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Random thoughts and ideas about writing... |
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This journal will probably be mostly about new writing ideas and discoveries, with the odd other thing thrown in with it. I'll do my best to keep writing here regularly, to keep the creativity going and keep me in the habit of writing. Plus if I keep coming back everyday to update my blog I should end up writing other stuff on writing.com too... I will trick my imagination into writing if I have to! (hopefully I won't need to trick it, but just in case  ).
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| I've bought another book! And no, I haven't read the last two yet. But once again I walked into a bookshop, and saw the next one in a series I've been reading. This time it was 'Soul Eater' the third book in the 'Wolf Brother' series- although I'm sure the second one only came out a couple of months ago. Now I've got a load of books which I need to read... preferably before I get more books at Christmas (yes, I know that's three months away, but it's a lot of books!) Books to read The Gift The Riddle The Crow The Last of the Wilds The Sword of Shannara The Elfstones of Shannara The Scions of Shannara The... second one of the Dragonriders of Pern books... I've forgotten the title! The Dragonbone Chair The one after the Dragonbone Chair... forgotten the title of that one too! I think that's it... although I would like to read The Black Magician Trilogy again, because all three books are brilliant, and hard to ignore, even when you've read them twice already. Oh, plus any other books I buy  I'm still writing as well... working on the story I recovered the other day mostly, but I wrote an entry for 'Challenge Yourself' today as well. Shame I don't seem to be doing as well on updating my blog everyday as I did last month... oh well, it's only two days missed so far. I guess it's because I know I can't go for a 'blue month' this month, because I'm going to be away on holiday for eight days, and going to be busy getting ready to start university as soon as I get back from that. Still, I can try and update as much as posible this week... |
| I've been recieving gifts! Thank you very much to the anonymous who gave me my nice new costumicon! I wasn't expecting to ever get anything like that! And also.... thank you very much to my best friend anikathepen for gifting me a three month upgrade! Wow, both within the space of ten minutes! Anika and anonymous, you are both great! Thank you!! |
Well, I have now completely decided to give up on the NaNoWriSummer, and plan for the real NaNoWriMo instead. With that in mind, I joined "Invalid Item"  today, which should help me getting impatient about it again- and get me to actually plan my novel, rather than making it up as I go along (which I just discovered that I cannot do, not without some very basic planning anyway.)For now, I will continue working on raising GPs- which should be a bit easier than I expected, thanks to the writing.com anniversary that's going on. With 5x the normal review mixer, I should be able to save up some points. I almost always get points from the review mixer, because I've done so few reviews before that nearly everyone is an author I haven't review before. So, I have 7 days, and 27000 points to raise (because I've sold 46 raffle tickets now, so I've got more points than I thought). This is going to be a challenge, but I'll try it without worrying too much over whether or not I make it. If I do, then when I get back from holiday, I'll deffinately be setting up Create a Culture for a second round- I like running contests too much to not run it again  Come buy some raffle tickets!
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I just got my first ever merit badge!![Merit Badge in Contests
[Click For More Info]
For conceiving and hosting the Create A Culture contest, a unique challenge that provoked a lot of deep thinking and inspired many wonderful entries.](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/genre-Contests-235.gif) Thank you Maryse Bardolph  !Woohoo, now I have a badge! And I'm sorry for tagging an exclamation mark onto the end of everything today... at least it's only a one off, not something I do everyday |
| Well, at the very least, I'm taking a break from NaNo- a real break, where I don't worry about getting behind on it. I'll just put the deadline off a bit if I go back to it- it'll still be the same number of days, so it isn't cheating. For now, I'm going to enjoy taking up my old projects again, and have a go at raising 30000 GPs before next friday. If I do manage that, then I'll have enough points to renew my upgrade for two months, but if not, I'll still be able to renew it for one month. I'm still not great with reviewing, so although I'll do some reviews, I know I can't raise that much purely though that. So, I think I might have a go at "Invalid Item" to raise some of it; and as an added bonus, points get sent to RAOK whenever a challenge is completed, so that's good too.Luckily, I've sold a reasonable number of raffle tickets now, otherwise I'd be trying to raise another 10000 GPs as well. 40 tickets sold now, though! And if I sell anymore, it will be even better- although the raffle ends next Monday anyway. Now, I'm off to write a bit of the story that I recovered the other day. I've got past my nervousness (is that a word?) of it by starting a completely new scene rather than carry on with one I've already started. This way, if it's no good I can simply ignore/rewrite it later, but I still get the fun of writing it now  |
| Okay, right now I am thinking that I will give up, and the real NaNo in november can be my 'completed' challenge. And you know what? I'm not that bothered about dropping my NaNo novel right now. That will probably change tomorrow, when I will suddenly decide that I must finish the novel, and I will spend hours working on it. For now though, I will enjoy not bothering! |
 I haven't written a thing since last friday, except for about 100 words today. I'm already behind, I shouldn't be skipping days. If I'm going to get anywhere near my target I'm going to have to start writing seriously again, even one day off takes several day's work to recover from. The problem is, I managed to recover a writing file I thought I had lost, with planning for a new story on it. I wasn't going to start writing the story until next year, but plan and write quick scenes (to be re-written later) to get a good idea of the character and world in it. When I managed to recover this file, I made the mistake of reading the three scenes I had written for it already, and I remembered how excited I had been about writing it; so now all I want to do is work on that story, rather than my NaNo, for which I suddenly have no enthusiasm what-so-ever. Even when NaNo is over, though, carrying on this story will be difficult for another reason. Those 'quick scenes', although they had very little thought put into them at all, are very good- much better than I normally write. They aren't perfect of course, and I can see plenty of sentances that I'd just like to re-word a bit, and several typos (it's written in a program that doesn't have a spell checker) but over all, the standard seems much better than my usual writing; the whole feel of the scenes seems to be exactly the kind of atmosphere I was going for. The result of which is; I am now scared to write more, for fear of messing it up, and filling it with boringness. It's stupid I know- they are just three short, disconnected scenes, which have weaknesses like any other piece of writing. But I'm still scared to add to them, because over all, the scenes are interesting and don't wander off the point anywhere near as much as my writing normally does. It sounds like I actually knew where I was going when I wrote it! Which is the complete opposite to the truth, because the whole point of writing them was that I didn't have to worry about getting somewhere, or writing well, or even explaining anything, because it was all meant to be re-written to make it fit into the actual story when I wrote it. Now I've just confused myself, because I shouldn't even be thinking about writing that story yet, the problem is that I want to, not that I can't. Oh, things are so much simpler when you're writing half a dozen things at once with no real need to stick constantly to one of them! |
| Everything with the contest is now complete! I finished deciding on prizes last night, then announced the winners and sent out emails and prizes this morning! I have to admit though, I couldn't cut out all of the entries I liked to get it down to the five prizes I was offering. I did work out the five best, and give them the prizes I said, but then there were four still left that I thought should really win something, so I invented a new prize level just below honourable mentions, and gave the four who were left over 1000 gift points each. I wasn't expecting to have so many great entries to go through! Actually, I wasn't expecting to have so many entries at all.. Anyway, it's all sorted out now, although I never did hear a word from the person who volunteered to be a judge, so I had to email them this morning and say that I had to post the results anyway. But apart from that it worked out perfectly- I like hosting contests! Even if they don't exactly help with saving for an upgrade  (at least I've started selling decent numbers of raffle tickets now, so it evens out!)So, if anyone wants to read the winning entries;
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| An update on the judging; I've started sorting through the entries, and have managed to narrow the entries down to half of the original number. There are now twelve to choose from instead of twenty four, but it's getting very difficult now. Cutting those twelve entries down to five (the number of prizes I am giving out) is going to be extremely difficult! |
| I just finished reading and writing notes on the entries for Create a Culture! -I know I was supposed to do that yesterday, but I was up until 1 AM this morning writing to get to 40000 words on my NaNo as it was (I managed it though!). It does appear though, that I can only do one thing at a time. Yesterday I wrote and did very little judging, today I finished the judging and haven't written a word. Well, I say I finished judging, technically I still have to decide who wins what prizes, but that won't take me long and I've already got a rough idea of which entries will get the big prizes. Honourable mentions are going to be very hard to decide on though... there are too many entries that deserve a prize! |
| I haven't written much today at all... I'm still going to go try and write more in a minute. I've done less than 1000 and I should be doing at least 2000 a day at the moment... I want to reach 40k words by the end of today, and I'm on 38K (give or take a few hundred) at the moment. *scurries off to write* |
| I haven't written much today, but I have done a reasonable amount of judging for the contest and emailed the other judge again. Hopefully tomorrow I can read the last few entries and make notes on them, and then it's just putting them in order and deciding who wins, which hopefully I can do on Saturday. Although that will be difficult, because there are a lot of good entries, it shouldn't be as time consuming as going through them in the first place because I've been making such detailed notes as I go along. Plus, I have the sort of mind that naturally puts stuff into ordered lists, so that bit should take me less than an hour in all honesty. Then I can post the results on Sunday, and not go over the ten days that I said it would be done in; assuming everything works out alright with the other judge. I'm sure it will all be sorted out on time anyway, I don't want to take longer than I said; that's why I deliberately put in a number of days it would take, to make sure I got it done in good time. Oh, and I've also been posting on;
Which is a great forum for anyone who will be/is going to college/university, but which deffinately needs a bit more exposure to get more people in there and posting! |
| I've managed about 2300 words today, although I have to admit that they went rather slowly. Probably because I was watching a film at the same time as writing I did carry on writing yesterday, but not for long. I did 1500 words in all. Still, I am slowly catching up on that, and I just have to work on my contest now. Speaking of which, I am going to go read another entry as soon as I have finished writing this. I think I'll have to email the other judge again tomorrow though, because I still haven't heard anything, and I said that the judging would be done within ten days, which are up on Sunday. Sunday... I really am going to have to go read some more entries... ah well, this bit is the slowest bit I think. I hope. |
| I've done about 1200 words nearly today, and I'm planning to carry on and write a bit more yet. I didn't write a thing this morning though, at first I was busy reading 'The Gift' (I forgot how good that book is!) and then I was going through contest entries for a couple of hours. Tomorrow, hopefully I will be able to drag myself away from the book long enough to get through most of the remaining contest entries, and write a good 2000+ words. Even though I have not written that much today, since I started writing at about 9pm, it's been going well. I hardly even noticed the first 600 words fly by, and for some one who is addicted to the wordcounter that is quite an achievement. The genre has certainly mutated on the subplot though (I say sub-plot, but but there is still no actual plot at all as of yet) but the characters are completely changing as I go on. A good character has turned bad, and a minor character has become important, although I still have no idea what they will do. At least I can't complain that the characters aren't alive... that's never the problem I have to deal with. Now I just have to figure out how to make them do what I want, rather than arguing amongst themselves. |
| Well, I carried on writing yesterday, and actually ended up doing 3500 words! That's a record for me lately, I haven't written that well since I gave myself major burnout from writing far too much (4000-5000 words on top of being at school all day, having homework, and not even having inspiration). I've even written 2000 words today, which is good, since I was out shopping in the afternoon. I have to admit, I am strange because I absolutely hate shopping, but today it put me in a good mood. Why? Because I walked into a bookshop, glanced at shelf and suddenly thought "Hey, that's the sequel to that book I really liked! I didn't know that was out yet!" and then I walked around the corner and thought "And there's the third one in that other brilliant series! I didn't think that would be out for ages!" So, I ended up buying 'Last of the Wilds' by Trudi Canavan, and 'The Crow' by Alison Croggon. I hadn't even heard the title for the second one of the two, and to be honest, I don't see where a crow comes into the story at all, but guess the title fits with the first two ('The Gift' and 'The Riddle'). The only problem is that all I can remember about the first two books is that they were really good. It took me a while to remember the main character's name, and I still don't remember where it finished up. So, I am going to re-read the first two .I have so much reading to do right now! I haven't been short for a book since Christmas. I was actually in the middle of tackling 'The Sword of Shannara' trilogy by Terry Brook, but I'm going to put that book on hold for a bit. It's a good story, but I seem to be getting through it rather slowly, and it's a huge three in one volume (1200 pages, and they aren't small pages either). I'm on about page 300 at the moment, so it will take me a while to finish it. It's fairly easy to pick up from where I left off if I leave it for a while anyway. It hasn't got the fastest plot in the world by any means- although it is faster than 'The Dragonbone Chair' which literally doesn't go anywhere for about 400 pages. I've been reading that one on and off for over a year, I sometimes wonder if I'll ever finish it. And no, I can't just read one book at a time! At least, I can if it's a good book, but with these slower fantasy epic type ones (and I'm serious, The Dragonbone Chair makes Lord of the Rings seem fast paced) I tend to read a few hundred pages, switch to some faster books for a month, and go back to them. I mean, it takes so long to get anywhere in the plot that once you get there you aren't likely to forget it! Strangely, they still seem like good books, and I'm interested in where the story is going, so I'm going to keep reading them, but there's only so much you can take of their long-windedness at a time. Now I seem to have rambled forever (especially since I originally wrote a different entry, but acidently lost it and had to write another one) so I am going to stop now |
| I'm so far behind on my NaNo novel now, it's ridiculous. If this was a normal NaNoWriMo I wouldn't stand a chance of doing it. It's day 25 and I have done 28300 words- and my NaNoWriSummer was meant to be roughly the same speed as a normal NaNoWriMo. I'm not giving up just yet though... if I'm not back on track by the end of the month I will lower the target, but until then I'll do my best to catch up. Of course, I can't spend all my time writing at the moment because I have to judge my contest still- I haven't been able to anything today/yesterday because the internet connection to my laptop broke. I don't know what did it, one moment it worked, the next it didn't. However, whilst trying to install a wireless network the normal one suddenly sprang back into life, so I can get on with it again now. Today I have written 1800 words, and done a bit of judging... hopefully tomorrow I will have more time, because I want to finish judging and announce the winners fairly quickly- assuming I hear from the other judge soon  . Anyway, at least I enjoy reading the entries and everything, so it's not like it's work. I'm even considering running another round after my holiday... although it will have to have a shorter deadline unless I manage to save enough for a longer upgrade. Meh, I'll decide about that later. You never know what good luck turns up; I should probably enter a few more contests to try and win some GPs.Anyway... I'm going to go write a bit more I think... |
| I closed the contest this morning! I didn't get time to start reading the entries to judge them until this evening (being very far behind on NaNo) but I read through a few of the entries. At the moment I'm just reading them and making notes in a word document for each of them, so it's easier to sort them out when I've finished reading them. Later I'll go back and review some of them  From what I've already read, this is going to be a hard contest to judge; there are quite a few really good entries. At the same time as judging of course, I'm trying to catch up on my NaNo novel, since I'm almost a week behind on it. I've done hardly any writing just lately and won't have a lot of time tomorrow because it's my friend's 18th birthday party. Still considering lowering the target to 50k words or something, since I'll be on holiday for the last week of it, but I'll have another go at catching up first. If I can do 75k I will, otherwise my inner critic will forever mock me for not managing it. |
| Well, I got the grades I needed The results were all good, even maths (the exams for that seemed awful) and I'm happy with what I got. My friends got what they needed too, although one of them was upset about getting a B in English rather than an A, but she only needed a C, so it's okay really. Plus I just noticed that my raffle is being sponsored! Thank you to whoever is doing sponsoring it! There are another two entries in my contest too, so I'm looking forward to reading all the entries tomorrow  |
| Well, I did fail the driving test. It's not a surprise, but at least I didn't fail too badly. I'm actually taking it as a good omen for results tomorrow; yes I know it seems strange to take it as a good omen, but I'm going to anyway. The way I see it, things even out. Therefore, there should always be something not so good happening before you get exam results. It's a strange theory, but it worked last year (I got my first rejection letter from a publisher just before results day). So, I'm just going to hope things even out tomorrow and the exam results are good. I've sorted out about what time to turn up at least; no I didn't find out when we're supposed to. I just saw my other best friend, and she offered to give me a lift there when she goes at ten. We might have to wait a bit if we're too early, but at least neither of us are the type to get really stressed out with results |
| There are now twenty two entries in my competition! About three of them are new since yesterday I wondered if there might be a few last minutes entries... although it isn't really last minute yet as there are another two days to go. But it's getting that way. On the downside, no one has bought a single ticket for my raffle. Only 13 views on it... makes me paranoid that I've done something wrong on setting it up, although I know people must be able to get to it, because otherwise it wouldn't even have 13 views. But then, it's not particularly original or anything, like my contest was... Ah well, it will be fun judging the contest... looking forward to that being a good way to get through the week Also in a slightly better mood today, because I have finally heard from my best friend... hadn't heard a thing from her for a couple of weeks, no reply if I sent a message... I got a message back today though, 'Back from my holiday'! *slaps forehead* I forgot she was away this week! Slight problem still in that I had been trying to contact her to find out if she knew what time we were supposed to pick up our exam results on Thursday... and it turns out she doesn't know either! Most years everyone knows well in advance, but I think they forgot to tell us this year. Well, I'll just turn up at eleven and hope they're there |
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