Monday, December 23, 2013

In which Kelley realizes something somewhat terrifying and exciting about her novel....

In November, one of my NaNoWriMo projects was a psychological thriller/horror novel titled Prisoners of The Mind. The final word count ended up being 91,023 words. I despised the ending somewhat, but thought I could work it out somehow. Maybe make a sequel for it, or just have to give the ending a little more revision than the rest of the book needed.

Wrong.

I started prepping for revisions earlier this month. Originally I had just planned on making notes in each chapter for what I wanted to change, etc, but eventually I slipped into outlining. An enjoyable process, until I hit Chapter 4 and came to a somewhat awful realization: The rest of the book has to be scrapped.

Okay, maybe not all of it. I could salvage a few scenes from it, but the rest of the story-line from Chapter 4 on changes completely. I have to rewrite it all. This both terrifies and excites me for the obvious reasons. I mean, hey somewhat new story to write with these awesome characters, but.....omg. THINGS. I can't even explain my feelings right now. Just THINGS OMG.

Anyways, I'm starting revisions/rewrites in January with the goal of 1 chapter per day. I'm hoping this will get me half way or most of the way through the book. Then I'll finish up that draft in February and let it simmer while I distract myself with prepping for Camp NaNo.

And now I must go, because ooh Twitter so shinyyyy.

I may have a problem come January. xD

Thursday, December 5, 2013

Camp NaNoWriMo 2014-Goals, dares, and all that fabulousness

I know what you're thinking. "NaNoWriMo JUST ended WHY IS SHE TALKING ABOUT CAMP NANO ALREADY HUSH YOURSELF." Yet I can't help but create my OA goals for the next event. Once an overachiever always an overachiever, y'know?

-Goals (will be updated as Camp gets closer)- 
-Write 50k in 8 days or less. (This NaNo '13 I did it in 9 days, and I'd love to be able to say that I did it in a week. xD)

-Have a six digit number at the end. I'm not sure what it'll be yet, but I want to go over what I got this NaNo. (154,212 words) I think it'd be cool if I could get a minimum 200k, but we'll see. ;3

-Pull off a (three day) 25k weekend. I've pulled off 10k days before, just not in a row! And even though 8k days aren't that hard anymore, doing a 25k weekend will prove interesting.

-Complete two novels



Now something for y'all. In the comments, I want y'all to give me some utterly ridiculous OA (overachiever) goals for Camp NaNo '14, just to spark some creativity and bring out my competitive side. And if you want to have a NaNoWager with me (*cough cough Jason Cantrell ;)*), I'm open to any challenges!




Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Muting my inner editor with caffeine and drugs

Warning: This blog post was written "under the influence", so my thoughts may not be pieced together in the most coherent fashion.

Okay, not illegal drugs. Cough and congestion meds, because I am sick, and being doped up on this stuff helps my mind to relax and just write. Also caffeine because OMGZ THIS STUFF IS FLOWING THROUGH ME I'M ON THE TOP OF THE WORLD LET'S WRITE ALL THE THINGS.

I started getting into writing poetry last year, and as usual, I sucked. Reading back on my first poems (and even some stuff I wrote back 4 or 5 months ago) makes me cringe and want to run away.

But not all my poetry is bad, and this is something I need to understand. I've seen bits and pieces of my poetry that looks like it has promise. Sure some lines are going to need tweaking, but for the most part, the poem captured what I wanted to say.

Back near the end of August, I started submitting poetry. Of course, despite my minor edits, they still sucked. (Reading back on them now causes me no end of embarrassment.) And as usual, they got rejected. All three of them. But now that I've written more poetry and read some more, I understand what was fundamentally wrong with those poems and why they were rejected. Yet it's still hard not to become the slightest bit discouraged, y'know?

I don't plan on submitting anything again for a long time. During this lovely December, I'll be focusing on poetry more. God only knows what weird stuff I'll get out, but I can't edit a blank page. I have to write something, no matter how awful it is. Because it can be fixed. The first draft is for making a mess, revision is for making that mess something pretty.

But lately as I've sat down with my poetry notebook, I've found it hard to write a complete poem. I usually write out a couple of paragraphs before I stop completely, because my inner editor points out what is wrong and how much it sucks. Then I usually lose the energy to write any more on it, and I turn the page and try again. Rinse and repeat.

This has led to my free-writings some stuff. Not poetry, mind you, but prose-ish stuff. It's actually really fun, and most of the time I end up completing these pieces.

I never thought I'd have such trouble with my inner editor. I can write stories without it piping up too much (usually because I'm writing a story during NaNo), but when I start writing poetry, my IE is practically screaming at me. It's a strange and frightening experience.

So hopefully during these next few weeks, I can manage to make Her shut up for a while. I don't know how long I'll have an excuse to be doping myself up with these meds, seeing as I got sick on Sunday and am feeling a bit better now (but my cough/congestion is still here, just not as fierce). Either way, I'm going to keep going. I have to keep going, because I want to be a published poet one day. I can't edit a blank page.

Now to find a place to stash some more caffeine at....

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Post-NaNo life, and the joys of WINNING a NaNoWager ;)

This should be an interesting post.

So November's over. I clocked in at 154,212 words, which is pretty darn awesome considering I've never gotten a six figure number during NaNo before. Or during any month for that matter.

But that's not the most exciting part (*gasp*), you know that NaNoWager I had going with Jason? I won, and I won good. xD So he followed through with his end of the deal and made a dance video, but exceeded my expectations and did it for longer than 90 seconds (the original agreement). You can find links to this wonderful video on his blog, Twitter, etc. Watch it, please. You will not regret it. ;)

That video will never cease to be a source of gut-busting laughter for moi. xD I'm so evil...

Anyways, post-NaNo life (omgz there's LIFE after NaNo??? O_O). Right now I'm sick (bleh, but hey at least it wasn't DURING NaNo), preparing for two dance performances next week, and preparing for JanNoWriMo. Oh, and writing poetry here and there. I'm trying to accomplish lots and lots of things without driving myself crazier than usual. The bad kind of crazy, not the good kind. I have fully embraced the latter. xD

So what's your post-NaNo life like?