After NaNo Update

Sorry for the lack of recent blogging. It's been a chaotic time here. I won't be doing any serious writing until after the New Year and things here get resolved. I have written a little more to Changeling Enigma, though not very much. It will get finished after New Year's though.

I can haz sleepeh time now?

I won. 50,052 words officially. My word document thingy says 50,125.

I'm going to the bookstore tonight and then I am crashing. I have to try and write 4,000 more words tomorrow to beat my old record of 53,000.

G' night.

Excerpt for True Faerie Tales - Changeling Enigma

http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/207741

A synopsis and excerpt to my NaNo novel can be found here. I had originally posted an excerpt here, but text thieves worry me, and on the NaNo site, everything is copy-righted to the original authors, so I feel a little safer. I hope you all decide to read it and let me know what you think via comments!

Also, my wordcount is now 31,519.

Goal reached!

Just thought I would say really quick that the 25,000 that I wanted to reach was obtained last night around 1:30 in the morning. I have my coffee now and also I'm going to grab some breakfast.

Thanks to everyone who cheered me on! My goal for tonight is at least 27,000.
2,000 new words shouldn't prove to be too difficult. Also, I will start considering what to post as an excerpt, so you all can expect one soon!

Is it just me...?

Or does everybody's characters never seem to want to get serious until it's an hour or two before you're ready to go to bed? I'm ready to kill them all off in my story. They do it just to spite me, I swear.
I have to write about 3,000 more words to reach the 25,000 word goal I set for myself. If I reach this goal then I'm all caught up. I guess I'll be getting some coffee, preparing the ice packs and writing away for the next hour.

I can do an average of 500 words in fifteen minutes. That's 1,000 words in a half hour. I think I can do it.

Coffee comes first, though.

Edit... Forget the coffee.

20,000 and counting

I've reached 20,000 words after staying up until 1:30 AM. Then I got up at 7:00 AM and went to work. I'm tired now. I don't feel like writing for today, but I'm going to try anyway.

The next goal is 30,000 words by Wednesday.

I'm going for it, but tonight is just going to be a lazy night with little words and much laziness. I will probably get a cup of coffee, if I can shake off the laziness long enough.
That sounds like a decent plan, actually. Get a cup of coffee, force about a thousand more words out of my tired hands and my tired mind, and then go to bed. Thus is the life of a writer, correct?

... What's sad is that I love every bit of this.


Quick edit... I just wanted to post my word goal in here for tomorrow. Tomorrow, I will hit that blessed halfway point. I am aiming for 25,000 words. I'm at 21,000 now.
... As I said, I sadly love every bit of this insane chaos that is a writer's life.

On the First Night of NaNo...

My character said to me~ I hate this kitty~

If you don't get it then you haven't read my novel synopsis yet. It's the first day of NaNoWriMo and my word count is 2073, I'm getting ready to head off to bed and this is what I've managed so far.

• Hit 2073 words, 2000 being the least amount of words I wanted to reach.
• Came up with a title for my book.
• Came up with a title for the series that it will (hopefully) belong to.
• Put up my synopsis of my novel on my NaNo page, along with the title.
• End up beat in the first day word count by my friend, Naoko.

I admit, she deserves her victory, though. And a muffin. And perhaps a echidna (I think that's the correct spelling...) but no hard lemonades. *wicked grin* She knows what I'm talking about, even if the rest of you are clueless. So I think I did good for my first day of NaNo. I'll hit 50,000 at least. At most, I'll be going for that 100,000 I want. I'm going to bed for now. More writing I have to do tomorrow morning before I have to clean the kitchen and help clean out my Mawmaw's basement before I write more and begin to put my poor main character through hell. That's when the things my character says will become interesting...

Good night all!
From the land of NaNo and caffeinated writers,

Britt

Count Down to NaNo!

Well, here I am. I'm eighteen now (turned eighteen on the seventeenth) and NaNo is just around the corner along with Halloween. Actually, Halloween first, then NaNoWriMo.
I know I am an idiot for doing this and proving only yet again that I am insane and a glutton for punishment, but I am going to attempt to do a double novel this year. This year has been a bit too easy for me in having challenges set for myself, so I think I will take a dive off the deep end and throw myself into the pit and attempt to write two novels for NaNoWriMo. That fifty-thousand each. For those of you who can't quite grasp how many zeros that is... It's 50,000. Times two. 100,000.
I believe that I can do it. I also think that I need something to fall back on since Luna, for some reason, is wanting to be difficult this year. Perhaps I feel that it's not quite my plot anymore... I don't know. I'll make it mine again. I swear, but this second novel is there to push me to do so and help me along. Only a select few will know the plot of this novel. As of currently, not counting me, only two people know the plot and one only knows the vague basic point of the plot.
For the rest of you, you all will learn the plot during some point in November. I've always been open with my novel plots and my progress. This one will remain mine and secret. If I want to update or speak about it, then I will, but unless I decide to do so, you will not know. You will get a synopsis and excerpt and (hopefully) a title during November if you pay attention to my NaNoWriMo account (Dragon_Master, for those of you that don't know), but other than that, the rest of it is mine to keep until it is finished.

This year I plan to keep out all subplots from LCS. Last year it drowned in them. I won't repeat that same mistake. I know what I'm in for in NaNo now. I will win. I will. I won't promise that I will reach 100,000 words, but I sure as hell will try. 50 K doesn't scare me anymore. 100 K does. I need a good scare this year. I need a good challenge. LCS will end up being my secondary project this year. I will update the word count and such, but the main attraction that will be my NaNo novel will be this currently untitled story I am writing.
Like I said, I have to take LCS back from the dark pit that it is in. I need to make it feel like mine again. I have a feeling it won't be easy and I suppose I'm hoping this new novel will help me feel better and keep me moving along whilst I tug and pull and drag LCS back out of that dark abyss before I finally get frustrated and give up on it.
I can't give up on LCS. I've spent too much time and energy making it what it is. I refuse to let that go to waste.
So the reasons that I am writing two novels this year:

• I have to reclaim LCS as mine in order to continue writing it and make it something good.
• I'm trying a new tactic and seeing if keeping my progress as vague as possible, and keeping people not so filled in on a new novel will make it easier for me to continue to write. This eliminates others opinions and such to my plot.
• I'm insane.
• If I get frustrated with LCS I can fall back and work on my currently untitled novel before I decide to give up on LCS because of stress and frustration.
• Did I mention that I'm a crazy bitch and decided I need an insane challenge before this year end?
• 50,000 = not scary anymore. 100,000 = very scary now.

Well, there you have it. That's more or less it. I will also say once again that I am insane.
WISH ME LUCK! THREE MORE DAYS!

Excitement

That's right. Why? Well, of course, because it's October. My birthday's in a week. My Mother's birthday is a week after that and then a week after that is Halloween and a friend's birthday (I know. Pretty cool to be born on Halloween, right?) and then after that is NaNoWriMo!
NaNo has me really excited. I know what I'm in for this year and last year was my first NaNo, so I felt a little in over my head and ended up ruining LCS with subplots. This year, that mess of subplots is going out the window and I'm redoing it all.
I'm collecting all my notes and today I will be cleaning the kitchen up (my domain) and getting my room all inhabitable again, which means I have to steal it back from my birds. That will be interesting...
Yesterday I spent most of the day outlining what I want and need each chapter to contain. Today, that all went down the drain. I brought my notebook with me and left it in the animal kitchen so I could stop in to write a note or two and then go back to caring for the animals. Well, I picked up my notebook to leave and I noticed a big green ink smear across the pages. I looked and, stupid me who decided to use my good green pen to write everything with, the words were gone. Washed across the pages into a big green smear.
So I told the lady who organizes all the volunteer stuff, because I always chat with her a little before I hit the road after I'm done, and she gave me a spiffy cover with a small notebook inside! It'll protect the notebook from future water attacks and even has a spot for my pen! I was all excited and she explained that she got them for the volunteers (like me) and I just got mine early since it sounded like I needed it. I am now eternally grateful.
So now, in between cleaning the kitchen and my room, I'll be trying to re-outline all my chapters in my new spiffy notebook. With my friend Naoko gone all day today, and my friend Matt being sick and sleeping away, I've got nothing better to do, so I'm off to get started~

HAPPY OCTOBER!!

Woo hoo! It's October! Normally I'm not happy about colder weather, but October is my month. My birthday's on the seventeenth and Halloween is my FAVORITE holiday. Maybe I'll start a story to work on during this month and whenever I feel like getting back into the October spirit once it's gone and pass.
I am definitely a Halloween child. This is my month. Welcome to it. I'm off to do my chores, take a shower and then try to get some decorations up~!
Hope you all have a fantastic October~!

Blog Stories~

That's right! I've added two blog stories. One is heavily based off of my job and anything interesting in my life, with a little bit of fantasy added to it, while the other is just a fantasy from a young prince's view on life as he works to become a knight and, eventually, a king. You can find them both under my profile. Monochrome Shadows is the first one, while Dark Raven Tales is the second. I personally like Dark Raven Tales more, but that's just me and my love for drowning things in fantasy and not giving reality a chance to show its ugly self, hehe.

AugNo Update

Okay, so here's my word count total for AugNo... Er... Let me find it first. *digs through her internet history to find the site* .....
... 10,562 out of 50,000.

Not bad, considering all the crap that happened this month. My sick starling, Kokoro ended up passing away, and then Maxie, my sister/father's dog got sick (though she's FINALLY doing better now, thank the Lord and Lady), and I started my new job as well.
I love my job, though. I take care of foxes, a mink, owls and hawks, and even a bald eagle... Snakes of all sorts, skunks, deer, and other animals. It's fantastic.
Speaking of work, I have to go in tomorrow so I'm going to be heading off to bed soon. I'll post an excerpt of my AugNo novel tomorrow at some point, but I figured I would update here before I went off to bed.

G' night from the land of struggling word counts and sugar cravings,

- Britt

Full Moon Madness

AugNo is pretty much, more or less, halfway over and tomorrow, or actually tonight at midnight, is Full Moon Madness. I've set my goal a very big 10,000 words. Let's see if I can do it.

Also, I switched out stories, the one I was working on, Escapist, didn't want to pick up quickly enough. So I switched out to my other story and everything's going nice and smooth now. I think if I work hard and focus, I'll catch up on my word count quickly.

AugNoWriMo Begins~!

August is here and along with it, the still relatively calm rush of writing (I won't freak out until the second or third week from my experience with NaNo) towards 50,000 words is here. I've decided to set LCS down and save it for NaNo since it began with NaNo. I want it to finish with NaNo, too.
Instead, I'm working on a new, random, omigosh-what-just-hit-me plot that... Well, hit me on August second. I'll post details when I finish the beginning of the story and outline a little more stuff.

In other words, I'm addicted to Mabinogi, which is awesome and full of win and the thing that inspired the story I'm currently working with during AugNoWriMo.

Expect a teaser or something in the next post. x3 Until then~

See ya~!

No go for JulNo

Okay. I've given up on JulNoWriMo, because after my friends left, I've been doing one thing after another. So instead, I'll make it up in AugNoWriMo. Until then, I'm going to finish things up (like cleaning and reorganizing my room) and then I'll crack down and write.

In other news, Kokoro, my other starling, is coughing now, so I'm trying to figure out what to do with her. The others are doing good. My luck at fishing this year has sucked, but hopefully that will change on the 30th.
I'll still post my word count number at the end of July. I'm not promising big numbers since I've only written for a few minutes at a time this month. But I'll give you guys numbers none the less.

From your struggling fantasy writer,

Over and out.

Supposed to be at WHAT--?

14,516 words by midnight tonight. That's where I'm supposed to be. And I think I only have around 500, maybe. Give or take a few hundred. Like I said before, I have two friend staying with me and I've been having too much fun with them here. So I'll continue to write when I can in my notebook and transfer it onto the computer later and then finish writing the rest there after my friends leave. I'm determind to reach 50,000 by the end of July, so I'll probably post a lot during sleepless nights and early mornings while drowning myself in coffee and hopefully bagels if I can get my hands on them.

From the land of a slowly but surely growing word count,

- Britt

50,000 words? No problem.

Or so I thought. *sigh* Oh well. It's July, which means JulNoWriMo, which I thought was going to be a piece of cake, but so far I've only have a little over 100 words written. --

AND BLAH BLAH BLAH, MY DEADLINE OH NOES!!!!!!1111111

--

... And I also have some guest over, who so lovingly put that in. But all is well. I'm having fun and I hope they are too. I'll write when I can and after they leave I'll just try to catch up with many sleepless nights and early mornings, but for the moment I have a fourth of July cook-out to attend.
One more thing, I figured I should mention that Tiffin isn't coughing anymore and his foot is completely healed now.

I hope everyone's having a great fourth of July!

Back and Better than Ever

Hello all.

I'm back now after my hard drive decided to kill itself. Luckily, the man we took my computer to transferred my story and everything over to my new hardrive and gave me a better hardrive than my first one.
Unfortunately, I didn't manage to reach my word count goal because of this accident, but at least I didn't lose everything I had.
I figured I would give you all a quick post (I don't think I have many readers currently, but it can't hurt to talk to people that aren't there. I do it all the time anyway.) and let you all know what was going on.
My one baby starling, Tiffin, is coughing so he'll be going into the vets on Monday, if they have any openings then. If not, I'll be scheduling an appointment ASAP. The poor guy also injured his foot by testing the flying squirrel, Nutmeg's, patients. She bit him, and he's feeling the soreness today judging by the way he's limping around. I'm keeping the wound clean the best I can, but I'll have the vet check that too while we're there.
Also my friends will be coming up in about a week and a half, so I'll be busy getting the house ready for them, but for now we're trying to get ready to head out the door to spend Father's Day together with my Dad.

So, I'll keep you all updated, but for now...

See you later.

- Britt

Six Hours Complete

Hello all. I was challenged by a writing group I'm in (MAD Challenge, you might be familiar with it) to write for six hours. I worked for six hours this morning. I woke up at six AM and worked until 12:30 PM (I started at 6:30 AM). I almost did it straight except I had to get coffe, a slice of cake for breakfast, and feed the baby starlings ever hour. I wrote 13 pages (the total is 14 but I wrote the first one last night) and my word count is 5,083 (not counting the 508 words that I wrote last night).

So here's my word count so far:

5,591 / 10,000 (55.9%)

Not a bad start at all. It's only Thursday and I've already got over half of my goal. I'm feeling really proud of myself right now. Getting up to write at six AM wasn't bad either. I might get into the habit of doing that. I got a lot done today and it's not even over yet. I am, however, having a sugar crash.

Hoping I don't crash too hard,

-Britt

This Week's Challenge

Hello, all.

I've decided to give myself a challenge to write. I left it nice and easy, since this month is going to be chaotic for me considering I'm caring for two baby starlings that aren't weaned yet, have to get the house in tip-top shape for when my friends Matt and Evan get here to stay for three weeks, and today is my Father's birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DADDY!) and I plan to help my sister make cake for today.
This will be my writing challenge.

508 / 10,000 (5.1%)

10,000 words by the end of this weekend. Nothing too hard, right? Right. So 10,000 words by this weekend is the challenge. Let's see if I can do it. I'll update on my daily word counts, starting tonight with today's word count on that little meter. Keep an eye on it. I'll have it to 10,000 words by this weekend!

Easy writing~!
- Britt

Introducing the Writer

Hello all.

My name is Britt and I'm currently working towards my dream of having a career as a professional writer. I am trying to finish my current project. A novel I started outlining back in late October, that was originally supposed to be a short story for a friend and ended up becoming a full blown novel during November for NaNoWriMo '07. I'm still writing this story for her, but now I'm writing it for my other friends as well as myself, but when I think back to when Luna Caelum Solum, or LCS, was merely an idea in my mind, I always remember that she's the one that inspired me.
Anyway, it's hard for me to find time to write, but I manage. I somehow manage to precariously balance my 'job' and family life. Between two sisters, 16 and 11, and a brother, almost 13, plus my Mom and Dad and two dogs, four cats, a zebra finch, three European starlings I raised, and a flying squirrel I raised as well, I think it's pretty understandable that writing can be difficult for me at times. Luckily, I have a supportive family and friends that cheers me on and understand.
I began writing when I was young. I still have a few of the notes from the stories I wrote back then lying around. My Mother is the reason I began writing. She wanted to be a writer, but never acomplished her goal. She has a few poems published. Poems I'll post here eventually... But I continue to write for myself. Another reason I'm still writing today and haven't given up in the years until now is because of a friend of mine. She writes fantastic stories, and I love her stories to death and look up to her a writer. So I have her and my love of writing to thank.
I love writing. I could sit all day in front of the computer with a cup of coffee or hot chocolate, and a bagel or bowl of ramen or something of the like, and just write away. I'm positive that this is the path I want to pursue... and I'll reach it someday soon, even if it drives me even more insane than I already am.

From the land of fantasy writing,

- Britt