Um um um MARBLES

I went to my third official regional write-in today! I haz three marbles (our ML is giving us a different-colored marble for each event we attend, have I mentioned this?): an opalescent black one, a green striped one, and a normal classic one.
I wrote about 1500 words there, in 2 hours, which isn't bad....I suppose...>.> Still working on the rest of the day's count right now. :) We had it at a pizza parlor, and it ended up being hilarious and psychotic cuz it was SOOO BUSY AND CROWDED. Part of it was the fact that there was over 9,000 birthday parties there, and the other part of it was that the Duck game was on (football, vs Stanford, they lost 51-42 and I cried). So yeah that was very exciting...our little group was crammed into a corner and told to just be quiet and write and avoid all other people.
We had a word war that I TOTALLY would have won, only reddening suddenly is like "Oh Stanford got a field goal!" at the very end, so of course I turned and had to watch and cry, and then she beat me by 10 words. CURSE YOU REDDENING. :D
Um yeah I guess I should go finish writing now. kthxbai.

she will reach for a story.

Writing went really well today! I wrote about 800 words in the morning, and then wrote the rest during a write-in at a bud's house. I didn't write OVER my daily count, which I suppose I should while it's going well, but I have HOMEWORK OKAY??? Plus, it's better than physically forcing myself each night to pound out the words, staying up several hours past my bedtime and making me grouchy about the whole process. ^_^ I want to love Nano, not hate it. It needs love.

Widgets are online! You can see my wordcount over there: --------------------->

My fiction class has entered a different phase. We're still doing scenarios, but our midterm was a full short story. Now she's assigning the short stories for us to read, and then we have to mark up the story and fill out a review sheet on it. Basically, we're critiquing them for the authors. Then we'll discuss them in class and pretend the author isn't there. It's pretty fantastic, I'm having a lot of fun doing my best to criticize CONSTRUCTIVELY. :)

And that's about it. I love my MC. Which is good news. It was touch-and-go for the first 10k.

show them how funky and strong is your might!

Total wordcount: 12,206
I plan to be at 13,332 before I go to bed. But first, I'm procrasting and telling you a funny story from the write-in tonight!!

Well, the first funny part was that I forgot it was happening. But I'm over at the community college campus cafeteria (oh yeah) at that time anyway, so I walked in, saw them sitting in the Nano corner, and was like "Hey, it's a bunch of people working, looks like the Nano group does when...Oh. That IS the Nano group." and then had to hastily remember that it was Thursday. XD

Anyway, halfway through the hour that I was with them, I suddenly remembered again that it was Guy Fawke's Day. I'm like "OH it's Guy Fawkes Day! Everyone needs to burn something!" At which they all laughed, of course. Then the ML is like "I feel a word war coming on," and the other ML is like "Yeah."
SIC ML (after explaining how to do a word war): "Okay, we need a noun."
Me: "FIRE!"
*group laughter*
SIC ML: "Okay, then. We also need a phrase."
Me: "'LET'S BURN SOMETHING.'"
Hahaha my end of the table was collapsed in giggles. Because I am so lame. But yeah, she ended up choosing someone else's phrase. XD I don't think she appreciated my pyromaniacs.

Plz continue selling your soul for moar words.

it's too close for comfort

Nanowrimo is actually going pretty well. This makes me nervous, because it should not be happening.
My overall goal is 80k.
Current wordcount is 5349 (which is about the amount I should have for the first two days....haven't written today yet).
My homework is suffering but I haven't actually fallen behind yet. XD I'm planning to catch up today, somehow, so nothing is actually late. I really don't have very much time, though, so I'm not sure how I've been writing.
Anyway, here's to finding the time to write without understanding exactly how you're doing it! It's like Time Lord tech at work or something.....time is bigger on the inside? XD

Day 1 and I'm already using Write or Die?

This is a bad omen.



Total wordcount: 2843

I should mention that I'm not doing "The Missing Door" after all. I started outlining at last only a few days ago, and decided that Stargate has invaded my brain too much for me to be able to write that at all. I also didn't want to try Dimension Tournament because of the popularity of a certain book called The Hunger Games. My other options were Eros/Psyche retelling and HHNF sequel, both of which require a lot of research. So I'm doing Drem, the companion story to Wyrd, instead. :D

Wrimos will look up and shout "save us" and I'll whisper.......no.

Wow, I have an absurdly long list of posts I need to make on this blog....and probably all of them will have to wait until Dec, unless I get really procrastinatory.

NANOWRIMO HAS BEGUN! THE WORLD WATCHES IN TERROR.

I went to my local midnight write-in last night. :) It was fun, although special, experience. XD
Got to Shari's, told them my age, and was told the Wrimos were in a room that minors aren't allowed in. I was like ohhhkay. But then it wasn't actually a room, it was just at one end and slightly partitioned off. So I started an awesome kids table right outside it and ended up being joined by all the COOLEST people. Not even joking, all of the annoying people I remember from last year were totally BEHIND THE WALL. LOLZ it was great. Then the women at my table and I were being super chatty and silly as we pwned words, so then this woman from BEHIND THE WALL came and sneered at us. After a very polite argument, she left and made fun of us to her table-mates and we quieted down a TAD.
I wrote about 1644 words before my head started nodding so I figured I should go home.

Current wordcount: 1644.

List of Shiny

This is more of a mix between Shiny List and Magna Carta I.
Shiny from: Liana
Magna Carta I from: Chris Baty, No Plot? No Problem!

Here is mine:
-traitors
-characters saving the lives of other characters
-big bodies of water
-interesting weapons
-badass little-girl-saving
-comedy of errors (things just keep going wrong but hilariously as opposed to disturbingly)
-actually, lots of disturbing errors is shiny too
-romances that start out with hate
-fun hiding places
-snipers
(notice how my brain went from "fun hiding places" immediately to snipers? I saw that. I know.)
-snappy dialog
-interesting inventions
-bizarre locations
-spaceships that go fast. if you know what i mean. *is shot*
-soldiers
-military operations
-the smell of rain
-freaky dreams
-warm colors
-snow

What's up in my writing life

So I believe I mentioned in a previous post (maybe. I'm so behind on here WHO KNOWS.) that I'm taking a fiction-writing class this term. The only reason I've been writing ANYTHING this month is because I HAVE to for the class. Which is pathetic. But also encouraging, because it shows that I CAN write if I have a deadline and creative people poking my brain. ^_^

I don't really understand writing slumps. I mean, I love writing. I really do. So why do I sometimes (OFTEN) want to do just about ANYTHING besides write???? Is it because all my current projects are giving me way too much pressure? That sounds truthful as I type it. :P

But, wow, this post isn't supposed to be self-awareness catalyst. I want to blog about my class, darnit!!!!

Our teacher is really an interesting person. She's the kind of free-flowing, purple-vested, burkenstock-wearing hippie person that normally drives me BONKERS. You know, the smiley teacher that wants to be friends with everyone immediately and says things like "precious" and, well, "precious"? Maybe I'm the only who's bothered by nice people. LOL anyway, she did drive me bonkers for the first three weeks, but I suddenly realized this week that she has ceased to bother me really at all (and today we had a lecture about MEDITATION. Not that I have anything against meditation, but it was just what she WOULD do in a fiction-class.).
Our assignments are mostly 300-word "scenarios" with an assigned prompt, usually involving an emotion (such as love turning to suspicion, which is this week's) or a list of details we have to include (these are killers). I'm really enjoying the scenarios for the most part, though. I'm taking the opporchancity to practice writing stuff I normally don't do, like sci-fi, first-person, future tense, and zombies (I did it for you, Merc. I did it for you. lol.). The future tense and the zombies have been among the most fascinating.
We're also reading short stories by people like Flannery O'Connor (okay, mostly Flannery O'Connor) and a writing how-to book by the Gotham Writer's Workshop??? It's surprisingly good (by surprisingly I mean yes, I DID judge it by its cover). It has good essays by different people about important elements of craft (like plot, characters, description, etc).
Besides all that, we also have two full-length short stories due over the term. I've completed the rough of one.
This leads me to the best part of this class, and that is FEEDBACK. Just having the opportunity to work on our work with other people is great. The teacher gives us TONS of notes and suggestions on our turned-in work, especially the short stories, and we can get lots of verbal feedback if we opt to read ours aloud (I chickened out on the zombie-one. I'm pretty sure you have to have a Zombie Reading Voice, which takes years of training and a special diet.).
All the people in the class are CRAZY, too. It's so refreshing cuz everyone WANTS to be there, and there's no shy or reserved people, so we all discuss and bash and praise. :)

That's really all I have to say about that. :) I'm writing a ton of random fiction that I never otherwise would have, and it's given me plenty of great ideas and lessons for what I should include in future stuff. #win