NaNoNovel Read-Through, Re-Cap, and Worry-Over

I promised you this a long time ago, and so here it finally is! You can also have a virtual bag of virtual popcorn if you can find one.

You may remember that I spent most of July writing, writing, writing. To you weirdos, partially, but mainly I was writing a novel based on Shakespeare's Hamlet. It still doesn't have its own title, but I've read it all the way through, and I thought I'd tell you what I thought of it.
 Short answer is that it's absolutely rubbish. Thankfully, the fact that it's absolutely rubbish will make editing it a good lot easier, which is always good. But first, I need to do lots and lots of research. Which is where the 'worry-over' part of this post's title comes from.
 You see, I have a bad habit of shoving things into my writing (which is a problem of its own that I don't have the energy to go into or even think about with this novel). When I'm writing speculative fiction, I tend to cram as many supernatural creatures into a world as is humanly possible. And in contemp., it seems, I shove themes and problems into novels like I've got four folders and a laptop to fit into a handbag. This particular novel has everything from terminal illness to mental illness, from suicide to cowardice to cold-blooded murder.
They say 'write what you know' but I only have experience in one of those things  (and it's murder, of course). The rest of them are all things that you need a careful, well-informed hand to handle, and while I try to be careful, I'm not very well-informed.
 What should you do when you're uninformed? You should get yourself informed! But with topics like suicide... it's a bit more difficult. Especially when you're socially awkward (but that's another issue I don't have the energy to go into). It's difficult to find people who can inform you, it's hard to talk to them sensitively -- possibly as difficult as writing about it is -- and if something they said would make a huge difference to the novel, what would I do? Would I ignore them so that I could keep it on track and not have to re-write the whole thing, or would I leave it and offend them and possibly others?
 A friend of mine (hi, by the way, if you're reading -- harass me at some point; we haven't talked in yonks) pointed out that you can't keep everyone happy. But as true as that is, I'd like to avoid it as much as possible. I want what I write to be as true to life and human nature as possible. I want what I write to help people, if it can. I want people to like reading my writing, not hate it. Which is why reading through this novel was so difficult to do -- I could see the image it painted of the mentally ill and of people in general and it was so negative, so awful... but I've not got a clue how to fix it.

Also, I haven't got a satisfactory ending yet. But at the moment, that's almost the least of my problems.

Writer-who-actually-seems-kind-of-depressed-but-promises-she-isn't out!

CampNaNoWriMo: Day X

It's the END. Camp has finished (and I won!Yay!). But my novel hasn't.
Hopefully it will at some point, though, because I'm very proud of it and can't wait until it's finished and had a bit of time to sit so that I can go back to it, read it, and realise that I've made a bigger mistake than Frankenstein did when he made his monster. And then I can follow in Frankenstein's footsteps even more by attempting to make it better and just killing everyone I love.

Maybe not the last bit. But the rest of it is exactly what will happen. Don't worry, 'rinos -- I will continue to bother you incessantly with my blathering about it.

WriMo out!

CampNaNoWriMo: Day 29

Yes, it's Day 29. I've got two more days, and then I should, hopefully, have my 50K written and ready.
The novel, however? Not so much. I'm still not sure how to kill off Hamlet or his uncle or Laertes or the new person that I somehow accidently added to the hitlist. His mother is dead, though, which I suppose is a start.
 I'm getting supremely weary of this novel, but still it's all fascinating me. I originally aimed for a writing style reminiscent of The Silver Linings Playbook and The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer -- mystical but simple and understated. I don't think that writing style will be particularly obvious in this first draft, but it's a feeling I have constantly while I'm writing it (even if it is hidden under a pile of fatigue and moaning). Hamlet, to me, is Shakespeare's greatest play because Hamlet is his greatest character. There are so many layers to him because he's an onion, and he continually surprises others -- and himself. He's like a dark and depressed teen at times and at others he's the class joker, except most of his jokes are so intelligent that his classmates don't know he's laughing at him (note to self: add in intelligent humour because there currently isn't much).
 I'm not going to say I've been recreating that -- I don't think it's possible -- but I've been trying, and it's been wonderful to attempt to make a character so wonderful and alive.
 In short, unless the next two days fall to pieces in a hail of bullets or something, this is the best NaNo I've ever done.
 Let's ignore the fact that it's only the third, people. Just enjoy the moment.

[Edit: I forgot to mention that the Stats page on the Camp website lied to me. It turns out that it's been giving me false hope all along, because its 'Words per Day to Finish on Time' thing counts the day that you're on, even if you've updated your word count for that day. Thankfully, I noticed this before Something Bad Happened and I found myself supremely unable to hit that 50K. Yesterday I got to the point where my daily word count matched up with what I started with having to do (when I worked it out myself because of the website lying). So, yay!]

WriMo out!

CampNaNoWriMo: Day 25

These days have started going faster. It feels like yesterday that I posted for day 22.
 So, day 25... the day that you can start winning. I think I won on maybe the 27th or somesuch in November, but not this time. I've got a good 12,000 words to go and no understanding of how I am actually going to get to the place that I will have to get at some point: the end. Just a couple of days ago, I felt like I was going to run out of story before I got to the big 50K; today, I feel as if I'll get to 100K before my characters actually do each other in like Shakespeare intended.
 Speaking of what Shakespeare intended, this isn't so much a re-telling of Hamlet now as a thing that was origjnally a re-telling of Hamlet. I'm pretty sure that his uncle insn't going to be the one to kill him. And his mum has to die at some point, too. And I don't know what to do about Laertes, because he has to die too and he also has to be Hamlet's uncle's right-hand-man and all sorts of things that should happen in the end don't seem like they'll stick with the characters. Oh, and Hamlet's got another best friend and another murder to do.
 This is probably why I don't feel like it's ever going to end -- because I don't have a clue how it's going to end, not really, even though I think I just said above that I do. I don't know. This is why I don't write thrillers or detective novels or anything like that. I just don't have the brain power to mastermind a murder (let alone like five or however many). Although it is nice to be able to write on a Sticky Note on your computer (for the whole world to see), 'The train isn't a safe place to plan to murder someone'. That was a fun moment of my life.
 In other news, I read a blog post about word wars/sprints, and how you could just do the magainst yourself. I tried one yesterday, just made myself write as much as possible as fast as possible for fifteen minutes, and it really speeded up my time for getting my 1700 words or so done. I've mentioned before how I hate having to rush things and not having the chance to stare out of the window and contemplate life and everything and soak in feels, but I did actually quite enjoy writing that fast. It makes me feel productive.
 And I need to be productive right now.

WriMo out!

CampNaNoWriMo: Day 22

I thought I had another day before I had to write this post. Huh.

You may remember that I put my word count down to 45K because I'm a wimp. Well, I put it back up again, because the stats told me that I didn't actually have to write as much to catch up as I thought I did. Of course, that was before I gave up at 750 words yesterday because I felt so shattered, but, you know. I still don't have to write a load more a day than I originally did. And I've finally got to a place where I can actually get back to the plot, which is always good.

But nine more days, people! Sigh. I don't know if I have nine days more energy left in me. Which is a shame, since I really want to actually be able to finish this first draft. I stopped everything else I was doing because I really wanted to write this. Sigh.

Keep your fingers crossed for me.

WriMo out!

CampNaNoWriMo: Day 19

So, it turns out I was using hyperbole on day 13. Just about hitting your word count? It's cool. It's a nightmare and hard and a total love/hate thing, but it's fine. It's not the end of the world.
 What is the end of the world is feeling like you have to drop your word count goal.

Gasp.

I know, it's lame. It's like losing, except worse because you know you're going to win without putting half as much effort in at all. Basically, it's like cheating. However, it was out of my control. I missed two days (and possibly today; I've got a headache already and I've only been checking Tumblr) because of a really bad migraine. I can see what you're thinking: two days, pah! That's not that much to make up -- but the thing is, when you're wimping out of your word count as it is, it's difficult to see how you would make two/three days of words up. I'm going to try, of course I am. But I'm not going to put too much pressure on myself -- I've already learnt that that's a pointless thing to try and do. Besides which, of course, my novel will never end regardless of it's word count.

In other news, Dropbox is SO slow on my phone it is ridiculous and was a waste of time downloading the app.

WriMo out!

CampNaNoWriMo: Day 16

Well, it's all been going on in the past three days, I have to say.
I have given up on Q10. I don't know if I mentioned it in that previous post, but the thing didn't have scroll bar and the longer my novel got, the longer it took to get to the bottom of the page so I could actually start the thing. Grr.
I did the unthinkable, guys. I copied it all into MS Word.
I know, it hurts me, too.

I also, after a bit of nagging from my mum, 'But what if the thing with the battery breaks the laptop?' etc., I have downloaded Dropbox. I thought it'd be a bit like Google Docs, but actually it's just a folder on your computer that you can get at from the net. It would be cool if it didn't want to sell more space to me.

And Day 13, I think, was The Day That It All Went Wrong. I mentioned how the novel had now stepped into the unknown with no hope of survival, and it's possible that that will still be the case. I barely wrote anything on Day 13, just about caught up on Day 14, and then yesterday I just lost all my motivation. That lack of motivation is still quite obviously there, unfortunately, which is why I am writing this now. Hopefully it'll jump-start my brain, but I don't know.

On another note, my Inner Editor is very unhappy with my lack of research and the marked change in the whole tone since I stepped into the unknown. This part could very well be a sequel to the first part, if the first part was long enough to count as a novel on its own.

I don't think that was 'another note', really, but there you go.
 On another another note, in case you were wondering about the whole 'I have no clue how he'll get out of this' line from my last post, I still don't. I'm leaving it until a certain point that I've fixed in the future of the novel to worry about how that will work. I might have to kick Shakespeare when he's down and change one of the best parts of Hamlet to suit my personal preferences.
 Hurray!

 Well, we'll see how far it's been driven into the ground on Day 19, I suppose.

WriMo out!

CampNaNoWriMo: Day 13

Is it nearly two weeks, 'rinos? It feels like less... no wait, that's a lie. It feels like months.
You may remember day 10's entry. Ironically, I got my writer's block fixed after writing that post, and finished up my word count plus more, I think. So, you know, hurray for me then.
 Today, however, I am back to the self-same slump. My characters have pulled themselves back into line, and the plot with them, but I have got to the bit that I hadn't prepared for, and it doesn't bode well at all. Not at all at all at all. I won't get into the specifics, but let's just say that this novel either has to find itself a deus ex machina or stop being an almost exact replica of Shakespeare's Hamlet, because I don't have the foggiest how I'm going to write myself out of the corner I flung myself in. Sigh.

WriMo out!

CampNaNoWriMo: Day 10

I totally forgot about this post, so I'll keep it quick.
It turns out that today is the day that I start crying (inside). I'm running out of writerly energy, or something. Maybe it's because my brain decided to go against Shakespeare and re-write the plot, making it all harder. Maybe it's because my characters (after quick consultation with my brain) decided to have a bit of a fight, even though one of them is the only person that the other character will trust. Maybe it's because the character with trust issues ran off to his girlfriend who he was supposed to be driving away and have no real connection with. Maybe it's because, just after I'd resigned myself to that, his girlfriend decided she had standards and was strong enough to say no to someone who didn't understand the word. Maybe it's simply because I'm sick of feeling like I have to do something every single day, even though it's the summer holidays. Maybe I'm just being mopey. Who knows, but I'm falling behind my word count for the second day sice you last heard from me. Day 8 was the first time; this was when the plot first started to go kaput. I caught up and wrote past my word count yesterday (there were feels) but now I've started writing late in the day because I've been out with friends all day, and I've been trying to get away from it because I just can't get anything to happen the way I want it to.

Sigh. Not as short as I thought. I've got another 800 or so words to write. Darn.

WriMo out!

CampNaNoWriMo: Day 7

You may remember me saying I would be crying by today. Well, I was right, but it's more because of the intense heat, high pollen levels, and large amount of open windows than any issues with Camp.
 However, that brings me to one of the points that I don't like as much about writing a novel in a month -- the lack of feels other than 'I have to get this done'. I mean, giving myself a deadline is extremely necessary (I take years to finish novels when I don't have one), but I like meandering my way through a story line. I like taking a minute or a day or a week, whatever I feel like, to soak up the feels of a scene. I like to take time to plan my chacters' next move (by which I mean to let them plan it themselves).
 But that's irrelevant, because working like that won't get anything wrote, and I can always catch up on feels while I'm reading it for editing purposes. It can just feel a little bit empty sometimes.

 Other than my winging, though, it's going okay. I didn't hit my daily word count yesterday because it was absolutely boiling and I had to play at a concert (an annual one which was the first one in three years to A: be warm and B: be inside with hot stage-lights trained on the players), but I have been writing five per cent or so over most days anyway so I didn't go under the word count I was supposed to be at.

Hurray!

I can't think of anything else, I'm too busy watching the Tennis to think properly. I promise a better round up on the tenth.

WriMo out!

CampNaNoWriMo: Day 4

It's only four days since I started out on my quest, friends. Can you believe it? No, I can't either.

I apoologise for the following post. All the stuff I have to get done has made me brain-dead.

You may be aware of my propensity for procrastinating. You may also be aware of all the stuff out there on the Internet to stop people like me from doing what it is in our nature to do.
I downloaded one of these things. It's called Q10. It makes your entire screen go black, and anything you type comes up in tiny orange type.

Shall we do pros and cons? Yes, let's do pros and cons.

The pros:

• You can't go on anything else (ie the net) without saving and exiting. It might not seem like that big a deal, but dudes: I'm lazy as owt. It really works.
• You can set a word count goal! Hurray!

The cons:

• You can't really see what you're writing
• There's no spell-check
• It saves as a .txt file, which will mean a lot of fiddling about later on
• It has that thing where it skips a line when you press enter, like this:
•  
• See?
• You can't format (centre, left, italics, etc)

Overall, though, I really like it. I mean, really I just like it because it makes it hard to procrastinate. And that is always good, because I've hit my wordcount goal (and surpassed it) every day! Wahoo!
I also feel like writing my lovely Hamlet re-telling is helping me to crawl out of the writer's block cave! Huzzah! I'm still having to toil, but today I kind of enjoyed the work -- I went 8% over my goal because of the feels! YAY!

Just wait til Day 7. I will be crying into the Internet's shoulder.

Wrimo out!

CampNaNo Starts, With a Promise that My Novel Won't Sell

Indeed.
My novel, as some of you may know, is a re-telling of Hamlet.
...
Well, darn.

However, it won't keep me down. This re-telling is going to be so awesomesauce that those ones that were planned will be thrown out in favour of mine.

Gulp.

Wrimo out!

My Writing Plan for the summer (and part of the autumn, technically)

By Monday 10th June (this is a draft post, so I don't know when you will be reading this, which is why you get the full date) I will have finished school for the summer, thanks to my GCSEs finishing. Therefore, I have a lot of time on my hands. Therefore, I am planning on getting a lot of stuff done. Here it is.

For the rest of June I will be mainly working on writing blog posts for you, my lovely 'rinos, and editing/revising/rewriting/whatever you want to call it-ing Lantern's Fall. I might also be doing bits and bobs on Nemophilia and the story idea I got when I wrote this for a Write Practice practice, and don't let me forget about entering this competition. I will also be preparing for July.

Because (drumroll please)... in July I will be participating in Camp NaNoWriMo for the first time! Hurray! My goal is set at 50k, though I'm hoping to maybe do more than that (scoff), seeing as I have so much time on my hands. Like in November, you lucky dudes will be getting a look into my writing habits via some round-up posts, although I have not decided yet how often these posts will be. They will be added to the 'NaNoWriMo Journal' page again, so you can see how much awesomer I have become since 9 months ago.
For Camp I will be writing a re-telling of Hamlet. You can find more information on the shiny new 'WiPs' page.

August all depends on how far I get with Lantern and her difficult-to-work story. If I have got it all sorted, then August is pretty goal-less, unfortunately. I will be writing whatever takes my fancy and also going to the summer school weekend run by the Ilkley Literature Festival. Find out more about that here. If Lantern, Annie, Malan, Cathenna and assorted others have refused to cooperate, though, I will be working around the clock, as...

September is NaNoCritMo! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I will be sending my baby off into the world for the first time and looking after someone else's to boot! I am slightly scared and apprehensive about this, but, as I'm sure you know, the teen writing community are a brilliant lot, so I'm sure it'll be brilliant. *gulp*

And that is my summer. Please feel free to berate me if I don't do any of the things I have written down here.

Writer type out!

Writing, a double post: Your plots and your Internets

Neither of these points currently merits its own posts, so I decided to squidge them into one.

First of all, your Internets. There are a lot of brilliantissimo writing-y blogs and websites out there. To name just a few that I follow:

• Teens Can Write Too!
• This Page Intentionally Left Blank
• Go Teen Writers
• The Write Practice 
• YAvengers 

This is all well and good and helpful... but beware, my little minions. I e-mail followed maybe six or seven blogs. I now spend an hour reading my e-mails. Now, that isn't really helpful when you're trying to get stuff done, so beware. You can learn how to be a good writer all you want, but if you never put that into practice...
Just a word of warning to the wise.

And now onto plotting. Unfortunately, I've already given you a link to the wonderful Liam, who has basically explained all the things that I might want to say about plotting before.
Let's go with it anyway.
I've always hated plotting. I like my characters to drive, and they can't exactly do that when they have to work to a given point -- if they don't have free will -- right?
Wrong. Or at least, I think so.
Because it depends on what you mean by plotting. At writer's group lately, we have plotted and tried to write a short story as so:

1. What is the spark that starts the story off?
2. What is the main character's motive?
3. What's the obstacle to this motive or goal?
4. What's the first thing to go wrong?
5. Where's the point of no return, where it looks like there's no way out?
6. How do they get out of it?
7. Now tie up those loose ends.

Or something like that. It might seem like a lot of things to get sorted, but that doesn't mean that your story is done, dusted, told and explained, oh no. Because, not only can you change these things if you want to, this isn't the story. It's just the plot, and one plot can be told a thousand times in a thousand different ways, especially if it's character-based. You need an example? --sigh-- Okay. Let's say I'm writing a short story about a guy who finds out that his uncle killed his father for his crown and this guy plots to kill that uncle. Basically, I'm writing Hamlet, yes? No. My Hamlet could be a girl instead of a guy. She could be sassy instead of moody. Her mother could have been in on the whole thing. The uncle could be a much nicer dude than the dad.
 You get the point. My story could be almost unrecognisable from the original but still use the same plot. Hurrah! The story might be plotted, but that don't mean it's been written yet, sistah.
I apologise from the random faux-US-style-language. I don't know what came over me.
 So that story hasn't been written yet. But maybe you're scared of jumping in quite so close to the deep end. Maybe you've got a series planned out, like I have, and you've got stories where the beginings and endings have to fit together, but no more. Does that count as plotting? And is it possible to do?
 From my experience, I would say no. I've been trying to write a series where each book gets to a certain end. The only book I have finished that has done what I've told it to is the first book, and I only found the ending mid-way through in a flash of inspiration. I've tried writing all five other books, but they just... they basically die half way through. So, if I were you, and I was going to plot, I'd try to plot out more than the beginning and the end. It seems like the middle actually seems to matter.

 I think that's all the 'wisdom' I've got to share with you. Thanks, and comment if you've got something to say (*facepalm* duh, Chaz, your readers aren't idiotic enough to not know why people comment on posts...


...are they?)

Writer out!

I have several things to say before normal viewing resumes...

Okay, number one: I have a lot of ideas (more on why in a later post) so you are going to get a lot more posts from me than usual in the next few days/weeks, depending on when I want to share them, since I'm gonna draft them now, mwahahaha... they'll be (hopefully) exciting!

 Number two: yes, for those of you who noticed that I did a book review yesterday, I have stopped reading Les Miserables. There'll be more on that later too.

Number three: I am attempting to write my first ever script (it's for a drama thing at school) so if anyone has any general tips, comment away!

Number four: I am also (yes I always put a lot on my own plate, I'm greedy and have an attention defecit) writing a modern-times-set short story retelling of Hamlet. Exciting!

Number five: It is snowing buckets here. Yay! Apocalypse time!

Number six: I'll leave you with this... FIERY HEART EXERPTS! THANK YOU RICHELLE MEAD AND PENGUIN! They are here and here. Exciting!

Bloodlines fan out!