Soulfire's Writing Rambles

I really need to remember to update this place more often, and not just during NaNoWriMo.

Here's an amusing little scene that happened last night.

I was sitting in bed, with my laptop on my lap and various notes spread out around me. I was working out some of the details that I had neglected to hammer out of my novel-in-progress. Like main character last names and country names. You know, MINOR stuff like that. :P (Oh, yes. I've been working on this fantasy novel for maybe four or five years now and never created a last name for my main character. Or the country and town he lives in. I don't know how that is possible either.)

Anyway, my husband comes in to see what I'm up to. He gives me a hug and then glances at the computer. He does a double-take. "Dear," he says, "Why are you looking at baby names?"

I had to laugh. "For character names," I told him, patting him on the head. "For my novel."

He nodded and said, "I was wondering if there was something you hadn't told me."

I think I really freaked him out for a second there. XD

WHOOOOOOOT!
:D

Words I should have: 46,676
Words I do have: 46,056

*flail* Whee! Nearly there! I'm nearly done! And my fantasy story is suddenly shifting into a horror novel with rabid, phsyco evil!dragons gone on the rampage! XD

I can't wait to be done with this thing. lol. Almost there.

And I get a follow-up NaNo column in the newspaper this Sunday. ^_^ Yay for getting published! Ahh the perks of working for a newspaper.

Words I should have: 43,342
Words I do have: 43,003</b>

Slooooowly closing the gap between where I am and where I should be. lol. I think I'll be caught up by the end of tomorrow.

I'm trying to write a column about finishing to be published in the paper (where I happen to work, so I have an advantage to getting in print. muahaha), but all I can think of is "Yay! Almost done!!!" Doesn't make for a very articulate column. lol.

Oye. Time to goof off before bed time.

Is the week over yet? T_T

Words I should have: 41,675
Words I do have: 41,017

Okay, well, I didn't quite get completely caught up to where I need to be, but I'm only like 600 words behind. I can get caught up with no problems before the last day of NaNo.

I'm coming down the home stretch now! *dances*

I'd press myself to get those last few words in to catch up, but I have a throbbing headache and have been at this stupid computer all day trying to squeeze words from my brain. So I'm saying that's it for the day.

Hope everyone else is doing well with their word counts!

Words I should have: 40,008
Words I do have: 38,559

I'm devoted to getting myself totally caught up by the end of tomorrow. And then I'm not allowed to miss a word quota the rest of the month. Because I say so. Because I'll never get caught up if I do. lol.

Okay, must go. Death Note is on. ^_^

Words I should have: 35,007
Words I do have: 33,600

Only 1,407 words behind. Not too bad. I still have a little over a week to catch up. No problem. As long as I don't slack any more. lol.

My story is slowly not sucking as much. I'm slowly heading into the ending which should be all kinds of spiffy.
Tonight I wrote a fight scene, which I'm totally awful at, but I had fun with it. And one of my main characters just killed her fiancee (who she doesn't know is her fiancee. because she has amnesia. and she thinks the guy that he was attacking is her husband, which he's really not... It's all very confusing. You'll just have to read the novel some day). :P

But anyway, it was a fun scene that ended in the death of a character. Killing off characters is always fun. And one character who was due to die this fight has been pardoned. For now. :3 He's just turned into such a cool, funny character that I can't stand to part with him yet.

Well, I'm off to go rest my wrists. I'm on the computer way too much - all day at work and now every day when I get home. It's starting to put a strain on them.

Happy almost-Thanksgiving everyone!

I don't recall exactly how many words I have now. I'm at work, so I can't look it up. But I'm still hanging in there. About 3k words behind, but I'm still hanging in there. lol.

I'm at that oh-so-fun stage where I hate my story and just wish it were over with. :P But, I've learned that's pretty normal at this penultimate week of NaNo. I only got out 800 words a few days ago. Only 400 last night. My word morale is slowly slipping away. lol.

But I'm re-dedicating myself to the task and am determined to get caught up by the end of the week. Word around the office is that we get to leave early the day before and the day after Thanksgiving, so I should have plenty of time to get caught up.

Well, time to get a head start on tonight's quota. Hopefully work will be slow today and I'll get the opportunity to sneak in lots of noveling time. And hopefully my novel will start not to suck so much. :P

Edit: I actually got a decent word count done today! Yay! *flails* I wrote 2,046 words today (compared to my 400 last night), bringing me to a grand total of 29,878. I should have ... 31,673. About a day's worth of writing or so behind. Not too bad. I'm getting there. Now I'm off to goof off for the rest of the night. Yay, freedom!

Words I should have: 21,671
Words I do have: 21,675

Yay, four words ahead of schedule! *does a little dance*

I finally got caught up from last Friday when I slacked off and didn't write a single word. Took me four days to make up 1,667 words. lol. I guess that'll teach me to slack. Now that I'm working, I'll never get caught up if I do that too many times.

In terms of the story, eh, it's okay. Maybe I'll like it better the second time I read it. But right now it just seems "Meh." It's turning into this sappy romance thingy. Which I'm not really experienced with writing. And I'm afraid the actual plot is being overshadowed by the sappy romance. Which I guess I can edit later. I just hope there's enough of this story that's salvageable to make it worth the effort. Ah well. At the very least, it's making me want to work on my nearly completed novel. :P

Okay, my wrists hurt, so I better get off the computer now. Can't injure myself. I'm not even half-way there yet.

Words I should have: 13,336
Words I have: 13,363

Yay, caught up again! And minorly ahead! :D

If I include the number of words I've been writing for stories at work this week, that would put me way over. I'd be at like 20,000. lol.

*yawn* Well, I'm tired of being productive. I'm going to go do something brainless to waste time for the rest of the night. Like play video games or watch TV.

Yay laziness!

Words I should have: 11,669
Words I have: 11,534

Wow, I'm not as far behind as I thought. Almost caught up from last night's slacking. lol. I wrote a little over 2k words tonight. I should be caught up tomorrow. I'm hoping to get a little more ahead over the weekend to give me a little slacking room. I plan to spend all weekend at home, only leaving for church on Sunday morning. I'm going to spend the weekend cleaning house and writing NaNo. The idea is when given the choice to either clean the house or write, I'll write. So I'll spend the day avoiding cleaning house by writing. lol. That's the theory at least.

Anyway, I'm in a much better mood than this morning, obviously. No real reason. Maybe just because I thought of some cool new plot elements. Alas, I did not get to create an evil old lady character that I could squish with my dragon to get revenge on my customer this morning. But I will eventually. X3

Dear old woman customer at work today,

I'm grumpy and just in a general bad mood today for a host of reasons, though I'm trying my best to be cheerful. I know I forgot to put your stupid community event in the community calendar. I'm sorry. So, yes, when you gave the smart-ass remark of "Fine. Next month I'll just call it in TWO weeks early," I glared at you. Because you were being an ass. Knock it off and go knit or bake cookies or something.

To get rid of my aggravation, I have decided that in my NaNo tonight I will create a smart-ass old lady character and have her squished to squishy bits by the dragon of my story. Congrats on being the first casualty in my novel! :D

~ a moody writer/news room secretary

I haven't started today's NaNo word count yet, but I'm about to.

It's been a busy day at work where I'm the news room secretary for a local newspaper. I have to be happy/cheerful/excited to help people all day long. And it wears on me. Especially since I'm shy, so it takes a great amount of mental effort to talk to people all day long. Plus, I'm also writing news stories for the paper (I'm working on four as of now), which means I'm calling people on the phone for interviews. I know all that probably doesn't sound like this is a very big deal, but as I mentioned, I'm painfully shy.

I'm not as bad as I used to be, and I'm making myself deal with it (when I used to just not put myself in social situations at all), but days like today really wipe me out. People coming in and out of the office all day long, two interviews, and having to make several personal appointments on the phone - I'm mentally exhausted.

I just hope my muse is still around for tonight's writing session. I used a lot of his creativity this morning while I was writing 2 stories for work. *pokes my muse with a stick*

Well, I guess it's time to stop procrastinating. I'm gonna go throw some music on and write like crazy. Even though I'm not quite sure what's supposed to be happening next in my story. lol.

I'll come back later with an update on word count. And hopefully have time to read other people's journals and see how they're coming along.

Edit: Er, well, I got about 1,000 word down. Which means I'm going to have to play a bit of catchup today. >_

Words I should have: 8,335
Words I do have: 8,496

Yay for being slightly ahead! Things are finally starting to pick up a little. The real humor of my story is finally getting its chance to start now that both of my main characters are conscious. lol.

I've actually got an idea for the title first thing. I'm playing with something like "The Sapphire Scale" if it's not all ready taken (and if I still like the name at the end of this draft. lol) It's a necklace that one of my main characters has that will be intrigal to the plot later. Plus the story is largely about these two particular characters and their connection to dragons. Yeah, I'm trying to make it not as cheesey as it sounds. :P

And I've totally revamped one of my characters. He was this really boring sidekick character that I was planning to kill off, but I've decided to put effort into making him into somebody actually interesting. Ya know, so people actually care when he dies. lol. I know, amazing theory, right? X3

I haven't really participated on the messageboards much yet this year. Honestly, I really haven't had the time for it. I'm at work until 5 p.m., where I answer phones, deal with customers, conduct interviews and write stories. Then I come home, get dressed in my bum clothes, eat, clean up the house a little, and then write like a maniac until it's nearly bedtime. Then I use the last hour or two for myself. I just haven't been drawn to the crazy fun of the boards yet. Oh well, still plenty of time, I guess.

Speaking of which - I'm super-happy to have finally finished my word count for the day, so I'm off to happily spend the rest of my day doing what I want to do. Play a videogame that I'm hooked on, but can't spell the name of for the life of me. It's got pretty men, pirates and mermaids. And is very addicting. Must go play now!

I'm back into NaNo. ^_^

Day two and I'm 3,443 words into my novel - a tinsy bit over where I'm supposed to be. Yay!

I'm going into my story mostly blind again this year. I've only got a very vague idea of the plot, with just a couple of key scenes in my head. But the good news is I took a mini-scene I had written like two years ago and re-wrote it into something about 5 pages long. lol. After tonight, I'm going to have only a few more pages where I know what my story is doing. After that, my muse is on his own. lol.

My muse is being rather lazy these first days of NaNo. The scenes are really just blah, with a few funny observations in there where I'm apparently channeling the writing voice of Terry Pratchett. X3

Hopefully things will pick up once my heroine is conscious and able to interact with my anti-hero.

Ok, I'm a few hours late, but I STILL WON, DARN IT! I just wrote 50k+ words in 31 days instead of 30. I say I still won. And I will beat over the head with my laptop anybody who says otherwise. *raises her laptop over her head threateningly*

*Ahem* Anyway, yes - 50,099 words. And I paraphrased several scenes at the end. And the epilogue. lol. Right now I think the whole thing is a big mess. But I'm going to leave it alone for several weeks and then come back and see what I think of it. I'm still probably going to work on finishing last year's NaNo before I edit this one though. I kept getting good ideas for my previous NaNo, but I didn't want to waste the energy/time when I needed to write this year's. lol.

Anyway, I'm off to reward my 50k accomplishment with some Oreo cookies and bragging to all of my friends. :P Maybe I'll post an excerpt from my NaNo too. The beginning was quite good, if I remember correctly. lol

Well, I'm off. Congrats to everyone who completed their NaNo this year!

Words: 40,398
Sanity: 80%

I can't believe that November is nearly over. I also can't beleive that I'm actually on schedule for where I need to be with NaNo. Especially since I didn't make my daily word count twice this week. I only got 800 words written yesterday. lol. But I wrote 2,634 today and somehow it's worked out that I'm where I need to be. I felt like I was so much futher behind than that. lol.

But anywho, I had an emotional scene to write tonight so the words came out fairly easy. Keiro (one of the main characters) had to finally sit this girl down and tell her that he was not in love with her. She's been obsessing over him the whole book. lol. But it really hurt her to hear it and it hurt Keiro almost just as much since he'd rather die that see one of his friends hurt (either physically or emotionally). When the scene was over, I wanted to hug them both and cry with them. lol. I guess that's a good thing though.

Things are starting to wind up in the story. I'm really dreading having to kill off Keiro though. He's such a sweetheart. I think I've said before that I was really surprised to find out that he had to die at the end of the story. T_T But, alas, the story calls for it. Sorry Keiro. :P

*yawn* Well, I'm off to try to force myself through the Eragon book. I've had this book for over a year and have never been able to make myself finish it. It's SO boring in the middle! T_T I started the book over again tonight and I'm going to read all the way through this time. Cause I have several people that are astonished that I say I hate the book. And it's been so long since I've tried to read it, that I can't remember why I hated it. lol. So now I'll be able to tell them. :P

Words: 30,458
Sanity: 80%


Had a really good writing day today. I got to a scene that I've been itching to write and ended up with over 3,000 words today instead of my usual word count of barely over 1667. I know that 3,000 in a day sounds puny to some crazy writers who are putting out an insane number of words per day. But it's my highest daily word count to date this year and I'm proud of it. :P

I am a tad bit behind because I didn't get anything at all written on Sunday. I was out and about all day with my mom and sis and then I had to babysit at church from 5 till 8:45ish. And had some demon children among them, so I was super stressed by the time I got home.

I should be fully caught up by tomorrow though. No worries. I sure am getting tired of writing so much every day though.

Is it December yet? XP

Words: 25,376
Sanity: 85%

Somehow I'm still on track. Week two has been horrible. Everything I wrote I absolutely hated. But tonight I felt like I broke into a part that was pretty good - so hopefully I'll put out some better stuff during week 3.

Right before I stopped for the night, I got to a part where one of the characters (Keiro) was telling somebody else about how one of the main characters (Blake) had had cancer before he was turned into a vampire. Keiro just kind of gave a breif overview of what Blake went through before he finally got scared and agreed to become a vampire. But it was still really hard to write about. My father died after a rather long and painful struggle with cancer, and writing about Blake having cancer just sort of dredged up a whole lot of painful memories. I guess it's good to write about though. Maybe it'll help lessen the pain of some of them.

Anyways, now that I've done my writing for the night, I'm gonna skip on over to my friends page and see how everybody's doing with their NaNo. I hope everyone's muses are being kind! I'd lend you mine, but he's kind of asleep right now. I wore him out. :P

Words: 20,146
Sanity: 80%

Hand cramp. Ouch. >_<

My muse cooperated a little better today. Thanks to some encouragement from other NaNoers I was able to bash my inner critic in the head with a hammer and silence her for a while. I didn't get started writing yesterday until like 9pm and then I had a killer headache. So I only got 595 words out of the needed 1667. But somehow I got back on track today with 2,212 words written. It's good to know I can slack a little a time or two without totally distroying my word count.

Now I'm going to rest my brain (and hands) and go watch some mindless entertainment on tv. My brain needs a break every now and then. lol.