In which I return from the deep dark hole that was November and talk about NaNo again

   Yes! I have returned. After a month.

   November was wild. The first half of the month was consumed with being sick, NaNo-ing, and packing. The second half was driving from Texas to Utah(a very long drive let me assure you), visiting family and friends, finding out that my dad's cousin is also a writer and getting to read her first chapter, and having almost no wifi for two weeks. That last part was not so fun.
   But I'm back now, and I'm all ready to tell you about what happened with NaNo by linking up with Cait and Sky's Beautiful Books meme.

1. On a scale of 1 (worst) to 10 (best), how did the book turn out? Did anything defy your expectations?

   Ha.
   Hahahhahah.
   Word count wise, it was awful. I got 11k instead of my goal of 25k. So that was lame.
   HOWEVER.
   I got to write some freaking awesome scenes that I've been wanting to write for foreverrrr. Including, but not limited to: kissing, almost-kissing, backstory revealing, and risking your life to save your friend.
   So I'd say seven.


2. Comparative title time: what published books, movies, or TV shows are like your book? (Ex: Inkheart meets X-Men.)

   THIS IS ACTUALLY REALLY HARD, GUYS. I've been thinking about it for dayyyssss and can't really think of anything specific. Just, any generic fantasy story meets a generic coming-of-age YA story. That makes it sound way lame but I swear it's not.


3. Do you enjoy working with deadlines and pressure (aka NaNoWriMo)? Or do you prefer to write-as-you’re-inspired?

   Give me alllll the deadlines, precious. I really like the tracking-my-progress part of NaNo too. Which is why I use myWriteClub during the non-NaNo months. If I just wrote whenever I felt like it...I would never get anything done.


4. How do you go about editing? Give us an insight into your editing process.

   When I find out, I'll tell you. I've actually....never made it to the editing part? But I'm getting there, which is terrifyingly exciting.

Actually me right now

   I do have a plan though.
   1. Get critiques from my alpha readers(hint hint, you guys)
   2. Read through Children of the Nameless after a break and take note of things I need to change/fix/get rid of
   3.  Change/fix/get rid of those things
   4. Cry
   5. Wonder why I'm writing this stupid thing
   6. Remember how much I love it
   7. Send it to my betas
   8. Panic
   9. Get their critiques
   10. Repeat steps 2-9 until I find it satisfactory


5. What aspect of your story needs the most work?

Also me. All three expressions. Me.

   Lots of things. All the things. It's my first book ever; what do you expect? To be honest, though, the characters and storyworld really need to be fleshed out more, and I need more character development. I have most of a plot (read: most), so I'm pretty good on that aspect. But all in all I'm terrified excited to fix this.


6. What aspect of your story did you love the most?

   The fact that it exists? The fact that people like it? The fact that I'm 71% done?
   Okay but in all honesty, I think I love my characters most. Because in the end, that's what matters most. If someone loves the plot but hates the characters, they probably won't like the book. True, a lame plot can't really hold awesome characters, but to me, characters are the most important part of a book.

7. Give us a brief run down on your main characters and how you think they turned out. Do you think they’ll need changes in edits?

   Speaking of characters. Ah, my babies. I can never talk about them enough. I apologize in advance for the length of this section.

   First off, we have Kaleth. Pretty boy, courageous, protective, strong Kaleth. I struggle with writing him a lot, despite my love for him. I want him to come across as a strong, fearless, calculating leader, but in my efforts to make him seem like that, he became....one-dimensional. And, with help from some awesome friends(looking at you, Emily and Sierra!), I'm realizing that I need to stop panicking. He's barely seventeen! He's human! Let him write himself! Leaders can still have fun and joke around with their friends! Especially when they're teenagers!

   And then there's Barrow(who does not look or dress quite like this gif, but it's adorable and something he'd do and I wanted to use a gif). He's a player, a flirt, and an obnoxious jerk. But oh how I love him. He's gone through hell, and hasn't quite come out of it, but he's getting there(with help from *cough*certain people*cough*). He's got issues. He's destructive, and caring, and annoying, and brave. He's a jumbled mess, and I'm really proud of how he's come through in this draft. I just need to make his friendships/crushes more gradual and less out of the blue.

Why do I only have one gif for her. I need to fix this.

   Ah, Danica. My lovely precious child. She's brilliant but doesn't believe it, beautiful but can't see it. She's incredibly smart, caring, and gentle. She came across as a bit of a pushover in the beginning, instead of just shy like I'd intended, so I need to fix that. I'm also sad her genius didn't make its appearance as much as I'd want it to(mostly due to my fear/hate of writing planning meetings). I'm still struggling to figure out how exactly to write her POV, but all in all she did quite well in this first draft.

   Allorie is Cinderella. Seriously. She's had a super sucky life(sorry darling), has a nasty mother, is forced to live and work wayyyy below her station, but through it all, she's still one of the kindest, sweetest, most selfless people ever. "Have courage and be kind" is pretty much her life motto. I understand her really well...in theory. When I'm not writing. I haven't quite found her voice, or how she works, but I'm getting there. I love the child to bits, though.

   This is Katria. Sort of. She doesn't dress or look quite like this, but it shows you how gloriously kickbutt the girl is. She's violent, sarcastic, anti-social, and easily angered. She's a quick thinker and loves a thrill. She's in love with her childhood best friend, but no one(not even she) knows it. Somehow, despite the fact that she's almost my complete opposite...she's one of the easiest to write. It's weird. But I love it. I love her sass, her knife obsession, and the way she thinks about said best friend all the time(resulting in me screeching "WOULD YOU HURRY UP AND FIGURE IT OUT AND JUST KISS HIM ALREADY" despite the fact that they're hundreds of miles apart). She did really well this draft.

   And last but not least is Egin. He is a "Beautiful Cinnamon Roll Too Good For This World, Too Pure". Literally. He's got asthma and really bad social anxiety. He can do a little magic, mostly just making pretty things to calm him down when he has panic attacks. He loves his family, especially his little sister, who he'd do anything for. But...he came across as really really really whiny. He's only had a few chapters but he has a panic attack in each one. Yeah, he's not as brave now as he will be in later books, but I don't want him to seem like an obnoxious wimp. And the traditional writing structure kinda goes out the window when I'm writing from his POV, and I'm afraid that'll annoy people. So, Egin as a character is perfect. The way I write him is not.

8. What are your plans for this novel once you finish editing? More edits? Finding beta readers? Querying? Self-publishing? Hiding it in a dark hole forever?

   Edits! All the edits! I wanna get this baby published eventually(in which case I might actually cry).


9. Share a favourite snippet!

   Oh boy. I shall attempt to find something not full of spoilers.

#Ishipit

I got to write an entire chapter of her daring stunts. It was glorious. 

10. What are your writing goals and plans for 2016?

   Originally, my plan was to finish the first draft of Children of the Nameless before the end of 2015, but I don't think that's going to happen. Sadly. I want to finish it as soon as possible, and then get started on edits before I start writing the second book at the end of next year. Someone hold me I can't believe this is happening.

   So there you have it! A basic rundown of my November. I am so ready for Christmas break(which will hopefully translate to "lots of writing time").

Did you do NaNoWriMo? How did it go? Are you excited for the holidays?

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?