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 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?

I am still alive in 2019!

Sharing some of my art, because I feel like some graphics
are needed.

Well, hello there!

Ummm, so yeah. It's been ages since I last posted! I'm probably going to be saying that for every future blog post I do, until I someday get back into the swing of posting regularly. I'm not sure when/if that will happen, but I still have a big soft spot for this blogging community so I hope it does.

I think one thing that's affected my blogging here is that I'm in touch with a lot of bloggers I met here via other means - on Facebook or Instagram namely. I'm also not really writing or editing at the moment. Things are very busy (again) with the cat rescue, and it's that time of year again when we have to prepare our financial documents for the annual audit. So that's taking a lot of focus.

I have many story ideas churning away in the back of my head, but really do want to concentrate on editing what I already have. The same old problem that I'm always tackling!

On the music front, my bandmate is already working on new songs for the next Woody's A Girl album, and he has asked me to send through songs that I'd like us to work on as well. I'm still working on narrowing down the list, but one problem I've run into is that some songs are missing tabs - I never recorded the tabs at the time I originally wrote/recorded the demo versions of the songs. So that's a slight spanner in the works. Still, I have enough of a list to send through to him as it is.

Elsewhere, I'm still a part of the little critique group, and comment on other members' shared excerpts when they're posted, etc. But I haven't posted anything new myself in quite some time.

Another thing that I'm getting off to a slow start with this year is my GoodReads Reading Challenge. I'm something like 7 books behind schedule, partly because I read some really tedious books that took ages to get through. I'm hoping to get some good reading time in to catch up. And speaking of reading, I'm part of a workplace book club that meets every 6 weeks or so (I think). We've already read one book, and we're currently reading the second. So I'll be checking out books I probably wouldn't usually as a result of that.

Anyway, I'm hoping that once the cat rescue stuff calms down again, I'll have more time for my creative pursuits. I do miss it when I'm not able to really get stuck in, so it's not like I'm not motivated.

I hope you are all doing well out there. Let me know what you've been up to!

When inspiration strikes

Photograph by me

You know how sometimes you're really busy with all sorts of non-writing-related stuff, and you're getting more and more exhausted and you know you need a holiday? Well, my next holiday's not till late July, and I'm definitely weary, but I have also been struck by the compulsion to write. That's not even including the fact that I'm eager to edit basically every work I've written so far (novels, at least). No, this is about writing something new.

Well, sort of new. I'm compelled to write yet another SUNDOWN-related story. So I've started that. I should be editing what I already have, like I've sworn to do. But this story I'm writing is filling a gap that needed filling - it's the story of Jared and Jenna and their love...and their ultimate grisly demise.

I don't know what it is about this series that always pulls me back, but there sure is something! So I'm writing the story of Jared and Jenna, and it's flowing really well so far. I know how it ends, so that's not a problem. I know a lot of what goes on throughout, but I had to think for a while about what point to start at. I had one false start, before settling on where it should all begin - their actual first meeting.

It may end up being a novella, which is fine with me. Once it's done, that'll be another main gap in this series filled, and I can move onto editing everything and anything.

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 #13 - "So far away" like the Dire Straits song

I feel that I could sing that epic Dire Straits song to all of my novels, all of my undrawn drawings, all my short stories ... etc. Those beloved things are all fairly far away from me! I did some editing in the last month (at least, I think it was within the last month ... the days and weeks are going by in a blur), at a writer's gathering which I mentioned recently. But that's it, really.

I guess at least I've been reading, staying in touch somehow with the craft. But I do miss the writing. I've been busy with work, a little bit of travel, kitty rescue, and family stuff. So it's not like I've just been sitting around doing nothing. Also, I'm getting solar panels on my roof, and I'm signing up for REAL INTERNET (e.g. not this little pocket wifi with a puny data allowance that I've survived on for years now). But in general I guess I feel a little bereft, and far removed from the craft I love - the craft of writing. At least I still have the very strong desire to write! If I didn't have that, I'd be worried.

On a related note, this is June, and June is BuNoWriMo month. I'm admitting to myself and to the world here and now that I'm not participating this year, as much as I wish I was. But I will be ready for NaNo in November, at least.

Right now I need to go as I am super sleep deprived, since I woke up in the middle of the night last night worried about all the homeless kitties my group hasn't managed to adopt out yet. But I'm glad I managed to update for this monthly IWSG hop which I have missed quite a few times lately. It's important to me, just like writing is!

A to Z 2015 - "Q" Photos

I love that we get Sundays off during theA-to-Z challenge. Imagine if we had to post EVERY day!! I think the success rate would be pretty low. ;) Unless you're one of those who has prepared posts ahead of time, anyway.

So, enough of my rambling. It's time for the letter "Q"! I struggled for what to post about that I could find enough photos of, and in the end I went with something that I guess is slightly cheating, due to the part in brackets...

Quotes (and Notes)

    

    

  

     

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. ;)

IWSG #9 ~ My thoughts on "writing"

It's the first Wednesday of October, and therefore it's time to post for the IWSG. Today is a special occasion for a couple of reasons:

1. We are celebrating 2 years of the IWSG website!
2. Many participants are posting entries for the IWSG anthology.

Here are the details:

The purpose of the book is to assist other writers on the journey, so we are looking for tips and instructions in the areas of writing, publishing, and marketing. It can be inspirational in nature as long as you provide a solid benefit. We’ve already received a lot of great entries–mostly in the area of writing–so looking for some good tips on publishing and marketing. Be sure to state which category, add a one line by-line, and permission for us to use it in the book.

Once you have posted on October 1, go to this page at the IWSG site and enter your link - http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/p/iwsg-guide-to-publishing-and-beyond.html The deadline for submissions is October 2.

Now, I hear that many entries have already been submitted which focus on writing, rather than marketing or publishing. Unfortunately I can't really give any "advice" on the latter 2, since I haven't published anything except a little poem and a little flash fiction piece. But it occurred to me that I have actually published a "full length work" ... of music. So I thought I could write about that.

I did submit a piece about that via email, as it was slightly over 300 words. But in case it's not what they're seeking, I thought I'd just quickly blurgh out something about writing, as an alternate option. ;) So here it is:

Title: The "Creation" Stage
Topic: Writing
Bio: Trisha writes, reads, draws, blogs (at WORD+STUFF), sings, travels, and sometimes does other stuff too.
Permission: yes, use it!

When talking about "writing", some may be talking about the whole process from initial lightning strike idea to completing that final polishing edit. But for me, the actual "writing" part is the initial "blurgh" where you spew out words and end up with a draft. A very, very rough draft.

In recent times I've become something of a plotter, I'll admit, but I'm still a pantser at heart. I may get an idea, and then I may or may not sit down and jot down a few notes. If I don't jot down notes, it's because I'm getting straight to the writing part. Notes do tend to help me keep the flow going. They also help me to not go too wildly off track. But they have never been necessary, not for me.

I am pretty sure I've never suffered from writer's block. At least not for any amount of time longer than five or ten minutes. This is because I have a special knack for knowing that what I'm writing is probably absolute crap, but not caring.

I start to care later, when it's revision time. And as evidenced in recent times, I can sometimes really struggle during revisions. Not always, but sometimes. For me, though, actually writing is just the easiest thing in the world.

The advice I always give is to "just write". We've all heard that before, but it's just so simple and so true. And it always works for me. When starting a new story, or continuing an unfinished one, don't worry about whether it's crap or not. Just write. Because at least when you're done, you'll have something to work on, instead of just a blank screen.

-283 words