where I’ve been and where I’m (hopefully) heading

(note: I actually started writing this post a few weeks ago but then I got sick w/ a really bad cold, not to mention I’ve been swamped w/ school work.)

I’ve been in a funk for the past few weeks (months?). I haven’t done much writing. I haven’t done much of anything (besides the bare minimum of school work I can get away with doing while keeping my grades up). I usually love summer, but this summer was kind of a downer. The basement apartment I live in was almost always hot and humid. Thank goodness for the AC we got for our bedroom or we never would’ve been able to sleep at night! But who wants to spend the whole freaking day in their bedroom to stay cool? So it’s been hot, and I’ve been lazy.

But now it’s October. It’s been 2011 for ten months and I haven’t accomplished any of my writing goals. I’ve continued to take online writing workshops, but as far as working on my manuscript goes... that went nowhere. I actually was planning on attending the NJRWA conference (which is in two weeks), but I cancelled my registration a few weeks ago. A lot of it has to do with my monetary situation (my debt is slowly increasing since unemployment barely covers the bills) – I just can’t logically afford to go to a conference right now. But also, it’s because I’d thought I’d have a manuscript ready to pitch by now, and I’m not even CLOSE.

With NaNoWriMo coming up again soon, I figure now is a good a time as any to try again. I also think I need to write a serious outline for the new novel that I want to right. I think a lot of my giving up on my past manuscripts is that I get stuck 5, 10, 20 thousand words in and I can’t figure out what’s supposed to happen next, or how it’s supposed to happen. While I usually have an idea of where the story’s headed, I tend to leave the details to figure themselves out. And, as you might’ve guessed by now, so far they haven’t done a great job of it!

I’ve been working on plotting my NaNo novel thanks to Jennifer from Procrastinating Writers. I signed up for her “Creating Your NaNoWriMo Road Map” workshop and have been plugging along with the help of her worksheets. I think my idea is coming together nicely. It’s going to be a post-apocalyptic romance, a bit different from the two previous sci-fi romance manuscripts I worked on.

(Which also explains the aesthetic changes I made to my blog. I wanted to give it a more “end of the world” type feel, instead of the sci-fi, outer space one. You like?)

NaNo is definitely going to be tough this year, though. I have two papers due soon (for one class, our first draft is due at the end of October, but the professor is going to make us revise it if she makes changes to our draft; the other paper is due the first week of December but if I wait ‘till Dec. 1 to start it I’ll be screwed).  Not to mention the usual school work and tests that come w/ five pretty hard classes (three of which have to do w/ accounting). So it’s definitely going to be a challenge, but I am gonna give it a shot!

So who else is w/ me this November? Leave me your NaNo name and once the buddy feature is working again, we can be friends!  :)

Camp NaNoWriMo anyone?

I'm debating signing up for Camp NaNoWriMo this August (if you haven't heard about it yet, click the link). I failed NaNoWriMo last year (2010), as well as in 2009 and a few others years that I attempted it. So what makes me think I can succeed this time? I really don't know. I do know that in order to win, I need to believe I can. Considering I've barely written a few hundred words over the past month, writing 1667 words a day will be quite a challenge for me. But August is the perfect time for me to try. My online summer class ends on the 4th, and I don't start my fall classes until September 1st. I have nothing coming up that I need to work on, nowhere to go, etc. If I'm going to bang out 50k words in a month, the time is now.

Whaddya think? Should I go for it? I'll have to stop sleeping 'till noon - 1 pm every day, for starters. But I want to do that anyway. I need to go back on Weight Watchers starting Monday too. And I need to start exercising. So if I start getting up at a decent hour, I can find plenty of time to write. Can I find the motivation to write is the question. That is what I've been severely lacking the past few months. Having a concrete goal (50k in a month) is a good place to start, but I'm just not sure if it will be to overwhelming for me.

Hmmmmm. I'll letcha know what I decide in a few days. How 'bout you? Are you doing Camp NaNo yourself in August? Did you do it this July? Do you think NaNo should just stick to November? I'd love to know what you think  :)

It's Official: I Quit (a.k.a. Utter NaNoWriMo FAIL)

Moving in the middle of November was the absolute worst thing that could've happened to my nanowrimo. Packing took up way too much of my time. It utterly killed my story flow. Also not helpful was the cold I got the day after moving - which, btw, I still have!!!! I've been sick for 2 weeks now and it's driving me nuts!  Trying to write and unpack while continually coughing and blowing your nose is hell. The basement apartment I'm in now is very condusive to sleep, which means I've been getting up later and later these past few weeks (which means less time for writing!). Oh, and I (temporarily) jumped off the Weight Watchers wagon after we moved as well!

I plan to get things moving in the right direction again starting tomorrow (technically "today" I guess since it's after midnight  ;-). No more letting myself sleep 'till 10 or 11 every morning. I want to start getting up by 8-8:30 (on the weekdays - weekends I'll let myself sleep in). Tomorrow I'm gonna ease my way back into it by setting my alarm for 9 am. I'm also going back to WW with my friend on Tuesday, so I gotta get back on the ball with eating right starting when I wake up on Wed. I need to start exercising b/c I am way too lazy and out of shape. And, of course, I need to get more writing done. Less social networking, blog reading, etc., and more actual writing. 

How do you get yourself back on track after being off it for a while? Do you lack motivation sometimes (a lot of times)? What gets you going again?

'Till next time...!  :)

NaNoWriMo Week 3: Even farther behind (and hey, are you Blog Jogging tomorrow?!?)

Moving was quite the pain in the ass, as I'd known it would be. But as if that wasn't bad enough, I managed to catch my boyfriend's brother's cold! (I blame my dog for being a germ-spreader. He licks people he likes on the face. I know it's kinda gross, but I always thought it was too cute and never broke him of the habit lol.) I've been sick practically all week so I got very little unpacking done (and NO writing until Thursday night when I finally started feeling better). Thankfully I am feeling decent today, and I plan on cleaning and unpacking all day with my boyfriend (wheeeeeeeeee hah). If I'm lucky, I'll be able to fit a writing break in there somewhere.

My NaNo count is a little over 14k, which I believe is less than half of what I should have by now. Will I make it to 50k by Nov 30? It's looking doubtful, but I never say die! This weekend I will probably spend the majority of my time unpacking/cleaning, but on Monday I am getting back to writing!  If I can make a strong showing next week, it's possible I can pull it off. My family doesn't do much for turkey day, so I should definitely be able to get some writing done on Thursday too. We'll see how it goes - wish me luck!

Tomorrow is the second Blog Jog Day and I'm hoping it will be another success. I am giving away a romance paperback (winner's choice - check back tomorrow for the ones I have to offer) to one lucky commenter! It should be a lot of fun. If you want to check out some new blogs and win some cool prizes definitely take the jog tomorrow!

Now I am off to open some boxes. See you all tomorrow I hope!  =)

NaNoWrimo Week 2: over 11k behind and falling fast

Packing for a big move SUCKS. It has monopolized almost my entire weekend. I wrote maybe 100-200 words on Friday, and no words yesterday or today. We're about 95% done. Everything that isn't in a box at this point isn't breakable and will just go in a plastic bag or something (except for the desktop computers which my boyfriend is waiting for the last minute to pack, despite the fact we both have laptops). Tomorrow the movers will come get the bed, couch, bookcases, tables, chairs, & computer desks (yes my boyfriend and I each have a desk lol).

I'm hoping I might be able to get a little writing done tonight, but I'm not betting on it. Tomorrow is basically a wash out, the whole day will be spent cleaning & opening boxes and all that. So I hope and pray that I can back on the ball on Tuesday and play catch-up for a week or so and get back in it. At least with unpacking, there's no real rush.

Also, I completely went off the Weight Watchers wagon this week. Between stress and eating out, I just couldn't stay OP (that's WW lingo for "on plan" or "on program"). Apparently WW is revamping their entire program on the 28th. I have no idea what they're doing, they've kept it pretty hush-hush at the meetings. So it'll be interesting to see what they've come up with.

I guess that's it for me, back to packing/cleaning. If you're doing nano along with me this month, I hope you're word count is higher than mine! If not, we can try to catch up together this week! 'Till then...   :)

NaNoWriMo status update: Week 1 - behind schedule

How many words should've been written by the end of day 5: 8,355
How many words I've written so far: 5,672

I hurt my neck sometime last week, and it continued into this week. I usually sleep on my back, but the pain was so bad that I did most of my sleeping on my side. I woke up a lot during the night from being uncomfortable, so I didn't sleep very well. My monthly visitor also dropped by (sorry if that was TMI for anyone!) and drained me of a lot of my energy. On top of that I decided November was a good time to join Weight Watchers (wtf was I thinking?!?) so I went to my first meeting Tues night.  Dieting always takes a toll on me, especially for the first week or 2. So it's definitely been a rough week for me.

I went to the chiropractor on Wed - didn't wanna go cuz I have no health insurance, but my mom was nice enough to give me $20 towards it and the visit was only $40 - and he cracked by neck back into place which was unpleasant but it helped!  So I'm feeling better today, but my boyfriend and I have a TON of packing that must be done. I hope to get back on schedule in the next few days.

How's everyone else doing with their word count? And if you're not doing nanowrimo this year, are you completely sick of hearing about it yet?  ;-)

Nanowrimo and moving out!

It's gonna be a very busy next few weeks for me!  My boyfriend and I are moving on November 15, and we haven't started packing yet.  Luckily I'm still out of work (that might sound strange, but in this situation it's true!), so at least I don't have to worry about balancing nano and packing (and then eventually UNpacking) with a full time job.  Plus I finally got my laptop back from HP yesterday and my boyfriend helped me put back on all the programs it had before I sent it away.  So it is finally nano-ready!

But am I nano-ready?  I have a little plot and character info prepared, but not as much as I should.  I hope to work on that a bit tomorrow (not tonight, since I'm hosting a Halloween party that starts in less than 2 hours!).  Apparently the downstairs tenants managed to knock a cable wire out somewhere while they were moving yesterday or today, so the television in the living room isn't working.  My man is obviously annoyed, but it's good for me 'cuz that means he'll be out most of tomorrow watching football at someone else's house!  ;-)

I'm a bit nervous about finishing 50,000 words while packing and moving, but to be honest I think I'd be nervous even without the move.  I've mentioned before - but it bears repeating - that the most I've ever written for one manuscript before throwing in the towel is 30,000 words.  So if I can finish November with 50k (I'd love to write even more than that, but I don't wanna pressure myself) I'll really feel like I accomplished something.

My plan as of now is to post once a week (most likely every Friday) on how I'm keeping up with nanowrimo.  Considering I don't usually post more than once a week as it is, it shouldn't be much of a change for my followers anyway  *wink*

OK time for me to do my hair and get all dolled up for my party tonight.  (I'm going to be the cowardly lion from the wizard of oz, my little chihuahua is gonna be a mailman!  I'll try to post a few pics tomorrow or the next day if I can.)  Meanwhile, let me know if you're going to be doing nano along with me (and if so, add me as a friend !) or if you think it's totally overrated!  And don't forget to have a Happy Halloween!