Beautiful Books #2

   Hey guys! I'm back with another post about NaNo. I'm almost to 10k! So please forgive any mistakes in this Beautiful Books post, since I wrote it as quickly as possible to allow more time for writing Children of the Nameless.

1. Is the book turning out how you thought it would be, or is it defying your expectations? 

   I don't know what to expect. I don't know what I was expecting. But it's turning out great. My word count is slowly increasing. A little too slow my my liking, but I'm writing more than I usually do.

2. What’s your first sentence (or paragraph)? 

 First paragraph of the book:

"It was a time of war. No one was safe. It was a time of blood, but the only glory came to those who delighted in death. Some fought for power. The rest fought to keep themselves and their loved ones alive."

First paragraph that I wrote for NaNo:

 Katria couldn’t help being slightly relieved that the two idiots were still alive. She’d thought Kaleth had lost his mind when he’d jumped off the ship, until she realized Barrow wasn’t on the ship either.

3. Are you a plotter or a pantser? Have you ever tried both methods and how did it turn out?

   Plonster, definitely. I have to have a basic idea of where the chapter is going before I start writing or I panic. And can't write. At all. But when I have an idea, I use it to guide me, and the characters just do whatever they want. Which sometimes involves broken arms. I'm not too happy about that one.

4. What do you reward yourself with after meeting a goal? 

   A piece of candy for every 500 words I write in a day. 

5. What do you look for in a name? Do you have themes and where do you find your names? 

   Most of the time, I look up traditional names from the real-life country I've based the fictional country on. It's a lot easier than making things up(which i did for all of the main characters). I like the names to have meaning, too.

6. What is your favorite to write: beginning, middle, or end — and why? 

   So far, I like the middle best. I get to write things that I've been planning for years no joke. Things are finally starting to happen!

Things not unlike this.

7. Who’s your current favorite character in your novel? 

8. What kind of things have you researched for this project, and how do you go about researching? (What’s the weirdest thing you’ve researched?!) 

   I...don't really research that much? Usually I ask on my writers' group to see if anyone's already done the work for me. I do look up things sometimes though, like mental disorders and weaponry.

9. Do you write better alone or with others? Do you share your work or prefer to keep it to yourself? 

   I can't write when other people are doing distracting things in the room, and I abhor when people watch me write, but I love love love word warring with my writer friends! You know who you are.  And I absolutely have to have people read my stuff. Even though it sucks sometimes. I'm really pushy about getting my alphas to read stuff so they can tell me it's not too horrible and/or flail with me.

10. What are your writing habits? Is there a specific snack you eat? Do you listen to music? What time of day do you write best? Feel free to show us a picture of your writing space!

   Always music. Always. And I can write whenever, pretty much. My favorite place to write is on the comfy couch in my living room right next to the window.

It is the comfiest of all comfy chairs.

How is your November going, my blogglings? Any plans for Thanksgiving? I'm driving up to Utah on Saturday, and I don't know if I'll have wifi there, but I'll be back in December with all the details about how NaNo went!

In which I spam you with links and flail sadly about NaNo

   It's been an interesting week.
   I'm still sick, but not so sick that I can't sit around and write like I did last week. I've had all day shopping trips/doctor's appointments and basically?
   Writing didn't really happen.

Me too, Snape. Me too.

   Last week when I posted. I had 6k, almost 7k. Right now? I'm at 8k 8628 words if you want to know exactly. I've been trying not to get down on myself for not writing very much, but it's hard. A good friend reached 50k today. It's hard feeling so behind. I just have to remind myself that it's okay to go at your own pace, it's okay that life happens. We're leaving on vacation this Saturday, so this week will be busy with packing and planning, so writing will probably be limited next week too.
   But it's okay if I'm behind, because I can catch up. It's okay if I don't win.
   It's okay if i publish this post that I'm writing at 10:30 at night.

   And I obviously didn't have the time to write up a post about Children of the Nameless like I did last week, so instead you get links. (The main story playlist is a lot bigger and better than the individual character ones.)

Children of the Nameless - story board  playlist
Kaleth - character board  playlist
Danica - character board  playlist
Barrow - character board  playlist
Allorie - character board  playlist
Katria - character board  playlist
Egin - character board  playlist

And now I shall sleep. And/or write. Goodnight. 

In which I talk about how I write(when I should be writing)

   "What is this?! Krissy, still posting? Have I entered an alternate dimension??"
   No.
   Shush.
   I decided it would be lame to leave you without my presence for an entire month when I've so recently re-entered the blogging world(for the millionth time). So, I aggressively stalked my friends' blogs and looked for tags I could do about writing and wrote most of them the last week of October. Or during NaNo. Mostly during NaNo, because I procrastinated.

   Today I'm going to talk about my writing. All the nitty-gritty, behind the scenes stuff.

1. Is there a certain snack you like to eat while writing?

   I sometimes write a little while I eat lunch. Does that count? When I'm seriously writing, I don't like having any distractions. I will sometimes eat Halloween candy, though.

2. When do you normally write? Night, afternoon, or morning?

   Usually I write a lot in the afternoon. I don't get many chances to just sit down and write, so I sneak it in whenever I can.

3. Where do you write?

   Usually the big fluffy chair in our living room, at the kitchen table, or my bedroom.

4. How often do you write a new novel?

   Ha.
   HA.
   You're funny. This is the farthest I've ever gotten in a book. So I'm mildly proud of myself.

5. Do you listen to music while you write?

   ALWAYS. Sometimes I listen to random stuff, sometimes one of my character playlists, or the Children of the Nameless playlist. I have a hard time focusing when anything interesting is going on nearby(whether it be a conversation or my sister watching Studio C again), so I need music to kinda drown out the background noise. And it helps me get in the mood for what I'm writing.

6. What do you write on? Laptop or paper?

   LAPTOP. ALWAYS LAPTOP. Writing on paper hurts my hands and is 37643675 times slower than my brain.

7. Is there a special ritual you have before or after you write?

   I put on music, like I said before. Sometimes I reread the last few paragraphs so I can get in the rhythm of it again. And I usually pull up one of my Pinterest boards, either the main board or one of the character boards.

8. What do you do to get in the mood to write?

   I write best during a word war, so I ask if any of my friends want to war. People are much more willing to war during NaNo, fyi. 

9. What is always near the place you write?

   My charger. I won't have this computer dying on me, no sir. And my water bottle, so I don't get dehydrated. And a blanket, because being cozy is the most important.

10. Do you have a reward system for your word count?

Yay me, now I don't have to stress about writing any more today. But I should still go write more.

   Also, I made a reward system where I get a piece of candy for every 500 words I write, but I'm regrettably behind on that.

11. Is there anything about your writing process that others might not know about?

   I am the slowest chipmunk in the history of chipmunk writers. Cait from Paper Fury is rubbing off on me. In a 15 minute word war I might get 130 words? It's terrible. But somehow all the wars I'm doing are adding up, and I'm averaging about 1000 words a day, which is my goal.

   And I'm too busy to tag people in this, so.

NaNo Update

   As of the moment I'm writing this, my total word count is 6743 words, meaning I'm only about three hundred words away from meeting my goal this week!

How is NaNo going for you? 

In which the fabulous Aimee talks to us about Nano

Only two more days until NaNo!! Waht is this. I'm not ready!! But before you start panicking, we have another NaNo veteran, Aimee, who's going to tell us about how to have fun with NaNo instead of stressing.


Having Fun With NaNoWriMo

We’re days away from that time — NaNoWriMo. A month of insanity and novel-writing and support and stress and tears, and pretty much everyone enjoys it. You could look anywhere in your circle of writerly blogs and find a good handful of posts about NaNoWriMo. How to write more, how to win, how to write faster, how to plan. With only a few days between us and November, people are going crazy getting everything in place.

I’ve already blogged about that on my own blog — here — so I’m not going to come up with more advice for you, especially since we’re so close.

I’m gonna remind you to have fun.

Now, I get it. You want to win NaNo. You want to succeed at NaNo. I want to succeed at NaNo just as much as anyone else. But sometimes I can get caught up in failing, or not writing fast enough, or even the dreaded someone else wrote 50k in the first week and I’m not even halfway yet sort of thing that’ll inevitably go through your head. This happens. NaNo is a big deal. But at the same time…what’s the point? To win?

You’ll get a big NO from me because I do what I want.

NaNo is about fun. NaNo is about putting words on the page. In fact, NaNo is about putting quickly-written, completely imperfect words and sentences on the page. Spewing out all your random thoughts even if they don’t have anything to do with the plot. Random plot twists. Brand-new characters you didn’t anticipate. NaNo is about writing what comes into your brain.

It’s also about writing with people. Word wars! Support! Discussing how best to murder characters! People — other writers — are the very best part of NaNo, and as someone who’s ultra-competitive believe me when I say that it’s no fun at all the moment you start comparing.

It’s not about writing a whole entire novel.

It’s not even about writing the full 50k.

It’s not about writing faster than someone else unless you’re warring and it motivates you and then yeah, I guess it could be.

It’s not about writing better than everyone else.

Or writing to get published.

It’s about writing. Writing with people. Writing a story you love and hopefully one that’s fun for you. It’s about creating a first draft that definitely sucks, and loving it anyway. It’s a wild ride the whole way through, and there will definitely be stressful moments along the way. But don’t let that get to your head.

Take a breather.

Enjoy NaNoWriMo.

   Aimee Meester is a reader, writer, watcher, and lover of all things weird and/or sci-fi. When she's not busy reading, writing, watching, or otherwise procrastinating she's a homeschooled extrovert who happened to find the internet and build up a bizarre little blog of her own. Her love for Les Mis knows no bounds.

Go check her out, guys, she's the coolest. Are you ready for NaNo? Shoot me a comment below so we can scream in terror together. Also, what do you think of the new blog design?

Beautiful Books #1 - In which I flail uncontrollably about my book

   One of my favorite linkups of all times is Beautiful People, run by Cait @ Paper Fury and Sky @ Further Up and Further In. In November, they switch it up a little and change it to Beautiful Books, so we get to flail about our books instead of our characters. I'm very excited about this, because I don't think I've told you guys very much about my book(that's not a good excuse though I could talk about my book for forever and not be bored).

1. How did you come up with the idea for your novel, and how long have you had the idea?

   I got the idea in February(I think) of 2014, while I was doing math. I was listening to samples of Audiomachine songs on iTunes(because I was an uneducated child and knew nothing of the joys of Spotify and Pandora), when, due to my overactive imagination and strong inclination to getting distracted, I started imagining a scene to go along with the song. That scene became the prologue, and the song title, Nameless Heroes, inspired the whole premise of the story.

2. Why are you excited to write this novel?

    So, sooooo many reasons. This is the first story I've written where I've gotten past the first chapter. I've put so much of my heart and soul into it already, and it means so much to me, and to other people already as well(*glances at Emily*). I love the characters so much, and they mean so much to me, and I'm so excited to see them grow(and to have them kiss). This is the first story where I really feel capable of writing the whole thing.

3. What is your novel about, and what is the title?

   The title is Children of the Nameless, and I actually wrote a little back cover thing a while back.

   Mum tilted her head back, closed her eyes, and sighed.
   "You've heard the stories of the Nameless? The mysterious heroes who worked so hard to stop the war, and then disappeared?"
   "Of course." What was she saying?
   Years of loneliness filled her eyes when she looked at him.
   "Your father was one of the Nameless."

   Every child knows the stories of the Nameless, a legendary group of young men and women who rescued those in need, only to disappear without a trace, never giving their name. Kaleth has heard the stories all his life, one of the only rays of hope as war threatens to destroy his country and the whole world.
   But he never expected to learn that one of them was his father. Or that the other five Nameless had children as well.
   And so, with their world teetering on the brink of destruction, the six children of the Nameless team up to try to continue the legend their parents left for them. But when tempers flare, hearts are broken, and destruction threatens everything, is there any hope?


   This first book(it's a trilogy) is about friendships and being brave and doing the right thing no matter the cost and I have so many feelings over it.

4. Sum up your characters in one word each. (Feel free to add pictures!)

   Oooooh boy. I could talk about my characters for hours but I will condense them to one word if I must. And I included links because some of the words are weird.

Kaleth: Leader

Danica: Oracular

Barrow: Eccedentesiast 

Allorie: selfless

Katria: Liberosis

Egin: Aesthete

5. Which character(s) do you think will be your favorite to write? Tell us about them!

   Really, I'm excited to right about all of my babies, but so far, I think I like Egin the best. I get to play around with formatting the words, which I  l o v e. Also, he is a precious child and I love anything that has to do with him, so.

6. What is your protagonist’s goal, and what stands in the way?

   Their main goal is to end the war, although all six of them have more personal, emotional goals as well. Their main obstacle is the Feor, the people who started the war, and the fact that no one really wants to listen to a bunch of teenagers, no matter who their parents were.

7. Where is your novel set? (Show us pictures if you have them!)

   There's a lot of traveling. And a lot of forests. And a city inspired by 1800s steampunk London with some Asian influences. There's also a country based on Japan/China who owns provinces like England used to. And an Irish Viking city. And torture chambers. And lots and lots of forests.

8. What is the most important relationship your character has?

   Barrow's most important relationship is with Danica. Egin's is with his cousin/adopted little sister Lisbet. Kaleth and Allorie's is with each other. And Katria's is with her best friend(*cough*totally just friends*cough*), Conryn.

9. How does your protagonist change by the end of the novel?

   For Barrow, things are getting better and he's happier. Egin is becoming a lot braver. Allorie is finally learning to stand up for herself and isn't letting herself get pushed around. Danica is becoming more confident and is learning to trust herself more. Katria really cares about the cause, and her new friends(although she never stops missing *cough*a certain someone*cough*). And Kaleth...is getting more prideful.

10. What themes are in your book? How do you want your readers to feel when the story is over?

  Heh. What do you mean, themes? I can barely write; I can't think of themes. That's for later drafts. But as for how my readers feel... *evil laugh* I want them to be panicked/angry, since I'm kinda going to leave them on a terrible cliffhanger. And I really want them to care about the characters. That's pretty much the most important thing to me.

11. BONUS! Tell us your 3 best pieces of advice for others trying to write a book in a month.

1. Don't listen to me I don't know what I'm doing
2. Find a way to motivate yourself
3. Write. A lot.

So, what do you think of my baby? I'm super excited to keep writing it. Did you do Beautiful Books too? Drop the link below and we can flail about our books together.