NaNo Week #2!

Week two of NaNo is officially over! 

This week was a little rough for me as far as word counts go, but I still got some writing done. My story's flowing pretty well, considering I don't have an outline or anything? I came into this thing so prepared, didn't I?

Anyway, it's time for my weekly update and snippets! This is going to be a pretty brief overview of the week, since I had a hard time keeping up with my word counts and I also failed to write this post as the week went on and therefore there's just not a lot to say. But here it is, anyway! 

DAY EIGHT: 1702 WORDS
This day I wrote an important moment in Archlan's life-- or what he thinks is important, anyway. (Who's ever going to tell these characters that they NEVER know what's best for them at the beginning of the story?? It'd be a lot quicker and less painful that way.)

DAY NINE: 24 WORDS

DAY TEN: 20 WORDS

We don't speak of these two days.

DAY ELEVEN: 2113 WORDS

Yay! My highest word count yet!

DAY 12: 567 WORDS

This was a Monday, guys. Don't judge me.

DAY THIRTEEN: 2247 WORDS

Aaand I beat my word count record again! Getting on a roll. ;)

DAY FOURTEEN: 201 WORDS

Aaand the roll stops.

Actually, I was pretty happy with this day because before I went to bed I literally wrote 7 words just so I could say I wrote SOMETHING and then I looked at my word count and remembered I had written a little bit early that morning. So 201 words actually felt like a lot when I was expecting 7. xD
Sorry there were only a couple snippets, but next week I'm hoping I'll have a little more to work with. I'm still determined to catch up on that word count. 

That's it for this week! I have high hopes for the next stretch, and I'm feeling pretty good about this novel so far. I hope you guys are too! Also, I just want to say that yes, I want to catch up on the target word count for NaNo, but you SHOULDN'T feel like you're failing if you're behind! I've done three NaNos before this year and I haven't officially "won" a single one, but I still feel like I won because I worked on those stories and got a lot done on each of them. So stay caught up with your word count, or don't stay caught up, but as long as you're writing and enjoying spending time with your story, that's all that matters. Don't pay any attention to me and my crazy goals. 

So, guys, are you still surviving NaNo? What's been your highest word count so far? Let's talk about our unruly children (novels) together!

NaNo Week #1 + SNIPPETS!

WE MADE IT. 

The face you make when you're excited to be done with week + terrified for the rest of it. 

The first week of NaNoWriMo is officially over. I hope the words have been flowing for you guys and most importantly, you've been having fun with your stories!

My first week was pretty good. Not as good as I'd hoped, but I can't complain! Things are definitely picking up now, so hopefully I'll be able to get into a better flow.

Today's my first promised NaNo update, with a day-by-day play-by-play (hehe) of my word counts and how everything has been going for me! Plus, SNIPPETS for each day! Are you excited? I hope so, because I am. :D 

(The images of my snippets are really small; if you can't read them, just click on them and they'll get bigger. Sorry for the inconvenience!)

DAY ONE: 785 WORDS

Yeah... the first day of NaNo was not amazing for me. I didn't start writing until about 8:30 at night, which was... really not smart. And I didn't have one excuse other than that I was lazy. xD So, shame on me. Buut here's your first snippet!

DAY TWO: 1667 WORDS

In which I obviously JUST made it to my target word count for the day. Like, I literally checked my word count, saw it was at 1666, and wrote ONE MORE WORD and quit because it was late.

No, it's not a rock band. I really need to find a better word.

DAY THREE: 1063 WORDS

... Really, Emily? You couldn't have written 604 more words?

DAY FOUR:  306 WORDS

Wow, that was rough. This was a Sunday, so I really don't know what my excuse was for such a puny word count... buuut I still wrote something, so it's still a win. And at this point I knew that stuff was about to go down, so my motivation would pick up soon and I would hopefully catch up. (Poor excuse, I know. xD)

DAY FIVE: 2044 WORDS

So there I am, chilling on my bed with my laptop, watching the first Christmas movie of the year and working on my story. And then I see movement and I look up and THERE'S A MOUSE RUNNING INTO MY CLOSET.

So I put my laptop down and groaned and I'm pretty sure I said something like "Not again!" because yeah... this isn't even the first time.

Look at this! Look at this mouse shamelessly sabotaging my efforts to write! 

Just because I'm writing about a thief doesn't mean you have to be one...

Needless to say, my writing was a little bit interrupted that day as me and my dad scrambled to block off my closet and set up traps. But I still got a great word count! I made the daily target and even exceeded it a little. Yay!

(Also, the mouse escaped from my closet. Yeah, that's what you get when you lean a plastic lightsaber against your mouse wall to keep it from falling down... and the mouse just runs up the lightsaber and jumps over the wall.)

Unfortunately you don't get a snippet from day five because the fact is everything I wrote that day was kind of unexciting and bad. xD Oh, first drafts.

DAY SIX: 1691 WORDS

Yay, another good day! Things are starting to happen at this point. Archlan's being a naughty little thief and also about to give himself a stroke. Calm down, dude. Stop stealing stuff and you'll be fine.

I was writing this part of the story and Archlan's sneaking around a castle trying not to make a sound and like I said, he's so stressed out worrying that he's going to get caught. And then I stopped writing and went to bed and it was kind of creepy. Even though the sneaking in the book was going on in broad daylight. xD

DAY SEVEN: 2070 WORDS

My highest daily word count so far! The Thing finally happened in my story, and now stuff is about to go DOWN for Archlan. He'd better watch out.

FINAL WORD COUNT OF THE WEEK: 9626 WORDS

Overall, I'm satisfied with how this week went! I'm still hoping to catch up to the target word count 
goal, but I'm already doing better than I'd hoped considering I had a bit of a rough start. I'm having fun with this story and Archlan's (not) having fun. (The ultimate writer-character relationship.)

All right, guys, thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed the update and the very imperfect snippets.

So how did your first week go? Do your characters hate you yet? Tell me all about it!

October Highlights 2018

Hi guys! Today is my first monthly highlights post and also my it's-the-first-day-of-NaNo-let's-freak-out post. I'm not gonna lie, it's after 8:00 at night and I haven't even started my novel. xD So I'm about to get right on that.

Overall I've had a pretty good October, although just like every year, it went by wayyy too fast. I'm a fall person all the way, and I might get a little depressed every year when it comes to and end. (I know, fall doesn't actually end until December. But once November hits I'm in full Christmas mode. :P) I had a fun Halloween; I went to work dressed as a 50's girl, then came home, made candied apples, and watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and Garfield's Halloween Adventure. It can't really get much better. xD

Here's what else went on this month:

READING

So for the last few months I've been reading the complete Oz series by L. Frank Baum. I'm alllmost done; there are five volumes and I'm on the second-to-last book in the fifth volume. These books are ridiculous, in a hilarious way. It reminds me of Wonderland randomness, with C.S. Lewis humor. I've enjoyed them, but it's taken me far too long to finish them and I'm very ready to move on to other things. (There are sooo many books to read!)

WRITING

Yup, you guessed it-- in October my main writing venture was to prepare for NaNo. I started earlier than I normally do and I STILL don't feel completely prepared... sigh. Buut, I mean, are we ever really TRULY prepared for NaNo?


You can read about my NaNo novel HERE, if you'd like. (You would.)


REAL LIFE

This month involved two big changes. One's a highlight but the other one is not a highlight and actually sad. I'll share that one first so we can end on a happier note.

On the 25th my 18-year-old dog Shadow passed away. I won't go into details about how he declined, but it was happened very quickly at the end and we had to make the decision no pet owner ever wants to make. It's sad but I had EIGHTEEN years with him and that's kind of crazy.


And now the highlight of the month-- I got a car! I'm on a little it more of a budget now, but it's great being able to drive myself to and from work instead of that responsibility being on someone else. 


Another thing I want to mention that I've been doing recently is bullet journaling. I think I'm going to do a post about this eventually going into a lot more detail about my process and how it benefits me. But it's super great; it helps me keep track of my daily goals, and inspires me to make goals and ­reach them. Sometimes I do better than others, but overall it's really useful and fun, too.

BLOG

Here's what went down on the blog this month:

Books I Didn't Expect to FALL In Love With
Language of Worlds + Know the Novel

I'm still getting the hang of the blogging thing. Although I haven't posted every week, I'm hoping to get into a more consistent schedule soon. Thanks for bearing with me!

And on that note, I want to share what's going to be coming on the blog! Every Thursday this month I'm going to do a NaNo update, sharing with you guys my current word count and how the writing's going. (I'm sure a lot of people have done this, but I got the idea from Katie)

All right, that about wraps it up! Thanks for reading and best, best, best of luck to all you NaNoers this month!

How was your October? Any highlights? How was your first day of NaNo?