National Novel Writing Month

Gosh, I wish I was able to participate in the actual National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short: http://www.nanowrimo.org). Write a 50,000-word novel in just 30 days?!

My word count on VE is a little over 50,000, but I've been working on it since 2007. In actual writing time, though, I guess I've just been working on it for a few months or so.

The NaNoWriMo challenge sounds ridiculously hard, but it's really only about 1,600 words a day, as long as you can stick to it. Maybe I'll do it next year. Anyone ever tried it?

Speaking of next year, I'm hoping to be doing a semester in London next fall, taking drama writing among other things. I anticipate it will be a fun place to write.

I imagine a bright future where I can crank out a novel every month. That doesn't seem possible. Maybe every other month.

Twitter poem

I wrote this poem a couple weeks ago by taking messages (tweets) posted by my friends (and me) on Twitter and organizing them into the most coherent poem that I could. Twitter fascinates me. You might not realize that a well-crafted 140-character message takes thought and talent.

#worthnoting

Searching for good place on campus to write my poem. Suggestions welcome.
Two steps forward. Three steps back.
just finished preserving democracy
The cold is piercing in lexington, virginia
have you stopped being a poser yet?
wait what you think I'm beautiful?

i think i'm in love with a puppy.
What the heck is going on? Thursday afternoon and the streets are littered with townies with their kids all dressed up.
Well I hear Alabama fans suck
is kind of amused by irony
There is another one of those really creepy bugs in the kitchen. I should get rid of it, but I may hyperventilate and die.
Suddenly it's Sunday...
So technically today's a 25 hour day, right?
it's to jimmy eat world and those nights in my car when the first star you see may not be a star.



Tweets stolen from @kayteerob, @scarletmills, @shardsofun, @tildatildetilda, @rebeccaadele, @fowlovescarlet, @skythrock, and @allisonchopin
(Order of names does not correspond to order of poem)

Finally back to novel writing

Well, I'm off of school and I'm home for the week, so I'm finally working on the novel again. It's pretty disappointing that I've hardly worked on it all semester, but I'm happy to be finally doing something. Tonight I managed to get past the tricky plot point I've been struggling with, too. I'm way past the deadline I gave myself, but I'm hoping to have a draft done by the first of the year.

I'm really happy when I'm writing, but I'm also great at procrastinating and coming up with reasons not to do it. I hear most writers struggle with that. I just wish I could be more dedicated when I'm at school. It would help if I never had any homework to do, of course.

In the meantime, I have been writing poetry, so it's not like I'm completely worthless, right?

I plan to write every day for the rest of week, and maybe I'll be able to get a lot done.

November is National Novel Writing Month. There are so many reasons to write!

Updates from the Virgin State (again)

I'm back in Virginia. Back at school.

Remember how my goal was to finish my draft of Violet Eyes within the first couple of weeks of the semester? Apparently that was a little too optimistic. With stress of moving back to school and starting classes and having a social life again (NO EXCUSES), I've barely managed to write. The goal is supposed to be more than 500 words a day. I did pretty well over the summer. But in the past month, I've only written on three or four days, and I think I've done less than 1,000 words. Yikes!

I must get back into a regular schedule. I must make time every day. I'm also in a difficult spot of the plot, so I look for reasons to avoid working on it. I'm not happy when I'm not writing, though. I'm also still searching for the ideal location and time for writing in Lexington, VA. I think some regularity will help me out. I had more options in Blacksburg and Baton Rouge, but I think the campus and small town should help me out. Writing in the campus library works sometimes, and there's a neat little playground with picnic tables across the street from my apartment. And I need to pay a visit to the coffee shops that I haven't been to in a while.

I am doing some writing and creative things, of course. I'm in a poetry writing course, and I'm interning at the Shenandoah literary magazine. Just have to get back to work on my goals!

If you know me in person, feel free to yell at me for not writing when you see me.

Where I write

I'm not sure how this works for other writers, but I'm kind of particular about the spaces in which I work. I've always liked the idea of writing in coffee houses and such, and I used to romantically express my goal as wanting to "move to Paris and write poetry in cafes." Now, that's more or less how I do it--just not in Paris. I like to write in places that are public but also a little quiet, and I've gotten so used to it that I'm nearly incapable of writing at home. I do almost all of my writing in coffee houses, bookstores, or quiet restaurants.

I like to be around people while I work, but the coffee or bookstore atmosphere also inspires creativity. Leaving home also makes me more productive, because I don't let myself leave my chosen location until I've accomplished something. At home I'll get distracted, start pacing the room, turn on music or the TV, or fall asleep if I get stuck at a difficult spot in whatever I'm writing. I can't do that if I'm sitting in Starbuck's. The presence of caffeine also helps. In Baton Rouge, it's particularly nice because I get to enjoy Community Coffee (CC's), which is absolutely the best tasting coffee in the world. The coffee and tea habit is expensive to feed, though!

I suppose I should try to get over my mental block about writing at home, but for now it's not a problem, and it's a quirk that I'm a little proud of.

The website at http://www.whereiwrite.org has photos of fantasy and sci fi writers in their working spaces. Most seem to have rooms or offices surrounded by books. I imagine one day I would like to have a library or office in my house where I could work. I'd even like to have a small cabin somewhere, where I could retreat to write for a while. At this point, when I've variously lived in a dorm, sorority house, apartment, home, and soon another apartment, I don't have those options.

Where do other people like to write?

Progress

My goal at the beginning of the summer was to finish the draft of my novel, Violet Eyes, before school started. This will be possible if I really try hard, but I'm starting to think it's not a big deal if I don't finish it then. I want to finish it, of course. But I'm also a little scared about getting to the end! You know how it's hard to finish reading a good book because you don't want it to be over? It's like that, except I happen to be writing it instead of reading it. But the experience is the same. I love writing it. (That's what I say on good days. Ask me later and I might tell you that the process is overwhelmingly frustrating. Both are true, of course.)

I'm also worried about revising it once it's done. That will be a difficult process, and writing it is much more fun. I definitely want it to be done by the end of September, though, and then I guess I just have to revise it and then look forward to moving on to something else!

Baton Rouge

I finished up my internship (during which I produced more than 30 articles for the Roanoke Times), and I've returned home to Baton Rouge, but I'm only here until the 30th. Until then, I'm trying my best to make steady progress on my novel. My goal all summer was to write at least 500 words a day, though I usually hoped to get to around 700. I've missed a few days recently, but I'm still getting some work done.

Today I reached the 50,000 word mark, so that's a pretty big accomplishment, I'd say. I've never written something that long before. I've written nearly 25,000 of those words in less than two months, since around June 25. I'm not quite sure how much I have to go, but I imagine it will finish up somewhere between 60,000 and 70,000 words.

That seems short for a novel, but the first Harry Potter book has a word count of about 77,000. That should give you an idea of about how long my book will be.

Even if my book turns out to be crap, I'm pretty proud of myself for doing so much. I need to be more diligent during my time off, though! It would be great if I could finish the first draft before school starts on September 10. I need to be doing 1,000 words a day...

Hello

Hello all. I decided I needed a blog so I can force the world (or at least the Internet?) to start taking me seriously as a writer. Maybe if I post enough, people will read this and wonder about me.

Here's some quick background. I've been writing since I learned how to read. Fiction and poetry are my loves, but a lot of my recent work has been in journalism. This summer I've worked as a reporter for my internship with the Roanoke Times. Look me up at www.roanoke.com.

What I'm most excited about, though, is the novel I've been writing. I started it in 2007, but this summer I am finally working on it seriously and diligently. It fits somewhere into the genres of fantasy and sci-fi, but with some unique twists, I think. I don't really want to say much about the plot just yet.

So this blog is a way for me to post updates about what I'm doing and also to motivate myself to keep on doing it. I need all the encouragement I can get.