Winner! November 2013 NaNoWriMo

Another 50K! Words that is, not money. LOL I wish. That's close to 200K words written for this project almost every single word not making it into the final draft. So I will be rewriting this story again taking bits of my NaNoWriMo drafts and really working to improve my craft. I've spent a year learning all the techniques-I just need to go slow-paragraph by paragraph improving. Yeah, so that will be fun. LOL I've got 130K on my Christmas story in NaNo drafts to work on. And about 44K from April Camp NaNo on my Russian retelling. Lots of work to keep me busy over the next year. My New Year's resolution is to blog more. Yep, every year I say that. :D Happy holidays!

July Camp NaNoWriMo Winner!

44k words for July! My goal for camp was 30k word count, so I am very happy!

Writing, The Money Pit, and NaNoWriMo

Oh Hai! U caught me stuck in my money pit! I will go back to revision if u pull me out of this hole now?

My first NaNoWriMo draft was my Money Pit. I thought I would never get out of it. I haven't. I'm still in it 3 months of revision later. In fact please send help. 

Things I've learned from my first NaNoWriMo draft-it wasn't a first draft at all. It was a zero draft or a "vomit" draft. That is my Money Pit that I've been in. I did a bad draft and I'm stuck.

This is the problem, and it has nothing to do with the writing quality, the plot, or inate talent of the writer. I simple wrote a 50,000 word stream of consciousness monster that is hell to edit. I didn't even bother with the basics: punctuation, capitalization, or even writing things in order. I didn't know the hell I was creating for myself by not doing things right in the first place.

So now I have my Money Pit. I've worked on it and it is not fun. I am never doing that again. With the time I have put in to it I could have rewritten the thing from scratch. Which is exactly what Tom Hanks had to do with his dream home in The Money Pit-tear the whole thing out and start again or risk getting trapped in a hell hole instead of a dream.

NaNoWriMo-there is a way to do it wrong. I thought I was doing it right, caffeine up and put those words down. Be an artist, Jackson Polluck that page. But Polluck didn't have to take out his red pen 2 months later and try to coax all those dots of paint into a bowl of fruit.

Bu I've learned my lesson. This April I am taking the time to go slower and as Alexander Godunov says to the man with the paint roller,"paint, paint." In other words, don't just slap it together and expect it to stand up. My April goal is all of my writing is going to be in actual paragraphs that make sense. I'm not doing big blocks of text like it was written on a scroll. 

When I get to the end of April, I want something readable, that looks like a novel,  and I can actually show it to someone. Then I can revise with my sanity intact. It's one thing to throw a coat of paint on or redo a bathroom. But something like insanity to redo every other word of a page covered in red underlines. I'm not gutting the whole house again. 

Then hopefully I can get a little closer, a little faster to the dream.

The Host Movie Filming Locations

The almost kiss scene between Wanderer and Ian was filmed overlooking Cabezon Peak, New Mexico in the Ojito Wilderness.

The helicopters scenes were filmed in Shiprock, New Mexico in the Navajo Nation. The Shiprock monument-in Navajo is Tse' Bit' Ai'- "the rock with wings."

A New Year

My New Year's resolution is to blog more and write more in general. I'm pretty sure this is my resolution every year, so this year I'm going to get specific. I got a little assignment journal like you would use in school. I actually never used these myself in school. I used a thick planner. This is much less bulky. It's actually thin and light. But they are a great little item to write down your daily writing goals in a very specific way. For instance in my last entry, I wrote down "type the rest " refering to a specific scene I had handwritten. Just short and sweet. It helps me pick up where I left off.

I Just Won My First NaNoWriMo!

NaNoWriMo 2012: Help, I'm So Behind!

NaNoWriMO is kicking my ass. I'm supposed to have 12,000 words by today!? I have not caught up at all!