2012 Goals

I did this last year and, although I did not even complete half of my 2011 goals, they were helpful in keeping me on track when I decided to do something writing-related. Here are a few things I would like to get done this coming year...

2012 Writing Goals:

1. Edit Shiloh's Children well enough to show family and friends. Hmm... deja vue, anyone? Maybe that's because this was my goal last year too. And guess what? I didn't do it. This year, however, I have more incentive. I promised my parents that I would not do NaNoWriMo 2012 unless I edited a novel first. So, I must get this goal done, and soon, if I want to do NaNoWriMo for my fourth year in a row.

2. Enter at least 11 pieces into contests or to publishers. Last year, my goals was to enter 10 writing contests. I later expanded that goal to include works submitted for publication. I only entered 6 (and I didn't even blog about the sixth entry). This year I'm going for 11. One a month (minus NaNoWriMo month) is doable. I just have to, you know... do it.

3. Enter and win NaNoWriMo2012. I can not tell you how much I want to accomplish this goal! I love NaNoWriMo. But to enter and win, I have to accomplish my first goal. So, I guess I should get started on that, yes? Yes, I think so...

Happy New Year, everyone! Happy writing wishes to all of my writing friends and reading wishes to everyone else!

Since my last post...

I read at the Awaken the Sleeping Poet Festival. This was a lot of fun! I am so happy that I ended up entering that contest. It was not only a great experience but it has also got me connected with the San Antonio Poet's Association. They have regular meetings and read-ins which I hope to be attending more often.

I sent in two poems for publication. I sent in two poems that I wrote  into Starsongs Magazine (the magazine that published my tritina). I know I said in my 2011 goals that I wanted to enter 10 writing contests this year but I think I will also count regular submissions. In a way, it is a contest. I am competing with every other writer who submitted work to that same magazine. This submission brings my total up to 3 submissions this year. And it's June. Yes, I am happy I turned this in, but I need to get a move on if I am going to accomplish this goal. It has been four weeks since my submission. I should hear the verdict of this submission in the next two to four weeks.


I really got started editing Shiloh's Children. That's right! I have been thinking about what I would edit in Shiloh's Children for a while now but I actually read through it, made an outline, made notes, etc. My next step actually involves using the computer -- yay! Another 2011 goal at work.

I have decided when I am doing NaNoWriMo 2011. I am doing NaNoWriMo in less than a month! On July 1, I will begin my third full-hearted attempt at National Novel Writing Month. I have four different plot lines that I might write next month (I can't decide) and none of them have a whole lot of planning thus far so I have a lot of work to do before then but I am excited about it. Is anyone else doing NaNo this summer?

I'll post a lot more as I continue to submit work, edit Shiloh's Children, and do NaNoWriMo next month.

Shiloh was a child too, right?

So, I'm thinking about and half-way (make that quarter-way) editing my novel Shiloh's Children. I originally split the novel into three parts:

1. Michigan -- this describes Shiloh's childhood, her getting married, her having kids, and the tragedy that strikes the family (currently 16,000 words)
2. U.S. -- describes where the kids are now that they are grown (currently 12,000 words)
3. World -- the kids go on a trip (currently 22,000 words)

I am having trouble with section one. I could make section one into this huge, gigantic, epic section that goes on and on like old classic books. Or, I could make it super duper short. Or somewhere in the middle. I mean, Shiloh had a childhood too, right? That should be included. But her childhood is not the major action of the book. Yet, it is an important part as to why the major action takes place. I'm leaning toward 20,000 words for this section. It will probably end up being more, though. That is, if I ever stop blogging and start editing! We'll see...

My Writing History

I would have to say fourth grade really got me going with my love for writing. I wrote as much fiction as I could that year even if the assignment was calling for a non-fiction piece. For example, we were supposed to write a story about our hero so I started creating this elaborate story about how my dog saved my life... My teacher made me re-do the assignment and write about a real person so that didn't work out to well. But there were many other times that we could write fiction that year so I got my fair share of creative writing in. The next year my English teacher barely had us write at all so my love for writing died down until about seventh grade. I took a writing class that year where about half of all of our writing was fictional. 

In the spring semester of my eighth grade year, I started writing my first novel via long hand in a purple notebook. Once into the story a bit, I began typing it up and would continue to add to it long hand in the car. After about 15,000 words, though, I gave up. It is still an unfinished work that I don't know if I will ever get back to. The reason I gave up on it is simply because of my inconsistent writing schedule (or lack thereof). I would work on my novel several days in a row and then go a month or two without working on it at all.

Later, I thought about doing NaNoWriMo in 2008 with a different story than the one I had started in January of that year but I didn't write more than 1,000 words and gave up on that story too. I didn't actually finish a book until August Novel Writing Month (AugNoWriMo) in 2009 (over a year and a half after I first started trying to write novels) and even that book was only 13,000 words long. It felt good at the time, though, because it was my first completed novel. A few months later, in November of 2009, I competed in and won NaNoWriMo and then had a 50,000 word novel under my belt. I did that again in June of 2010 and was up to three novels.

Writing my two 50,000 words novels made me so happy and made me feel like I was a writer. Now if I sent them to a publisher in current form, the publisher would role on the floor with laughter. But it was fun, exciting, and educational. And now I have three completed novels because of three month-long challenges. Now I'm working on my fourth novel. But one of my 2011 goals is to edit one of my NaNoWriMo novels, Shiloh's Children. I haven't actually started editing yet but it is on my mind often and I will get to work on it soon.

NaNoWriMo- the Final Days

Well... the last 11 days I was behind every single day. No joke. I would catch up occasionally and then the next day I would get behind again. Sometime around days 20-25, I would sit at the dining room table instead of on our Lazy Boy. Wow, what a difference achair can make. It actually had to sit up straight *gasp*. Needless to say, it helped a lot. I also did some "Nuclear Weekend" (See No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty) type writing where I set the timer for forty minutes and wrote as long/fast as I could and then take a twenty minute break. I repeated this process until I made it to 1500 words. Then, take a long break (eat a meal, watch TV, read a book, talk to actual people, etc.) and do it again with another 1500 words. Then take a break. Then write again. So, I did this a few times (even though I usually only did it twice in a day rather than three times) and it helped a lot.

The last five days of NaNo ended up being pretty interesting. We were staying at a little house in New Braunfels where there was no internet access. That was sad for a couple of reasons: no e-mail, no blogging, no research for the book. But, it ended up helping a lot. On day 27 I had approximately 14,000 words left. I wrote about 3,500 on that day, 4,500 on day 28, 2,000 on day 29, and 4,000 words on day 30. It was a killer and I doubt the last 14,000 words of my book are all that great. But they are written and I am a winner with a grand total of 50,004 words.

As far as the story goes (I haven't really blogged about it) here's a synopsis:  It opens with the birth of a girl named Shiloh Ella Smith in a small town in Michigan. Her dad is a Baptist pastor there. Shiloh grew up without even leaving the state. In fact, she never even left her city unless it was for one of the families summer trips to Lake Superior. In high school, she meets a boy named JJ Wilburn. They are friends at first but by the end of high school they are sweethearts. JJ is a year older than Shiloh but as soon as she is old enough, Shiloh goes off to school with JJ that is only a couple of hours from their home (and still in the state). When he graduates college, he proposes to her. She leaves school early to marry him and JJ takes over the preaching at the Baptist church Shiloh's dad was the pastor at. They have four kids, all of them named after cities/countries that Shiloh had wanted to visit. Their names are Sydney Australia, Seoul Korea, Paris France, and Dublin Ireland (in that order). They go to the lake every summer just like Shiloh and her parents did. Shiloh's happiness does not last long enough, though, as she and Dublin both die that summer. JJ shuts down and the remaining three children have to raise themselves. Years later, the three siblings end up traveling the world together to the cities they were named after. On the trip, they find out a lot about each other, their thoughts on the past, and their faith in something bigger than themselves. 

Sorry this post is so late! Thanks for all the support from my family and friends. It was a crazy month but so much fun. This book is going to need a ton of editing but it may take me more than a month the second time around :P

120 pages!

NaNoWriMo Days 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, & 19

During days 13-15... I hardly wrote at all. I definitely didn't write more than 1,000 words on each of those days (out of the 1,667 words a day I am supposed to write). So, Mom motivated me on Day 17 to get with it. I ended up writing more than 3,000 words on day 17 :) and another 2,500 or so on day 18. Today, I was back to my low: about 1,000 words. I even went to a write in today where I only wrote 400 words :P but it was a fun visit with Amanda and Ann. I am going to try and write some more tonight and definitely write to and from church tomorrow.

NaNoWriMo Days 8, 9, 10, 11, & 12

These past five days have not been easy. When I got to chapter four I went ahead and started on some of the events that were going to take place in chapter five. This got my out line off a bit. Just when I thought I would recover from that... I got behind in my word count when I missed almost all of day 10. Not. Good. So, yesterday, I managed to write about 3,000 words -- not to terrible to write but not exactly fun. But I am still over 1,000 words short today plus my word count for today. Ugh.

My grandma also wants to write a book. So, I am going to her house this afternoon and we are going to have a little write in together. I hope I can catch up a bit. I need to take some time and actually plan out a couple of chapters that are very empty right now and I have no plans for them. I outlined and wrote little one page synopsis for each of my chapters except two which are totally blank (other than the title). That won't be fun when I actually get to those chapters.

So, I'm behind in my word count and on out-lining. But this would be oh-so boring if I didn't get a little behind, right?!?

NaNoWriMo Days 4, 5, 6, & 7

   

Over the past four days I have managed to just barely get my daily word count in but I have managed to do it. For example, I am only 90 words above my daily quota today -- but I am not behind :) I also passed the 10,000 word mark yesterday which. is. AWESOME! I love the 10k word mark. It feels so good to have written that much in just 6 days. Plus, that means I only have to do that four more times to win, lol.

The saddest part of these past few days has been that I have had to let four, wait, make that five people die. One of them was just two years old. So very sad. I have, thank God, never had someone super, super close to me die (grandparent, parent, sibling, etc.). My great-grandma died and that was very sad at the time but I was only in, like, the third grade so it has been a few years since that experience. So I am worried that my writing about these deaths may not make a big impact on the reader. A good editor could help me with that though (and I would rather have to edit it a million times than my parents die in a car accident, if you know what I mean...).

I still have a lot of month left, and a lot of novel. I am having a bit of the IGAD (I've Got All Day) syndrome and it is taking me a couple of hours what should take me about 50-60 minutes. But the plot is picking up.This is going to get better... I think... right?!?

NaNoWriMo Days 2 & 3

Yesterday, Day 2, went pretty well. I got close to finishing the first chapter (of 12) and got to my daily quota which is always nice, especially at the beginning of the month. I got a little discouraged in certain sections of my novel but then a few paragraphs later, I was happy with it. This went back and forth a few times yesterday. My main problem yesterday (and today) is that I was writing late at night trying to get the quota for the day before the day was over. Our power went out last night, though, so that wasn't very much fun and we had no internet so that meant, no blogging for Day 2, lol. The power didn't come on until about 1:30AM.

Today was not easy (to say the least). The best part of today was that I got to Chapter 2. But I had geometry class this morning so I didn't have the opportunity to write until the afternoon. Well, by then, I managed to fill up my afternoon with things that seemed oh so much more important than noveling at the time. When I finally got around to working on my book, I think it took me 1 and a half hours to write what normally takes me half that time (or less!). I tried using Dr. Wicked's Write or Die but stopped after about 200 words. After doing this twice, I just wrote directly on my Word Doc. trying to get at least close to the quota for today. I finally made it! But I am only ahead by about 35 words. My word quota for today was 5,000 words.

So, these past two days haven't exactly been smooth sailing. More days to come, though. The month has only just begun.

NaNoWriMo Day 1

Today I began my own NaNoWriMo adventure (it is usually in November but I am doing it in June). I got off to a rough start this morning as I wrote nothing significant until about 4P.M.; I normally write in the morning. But all is good now and I got to my daily word quote: 1667 words. I am currently at 1765 :)
My book is about a family in Michigan that struggle with their faith. Through the course of the book I will talk about three generations with the focus being on the last generation. I am a little disappointed at the first few pages I wrote but the last three pages are pretty good.

One day down, 29 days to go.