The First Weekend of NaNo

The First Weekend of NaNo

Well I hope you all don’t hate me considering I told you I would have been giving you daily updates on how things are going and I am now in Day 7. I am happy to say that I am still writing, but I’ve definitely had my challenges. Here is the break down starting with:

Day 2- I had to work. Now between you and me Friday’s are usually my slow days I take my time to clean up all the back end stuff from the beginning of the week and I move at a slower pace. This is also a good time to get in some heavy word count, because I have a total of 1hr of free time (2 breaks and a lunch). Well of course this had to be the Friday when I had work coming out of my butt. Let me tell you I was so pissed! The good thing, however, I still managed to squeeze in a couple of words during my break and I had the evening to take it to the next level.

Total word count: 3,695

Day 3- It’s Saturday! Usually the day I get to sleep in, but not this day. I was up at 8AM, had my tea ready and at the computer. I was hyped I had the entire day to just sit there and write.

 I had some challenges for one I went back from the beginning and started editing that’s a no no in the rules of NaNo you are suppose to write until your hearts content and save the editing and rewriting for December, but what can I say I couldn’t resist…I’m a suck of reading the words I wrote and sometimes become in awe with myself to know that I have such a creative imagination, it also gives me a boast and a little confidence in myself that hell ya I can do this.

Another challenge I had was the internet, can I tell you that I’m obsessed! I’m either googling something or I’m on FB checking status’, the official NaNo site to see how everyone is doing and the Savvy website…I mean it was crazy.

And lastly the television; I know, I know what was I thinking, but in my defense I was watching the Investigative Discovery channel (ID). That channel is INSANE and I love it! It deals with crimes around the world, cold cases, fugitives, survivors and the list goes on. What can I say I’m fascinated with that kind of stuff, but it’s really good in helping me develop my villain so in the end it was for a good cause.

 Total word count: 8,497

Day 4- It’s Sunday! Now for me when I am home and not visiting family. Sunday is my chill day and when I say chill, I mean chill. I do nothing, nada! I stay in bed and relax. But in NaNo world this is the perfect opportunity to get even more writing done.

 Now I don’t know if you all remembered that the time change, but I didn’t. I got up at 7AM, when in actual fact it was 6AM, I tried to go back to sleep but it didn’t work so I decided to write and the worse thing that could ever happened did. I was not feeling my story, now don’t ask me how in the world that happened considering I had a really good day on Saturday, but it was really hating it. I found my characters Sydney and Lucas were not connecting the way they were suppose to. The vision I was seeing in my head was not filtering on paper, it was a mess.

My better half Kolin, who I must say has been cheering me on from day one called to check in and see my progress and I told him I HATE it he was shocked, especially since I was giving him great updates since I started. I started making excuses one why I wasn’t feeling it. As I had mentioned in the beginning this was not the story that I had planned for NaNo, and last minute I had to do a 360 change, dealing with new characters, plot, setting, everything and I don’t think I was as prepared as I was with the first one.

Now the good thing about Kolin is he’s a great listener and considering I’m the talker of the relationship it totally balances us out. He told me to take a breath and explain why I wasn’t feeling it and he wanted to hear the story idea again. I broke it down for him and he was taken aback as to why I wasn’t feeling it because he thought the idea was a good one. I figure he was saying it to make me feel better, but he really liked. He even tried to give a few suggestions on how to make it better, mind you some of the ideas where way out in left field, but I had to give it to him he was in it with me.

I jumped back on that bandwagon and tried to see if I could re group from a slight meltdown and pull a decent word count. Can’t say I was happy with the results.

Total word count:  3,628

Grand total word count: 18,619

Overall the first weekend was not bad. Could I have done better? Of course I could have, considering I was looked indoors for the entire weekend. I am proud of myself? Yes I am, writing a novel is no easy task! But I’m doing it! J

Until next time

NaNo- Day 1

It's day one of NaNo and man am I hype. I originally wanted to start at midnight (the official start time), but I was out like a light by 11:30PM. In the past I usually take off a couple of days just to get my feet wet, but considering I'm running out of vacation days before the end of the year I had to plan differently.

Get into the office for 8AM and all I can think about was my characters and finally bringing them to life. My characters… let me introduce you. My heroine is Sydney Jacobson and my Hero is Lucas Harris and the Villain who for now will remain nameless …come on guys I can’t tell you everything! J.Oh did I mention that I have a tentative title that I’m working with?

Now before I tell you what it is you need to know something about me. When it comes to coming up with a story idea I love to have a title to go by…to me it makes it more suffocated when I’m beginning my outline line and I got a title to work with. This story was totally different, because I had to come up with a new idea quickly it was all about the characters, the plot outline, etc…leaving me completely stumped on a title. Finally just on Tuesday afternoon it hit me HIDDEN REVENGE…now as I mentioned it is tentative, because who knows I may come up with something else later, but for now I got myself a working title! J

Okay, okay, okay….you wanna know how my first day went. Here it is. It went great! I started writing on my lunch break and some more this evening. HIDDEN REVENGE is slowly taking shape.

Total word count for Day 1: 2, 799 words (5 pages), not too shabby considering my daily goal is 1.667.

Until tomorrow

The Calm before the Storm

For those of you who know me know that every November I speak about NaNo that’s The National Novel Writing Month. It’s the month where you’re challenged to work 50,000 words in 30 days.  It’s fun, intense, and rewarding when you cross that finish line. I’ve tried to participate every year, but for some reason November seems to be the month where something comes up and just derails my dream and my focus. Not this time. Not this year! J

I came across this website Savvy Authors (writers helping writers) and they are having a special NaNo event Entangled Smack Down Boot Camp. So how this works is your broken down into your genre choice…I chose Romantic Suspense and from there split into a group of 5 with one Moderator.

In our group we are to write a total of 1, 667 words per day which is approx 4-5 pages and post it on site. There are also “Sprints” which are timed writing to help increase our word count and keep us moving forward.  At the end of it if we have a great product, who knows it can be considered for publication. That’s of course if all the guidelines are met.

When I first registered I was asked to submit a synopsis of my story (never done one in my life). I submitted my synopsis for Unspoken Secrets, but it was rejected because it didn’t fall within their guidelines L, so I was forced to come up with a totally different story and rewrite a new synopsis. It took me a day to come up with something, but keep in mind I only have the outer shell I haven’t gotten filling just right yet. I’ve been working for the last 3 days to work on the setting, plot, character, etc. Am I done? Not even close. I’m a stressing? Maybe a little. Will I succeed? HELL YA I will!

Did I mention that NaNo begins at midnight!

The great thing about NaNo is I could write whatever I want for a month and then fix it all up for the remaining 11.

For the next month I’ll be posting my daily word counts, my ups, my downs, my stress level, and whatever crazy experience I’ll go through and I would love to have you all follow along with me.

The one person who I know will be on this journey with me is my girl B. If she were here right now she would be saying “Come on Warren, you can do this”…it’s funny I can hear her voice right now J. 

Wish me luck folk…I gotta a funny feeling I’m gonna need a lot of it!

Until tomorrow!

Camp NaNoWriMo~Day 3

So it's Day 3 of the challenge, but it's actually my Day 2, because I started a day later. I must say I'm quite proud myself. I've in the middle of my 4th chapter and it think it's coming pretty well. I'm also excited that I have chosen a name for this novel and it's called BACKFIRE...believe it or not, it's a Young Adult novel. Why Young Adult, you might ask, considering I'm all about romance and suspense. It's what came to me and I had to go with it.
I started reading Young Adult books, just to get a feel of the genre...and NO I'm not reading The Twilight Saga, Hunger Games or Harry Potter. I'm reading a novel called "I know It's Over" by an author named C.K. Kelly Maritn who happens to be Canadian and its a pretty good story so far. I'm getting a better idea of how to write a YA novel and I'm liking it.

Now just for the record, just because I'm writing BACKFIRE doesn't mean I've forgotten about my original novel UNSPOKEN SECRETS...I've got big plans for that one...only I'm not saying anything for now. Sorry folks! :)

Well I'm calling it a night. Wordcount in 2 days: 12,736 only 37,264 to go!

Camp NaNoWriMo

Pretty much everyone has heard me talk about the National November Writing Month. It’s a writing challenge for you to a write novel in 30 days. I entered the challenge last November, but unfortunately didn’t complete it. I was bummed, but to be honest it wasn’t in the cards at that time.

Just this past Tuesday I was sent an email from one of the many writing blogs I’m signed up to and was excited to discover that there is a summer addition to NaNoWriMo known as Camp NaNoWriMo it’s the same challenge write a novel in 30 days needless to say I was on cloud 9, not that I need this challenge to write my book, but it does give me a little bit of a push to get it done and makes it even more exciting they have the challenge going twice for the Summer. One starting on June 1^st aka YESTERDAY, and the second on August 1^st.

With just finding this out in less than I week I had no really time to prepare, it looks like I’m going to have to wing it and that’s exactly what I’m doing. I officially started writing today and currently on my second chapter. Has it been easy? Hell No!Am I having fun? Hell Ya! Do I know what this story is going to be about? Sort of! Lol!

You see this is the beautiful thing about this challenge; you go with it and see what happens in 30 days.

Well off I go...it's writing time! :)

Be Positive. Believe In Yourself.

Writing has been my passion every since I was young girl. I always had a huge imagination and one day I decided to put it down on paper. I've written many stories in my time, but have never had the guts to publish anything. I guess it's fear of being rejected, but that's the writing world. Sometimes you have to be rejected to be finally be accepted.

The last couple of months have been very difficult for me. I lost my best friend B and on of my biggest supporters when it came to my writing. She was the only one I had the guts to allow read my work and now she's not here. Never once in my life no matter what was going on rather good or bad did I ever lose my passion to write, but I did. I LOST MY PASSION TO WRITE!!! That took a lot for me to say, but I'm saying it. I lost my passion to write.

Last weekend I spent the afternoon with B's three goregous kids, her husband and mom. It was the first time I've been there since she died, it was hard because I was expecting her to come to do the door and say "What's up Warren, you finally made it down to our neck of the woods" and give me a hug like she always did, she never did. But the minute I walked through that door I felt her presents, she was all over that house and I it felt nice. I was able to look at some her things and I came accross a bracelet...can I tell you that my girl LOVED jewerly...there's a reason why she went by the name "Miss B.L.I.N.G " The bracelet read
Be Positive. Believe In Yourself. These words were words that B lived by she was the most positive person I've ever met and she believed in herself and others.

It was a sign. She was telling me "Be positive. Believe In Yourself Warren! You can do this!" It's funny, I could actually hear her saying that to me. That was the push I needed and I'm getting my writing groove back.

Thanks B for always looking out!

My Best Friend ~Alison Selena Cisse aka B

This post is by far the hardest post I'll ever have to write in this lifetime. As I'm typing the words my eyes are filling up with tears.

On Thursday March 8, 2012 my life changed forever. My best friend of 16 years Alison passed away. It's been almost a month and I'm still in disbelief. I feel like I'm in this long nightmare that I will eventually wake up from.

Alison was a wife, mother of three beautiful children and daughter to a wonderful woman. but to me she was my best friend B. She was beautiful, vivacious, kind, loving, caring, funny, smart, and so full of life. When she walked into a room she lite it up. When you were in a bad mood she could easily put a smile on your face. When you needed her support she was there in a heartbeat. She was everything that you would want in a best friend, and I was lucky and blessed to have her as mine.

I had the opportunity to say good bye to Alison before she died. To tell her how much I loved her and how much her friendship meant to me. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life and there is not a day that goes by that I don't think about her, look at her picture, say her name and ask the question why? Why her? Why now? We had so many plans for this year. "2012 was going to be our year" those were words she spoke all the time. It turns out it was her year to become an Angel and light up the world.

I was asked by Alison's mom to do her eulogy along with with her cousins. I'll be honest with you I didn't want to do it, because writing it and reading it was confirming the truth I that didn't want to face she was gone. It took me a long time to put my hands on the keys and type away, but I did it. As a group we decided to each write a memory about Alison and it was hard to pick one thing, because there were so many. Here's one of my favorites

Taken from Alison's Eulogy:

B and I had one thing in common we love to talk and when I say we love to talk I mean we loved to talk. It never mattered how long it was of not seeing each other the moment we got together that was it, it was as if we were never apart in the first place. We would have girls’ night out where we would do dinner just to catch up with what’s going on in our lives and we went to the Canyon Creek restaurant at Scarborough Town Centre. We got there at about 8PM and we talked until they were no longer serving refills for our coffee, we talked until they started putting chairs up on the table, we talked until the hostess started vacuuming, we talked until the radio stopped playing, we talked until the light finally went on and we started seeing the staff getting ready to go home…it was then we realized maybe we should head home.

Today is Wednesday. Wednesday use to be my favorite day of the week. You're probably wondering why Wednesday? Why not Friday or even Thursday, why Wednesday? Wednesday use to be the day that Alison and I use to have our weekly call to catch up with each other we called it "Touchpoint Wednesday". Man they were fun. B would bbm me at around 9:30PM and I would call her and we'd start talking until one of two things happened: 1) We realize that if we didn't end the call we wouldn't be able to function the next day or 2) B's cordless phone would die.
Let me tell you I'd be half asleep at my desk because I was so tried, but you know what I wouldn't trade that for anything.
Now Wednesdays are the hardest day of the week, because I know I won't get that bbm and I won't be dialing her number, and we won't be talking until the wee hours of the morning or until the phone dies. What I would give to hear her voice just one more time.

One of the things B encouraged me to do was write my book. She was the only person that I would allow to read my work. She was honest and if she didn't like something I wrote she would let me know. She also always got a kick out of adding addtional/crazy ideas to my story and we would laugh up a storm. God I miss her so much.
"Unspoken Secrets" was the one story she was pushing me to write. I started it in November, but never finished. But I will finish it...in honour of my beautiful friend.

My Finals Words:

"B there are no words to describe how fortunate and blessed I’ve been to have you in my life for 16  years. You are the true definition of a best friend and I wouldn’t trade what we had for anything. I love you and I’m going to miss so much.  You know they say a man and woman destined to be together are soulmates. That’s exactly what we were….soul friends now and always.