Recovery 2015

For the past few months, I avoided writing on here. From a strenuous NaNo to Finals to various minor events over Winter Break, I felt that I had nothing worth writing about, nothing to celebrate or tell.

My 2015 Planner & my new GOALden 2016 Planner.

However, I looked over my 2015 Passion Planner, and I saw how many things I started, accomplished and achieved. I experienced new things and reaffirmed my goals with the start of the New Year.

And so, after a long break (and a good mental kick in the butt), I present the most striking events of the last two months of 2015 (& a little of 2016.)

NaNoWriMo Lessons

I discovered that 1,667 words, while good for getting 50,000 words in a month, proved to much for my inner & inexperienced writer. I tend to put an extreme amount pressure on myself to live up to my stated goals, even if my goals are obviously too high. As a first time NaNo-er, I should have lowered the standard.

In the end, I wrote a total of 23, 678 words on my novel over about two weeks (if I don’t count the days I didn’t write). While it isn’t close to 50,000 in a month, the last time I wrote a story over 20,000 words, it took me five months to complete it. I wrote 23,000 in two weeks, and I’m not even close to finishing it!

With some newly acquired time management skills, this next year will see my novel completed, I can guarantee.

Finals: a brief overview

I was the lucky girl who only had two finals this semester, and I used that fully to my Procrastination Advantage. I did not study at all until the Friday before my finals week (whatever you do, don’t do that), but I managed to do well on both of my tests, getting an A in one class and a B in another.

Still, the stress from finals exacerbated the burnout I felt from NaNo, and by the end of the week, I was ready to be out of school for a while.

All the Wisdom Teeth!

Everyone has heard of them, seen the funny videos post surgery and dreaded having their own out.

Well, I had four wisdom teeth, and they all needed to go.

My surgeon was kind and caring, and I easily slipped into the anesthesia-induced sleep . Immediately after awakening, I stumbled out of the building with my mother and an assistant holding me up, lacking any feeling in my lower face. Stitches on my gums gave me the stereotypical chipmunk cheeks, and I couldn’t eat solid food for two weeks.

Unfortunately, I have no funny videos to share, but here’s some pictures!

Dog Therapy — Me with my magic ice pack and favorite doggie

Chipmunk Christmas — Look at those Chipmunk Cheeks

Fics & Writing Goals

While taking a break from my NaNo novel, I’m working on my Harry Potter fanfiction called The Choice. Since publishing, it’s been viewed almost 300 times!

A quick moment of silence for the late Alan Rickman, who played the infamous Severus Snape and inspired me to write this fanfiction. May he rest in peace.

I’m excited to continue with this story and see how my OC develops in the Wizarding World. Fanfiction allowed me to stretch my writing fingers and focus on developing my OCs without feeling the pressure of “I’m-writing-a-novel.”

With my renewed focus on my fic, I decided to set a daily and monthly word count goal. I learned from NaNo that a having a short and long term goal makes writing seem more urgent and feel more important. While 1,667 words a day and 30,000 words total were too much for me, 500 words daily and 15,000 monthly allows me the option of a quick writing session when I’m in a time crunch. It’s a lot less than NaNoWriMo, and that’s perfect for me.

Thoughts?

Whew! That’s what I get for not updating!

What do you think? How has your winter break been? What were your NaNo & Finals experiences?

Sound off in the comments below!

A Reaffirmation Pledge (or 10 days of Not Writing)

Looking back on the past ten days, I regret putting off writing as much as I did.

While two big projects needed my full attention, I could have easily started writing vigorously starting this past Thursday. Instead, I was lazy and sat on my phone the entire time. I even avoided looking at writing prompts on Pinterest so I wouldn’t feel guilty.

Now that it’s Thanksgiving, that I “have the time” to write, I’m sitting at my computer not writing.

I already accepted that I probably wouldn’t make it to 50,000 on my first NaNo attempt. My schedule for November gave me a good heads up for that. But I know that I could have written more and been farther along than I am now, had I disciplined my writing more.

However, I’m going to make myself write. No matter where I am, I will do it. No excuses, no stops.

Thank you for reading my little rant. 🙂

A New World With a New Character

Learn through Mistakes

I entered into this NaNo with grand ideas, a multitude of feels and a plan to get through it. Yet at each new event in my novel, I’m finding new mistakes and unplanned details taking up all of my writing time.

My first 12,500 words or so take place exclusively in a realistic world. No magic, no supernatural, just everyday problems, and maybe a few weird dreams.

Now that I’ve passed this opening sequence, I realize that I am totally unprepared for this new world my Protag. has entered.

I have an entire idea in my mind, full of a heaven painted into the center of the Universe with new colors and nebulas filling the streets. Yet, I can’t put that into the words of my Protag. Hell, I don’t even know how to fully describe it in my own words.

Help?

While I know a lot of this is on me for not preparing, I want to know what World Building Tips you have, and how you incorporate describing that world with your Protags or other miscellaneous characters.

Also, what are y’alls word counts at the moment? Remember, even a sentence is more than if you had never written at all!

Breaking Writer’s Block RANT

I normally make myself plan out a post before writing it, but for NaNo, I’m making an exception and free-forming a little Breaking Writer’s block post.

I’ve hit that point in NaNo…

…where I have zero motivation or desire to write, even though I’m extremely excited about this story. It’s mostly where I’m at in events, to be perfectly honest. I hate writing the beginnings of stories.

I feel my beginnings are boring, missing too much information and/or lacking that magical something. It’s the set up, the exposition, and I hate writing it.

Now, I could just skip writing this part all together and get to the portions I want to write. But knowing me, I’d never write the beginning at all if I did that. And it’d be about as crappy writing it first as writing it last (as is normal with first drafts).

That’s why I am writing this post: to get my fingers moving and the writer’s gears going. Even if I’m writing just a personal blog, at least I’m writing. Hopefully, this post can help me transition into writing the NaNo Novel.

So how do y’all get through writer’s block or part you don’t want to write, but must? Any tips or tricks? Sound off in the Comments!

Happy NaNo!

Sorry, y’all for not posting much! Like I said, school has taken over my life, and I haven’t been able to write much other than my NaNo outline and journaling.

But today is the day! NaNoWriMo has officially begun, and I could not be more excited! I’ve written about 2000 words today, but I can’t count on such a good amount everyday. School will definitely become a priority on some days.

Just a short update. Let me know in the comments how your first day of NaNo went!

NaNo Struggles & Prep pt. 2

A Much Needed Session

This week in my NaNoWriMo Prep meeting, we discussed two very important pieces of our novels: opening scenes & protagonists.

As I discuss in the video below, I struggle with these two extremely important elements of my stories. When I first start writing stories, I always worry if I am over-explaining or giving away important information early in my stories.

Even more so, I struggle with how to describe my characters. I find most of my physical descriptions are either too lengthy and hastily shoved into a paragraph, or they’re lackluster and minimal.

During my second NaNo meeting, we did multiple exercises detailing different emotional, demographical and social aspects of our protagonists. I normally skim over these types of “character sheets” and details, simply because I thought I knew my characters well enough. Hopefully, knowing these facts will help flesh out my protagonists.

My opening scene was even more difficult. In this aspect, I struggle with under-explaining. Since my novel is mostly set in modern day, I don’t really think to write out what the setting is like, how my character’s life is like before it all changes. I prefer jumping straight into the action and ignoring the background story.

Well, I found out that I’m losing a large portion of my story when I do that.

*Almost 25% of the novel is the Opening Scene!

This NaNo, I’m going to be outlining my opening scene intensely. Especially since I’m incorporating different religious ideas and mythos, I’ll need to have a fairly detailed opening scene to establish the basic facts of this novel’s world.

Watch my video below to hear more about the meeting and what I learned:

School: The Downfall of NaNo

Outside of NaNo, I’m also a full-time student, and I made some frightening discoveries whilst marking my November planner.

Simultaneous Group Projects

Not only will I have two group projects going on in different classes, both projects will be due on the same day in November. Any chance of getting my word count every day of November is gone, sadly.

My Own Laziness

Unfortunately, I haven’t taken my grades as seriously this semester as I did my freshman year of college. I’m make a C in a class I normally make A’s in, and I’m in a Computer Programming class (which I like to say is like teaching a fish Chinese.)

So during November, I need to also focus on my grades. Wish me luck.

Tell Me Your Story!

I know a lot of you have done NaNoWriMo before, so tell me some things you struggled with and how you overcame those (or are still working on them).

Happy writings!

The Ultimate Writing Challenge – Accepted

NaNoWriMo

If the name of the website wasn’t clue enough, I’ll tell you now. I LOVE TO WRITE! And November is the Official National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo.

I had heard of NaNoWriMo, and the nationwide organization that promotes the non-profit writing challenge, years ago, but for most of my life I was too busy (read: lazy) to really commit to the challenge.

This past New Years, my resolution was to complete the first draft to a novel I started in high school. And 25,000 words later, I was done. The problem is this: 25,000 words barely qualifies as a short story.

A novel, according to most publishing officials, is approximately 70 – 75,000 words. Almost three times my finished draft’s word count.

25,000 words was hard enough. There was no way I could expand my first novel into that word count.

Insert NaNoWriMo. The purpose of NaNoWriMo is to write at least 50,000 in 30 days. This challenge really scares and excites me because it took me 5 months to write 25,000. The amount of discipline and dedication to write 50,000 in 30 days will I think bring out a new writer in me.

MERCH

IT IS NOT NANOWRIMO WITHOUT NANOWRIMO SWAG!

As an avid sweatshirt wearer (mostly because every building on campus is freezing), I had to purchase the intensely cozy and epically large NaNoWriMo Sweatshirt. See Below:

NaNoWriMo Prep!

My area offered some awesome pre-NaNoWriMo workshops to help outline our up coming novels, and I decided to give you a glimpse of that experience!

If you’ve ever done NaNoWriMo, comment your experience below! What was it like? Did you make word count? Did you go past your word count?

If you’ve ever wanted to do NaNoWriMo, what’s been stopping you?

Inside Out Book Tag!!

All the Books ≠ All the Feels

I love talking about books. Books are magical things. But there are a few books that go beyond captivation you for a couple of hours and just completely make you feel everything in your emotional spectrum.

With the help of some Inside Out characters, I’m gonna list out the books that have made me feel one specific emotion INTENSELY.

taken from Disney Wikia. All right reserved to Disney & Pixar

JOY: FANGIRL BY RAINBOW ROWELL

Now, if you’ve followed me for a while, you have probably heard of this book a thousand times already. But let me tell you why I love it so.

I read Fangirl my senior year of high school. I loved being a nerd, but I didn’t know how I could grow up and still passionately love these great stories without being childish.

Insert Fangirl. It follows a freshman college fan of a book series, and I came to the joyful conclusion that I could still be a nerd and grow up and be a functioning college student.

Needless to say, I find a lot of joy in this book that helped me stay true to myself in a scary time.

ANGER (Rant included): FIFTY SHADES OF GREY BY E. L. JAMES

This book makes me made for many different reasons, but maybe not for the ones you think.

As a fangirl, who reads fan fiction, I’ve been exposed to BDSM relationships written like the one in this novel.

After reading fic disclaimers explaining the type of relationship portrayed and researching a little on my own, there are major problems with how this book portrays a BDSM relationship, and it infuriates me.

(Insert Rant)

The main reason I become so angered is the Christian Grey is a terrible dominant. As a person with his more violent ‘tastes,’ he should always put the emotional needs of Ana, the submissive, before his own. I say needs instead of wants because (**SPOILER ALERT**) In the last scene of the novel, Ana makes an emotional, not logical, decision to have Christian beat her as she believes he wants to. Christian, if he were at the very least a decent dominant, would have realized Ana was not emotionally ready for this part of the relationship and still needed time.

HOWEVER HE DOES NOT.

There’s the short version of my rant on this book.

DISGUST: BREAKING DAWN BY STEPHANIE MEYER

This book had so much potential. Stephanie Meyer is a good writer. I devoured this series, which I freely admit, like every middle school girl my age. I participated in team Edward vs. Team Jacob (In my own words:Team Bella Makes Her Own Damn Choice).

But the ending. My God, the ending. After, what, almost 700 pages of build up to a battle, their is no battle based on vision that the reader never even sees.

When the movie came out, I found it to be one of the few times the movie is better than the book.

I could go on another rant about this one, but let’s move on.

FEAR: HORNS BY JOE HILL

I don’t often leave books unfinished, but Horns is the only book I have purposefully stopped reading.

This book tapped into one of my greatest fears. And what’s worse, it takes you into the mind of a psychopathic antagonist.

I read through most of the book, but when I reached the chapters through the eyes of the antagonist, I was so afraid that I slammed the book closed, tucked a warning note for me into the chapter, and put it away. I felt literal chills down my spin even after I resolved not to finish it.

SADNESS: ELEANOR & PARK BY RAINBOW ROWELL

Ugh. This book. I just- I can’t.

The relationship between Eleanor and Park is so beautiful, but Rainbow Rowell writes a dark and realistic reality for the two and my heart breaks in the process.

I definitely was crying by the end, even though the final chapter leaves things openly hopeful.

Time to Tag!

I tag everyone who wants to do this challenge! It’s seriously fun and gives you an excuse to reminisce on the books that made you feel things.

I hope you’ve enjoyed! What do you think of my list? What are some books that made you feel any one emotion?

I just updated my professional blog, and you should check it out! I will be writing about my novel and updates about to there!

Here’s the link:

Novel Update #1: Not so good… | Devon Gadberry

Short and Sweet Advice for Writers – Write Like a Puppy

Now this is a cute, and EXTREMELY helpful article. Since I want to be a writer as my career, I always feel like I must approach my works like a “professional writer” should. This mindset limits my ability to get words to a page and consequently depresses me to no end. Approaching writing like a puppy sounds much more fun! (And besides, PUPPIES!)

Live to Write - Write to Live

Writing is serious business. Doing it well requires study, commitment, and dedication. There is a lot to learn – form, structure, style, voice – more craft nuances than I can name. “Real” writers sacrifice for their art. As Hemingway said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

BUT …

Sometimes, you just gotta play.

I mean, you don’t want to be this guy, do you?

Victor Hugo

I didn’t think so.

Writing may be hard work, but that doesn’t mean it can’t also be fun. The trick is learning to approach it with a different mindset. Instead of coming to your writing with the weight of the world on your shoulders, try thinking about your time at the keyboard as a play session.

Going for it

Which brings me to puppies.

Puppies know how to play. They can make a game…

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Writing Devon

1st & Only Draft

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