Camp NaNo Set Up

Hello Everyone! With only two days left before July’s session of Camp NaNoWriMo gets revved up, I thought I would share with you how I’ve been prepping for a month of cabin gossip and concentrated writing efforts.

While I no longer consider myself a ‘pantser’ (someone who writes by the seat of their pants), I am also not really a plotter. I don’t do outlines and if I do come up with an idea for later on in the story, I typically write it out on the notes section of my phone and save it for later. I believe the term being coined around the AuthorTubes and Twittering spaces is ‘Plantser”, which makes me thing of Poison Ivy from the Batman Universe. But whatever the term or the mental image that accompanies it, the fact is that I am not really known for my in depth preparations before a session. So what could I possibly have to show you now?

Well, for the past few months I’ve been using a small sketch notebook and creating something similar to a bullet journal layout of my goals and trackers for the month. So without further ado, I would like to present to you:

JULY:

I like to include a monthly calendar and a writing quote at the beginning of each month. I chose the reminder to “Keep Calm and Edit Later” and a Camping theme to go with the big NaNo goals for the month and my quote is “Every first draft is Perfect: Because all a first draft has to do is EXIST.” ~ Jane Smiley.

Next I create a Goals Page to easily remind myself of the basics I want to accomplish throughout the month. I include Whole Month and Daily Word Count Goals, my main Work(s) in Progress, and any outlines, edits, etc. that I may be working on.

(This month I also included a decorative ‘cover’ page because I tried water coloring the Calendar page…it looks awesome but my pages were too thin to put the goals page over the ‘ghosting’ I really like it though!)

Finally, I set up a dailies page entitled: Daily Word Counts. As you can see, I leave a space for each, in which I will record each day’s final word count. (I also leave a daily word count goal reminder at the top of the page. This month’s recommended daily word count is 484 words per day. I’m trying to work my way back up to the November NaNo counts). I also leave three ‘end of month’ questions to the side. They are ‘days goal met,’ ‘monthly word count total,’ and ‘was goal met?’

The final page is left for my notes throughout the month. I like to take a minute or two each night and write about what inspired me, helped with my writing, or kept me from writing for that day. I can go back later on and see if there’s anything I can tweak about my schedule or writing process to help myself be more on my game.

So as you can see, I have been busy preparing for Camp…just not in any way that will directly affect my work in progress in any way!

What about you? Are you participating in Camp NaNo? If you are, what preparations have you made so far?

Writing: News and Notes

Hello everyone! I hope that you have been having a fabulous summer so far. I know that I haven’t been around all that often in recent memory, but I hope to change that this next month. July is the next session of Camp NaNoWriMo and I am definitely participating!

I will be working on my new(ish) Work in Progress “Sock Jacked”. Sock Jacked is a Middle Grade Thriller-esque novel set in Summer on the beach of a large lake. The chills help me to stay cool in this heat and this heat helps me to write about the beginning of summer. I don’t want to say that this is the PERFECT Camp WIP…oh wait, I DO Want to say that!

I am completely in love with this story. In fact, for the first time in a long time, I am only working on one story because Sock Jacked has me intrigued and delighted to keep putting blue pen to paper. My worst issue with this is that, since I write all first drafts by hand, I’ve gone through 4 blue pens already and am maybe almost 1/4 of the way through the story. I only have 3 blue pens left and the type of pen I’ve been using can only be found in this area in a LARGE set of multi colored gel pens…not on their own. *Sigh* The problems of being an OCD author are real guys.

I have also been using a small sketch notebook and setting up a monthly tracker for word counts, daily notes on my writing, etc. I am really enjoying setting up each month’s tracker, choosing a word count goal for the month, writing down each day’s word count (or lack there of), and keeping notes on what I wrote, what helped motivate me, or why I’m a lazy bum! (There’s been a lot of that going on too! My poor heart can only take so much sometimes lol)

So that’s all the things I’ve been up to lately, and will be up to in the next month. What are you up to? I would love to hear from you!

Happy Writing all!

Untitled

She sat there, staring up at the moon who had been such a special friend to her. Tonight the girl had no words, no tears to cry. She was beyond the trivial pains…now she was numb and anxious. Stressed and worried about all of the pieces of her life that seemed intent on falling away from the whole. The moon stared back, soft light filtering over the scene. Red hair falling in waves around her pale face, smoke curling from her dark lips, despair written in the dark shadows lining her face. An even darker entity stalking her with toothy grimace. The moon feared she could do nothing for her friend. Anxiety had its hold too tightly wrapped for her to hear the whispers of the wind and star beams. Soon, their girl would be lost.

Plans broken without a whisper. Heart shattered without a word. Her world lies in tattered pieces of dreams and promises, being walked upon around her and scattered to the wind. She is not ok…I am not ok.

The phone rings, the girl wipes her tears and answers with false brightness. She takes care of everyone else, who is there for her? She tells no one, the moon cries…and the shadows smile.

Food for Thought…

I feel like the beginning of ever post I put on here has the apology for not having written lately. Well, this is no exception. However, there will be no excuses today. While there are reasons, including (but not limited to) a depressed anxiety that we will NOT be discussing…I don’t want to waste our time with those things today.

I will also not be posting anything from my current work in progress, though you may rest assured that I am writing daily and participating in Camp NaNoWriMo (campnanowrimo.org) this month. You can find me and my sporadic updates there under the name writerbaby13.

Today, however, I want to discuss something else with you…and that something else is the little phrase “Concious Decision.”

The impetous for this post started with the afore mentioned mental health issues (thus the mentioning of them). Suffice it to say that the past month SUCKED in a myriad of heinous ways. It has, however, pushed me to make a few realizations over the past several days. The chief of those realizations is that I will never reach my goals or achieve my dreams by gliding through my days on auto pilot and whining that I really meant to (fill in missed activity here).

I slowly realized that I must make the concious decision to put my foot down, or pick my foot up, and go Do the things. I want to write, so I need to schedule and jealousy guard my writing time. I want to be healthy and fit, so I need to decide that I’m eating healthily and exercising and then conciously decide to keep that appointment and promise with myself. Whether it be things like scheduling, following dreams, getting healthy, doing your best work, or even staying loyal to an (either physically or mentally) distant partner, the way to turn your life around or sideways or whichever way you’re heading is to make the CONCIOUS DECISION to make your choices, and stick with them.

writing at least an hour a day: phone turned off and writing timed

going to the gym, even when my friend cancelled

recording calories and water intake to see what needs tweaking

beginning the long road to re-quitting smoking…

Those are just a few things that I’ve conciously decided on over the past few days (occassionally FORCEFULLY reminding myself that I’ve conciously decided…but deciding nonetheless)…have you made some concious decisions lately? Or is there something you need to be pushing yourself about? I’d love to hear your thoughts down in the comment section, so come talk to me!

The Way We Were: Excerpt

Ok guys, I’ve been typing up my handwritten first draft of the NA fantasy novel that I’ve had in the works for over a year now. Though it isn’t even close to finished, I passed the 55,000 word mark today and decided to celebrate by sharing a newly typed up section with you. Let me know what you think down in the comments!

By this point Lee was cringing back as each word became punctuated with a hard jab to his bare breast bone. “I am so sorry that I saved you without thought for myself. If I had let you be taken, my chest would still be pristine. Oh what’s this? No quick come back? Can the great Queen of…”

“Shut up and listen.”

Howls rent the night around them.

“Ah good, the boys are back. See, no worries.”

“NO WORRIES?” Eliza leapt across the room and ran out to open the front door. “NO WORRIES? A trio of HUGE wolves just raced through a busy Southern Florida city. I’m sure that no one noticed that at all. OH MY GOD LEE!” The sound of the door slamming reverberated through all the windows.

“What,” he snapped, still clutching the flimsy towel around his waist as he marched through the house. “What could I have possibly done in the last thirty seconds that could have pissed you off…that is not our pack.”

“very astute observation there Sherlock,” Eliza’s retort lacked her natural bite however, “Who are they? Why are they here? Did Axel send them? WHAT IS GOING ON?”

The shadow sorcerer grabbed her shoulders, looked deep into his best friend’s eyes, drank up the fear and confusion within, and very slowly enunciated, “I don’t know.”

She slapped him. “You don’t have to be an ass about it you know. At the very least, animal control will probably be showing up in our front yard soon! Not to mention the fact that we still don’t know what’s going on with our wolves.”

“What’s wrong darlin’, you don’t trust us to handle ourselves in a little dust up?” A droll voice drawled from behind the duo.

“Or to remember where the hide-a-key is either, apparently,” a second voice joked as Lee and Eliza whipped around to confront the intruders.

There, ragged, bloody, and disheveled but definitely not dead, stood the three male members of their own wolf pack.

Masking her relief with a healthy dose of annoyance, Eliza let out a heavy sigh, “Oh thank goodness. Now I can sleep well knowing that you three idjets didn’t get thrown in puppy prison. Lee, you can deal with this. You’re all dressed for the occasion.” Back held ramrod straight, she took herself off to collapse into a puddle of bedding and tears.

“I thought she would be a little more excited to see us,” Clayton quipped, idly scratching his bare chest.

“Women are mysterious creatures,” Brent shrugged, “She’s probably just pissed at the crud we brought in.”

They all looked sheepishly at the mud and gore that had been tracked across Eliza’s floors upon their entrance and was still dripping off of their naked frames.

Charming

Prompt: She adds a charm for every person she kills…

Shikka eyed the display case shrewdly. Somewhere in that thick tangle of superheroes and fantasies was the perfect charm to add to her newest bracelet.

“Back so soon?” Grant, the thin bird faced night clerk joked with a painful attempt at flirtation. “Did you miss me that much Neeta?”

“Not at all,” She smiled slyly at her own inside joke as much as at his use of her alias, the perfect charm catching her attention suddenly. “I never miss, fly boy.”

Her insults always, ironically, went over his head and today was no different. Straightening his tie proudly, Grant stood just a bit taller and motioned to the display case grandly, “What do you fancy today, my dear?”

Your tongue on a tray for calling me that, for starters Shikka thought angrily. Aloud, however, she sweetly asked to see any fish charms they might have currently in stock. After choosing an appropriate catfish charm, Shikka abruptly pointed to a crane harm that seemed to materialize from thin air as the turntable spun.

“Ring that one up as well,” she demanded before any logical thought could filter through. “But wrap the bird and tell the morning shift that I’ll be in to get it before lunch.”

“Yes ma’am,” Grant did as he was told. “Neeta,” he began hesitantly, “I was wondering if maybe you would like to, that is, possibly…”

“You can take me to drinks after your shift,” Shikka interrupted pleasantly, “I’ll meet you in Dave’s Bar at 9 sharp.”

“GREAT!” floating on an elated cloud of victory, Grant watched Shikka find a space on her nearly full charm bracelet, slip the fish on, and blow him a saucy kiss before she sauntered out of Charmings.

Grant closed Charmings promptly at 8, rushed home to changed, and was waiting in a corner booth at Dave’s by 8:45. Ten minutes later, dark skin shining against a pale pink slip of a heart attack, Shikka slipped onto the seat across from him, careful to lean forward and allow her assets a chance at hello as well.

“Hey there sailor,” she purred saucily, “Been waiting long?”

“My whole life,” slipped out before he could stop it, but her rich, throaty chuckle kept him from wanting to take it back.

“You flatter me,” she murmured, leaning even further across the table to make him like the only man in the world.

A blond waitress Grant never even saw delivered drinks, but before long a simple suggestion and shy eye flutter had Grant boldly grasping his date’s hand and pulling her out into the night for a moonlight walk.

Glancing down at their entwined fingers, he noticed again the only jewelry she ever wore: 2 overladened charm bracelets, and one more bracelet, almost as full and dangling down over her fingers.

“Hey Neeta,” he asked reluctant to make her move from the huddled warmth of his left arm, “I’ve always meant to ask: Why so many charms? I mean, I’ve seen you twice a week for almost a year now.”

“Maybe I just had a crush on you,” she teased, bumping his shoulder with her own.

“Yeah, right,” he snorted, though with a glimmer of hope in his eye.

“Ok ok,” she stopped and whirled to face him. “I have a confession – – well, two actually.”

“Huh?” Grant stared at her dumbly as she pressed on.

“Number one, my name is not Neeta. I am called Shikka, like the noise a blade makes when pulled from a sheath or an arrow as it flies from its home to do its job.”

“Shikka?” he echoed, slack jawed and staring.

“Yes, Shikka,” she sighed, “And I definitely do not have a crush on you.”

“You don’t?” Grant’s confusion was grating oh Shikka’s nerves but still she adopted a calm, patient tone.

“No, I don’t. Sorry.” She sighed and ran a hand down his arm, “The truth is that I murder people Grant. I murder them and then I choose a charm that fits their lives, matches who they were before I ended them.”

Grant stared at her slack jawed for a full minute before bursting into loud guffaws. “You really had me going for a minute there, babe,” he panted out between chuckles. Throwing an arm around her shoulders and steering Shikka back into a walk, he continued, “I mean, with a name like Shikka, I can totally understand changing it to something normal like Neeta.”

He stupidly went on and on, ignoring the thin line her lips were pressing in to. “But a charm for every person you’ve killed? NO Way sexy, that was going too far with it – ahahahahah!”

She smiled wanly and chirruped “Right?” as she edged their steps toward the dark opening of a deserted alleyway.

“Hey Grant, have I ever told you that the first time I ever saw you I thought that you looked like my favorite animal; the majestic crane?”

Writing Update: 11/29/16

Well I wasn’t able to get a lot done in NaNoWriMo (as I’m sure you’ve guessed!). However, as someone who doesn’t write around other people very much because of my anxiety issues (trying to write around people has become more and more of a trial over the past few years, I rarely even write in front of my child or parents) this past week was actually fairly productive for me. I wound up writing a few pages in both of my current projects while my friend played video games and it was very comfortable, and comforting, for me. So while I didn’t get anywhere close to 50k this month, I feel like I made it “home” in my writing and that has pumped me up to write more…so I still WIN!

Ok, enough of that! Let’s get to an excerpt, shall we? (Why yes, yes we shall)

This is the most recent bit from The Way We Were, enjoy:

“Oh he’s not going anywhere,” Cecily crooned, running her fingers through Lee’s short hair possessively, “Are you sweetie?”

Lee frantically looked between the two, lips working soundlessly, like a fish out of water as he tried to find something, anything, to say to break the tension between his girl and his best friend.

“Oh? And just what makes you think that you’re going to able to stop him,” Eliza’s voice had reached a deathly level of sugary calm that had the room’s male inhabitants flinching away instinctively.

“Not a what, honey,” Cecily cocked her head and flashed a bright smile that was millimeters away from snarling. “A who.”

As though he had been waiting for just such a cue, Axel Grey smoothly stepped up and enveloped Eliza in a lover like embrace, if your lover is really heavy into BDSM with the twist of a knife added in for funsies.

Are you working on anything? Let me know down below!

NaNoWriMo – How to Lose Amiably

I know this is a bit early for a loser’s acceptance speech. I have 3 weeks left in November and NaNo is just getting well and truly up to speed. However, at the end of today (the 8th) I should be sitting at 9,336 words (at the least!)…my current word count is 1836. This means that I would need to write 7,500 words before midnight in order to catch up and I really don’t see that happening. I might still rally, I typically do. I definitely won’t give up writing or stop NaNo-ing just because I’m a lotta bit behind. However, I’m not prepping any winner’s circle dances either. It is a Tuesday, a school day and school night. I will teach most of the day and afterward I will go home with my 4 year old and clean, cook, and watch movies until bedtime. This is the way of my world. I was lucky to write 230 words yesterday. I will feel lucky to write 300 today…7500 would be a gigantic lottery win.

So that’s how I’m doing right now. How about you? Are you participating in NaNoWriMo 2016? If so, how’s your word count looking? If not, are you still writing something?

if you’re interested in seeing what I’m up to, and maybe being my buddy, my NaNo name is writerbaby13. Look me up 😀

“The Council of Krakens?” Ferdinand and Jo exchanged a furtive and shocked glance.

“Why yes,” Ill seemed just as shocked at the men’s apparent ignorance as they were at this new revelation. “Did Secretary de la Kraken not inform you of the council’s creation?”

“Not as of yet, no,” Ferdinand responded dryly, “But I am sure his grace is beyond busy at the moment, new duties to see to and all that.”

“Not to mention his blushing girlfriend,” Jo inserted, “She could have told us about this!”

“That he is,” Illean agreed easily, ignoring Jo’s rant and settling his huge frame into the shallows of their secluded beach, “So it is I who will bring you up to speed then. First, it was obvious that the largest gathering of krakens in the known histories would need a governing council, someone to help guide and listen and to bring the people’s voices together. For that reason, each of the arriving groups was invited to nominate a secretary for said council. Secretary Sergio de la Kraken was first nominated and first approved by the people.”

That made perfect sense, so the men nodded along amiably.

NaNo Day 1 – Excerpt

Chad Pulled in to the hotel parking lot and parked his skepticmobile in line with the rest of PDA’s vehicles. Before he could even get the trunk popped and the door closed behind him, Chad was being waylaid by Blun, a large and blustering cowboy type.

“Oh ho ho, fancy man,” Blun (who’s own father had knowingly name him William Blunderbuss Bond) trundled quickly over, meaty hands waving for Chad to wait. “Don’t go getting your hopes up about this one now boy,” Blun gestured widely to the cinder blocks stacked up behind them in semblance of a building. “I doubt this is up to your usual standard, hey? HA!”

Chad laughed along with his blustering colleague for a moment, not deigning to mention that he never held out much hope for anything, least of all the lay over places PDA chose to rent out.

Still…”It is not unpleasant,” he countered, “And the sign out front promises that the problem with WiFi has definitely been fixed now.”

“Eternal optimist, this on,” Blun roared to passing cohorts, who looked mildly shocked at the sound, “There are only 23 rooms and we’ve taken over half. The rest are mostly empty, from the desk clerk was saying. We shouldn’t have an issue keeping up with each other anyway.”

And then, before Chad could begin to formulate an appropriate response, Blunderbuss Bond lumbered off to genially roar at more incoming PDA’s, leaving Chad shaking his head and finally being able to head off to the main building and get a room of his very own.

WC – 261 *copywrite 11/1/2016 ESTyree*

I was going to give you a short excerpt…but this is literally all I managed to write on the 1st! Happy NaNo Ya’ll!

To My Lost Love (a writing excerpt)

Not sure where (or if) this piece fits in anything I’ve been working on, but as I was driving down the road (following the moon home for real) this morning after dropping my sick child with my parents…this came flowing down on a moonbeam that mingled with the rising sun. I think it works. What do you think? Are you ever inspired by the moon?

To My Lost Love (that I never really had)

I’m driving down the road, following the moon home, and you come (unbidden) to my mind once again. When the phone went off at 4:30 this morning, I still had a split second of hope that it was you. I do that every time. Before reality descends in a crashing wave around me I think, maybe…just maybe. Alas, it was not you. It rarely is. And yet, you are still my 3am and my 2 pm. My lonely thoughts and my busy side note. When I see something funny, or a new movie you’d like…when I finally read that book or watch that show…I want to call you. I want to rail on you because it’s your fault I’m addicted to it now. I place the blame squarely on you for at least 2 of my current binge watching shows and 1 of the book series I’m devouring. You seeped into every aspect of my life, even the parts you were never present for. I miss you so much it sometimes physically hurts in the area of my chest where a heart should be. A dull, empty ache. I hope that you are doing well, that sometimes I’m your random side thought, and that you find whatever it is you are looking for.

With my heart,

The one who ran away

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