NaNoWriMo: The Results

Alright, here it is, the big number crunch. 50,000 words, about 20 hours of writing. Roughly 2k an hour, best writing done early in the morning. Below is "just the numbers" though my record keeping fell apart a bit in the middle. But more or less, this is what I got.

NaNoWriMo: Day 30

I'd already finished my NaNo early, because I knew I'd have to, but here's a little treat. I spent some time working a few kinks out with Cait, so this a joint piece we wrote together. Kain's bits are hers, Meliki's are mine.

NaNoWriMo: Day 29

I took some time on Friday to pump out a few more words, just so I could be sure I'd written enough. I'd technically already "won", but so much of what I'd written wasn't story, and I just didn't feel like I'd "did it" just yet. After that last day's work, I felt much better, like it was a "real" win.

For reasons that don't matter, Zig and Rain are at the coffee shop after dark. Maybe they just wanted tea, who knows?

Of the two girls behind the counter, one of them Rain recognized as one of the fey sisters. The other, a tall, thin, dark woman screamed Incan to her brain. She couldnt tell you what made her think “Incan” in particular, instead of just hispanic in general, but the moment she thought it, she knew it was true.

“Hey Bei, Miel.” Zig greeted each of the girls fondly, though only the sister had a warm smile for him in return. The Incan scoffed at him and turned to do something with her back to them.

“Aww, c'mon Honey, don't be like that,” he said with grin.

“Damnit Zig, will you stop baiting my girlfriend?” She came around the counter to give him a hug, but only after punching him in the arm.

“Oh I get it,” Rain said suddenly. “Miel means honey, right?”

“Bingo, bingo, you win the prize,” Miel said flatly.

“Oh love, knock it off,” Bei said with a smile. “Honestly, you're so cranky first thing in the morning.” She turned around and stuck her tongue out at her lover, smiling at all of them. “Hey, I didnt' name this place the Early Bird for nothing.”

At Rain's confused look, Zig elaborated. “Before Bei and her sisters set up shop here, the Bird used to only be open from dusk til dawn.” When she still didn't get it, Zig said flatly, “Miel is a vampire, kiddo.”

Rain gave a little o of surprise.

“Oh, don't get your panties in a bunch, I'm not gonna eat you.”

That, more than anything, put Rain on edge. Bei pursed her lips. “No fair taking advantage of reading her bio-signature, babe. Of course she's freaked out, your probably the first vampire she's ever met.”

Rain nodded and tried to become very, very small.

“Oh, don't worry about Miel, cara,” Bei said, coming around to give Rain a hug. “She doesn't even feed on humans.”

“And you don't even like them,” Miel called back. “What are you being all touchy lovey with them for?”

“Jealous?” Zig asked, expression smug. Bei smacked him again. “Now, you behave! Just because I get caught up in the spirit of luau is no reason to get all big headed.” She leaned over the counter, crooning to her lover. “Miel here is my sweetheart, and no stinky, day walking boy can tempt me away from her, isn't that right sweetie.”

Rain was utterly confused.

“Luau is a big metaphysical shin dig that Meliki hosts ever new of the moon. It's to celebrated the lives we have and the love we can make and all the food we can eat while we walk this earth.”

“It's about” Bei cut in, “honoring the dark lady that comes for us all, and recognizing our duties to live while we can, and embracing that we will die tomorrow, and that both halves are needed to the cycle to continue. If we all just ran around making babies and being born but never dying, where would we be?”

“Up to our armpits in babies,” Zig chimed in, though he did have the smarts to flinch away from Bei's look.”

“There'll be another luau shortly, the three days before the moon goes dark. On the last day, when the moon is completely dark, we have a big feast and celebrate life, but the days before that we honor the dead and spend time in quiet contemplations – which is why it's something Zig knows nothing about. He couldn't be quiet if you put a roll in his mouth.”

“Ugh, too true,” added Miel. “Next time we should try an apple and see if someone puts him in the roasting pit.”

“Heeey!” Zig protested, but the girls just laughed.

“Come to the feast,” Bei said, once she'd recovered herself. “Even their little Delphi goes, though we do put her to bed before engaging in the more ...vigorous festivities.”

Rain didn't want to know what she meant, but judging by her comments earlier, she figured she already knew.

–

Rain had gotten quite good at teaching her ifrit to jump from her candle flame to her mind and back to the candle. When they were practicing, she had to keep the thing properly lit, or else the ifrit would't know where to jump back to, but he curled up in the warmth of her mind just fine. She wondered if she'd be strong enough to hold them both in her head long enough to take him to meet Rinna. Surely someday.

“Maybe if I give you a name,” the mused out loud. The little flame crackled and popped, flickering merrily at her.

“Alright, alright, you want a name? Why don't you come over here and whisper to me what it is then?”

The ifrit jumped immediately to her mind, filling it with one single word: ASHLEY

“Ashely?” she said, making a face. “But that's a girl's name – I've been calling you a he this whole time, don't tell me I've been wrong.”

Ashley refused to do anything but push her his name over and over and over again, so Ashley it was.

“But don't expect me to go thinking of you as anything but a boy!”

The flame chirpped and popped then settled down happily to burn low on the wick.

–

NaNoWriMo: Day 28

This is it. This is the big push. My word count marathon. Some of it is glorious, some of it is crap, all of it was a labor of love and stubborn determination. Behold my madness.

NaNoWriMo: Day 27

First day alone for writing. The next four or five days were a blur of writing and working, working and writing. Lots of fevered, mad dash kind of writing. Tomorrow's post is the big one. Today's is the super stressed one.

NaNoWriMo: Day 26

And now begins the race to pump out word count. Thursday's work was good, but Tuesday and Wednesday were way rough. I did a lot of just sitting down and writing whatever came out. So, lots of rambling in the works to come. I did manage to get an actual 50k of "story", but it took A LOT of work.

11/26/13 

8:39pm

Raeven knew she had to write, she only had five days left, and lets face it, this day was pretty much over. But she'd walked away from this world for four days, it wasn't coming back naturally. Still, it was becoming pretty obvious this story wasn't going to wrap up in a measely 50k – hell, it was probably shaping up to be a trilogy. So, just write.

He took Rain home not long after that, she was still pretty spent. Zig said that made good sense, considering how hard she'd worked today, and the fact that her magic was cut off from her. She didn't really buy that last one, she never used her magic, why would it make any difference if she couldn't reach it? But she let it go, and clung wearily to him on the ride back.

Myles was watching from the living room window as they pulled up, but her mother slipped up beside him and put an arm around his waist, giving Rain a smile. Maybe he wasn't so bad. It made sense he'd want to know where she was if anything happened to her, and she could understand why he wouldn't tell her about all this crazy magic stuff until she'd opened up to him. Still, she was too tired for any drawn out conversations tonight.

When she slipped into the kitchen, her mother moved into the space just behind Myles, who was doing his best not to loom, but failing. Rain decided to beat him to the punch and just play the caught in the act teenager.

“Yes, yes, I was out with a boy. Mom's met him, she said it was ok if we hang out sometimes, and I promised not to break curfew.”

In an act that surprised even herself, she went up to the man and wrapped her arms around his neck in a fond hug. “Thank you for looking out for me,” she said, meant for her mother's ears. Leaning in closer, she added more softly, “Thanks for the present, I promise I'll be careful.” Then she took advantage of his stunned silence and ran upstairs to her room.

She went to bed almost immediately.

8:47 pm 6 mins 370 words

9:26 pm

There was still much to do, but Raeven didn't really know where to start. She'd need to re-read to catch it again, but re-reading would lead to editing, and they were soooo close. Maybe after writing with Cait for a bit....

9:27

9:41

What will Rain do next? It's Tuesday when she wakes up, does she dream between now and then? Could be good, might introduce Morgana some. There's also the baddie with goonies that tries to get her – where, when, why? And somewhere in there she has to slip through Myles' fingers – does baddy get him? Does Morgana? Does he step down when the playing field gets so tough? Cait says probably. So

Rain needs more dealings with Rook

Rain hooks up with Kaleans: can't go off to school with them til she's able to leave for days at a time

Rain runs into nameless baddy

Rain runs afoul of Morgana somehow – is that how we get Kaleans involved?

Rook

He was hesitant to say anything to her, he didn't know how much was too fast but Jon was right – this needed to be her decision. Part of what kept him from succumbing to their power was the force of his own personality – he wanted to stay Rook. If Rain didn't know who she was or what she wanted out of life, the Death would take her over, eat her alive in her own head. They had to be partners, or she'd go just as mad as Moira had. (Moira? Not Morgana?)

So he started down the giant wolf that stood in Meliki's garden, the Kalean that had answered the fey's requests for guidance.

“We can't just force this on her, you know.”

The great wolf tilted his shaggy head, as if he didn't understand.

“You know there's no damned reason to wear that form around me, I've started my Undoing in the face before. Face me now, and let us talk about this.”

The wolf shook, like a dog spilling water from its coat, and ice crystals flew in every direction. When the small snow cloud settled, a small figure was left standing in the wolf's place, just a normal man, albeit one far too pale. He was not much taller than Rook, lean muscles and hard lines, icy blue eyes starting out of a painfully angular face. His expression was utterly calm, and utterly alien. There was nothing at home here that could be bargained with, not really.

Rook remembered staring down such a face, and being offered a choice – a choice to remember no more. Now and again, something would strain at that choice, remind him of things he was meant to have forgotten. Looking into the face of a man that would have killed him, no, annihilated him from existence- even if this wasn't the same Destroyer that had bested him in the Purging, they all had that same look about them. And they all had the power to remind him of things his soul could never forget, even after it had been erased from his mind.

9:54 520 words 5 mins

10:02

Rain was walking down the street when the baddy found her. She slips her head, walks into a pocket of ghost or something, maybe whatever the baddy was tracking – an elemental? Something incorporeal, and it kicks the baddy's ass. But that gets his attention, and he tails her from then out, til she gets Frost, who eats anyone that comes near.

10:03

A very deviant Christmas

Merry Christmas, everyone that cares!

As a little present to you all, here's a link to my deviant art - it's full of lots of random things, including some poetry, parts of an old web comic I once did, and lots and lots of sketches (some rather dirty, so turn your filters on if you're bothered by that sort of thing.).

Enjoy!

-R

Naj Pallida and the tiniest hats

If I were posting more from Asylum, this would be doubly funny. As is, I will probably link to it again when I get that story up and running. But for now, any of you that know Naj, <a href="http://themetapicture.com/snakes-have-never-been-more-pretty/">picture this.</a>

You're Welcome. :)

Double space

No NaNo update for today, as this falls under my Thanksgiving break days. But I do have a little tidbit about writing for you all.

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I didn't even know this was a thing, but apparently there's a long standing misconception about putting two spaces after ending a sentence. This long debate <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2011/01/space_invaders.html">has been resolved </a> if you're curious.

Amusingly enough, I use the double space to create a period when typing on my phone, but that's different. :P

She said What?! Getting to know your characters

My girlfriend and I were IMing the other day, and she shared this wonderful little gem of an idea. I find the concept extremely helpful for jumping back and forth between characters (like we tend to do) and for building up new characters you're not so sure of - or just for fun!

The idea is to take a sentence/concept, and "translate it" into how your character would express it. The examples she gave me when like this:

NaNoWriMo: Day 21

I tried to write while on vacation at my mom's, but it didn't really work. I got the one little blurb the first day, but after that I got caught up in living my life. I had a good Thanksgiving break, at least. :)

NaNoWriMo: Day 20

My last good day of writing before the vacation. I took a night off before the drive, to push as far as I could, but my mindset was already on my vacation. I was able to write scenes I'd already established, but everything after this was just a scramble.

NaNoWriMo: Day 19

I can't recall if I wrote this day or not. It seems likely I didn't, since it was Tuesday, and I'm usually exhausted on Tuesdays. Most importantly, I don't have anything marked at day 19, so I'm thinking I missed that day. Things got a little hazy as I went on.

But, never fear, I do have a shot of my finished NaNo graph to share!

Daily Word Count for 2013

NaNoWriMo: Day 18

I started to get lost in my own continuity a little bit. I've always kind of felt that's a really good point in a story. Where it's developed enough that you realize you actually have an idea, and that your beginning doesn't point to that idea solidly enough, or that you wandered a little of track in the beginning, or whatever. When you need to go back and edit, I think it means you've finally got some substance.

NaNoWriMo: Day 17

Some interesting stuff coming out in today's stuff. I'm a few days away from vacation, scrambling, but I also had some good stuff to work with after brain storming with Cait the night before. Everything is really coming together at this point.

NaNoWriMo: Day 16

Some more good writing, as far as story goes. Lots of making notes about who did what how and things like that. Unfortunately, the more I figured out, the more I lost interested in actually writing it out. As I got what I wanted from it, I cared less and less about the story itself. Pretty soon after writing this, I took a vacation to see my fam for Thanksgiving and lots what little motivation I had. I knew that would happen, so I pushed for as high a word count as I could get before that. I think from here on out, word count became more of a distraction than  help.

NaNoWriMo: Day 15

Lots of Notes in today's writing. One, I kept accidentally turning off my laptop, so that was fun. Two, my characters helped me figure out A WHOLE LOT while I was writing, which was distracting on the world count front but excellent on the story front. I was pretty excited about today's work, because my primary reason for writing this story was the information I'd get from it, so today's writing was gold.

NaNoWriMo: Day 14

Not as much writing done today, and what I did write was really weird. I'm not sure I'll keep what in it, because it involves a lot of too quickly researched things. I watched myself start to get sucked down the rabbit hole of researching ifrits, and knew I was eating up all of my writing time for day, so I just went with what little I'd learned and ran with it, before I spent the night reading instead of writing.

So I'll either refine it with better research later, or abandon making it "real" and just make up a bunch of stuff because hey, it's my world. I can do that. :)

Also, I wrote this scene in a very weird order. I think I wrote the middle first, then the beginning, then the end. I just went with what came, then attached it back to the narrative. I wound up doing that a lot towards the end, if I even attached any pieces back at all. As I started to scramble for word count over an actual novel, I just wrote what came to mind. A lot of it is just fun one offs that probably won't have anything to do with anything, but I did get my word count, so that's something.

11/14/15 10:43 pm

“She says its an ifrit,” he called back, pushing up out of his stool and moving across the hall to Tripp's studio. “I'm talking to the kid from earlier, Rain.”

Tripp grunted, caught up in examining his machine.

“She says she found it wandering around her head, that make any sense to you?”

“It sounds more like a Qarin,” he said absently, “if it was wandering around in her head. They're like, Jiminy Cricket or whatever. Spirits that influence human behavior by whispering to them.”

“Eh, I don't think so, bro,” Zig answered, going back through their texts. “I think she's talking about a literal flame that's dancing, though don't ask my why I say so.”

“No, it's cool,” Tripp answered, putting his gun down and sitting up to engage in the conversation more. “A dancing flame is a dancing flame, I was just half distracted.”

“I'd noticed.” Zig grinned at his brother, but didn't bother pointing out that Tripp was almost always distracted. It was part of what made Tripp Tripp.

“So, a dancing flame that told her it was an ifrit, as it was wandering in her head?”

“Oh here,” he said, just handing his phone to his brother. He thought about what little he knew about elementals while Tripp read, which wasn't much. He knew they were based on the classic elements of the physical world, or pretty much anything found in nature, so you got the earth wind water fire but also things like lightening, thunder, ice, spirit – anything abstract that could be condensed down into symbol, really. He knew avatars were somehow related, but he couldn't really remember how, but at that point Tripp was handing back the phone anyways.

“You might wanna go ahead and give her my number, so she can ask me any complex questions directly, but if you think that should wait until we hang out more, I'll trust your judgment on that.”

Zig startled, giving his brother a look. “Who said anything about us hanging out more?”

“You did, when you came in here asking me to help you answer some random stranger's question. You've adopted the girl, Ziggo, it is plain on your face.”

“Aww damnit,” Zig said, half grinning. “What the fuck are we gonna do with this Tripp?”

His brother shrugged. “Beats the hell outta me – you're the one that adopted her, you come up with the dumbass plan.” He stood and stretched moving to leave the room to go do whatever else it was he felt he needed to do before the rush. “I'll just sit back and watch for your mistakes and come up with a better plan after you fail the first time, ok?”

“Love you too, asshole,” he shot at his brother's retreating back.

–

10:56 pm 13 mins 484 words

NaNoWriMo: Day 13

Day 13 was a good day for me. One, it was a Wednesday, so I had the day off, and lots of little 2 hours chunks to write in between girlfriend's classes. Two, it was my birthday, so I was in a great mood. Writing always seems to be easier when you're in a good mood.

I did get a little funky with the timeline, but that pretty seems to be the way the rest of my NaNoing went. When I lost the first little chunk I knew about, I just wrote whatever came. It worked, but I don't have a story yet. Then again, I think this story is too big for just 50k.

On Writing: Keeping track of time

One of the author's I follow posted this today, and I've sort of fallen in love with idea of "pantsing". I am a definite pantser, because my characters demand it out of me. However, some planning is absolutely necessary when you write several stories in the same world in the same day, so to keep things straight, Cait and I tend to use timelines, like this:

What if I run out of things to say?

This thought just struck me last night, as I was driving home from a long day of Christmas shopping. What happens when - not if- I run out of things to say? There is only so much that can be said about writing, and even less that can be said about it by me.

And yet, I've been writing, and talking about writing, for years.

I knew less about writing when I first started talking about it, and it didn't stop me then.

NaNoWriMo: Day 12

This tiny little snippets is all I have for day 12, and I'm not even sure I wrote it then and not on the 11th. Tuesdays were HELL for me, because I'd close (2am or later) then turn around and open (9am) so I was always pretty loopy when I got off work.

This one goes to 11

I really like these this little Whovian things :)

Hmm... doesn't look like you're writing at the moment, are you?

NaNoWriMo: Day 11

Mondays were usually pretty good for me on the writing front. I didn't have work until later in the afternoon, but had to get up reasonably early in the day to take Girlfriend to class, so I was sure I wouldn't waste it, too much.

NaNoWriMo: Day 10

A little bit of confusion in my note taking here. I'll see if I can't clear this up when I sit down to crunch the numbers (and I swear, I will! ...someday. December is very busy for me.) With any luck, I'll get to it before this post actually goes live, but I somehow doubt it, at the rate this month is going.

I first started my NaNo is one big file, called Awakening.

Then I wrote my first scene out of chronology.

It was to break up the week 2 blahs, and I'm not sorry I did it, but it really messed with my documentation of my NaNo. I started a second file, called excerpt, to try and keep track of things in the right order, with future scenes just tagged onto the bottom.

I soon got so many "later" scenes that I couldn't find where to write properly on my NaNo.

I also began to take RIDICULOUS amounts of notes, trying to keep track of what scene should go where, and what scenes needed to happen between my "current" scene and this rag tag collection of future scenes -

I am quickly realizing day 10 is where it really started to fall apart.

So I started another file, called Just Awakening, which was devoid of any notes, time stamps, or anything. It was just what I considered to be the actual story, in as best an order as I could piece together, so I could have something resembling an accurate word count.

Then I realized what I'd been posting as my daily word counts were wrong.

So I took Awakening, the very first one, and went back and tried to pull out the writings for just that day, and delete all the extra stuff and get a daily word count.

SOOOO (all of that to say just this)- this is what I have saved as "Day 10" in my collection of day by day files. I'm sure it contradicts with what I have for day 9, but I'm posting this anyways, unless I get things straightened out before the 10th (what are the odds of that happening? This blog is less than a month old and I'm sure you all know me well enough by now to be able to answer that.) So, happy reading, happy writing, and happy holidays, because why not?

-R

The Experiment: Messing around with the app

It's been a minute since I've played with the iPhone app, so I thought I'd give it another shot. 

So far, it's way simple, almost like composing an email or text. I can add a photo or play with bold and italics but that's all that's different, really. I'll mess around with the labels and stuff, but I don't see that there's too much to explore with the app.

[edited to add] Yeah, this is pretty much like an unlimited character version of twitter. Here's my location, a selfie, and I can say all I want about it. I can save as a draft or publish later, so I do like the idea of using this to make notes on the go about things I wanna blog about later, but that's about it. 

Another 10th

Just another silly post, because its the 10th of December, and I love David Tennant. I may make this a semi-regular thing, because I have so much fun finding the photos and captioning them. And because everyone needs a little encouragement now and again.

Happy Writing!

-R

"That writing you did today, that bit right there? I like it..."

A little love for the 9th

You written today?

A little something for number 9, since 10 and 11 tend to get all the love. To Christopher Eccleston, my first doctor.

NaNoWriMo: Day 9

Saturdays are usually my day off in the week that I take for my own personal enjoyment. I sleep in, I go to belly dancing, we go out to eat and then I go to Stitch-n-Bitch Lex. That means I tend not to get home until pretty late, and I'm completely exhausted when I do.

The stage is now set for today's offering. Enjoy!

-R

How to stay on (multi)task

As I've mentioned, my writing partner (Caitlin) and I tend to work on multiple things at once when we write together. It makes sure we each have something to work on when we sit down to write together, for one, and we tend to get distracted and follow plot/character bunnies for two. Currently, we're running ...4? stories in the same world (same neighborhood, actually) and same time frame at once, and so the plot lines are a lovely tangle mess. To keep ourselves straight on what we've already written, we tend to take pretty extensive notes.

These are the notes from Haven, the story I wrote my NaNo to learn more about. The events of my NaNo take place two years before my real time Haven, so you'll see some familiar characters, and some new ones as well. There's also even a proper excerpt at the bottom, so real writing for "Day 8" Hooray!

NaNoWriMo: Day 8

Day 8 was my first "day off" from NaNo. I had time to write that day, but I didn't feel it, and I was ahead on my word count. More importantly, it was my "birthday" (ok, closest day to my birthday that I didn't have to work, so, party time) so I made the choice not to write.

I definitely paid for that day off later- I had a 12k word marathon to do on Thanksgiving day (my last day off in November, and a day all to myself with all the roommates out of town, so a good day for it). But I don't think I really mind too much. I think if I hadn't taken that day off, I'd have burnt out, felt like a slave to NaNo, and I don't think that's the point of it all.

I do have to say though, I'm not really sure what the point of NaNo is. I wrote 50k with mostly little effort, while working about 50 hours a week AND writing on four other stories with Caitlin at the same time. I'm not sure how many words total I churned out in November, but it was well over 50k.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I think I just wanted to make sure I had a post for day 8, but like my NaNo on this day, my writing is going nowhere. I'll post something with a little more substance later today.

NaNoWriMo: Day 7

And then, after a week of solid writing, the blahs set in. Wednesday was so productive, then the very next day, I just didn't want to write this story anymore. That feeling never really went away, but I'm not surprised, since the story was a "chore" and I used NaNo to make myself write it. I was still very excited to win, but I dunno. This story was something I just wanted to get out of the way, for the information. I may go back and finish it someday, polish it up, but its definitely not a priority piece. And that ok with me. :) Not every writing has to be about the race to the end, the big finish.

NaNoWriMo: Day 6

Day 6 was lovely. It was my first day off in November, and I tackled what was a surprisingly difficult scene. Unsurprisingly, most of what I've written will need to be at the least scrutinized, if not completely re-written for contradictions and things like that. But this was the first scene where I'd even gotten to anything like that, where there's actually meaningful content to contradict with, so that was fun. A good feeling to know I'd finally hit plot pay dirt.

The Experiment: Pretty well adjusted

I've been moving pretty steadily back and forth between Word Press and Blogger now. I just work in whichever I happen to pull up first, and copy paste over to the other. I think I'm growing fonder of WP's categorizing/tagging function, but I can't honestly say why. Just another feelings thing.

I do have to say that I like how I'm already enjoying a fair amount of community interaction on WP, not so much on Blogger, and I'm really curious as to why. Anywhere that I've posted about the blog project, I've been sure to post links to both sites, but I haven't really had an input here on blogger. I'm really curious as to why, since they're basically the same blog. One assumes it's the platform, but honestly, I have no idea.

NaNoWriMo: Day 5

It is becoming quickly apparent to me that I wasn't as careful with my note taking as I'd have liked. Oh well. It's not like I was shooting for scientific levels of accuracy. Still, I think it'll be interesting to at least try to crunch the numbers, when I'm done breaking it all up and reorganizing it into actual chronological order.

Day 5 was a short day. I'd worked all weekend, worked close Monday night and Open Tuesday, so I'd gotten 5 hours of sleep, if that. I also knew I had Wed off, so I didn't push too hard for word count that day.

NaNoWriMo: Day 4

Hmmm... It appears there is a good deal more swearing in this than I had originally thought. Might be time to go ahead and turn on the adult filters anyways. I forgot sometimes just what a mouth Rook has on him, and how he rubs off on everyone else. He's a very pushy character.

Oh, also, some of this was not generated on Day 4, but it didn't fit in right with how I was chronicling all my NaNoing, so included is some bonus content from a later day.

Cannot Spell, apparently

...I have been misspelling "Experiment" every other time *sighs*

I love editing before coffee. It's my favorite.

The Experiment: Mobile Apps

Yesterday, I was out and about all day, so I had to rely completely on my mobile apps to keep up with the experiment.

I can't say I was too impressed with Bloggers.

It stayed true to the simplified format that won me over before, but the app is too simple. As far as I could tell, all you can do from it is read posts and write posts. I'd not a bad app, exactly, but I didn't feel like I was really using a mobile extension of Blogger. It was more for like, I don't, emergency blogging? Like you're out and about and simply have to post this photo or this comment - much more like Twitter for your blog, in my opinion. I wanted my stats, mostly (oh vanity) but aside from that, the four large icons that are my only choices just didn't seem like enough.

This round goes to Word Press, Blogger. Sorry.

[edit to add: I'm using an iPhone 4, if anyone was curious.]

NaNoWriMo: Day 3

Day 3 is where things started to get really interesting. I finally started to get some hints about the plot, and what might be going on.

Also, one of my characters was VERY unhappy about what we learned, and swears, a good deal, so heads up about that. Doesn't happen too much, but does happy more when Rook is around.

The Experiment: Adding Photos

Fortunately, that little bout of silliness gave me something a little more serious to write about. It's not much, and it's not as relevant to a web serial, but it might come up,and it is part of my experiences, so why not.

Adding photos in blogger was SUPER easy. Formatting them within my post was also, super, super easy. I'm not too surprised by this, given that this is a blogging platform, so a lot of people probably use it to post photo heavy content, but seriously, so easy. Sizing, picture location relative to text, and each other, the uploading itself, all beyond easy peasy. Peasey? Who knows?

At any rate, should your web serial ever need to include pictures (say, a character sketch, an important symbol, a map), it's no problem on blogger. In fact, it's so easy, I may find myself throwing random David Tennant bones out there occasionally, just to inspire me. :)

"You're being productive out there, right?"

The Experiment: This round goes to Word Press

A completely just for fun, silly thing.

Word Press has a little box in the upper left hand corner that tells me this is my fifth, sixth, seventh post, and I just looked up and realized I'd hit 11. So, I dropped some gratuitous Doctor Who.

Rather than going back and editing my 10th and 11th posts here (because while the two mirror each other somewhat, both blogs are not perfect matches) I'll just give you a double doctor whammy in this one off, no other point to it post.

Happy (belated) 10th and 11th posts everyone!

-R

The Experiment: Building a Buffer

This entry is a little less about blogger vs word press and a little more about using blogs for web serials 
making myself slow down sometimes
using blogs for web serials.

NaNoWriMo: Day 2

I didn't write every day in November, but the days I did write, I will try to match up in December posts here. The first week was really productive, I was pretty happy with it.

A poem

Found this while pawing through old work. It's a few days late, maybe, but still fun. Enjoy!
-R

A vampire's resume

 Remember in my post about world building how I mentioned having tons of strange files, from maps to resumes?

I wasn't kidding.

I had one character, a minor background character in a minor background story SO INSISTENT about existing and being fleshed out that I literally could not write around her. She stood in the front of my head, arms spread wide, refusing to move until I sat down to write with her.

Unfortunately, her headspace is very different from mine, so much so that I couldn't get a good bead on her, until I tried to type out exactly what her application to Xavier's kiss would look like. I got with my writing buddy, had her hammer out a few questions the new kiss would likely ask, pulled up a resume writing tutorial, and got this little nugget.

Enjoy!

-R

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The Experiment: Drafting and Scheduling

I almost forgot to even make this post, since it was sooo easy to do here on blogger. Also pretty intuitive on word press, but blogger just seems so much more streamlined. Honestly, there's probably equal amounts going on on both pages, but I just seem to "get" blogger better. We'll see how that goes over time.

[Edited to add]

Yup, even saves my draft pretty darned well.

Honestly, the more I'm using both of them, and less afraid I am of word press, the more they seem pretty much the same. I'm sure I'll find more differences as I get into the gritty complicated bits, but for now, I think it's just a matter of preference. Both are fair easy to use, both are fairly customizable, so it's whichever one you grok, I guess.

Worlds vs. Stories

I'm a world builder.

I get so involved in the building of my worlds, it often distracts me from the story itself and I don't get anything done. I'll have files upon files of notes, brainstormings, maps of the dance club everyone works at, character bios writing by the characters themselves (not always helpful), and resumes of vampires wanting to join a new kiss, but never actually get anywhere on the story I was asking myself all these questions for in the first place.

Not very conducive to finishing a story.

Funny thing though? I don't think I care too much. I am coming to the realization that I don't write for the story, so to speak. I write to know the world.

NaNoWriMo was great for making me actually sit down and tell a story, one complete story, without getting too lost in the side tangents. The funny part is that I sat down to write that particular story because it was the backstory of a girl who seemed to know EVERYONE in the stories I was working on before that. It seemed like a great way to go world digging, while actually getting something done.

50,000 words later, and I'm not even close to finishing the "story" I set out to write. I know now loosely what happens, how she meet most of the people involved, and more or less how to get from A to Z from where my NaNo started to where the inspiring stories are in "present" time. But I still don't have a finished story. And knowing me, I probably never will. I'm not interested in reading Rain's story beginning to end as a "finished" product. I was interested in it as a gold mine, and boy, did I hit the jack pot.

NaNoWriMo: Day 1

As promised, here is some actual writing. This is the raw, unedited efforts of my first NaNoWriMo day, including all the notes I decided to talk on the process. That part was a lot of fun, and I'm pretty excited to go back and break it all down and see when I wrote best and what conditions I was writing under and my avg. words per min. and stuff like that.
For the first day, I had to work all that day, went home for what should have been the night but turned out to be just a small break, then came back and wrote some more. All in all, I'm pretty happy with what I got, given the circumstances.
-R

The Experiment: Circle of Blog

The Experiment - Oops

The Experiment

Part of what I want to do with this blog is experiment with Blogger vs. Word Press. I've heard good things about both, and want to just dabble around and see what I do and don't like about each.

The idea is to more or less have both blogs mirror each other, which the only real differences being where I explore each platform. So the "Writes" content will be the same, but anything tagged as "The Experiment" will be all about my experience with the platform directly. Less about writing, more about publishing.

So, for anyone curious about my adventures in self-publishing, follow along here and at http://raevenlywrites.wordpress.com/

I'll try to talk mostly about blogger here, and mostly about word press there, but I won't flat avoid mentioning them on each other because sometimes direct comparisons are what I'm doing, but I'll keep it to a minimum.

-R
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First thoughts

So here we go

NaNoWriMo is over, and now I have this lovely pile of 50,000 words to play with. Maybe I just got addicted to having an online platform to track my progress with, but I really feel inspired to start putting my work out there.

This blog is a test run for how I feel about internet publishing, and to help me get my feet wet, see what works for me, see what doesn't. It'll be an adventure, and one I'd love to take you on with me, if you'd like to come along for the ride.

So this blog is for anyone who writes, anyone who wants to write but hasn't yet for whatever reason, anyone who has ever thought about self-publishing internet serials, and anyone who likes to watch crazy people do crazy things.

Shall we begin?