Oops...missed a blogfest

So, I kind of missed yesterday's 2nd Summer in the City blogfest, hosted by Bess Weatherby, due to my internet woes. But I thought I'd address the topic anyway, even if a day late! These were the requirements of the Blogfest:

1. Sign up
2. Follow my blog
3. On June 6, 2011, post two things:

• What your current WIP looks like
• What your writing goals are for the summer

4. Go around to the other blogs to encourage -- together we can make it through the lazy months! - Bess Weatherby

So, I did sign up, and I am a follower of Bess Weatherby's great blog! Now I guess I'll talk about those two things in point 3!

What does my current WIP look like?

Yay! I have a new WIP, and it's actually a WIP, i.e. work-in-progress, not some complete draft that I'm revising into dust. It feels amazing to just be writing again, and to enjoy that. I'm writing in first person present tense, and that's a style I love to write in but haven't done much of. Sometimes I think my writing is better if I stick to this format. Weird, but true. My MC and her best friend do bear an interesting resemblance to another MC/best friend pair I've written about before. I mean, not physically, but personality-wise. Still, this is a very different work to that one. I'd call it contemporary, with a dash of murder mystery and a dash of romance. I'm about 20.5k in right now, and wondering how I'll manage to make it to 50k (this novel is my BuNoWriMo project), but I'm not too worried. I'm too busy enjoying myself!

What are my writing goals for the summer?

First off, I wanted to say it's not summer here. We're heading into winter, though the blue sky and shining sun I see today will probably make people from other parts of the world snigger, roll their eyes and go, "You call that winter, biaaatch?!?!" Still, it's winter for us. :P Anyway, onto the point... My goals? Well, they're the same-ish as on my Goals list. Except that most of those goals (besides the reading one, and Chrysalis) are currently on hold while I get through June and BuNoWriMo. I have yet to add June's project to the Goals list, but will do! So yeah, I guess my goals for the "summer" are to keep chipping away at that list, but definitely to complete BuNo and gear up toward NaNo! Woooo! Oh, and to stay inspired.

Now I guess my last task is to visit other blogs. Which I will certainly do. ;)

Newsflash: my internet kinda suxxxx

So yeah, just letting everyone know that I'll be scarce the next couple of days until I get back to...ahem, places that have better internet than I do (namely work :P). The only reason I'm here now is that I'm at my mum's place, scunging off her internet! ;)

It's a long weekend (HELL yes!!) and I'm enjoying it. Bought a new film scanner and so I'm scanning all my negatives. It's so awesome!! I've done about 95 photos so far...got countless more to go.

I'm also doing decently on BuNoWriMo. I've averaged about 2k per day so far in June. I'm enjoying my story, which is not the one I thought I'd be writing. Basically it's a...hmm, how to describe it? Contemporary I guess. With a dash of romance, and a dash of serial murder. Dash of humour too, or so I hope. ;) I won't say too much more about it for now, except to say it feels really good not to be worrying about revisions, and to just be writing. I think it's what I needed! Breath of fresh air kind of deal.

Hope everyone's June is starting out really nicely. :) Thanks to everyone for the comments lately, I know I haven't returned most of them but I WILL. I swear it!! Just as soon as I am able.

OH! I just realised I now have 300 followers. :) I will do something proper like about this at some point, but just want to say THANKS to everyone who likes me and my blog. :D I like you too!!! So very much! Muchas gracias and all that. Because my mum's internet is weird, I can't see my followers, so I can't see who the 300th follower is. But I will get to that later too. ;)

Power of Tension Blogfest - I'm a finalist!

Hey all. I'm excited, because I'm one of six finalists in the Power of Tension Blogfest!! There are a bunch of amazing other excerpts in the finals, and I encourage you to read all of them and vote for the one you like best! You can find links to all the finalists' excerpts HERE.

Voting ends by the end of June 7th AEST time (yay, Aussie time!! :D).

I also want to thank Cally Jackson and Rachel Morgan for hosting this blogfest, which was a lot of fun! I read so many great excerpts as a result of it!

I want to mention that my laptop is really not happy with me and won't let me do a lot of things with Blogger at home. Meaning I have to wait till I'm at work to comment on people's blogs. I'm not sure I should blame my laptop, but if Blogger functions okay at work it can't be Blogger's fault, right??

Now, a BuNoWriMo report for Day #1 (yesterday). I wrote about 1,900 words, bringing my total wordcount for this particular work to about 3,400. I have yet to get started on Day #2's writing session, but I'm almost there! Just wanted to post this first.

What's the Score? Blogfest

ARGH!!! BuNoWriMo has begun, only I haven't! But I've got to get this Blogfest (click on the picture above for details) done before I can get stuck in. But I...think I changed my mind about what to write. At pretty much the last moment. D'oh. LOL. Maybe I'll go nuts and try to write both! ANYWAY, Blogfest time!! Here are the rules for the What's the Score? Blogfest, in the words of host RosieC:

"On June 1st, post any number of songs, artists, composers, posers, who/whatever that you might want to include in the soundtrack to your WIP. YOU'RE IN CHARGE! You make the soundtrack the way you want it. Don't have a WIP? Is your WIP's soundtrack personal and not something you want to share? No problem! Take your favorite book, or the book your reading right now, or a book you remember well, and make a soundtrack for it." - RosieC

So for this blogfest I'm going to mention a few different groups of songs. Firstly, some songs that were mentioned in early drafts of SUNDOWN, before I decided to replace all real bands with fictional bands and their fictional songs (to avoid any copyright issues that may arise in future, basically):

• "Haunted" - Stabbing Westward
• "She Sells Sanctuary" - the Cult
• "Friendly Fire" - Jawbreaker
• "Touched" - VAST
• "Get Inside" - Stone Sour
• "Creep" - Radiohead
• "Let Down" - Radiohead

Then there were bands that were mentioned, but no specific songs (and yet in hindsight I've attached songs to these suggestions as I imagine them in my head :P):

• "Born Slippy" - Underworld
• "Everlasting" - Moby
• "Darkangel (Gabriel)" - VNV Nation
• "Love You To Death" - Type O Negative

And finally, there are some songs that really suit the storyline and inspire me on a regular basis, across many different genres.

"Flames" - VAST "Falling Again" - Lacuna Coil "Wish You Were Here" - Incubus "Spit It Out" - VETO "Waiting" - the Smashing Pumpkins "Droning" - Love in Reverse "6 Underground" - Sneaker Pimps "If You Really Want So Little From Me" - Love Outside Andromeda "Down In Your Valley (Dead Letter Disco Remix)" - Dead Letter Chorus "Your Voice" - Effigy "Casino" - the Honeyriders

"Sunkissed" - the Smashing Pumpkins "Sleeping Where I Want" - Veruca Salt "According to Plan" - I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness "A Current Obsession" - Lacuna Coil "Desire" - Life of Agony "The Darkest Night of All" - Lisa Germano "Sleepwalking Past Hope" - HIM "Spring On" - Purplene "Rainy Season" - Seam "Waves" - Holly Miranda "In the Arms of Sleep" - the Smashing Pumpkins

And really, I COULD probably go on for days... but I think I'll cut this short here. Hehehe.