discouraged by the amount of things I now needed to tweak in the wake of the mega-tweak. Thankfully I got past my moping and plowed on.

It's quite an undertaking, fully rewriting a novel. When I first rewrote this one back in 2012, some things stayed the same, like my main character and her family. But a lot changed. A previous "good guy" became a bad guy. A new love interest materialised, and became the male lead. A best friend became condescending, and her boyfriend a jerk. The setting itself also changed from "aimless new adults living life after high school" to first year of university.

After that 2012 rewrite, I left the novel to stew for, ummm, five years? Yeah, that's all. When I returned to it in 2017 I saw that I'd created a hot mess, but thankfully I much preferred this "new" mess to the old one. 2017's revisions / edits are making me love it even more. They say write what you love, and each new tweak of a sentence, paragraph or section is bringing me closer to loving this novel.

I think I've fixed most of the big problems, though there are still timeline blips to be worked out. I'm down to about 122,484 words, meaning I've shed 3,765 words or so. I need to shed a lot more! And no, I haven't removed my "darling" Jane yet. Still not decided on what to do there.

That'll do for now. But I wanted to mention that I'm reading Eleanor & Park after having it on my TBR for quite a while. I'm loving it.

One new scene = SPANNER

Oops!

I added one new scene to my novel, and it messed with my entire timeline! I spent a couple of days writing out chapter / scene summaries, and printed the summaries out and scribbled notes all over them, etc. Eventually I worked out how to rearrange sections so the timeline made sense again. I was helped by reading an article about using metadata settings in Scrivener to create a timeline. Using that advice, I assigned dates / date ranges to chapters and shifted said dates where needed. Phew. Crisis sorted.

Another 'oops' moment came when I realised this current edit has not removed words as I hoped, but has added them. So where my first revision word count was approx. 107,902, the current count is 126,249. Yep, I've done it again. I know I have some padding that can be trimmed, and thankfully I think I'm at the point where that can be my focus now.

Speaking of padding... During my last revision of this novel, I mentioned a minor character that was a bit of a "darling" I might have to kill. She started out as a source of humour, but in truth there is a lot more to her that we're not even going to learn about in this novel. So she could even be seen as a bit of a blue herring - ya know, a herring with no purpose. ;) So really there is no point keeping her, at least not for plot purposes. I'm reluctant to let her go, but maybe I can revisit her story in some other way in another setting sometime.

Anyway, that's my update for now. I hope you are all doing well with whatever you're working on.

P.S. My addiction to Louise Rozett's Confessions series has been rekindled, sadly for no tangible reason - e.g. there is no FOURTH BOOK YET! She hopes to write one, but needs a contract. I offered to buy it off her even if nobody else does, I'm that desperate to read the rest of Rose and Jamie's story. ;) Anyway...I shall continue to wait and hope for another instalment, while moping in a very morose fashion as long as I don't get it!

7 days of NaNo to go

Since my last update when I reported that I'd finished my novella for this year's NaNo, I've also finished another of my unfinished novels - THE PHOTOGRAPH. I then worked on IVY NIGHT for a while, before the slog got a bit too difficult, so I moved to working on TURKEY BOURKE.

My wordcount is currently 41,255, though I haven't written any of today's words yet, as you can see from the chart. I'll continue to work on TURKEY until I feel that familiar "argggghhh" feeling. Hopefully that won't be until I'm finished the novel! It would be great to finish three works this time around. :) I'd also have liked to finish IVY NIGHT, but that one has quite a bit of writing still to do, so it's a longer-term project.

Once November's over, I need to get cracking on the last three songs for our next album. Billy has posted an update saying there is a new WAG album (ours), and a new Rotting Apples album (his) coming out next year. Eek! No pressure or anything! Sometimes he gets me to do some of his vocals for him, but I'm not sure what his plan is for the next RA album.

So that's my update for now! I hope you are all doing really well. Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends.

IWSG #16 - Enduring the usual NaNo-dialogue

It's NaNoWriMo time again, and I have had a difficult start so far - only because I have been really busy with "family stuff" and therefore have only been able to cram writing into the last hour (or two...when I stay up too late) of each day. Still, I am exceeding the daily target, so that's what matters.

In terms of insecurity this month, ummm, well I have the usual feeling I always get during NaNoWriMo:

"Wow, I am writing a bunch of crap here.
I'm not going to stop writing this bunch of crap.
Geez, I'm really rambling here!
I'll have to cut out huge chunks of this scene during revisions.
I may have to rewrite this entire scene, actually.
What's the point of writing this if it's all going to disappear during revisions?
You know ... I'm going to keep writing, because at least I'll have something to edit later!
It's only Day 4?!!"

So yeah, I guess that's the constant internal dialogue I have while doing NaNo, at least it has been for the last few years. I'm still quite happy with most of the novels I've ended up with, though, even if I still need to edit them a great deal - during some future very productive editing phase of my life!

Anyway ... I love my story even if I think what I've written so far has quite a few ups and downs in terms of mediocrity of writing quality.

Here is my little word count widget, provided by the NaNo people!

 

Are you participating in NaNoWriMo this year?

Post-NaNo post! :) and IWSG #11!

First I want to say I need to catch up on visiting your blogs - I've got a bit behind but I'll get on it ASAP.

Second, I won NaNo, though my novel LOST & FOUND is not quite finished. I'm at 51,346 words and estimate I won't get beyond 55k, and will probably get to less. But whenever I get around to revisions, I can well imagine adding a good few extra words to this count, with the required fleshing-out.

I'm pretty happy with the story, even if the writing leaves a fair bit to be desired. I'm both glad and sad that it's over. I need to get back to my revision work, but that's hardly an appealing notion. ;)

Anyway ... the end of the year is nigh. How are you guys feeling about the year gone by?

I'm feeling all right this month, I guess, but as we near the end of another year, my Goals page looks quite intimidating. I'm relieved it's just a general goals page, and not a page for goals I wanted to achieve this year alone.

I can say I didn't achieve most of what's on there, but I still got some stuff done.

Could be worse. ;)

Of course, the year isn't quite over yet. Perhaps miracles will occur before we hit 2015.

A NaNo update [after day 23]

As of today (being Day 24, but I haven't written anything for Day 24 yet), I have 43,302 words.

I need to write 957 words per day to win, which is basically what I've needed to write for a week or so now - and I've been sticking rather closely to that basic minimum word count.

I've had 2 days during November where I didn't write a single word, and then wrote double the required word count the next day to make up for it (not a big deal when "double" is only 2k of words).

All in all it hasn't been the easiest NaNo year, but nor has it been the hardest. I've had years before where every word was a struggle, at least towards the end.

I've also had years where the words just flew out.

So yeah, this year is somewhere in between.

When I was at around 41k I realised I didn't have enough left in my planned plot to get over 50k, but then I realised there was an entire chunk of story I hadn't even been going to address. So now I have the plan to address that chunk, and that'll take me well beyond 50k.

All in all, I'm "okay" with the story, but I definitely think it's messy - despite me having had a plan this time around. ;)

Anyway, that's me signing off for another day.

P.S. If I don't get to say it closer to the date,

I hope all my American friends have a great Turkeysday.

I think I have a soft spot for Thanksgiving, because my

SQUEAKY novels have turkey characters in them. ;)

NaNoWriMo ~ Slowly she goes

As of the end of Day #18 (yesterday), I had written 37,556 words.

I have slowed right down to barely 1k a day, because this is all I require to hit 50k by the end of November. I think I wrote about 1200 words yesterday.

It's possible I won't finish the novel by November's end, but I'll definitely hit 50k!

I'm still enjoying the story, but I guess I am slightly burned out with other stuff going on in my life - namely, kitty rescue stuff - so it's all I can do to hit that small amount of words.

Today we are rescuing at least 12 cats (including at least 10 kittens).
There are 8 kittens with no mum, in one lot.
The other kittens are with a mum - all I know is that there's plural kittens there, but not sure how many.
We are also rescuing an old boy who looks sore, tired, and in need of serious TLC.

I volunteer with a bunch of awesomely generous and caring people. But it takes a lot of coordination to make a rescue like today's happen.

First we have to find a rescue to take on the cats. We also have to find a carer if the rescue doesn't have one available. We always try to have carers sorted first, so we can 'entice' our affiliated rescues to take the new kitties on. ;) Then we get to think about how to collect kitty from the pound. We have to organise transport, which often involves multiple people participating in a "transport relay", as is happening today.

I guess that's the challenging part, but after rescue, we also need to get the kitties healthy, get their vetwork done, and find them a forever home! And while we're doing all this, we have to find room for new cats coming into pounds weekly.

But it's very rewarding to be a part of this. Here's an e.g. of why:

One of our little foster babies in care at the moment - Webster.
Look out on Facebook for his very own page, coming soon. ;)

Reporting from Day 16 of NaNo

It's November 16th, so we're over halfway through NaNoWriMo 2014.

I'm currently at 32,833 words, which is a result of me writing the bare minimum some nights, and far less than the bare minimum other nights.

Early on I had some good nights where I wrote well above the bare minimum.

It's all averaged out to me being 6,216 words ahead of schedule, even without having completed today's word count.

I feel that I got over a big slow-going section and from here on in I should be able to speed up a bit, or at least find the writing more free-flowing.

But I guess only time will tell!

I hope you are all having great Novembers. :)

Now I have to go outside with my cat as he's meowing his head off demanding some attention. He likes me to go for walks down the driveway with him.

NaNoWriMo - 9 days in

I got a late start on my NaNoing on Saturday, but eventually I did get stuck into the writing - and only wrote about 3k for the whole day. Yesterday was even worse, with only 1.7k written.

My explanation is that on Saturday I was exhausted and also had a few things to do - like get my car's carpets shampooed after a beer bottle broke on the front passenger floor Friday night. On Sunday I had a visit from a friend who is in my cat rescue group, and we spent about 3 hours chatting. I also cleaned my house on Sunday. So, yeah, "stuff" got in the way. Still, I got the bare minimum done on Sunday, and more than that done on Saturday. It's all good!

So I'm sitting at 21,761 words after 9 days of writing. Some years I would be over 50k by now. Every year I participate in NaNoWriMo, things go differently for me. One year I'm pretty sure I was at 50k after 6 or 7 days. In 2011, I hit 50k by day 15, and then switched to my second novel of the month. Other times, I've taken until much later in November to hit that winning mark. It's interesting to look at the variation in stats. :)

November is a pretty quiet time of year for Australians, as compared with Americans with their Thanksgiving and so on. But I guess we still have those pesky lives to live, so that is bound to get in the way. :P

How are your Novembers going?

Too many words, and I'm glad

It's November 18th, and my NaNo word count is 68,820. I still have a number of juicy scenes to write (by "juicy" I mean dramatic, horrific, sappy, any of that). And I'm pretty sure my word count is going to end up being the usual overbloated type I'm so good at producing.

Sometimes people are daunted by the idea of editing stories that have at least 40k too many words. I know I have been in the past, with some of my other bloated works. ;) But in this case, I'll be glad to have all that extra padding to work with, since I'll have to start things off with some of the old slash 'n burn. I have high hopes of being left with a good amount of quality(ish) wordage afterward. And yeah, I'm already looking forward to revisions, without even having finished the story. But once I've finished, I'll do my usual thing and set the novel aside for a while. Let it stew.

I've got other things I want to achieve before picking this novel back up for revisions (rewriting my novella, reading a new novel I'm beta-ing, and revising at least one of my other novels). But you never know ... the temptation to return to Nora's world earlier than planned might become too great.

For now, I'm still enjoying the slightly shadowy initial journey. And I'm pretty sure this story is gonna end up being one of my favourites.

I hope you're all having a great November!

A NaNo update!

Hi everyone. I'm here to report that I won NaNo on November 13th (last weekend I wrote over 18k, just on Saturday and Sunday. It was bliss!), and I am currently sitting on 54,909 words. I'm still loving the story, so much so in fact that it keeps me up at night (not good for my health, but very good for the creative part of my brain!). I still have juicy bits to write, and am pretty much desperate to get around to writing them. This is definitely a good sign.

There have been other NaNos where once I hit 50k, I really had to struggle to write anything on the project for the rest of the month. There have also been NaNos where it took me most of November to hit 50k. And of course there was one NaNo where I wrote 120k in 30 days (NaNo kept me up at night for all the right reasons that year, too). It really varies from year to year, I think. But one thing I know is that I better enjoy this "last hurrah (for the time being)", because next year I hope to use June (BuNo) and November (NaNo '14) to do serious revision work. Then again, maybe I'll just use the rest of the year for that. Problem is, I tried that this year and just slacked way too much.

For me I guess there's just something magical about both June and November that makes me really inspired to write something new. Nowadays I always have a new exciting idea to write. But the consequence of this is that currently, my ratio of rough-ish drafts to ready-to-publish drafts is 11:0. In other words, not too good. ;)

Did you do/are you doing NaNo this year?

How are you going?

Loving/hating your project?

All I Want for NaNo ~ blog hop

From November 1-3, J. A. Bennett has been running the All I Want for NaNo blog hop, and here's what it's all about:

"I first heard about NaNoWriMo three years ago shortly after I started blogging. I thought people were nuts for even attempting to write 50k in a month. Yet, I couldn’t pass up the chance to try it out for myself. Since then, I’ve done NaNo (including camp NaNo) 4 times--this November will make 5.

Because of this, I’ve spent a considerable about of time on NaNoWriMo.org, and they’re doing some amazing stuff for people. I have a 14 yr old cousin who went to LTUE last year because NaNo came to his school, and he decided he really liked writing. If that isn’t awesome, I don’t know what is. 

In these past three years I’ve felt awful for not giving back when NaNo has been doing so much for writers everywhere. That’s why I decided to write an anthology with a few awesome friends and donate all the proceeds to NaNoWriMo." - J. A. Bennett

This blog hop requires that we post what we want for NaNo, and put a buy link to The Spirit of Christmas Anthology, as well as the blog hop code so people can visit all the other blogs that have participated. So, without further ado:

1. What I want for NaNo is to hit 50k once again, and to also keep working on revising my novella. Yeah, I really want to do both!

2. The Spirit of Christmas Anthology  - BUY

3. Here is the list:

Oh, and by the way - there are other prizes being given away, so check out J. A. Bennett's blog for more details!

P.S. It's the start of Day 3 of NaNo, and so far I'm at 5,720 words. I got a slow start because I didn't write anything on Day 1 - circumstances beyond my control! People turning 80, that sort of thing. :D - but I caught up on Day 2, and now it's Day 3 and I have yet to do most of the writing I want to do today.

SMALL TOWN, house move & a kitty video

SMALL TOWN
is 61% complete

30644 / 50000 words written

Hi folks! This is where I'm at with my BuNo novel. Pretty happy with my slow and steady progress, though I'd like to have actually hit 50k by now so I could fixate on other stuff (see the two paragraphs below). I'm pretty happy with how the story's going, even though I did find a stash of early notes I had written many months ago and realised I haven't done some stuff I'd planned on in them. So I have started incorporating some of those plot points, but other stuff might have to wait until revision time.

In cat news, the little guy is doing well and tomorrow afternoon I can take him to get his sutures out. At last!! No more bucket hat for the kitty! Still, he needs to be confined for another 2+ weeks, so the saga is not anywhere near an end. But he's getting better at not sprinting through doors he's not allowed to go through when I open them. Guess he's adapting, a little bit. Even if he still hates being as confined as he as (and so does his mummy!).

Here's a little kitty video from when he was a baby, just for fun:



And in house moving news, I did an inspection on Sunday and basically all I had to note down was nitpicky type stuff. Pretty soon I will be able to start moving some stuff over to the new place - hopefully sometime this week! I will be a very happy person when that time comes.

Hope you are all doing well!

What are you working on?

Are you moving house, or have you recently?

Do you have needy pets?

A BuNo update and some kitty pics.

SMALL TOWN
is 34% complete

17266 / 50000 words written

That's where I'm at with BuNoWriMo. I'm basically plodding along this year, though I got a bit extra done tonight. Not much extra, but a bit. I do love my idea, but this time around I actually look forward to this whole thing being over. See, I am actually supposed to be sorting through a house full of 'stuff' right now, to prepare for moving. But truthfully, even if I weren't doing BuNo, I wouldn't be getting much done. See, my cat injured himself recently and had to have a rather serious shoulder operation. And he's always been a rather needy, sooky cat. Now that he's cooped up inside the house and no longer free to roam the neighbourhood as he wishes, he's even more needy than usual, and is quite frankly driving me nuts! Luckily for him, he's totally cute:

Photo © Amanda Shannon.
Somebody called this a "postcard shot".

Photo © Amanda Shannon.
You can see his shoulder injury -
and gigantic paw he got to
keep due to the surgery - here.

So yeah, when I'm home I basically have to sit with the cat at all times, or else he gets up to mischief that could risk his shoulder - and result in the amputation we've managed thus far to avoid! He's a terrible patient, and he's really wearing on my patience. But like I said, he's cute - so he gets away with it. ;) Meanwhile, my house is a bit chaotic and I'm sleeping on a foam mattress instead of in my real bed, to keep my cat company. No, really, this is what I've resorted to in order to ensure I do actually get sleep. Otherwise he's in his room and I'm in mine and he's meowing all night and I'm not sleeping.

Anyway, that's an update for now. I'm enjoying my little BuNo story as it unfolds, and also looking forward to hitting 50k so I can let it lie for a little while. At least until I've moved house. Part of me is scared to lose momentum, but I know I can always go back later and finish it - I've done so before, I can do it again!

A pinch and a punch [with NaNo verdict]

Do you think anyone's ever actually PUNCHED someone 'cause it's the first of the month?

I just watched a ten-minute video on beginner's algebra, and now my brain is sore. WHY, you ask? Well, I enrolled in this free Coursera course on Astronomy (LOVE), and though it's only an introductory course, it still requires that we have high school level algebra skills. Yikes! I don't even have toddler algebra skills! But I'm going to give it a try anyway, 'cause I don't want to fail without at least trying. Wish me luck! ;)

Tomorrow is the start of my blogfest, and I will posting on that day! But for today I want to mention how I did in NaNo for 2012. My final word count, achieved on Day 29 (I did no writing at all on Day 30, except to change the capitalisation of one word), was 110,301. I'm pretty content with that, though I know there's a fair bit of waffling crap I need to take out and replace with other crap that matters. I am not even going to touch this thing for a good while. For now, I've achieved my NaNo goal and also my DAPHNE rewriting goal, so I'm satisfied. And now it's time to move onto all the other 2012 goals I have yet to achieve this year! I have a month, so the clock's tickin'!

Happy December, everyone!!

Remember, there's still a bit of time to sign up for my blogfest, if you want! And thank you to everyone who's advertised it on their blog or elsewhere! I really appreciate it! :)

NaNo '12 winner - now to finish the story!

I passed the 50k mark in NaNo back on day 15, and currently I'm at 88,329 words. I made a wild stab and guessed I might have 20k more to go in the story, but quite honestly I don't really know where I'll finish up at. What I'm pretty sure I do know is that my story will, as usual, be bloated and in need of some slash 'n burn. But at least I don't think it'll get anywhere near my most bloated efforts of the past, which have been known to hit in the region of 150k. Yikes!

Ideally I'd like this story to be 85-95k at most, but to be honest I don't even know what the "recommended" wordcounts are for NA novels. Anybody got any thoughts on that? I know that people have always told me, "It should be as long as it needs to be", but honestly, a 200k YA romance is probably going to raise a few eyebrows for the wrong reasons...right? ;)

Anyway, my new goal is to finish the story itself by November's end. This way I will achieve one of my other 2012 goals, which is to rewrite my DAPHNE novel completely. Overall I can say I'm pretty happy with how I've gone, though there have been moments during November when I've been rather appalled at the absolute crap I've been writing. It's okay, though - that stuff will be fixed in revisions!

How have you gone during November with whatever you've been working on?

P.S. I read my first Jolene Perry novel
(that link is to my review which contains spoilers, beware!)
over the weekend,

and now I want more. MOOOOORE! :)

P.P.S. "Baby Faces Blogfest" sign-ups below (for info on this blogfest, check here).