Kids, Coffee, Chaos

Life as a working mom of three, chasing my next cup of coffee through the chaos of our lives while I get a few words written

NaNo 2012: An Update

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In theory, this should have been about my third or so post updating you on my awesome NaNo progress. I would be trucking along to my first win EVAH! Sadly, I will not be a winner this year. Remember a few posts back where I mentioned that something big would come along and blow my dreams out of the water? That happened.

However, it was not something bad this year and I will take that as a small victory. I was offered a new job this month. Here I was worried that March would arrive and I would have nothing in place to support my family. I interviewed for this job months ago and never heard a thing. I’d written it off. Then out of the blue, I received a job offer for a position within the company I am temping at. It’s a different department than where I’m at now. Sweet! Ironing out all the kinks and fulfilling the pre-employment stuff ate a bunch of my time, but it’s worth it.

So, where does that leave my writing? I am behind. Unless I could escape from my job and my family for a week, there is no hope of catching up. I’m cool with that though. I am going to keep going and hopefully have a decent story when NaNo ends. Then I will be alternating two WIPS to completion.

Tomorrow, there will be a Thanksgiving surprise for all two of my readers. We will be having a guest interview of a fellow writer who had a book release earlier this month. Bring your fans because it’s going to get hot in here!

NaNo: Pantsing Your Novel

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If you belong to one of the major (or perhaps any) writing forums across the vast Interwebs, you will learn there is a common argument among writers on the best way write. Some will argue that one must have an outline, the more thorough, the better. Others will promptly argue that one simply cannot write with all the stuffy outlining. It restricts the story and makes it impossible to write. And you have the Outliner vs. Pantser war. I’d say one can find these debates about once a month over on the forums at Absolute Write.

However, there is only one true rule for writing: You do what works for you and ignore the rest. There are a plenty of guidelines and good practices, particularly when one is a novice and just learning about the craft. But at some point you must cast off the recommendations of others and decide where you stand yourself.

The year before last when I tried NaNo, I outlined and I struggled. I found myself bored with my own story and that’s no way to write. Last year, I had an idea and then I just pantsed my efforts. I found I enjoyed myself so much more. And let’s face it, at this point, I’m not trying for publication and fun is all I have, so if I’m going to spend my precious time on anything, it’s going to be something that I enjoy. Free time is almost nonexistent at this stage of my life and I’m going to treasure it.

For this year’s NaNo, I had an idea about sword-wielding elven warrior/bodyguard. She has a chip on her shoulder and she manages to catch a ship on fire. That’s it. Then, I decided I probably should have some sort of idea what this chick’s deal is, so I wrote the prequel/prologue doohickie that I posted the other day. I learned she’s angry about her father’s death and her brother is the king. Also, that as a culture, everyone takes a shadow walk to learn about their future.

And that’s pretty much all I have to go. No fancy outlines, no bullet points, no diagrams. I just sit down at the computer, read a few lines of where I left off, and start writing. Then I keep writing. I figure I can outline my story during the editing phase. Since I’m using Scrivener, I just make a new notecard for every scene, so that if ever I need to swap scenes around and remove them all together, I can do it easily.

And this is what seems to be working for me. So I’m going to keep doing. Now, to just finish a novel…

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In other news, my NaNo t-shirt arrived. This is the first year I’ve purchased one and I’m pretty excited to have it.

And I’m loving Adele’s new song, Skyfall. It has that epic, climatic feel to it. Of course, it’s for a movie, so there’s probably a good reason for that.

What’s new in your world? Everyone ready for NaNo? Not much time left. Tick, tock, tick, tock…

NaNo Prep: Local Meet & Greet

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NaNo Participant Badge 2012

Participant Image for NaNo 2012

As NaNoWriMo quickly approaches, participants are hitting up their local regions to meet up with others trying to hit that 50,000 milestone.

In a different mindset from year’s past, I decided to participate actively in my region. Friday night was the meet & greet event for the region.

This year’s group looks to be the biggest group of participants ever in this area. There were 30 or more people attending. I didn’t really think that we would have that many people in our area wanting to write, period. Our leader did a terrific job of organizing things and we all got to chat with each other.

It was quite a bit of fun. I think this  will be a very entertaining year for NaNo and I’m pushing myself to become more of the active participant with the hope that this will pressure me to truly compete and win this year.

Good luck to all my fellow writers!

NaNoWriMo 2012 Prep: Short Fiction

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Since I decided to write my NaNo novel little more than a mental image of my main character and the thought that she has a huge chip on her shoulder, I decided to use a Flash Fiction Challenge (Sundays at Absolute Write!) to capture a thought or two about her before November 1. You know, like her name. Or what has pissed her off so mightily.

And since I never really post my work publicly, I thought I’d do something different this year in that department, too.

Without further ado, my prequel thingie for my NaNo novel!

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Bones of My Father

The bones of my father rested at my feet. Alister cleared his throat behind me.
“Yes?”
“The hour approaches when we must cast the spell, Karenna. Are you ready?”
I sighed. “What if I don’t want to know my future? What if I am happy on the path I travel now?”
He stepped up and put a hand on my shoulder. “These things are never easy, but you must accept your destiny. You father did not die for you to shun your family.”
“My father did not have to die at all.” I stared at the ground and noticed cuts in my father’s bones. Such a vicious way to die. Sword fights were never easy, even for the victor.
Alister cleared his throat and said, “Some pains never ease, my dear child. Now, come, help me lay out the herbs and get the fire lit.”
I bent over and lit the small fire and watched Alister toss herbs into the flames as he murmured various incantations. Spells were never my thing, so I stared at the fire and waited for the next instruction.
“There. Now, Karenna, hold your hand into the flame for 20 seconds.”
“What? You’re not serious, are you?”
“Yes, my child, please hurry.”
I glanced at my hand and at the fire before sticking it there. Twenty seconds is a long time when flames lick at your skin. Alister moved around me and I realized he had stuck my father’s bones into the flames as well.
“You can remove your hand now, Karenna. The spell is complete.
I pulled my hand out and it was immediately wrapped in a cool, damp cloth.
“So what’s next?” The world seemed to spin around me. “I don’t feel very well, Alister.” In an out-of-body experience, I watched as my body fell to the ground, my head lowered softly by Alister’s weathered hands. A movement made me turn my head and there stood a shadow of my father.
“Father?” If I wasn’t a shadow as well, I would have cried.
“Walk with me, Ren, for I have much to share with you.” We turned away from where Alister sat next to my body.
“The world is in chaos. You may not see it yet, child, for sometimes the shadows see what the living and breathing cannot. There are those who oppose your brother’s seat on the crown.”
“There are always those who seek what they do not have.”
“This is true. Yet few have the will to act upon those wishes. In the coming years, there will be one who changes all the world for his goals. You will both hate him and love him for what he can do and what he does. You will be part of the change and make great impacts upon the world.”
“And if I refuse to be a pawn in this change of the world? If I shun these responsibilities and leave this country to make my own path?”
“My dear, destiny has a way of sucking you back into her deeds no matter how far you run.”
He touched my shoulder and looked deeply into my eyes, pride and love upon his face. “My dear, you will have an impact. I doubt you will be able to sit in the back of the carriage when all the action happens outside. Now, go. Return to yourself and give my thanks to Alister.”

NaNoWriMo 2012: I’d Really Like to Win This Year

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So the fall weather announces one of the most exciting times of the writing world for many folks. November is National Novel Writing Month. For the thirty days that make up November, writers all around the world push themselves to write 50,000 words. For some it’s a challenge, for others it is as easy as pie. Some writers are not a fan of the concept, some writers use it as a chance to make a change and break away from the normal habits of the other 11 months.
I’ve attempted for several years, some harder than others. I have yet to win. Most years it seems like something super serious and time consuming comes up and I drop everything. So I tried Camp NaNoWriMo this summer. And failed. I also may not have been motivated.
Some of it I think is me. My motivation is craptacular. I want to write. I love the way it feels when the words pour out of me and a story is formed. But things are kind of stressful right now too. Small children, full time job, rocky marriage, sleepless nights. They all add up and sometimes it seems like they suck the life right out of me. I have a great group of online writing buddies to turn to for some motivation, but I’m not particularly close to any one person. I never have been really close to many people. Sometimes I wish for one good friend that I could stay connected with besides my husband. But I don’t get a lot of time to build relationships, so I take what I can get.
My online buddies push me to meet my writing goals sometimes. We have Word Wars and discussions. I just need to figure out how to turn this into a Thing, which means building some new habits. My preferred method would be to get up before the rest of the house and write quietly with a cup of coffee. However, sleeping through the night is overrated and I am often awakened at least two times a night, and when the alarm clock goes off, I am not ready to climb out of the bed. I am hoping since Kidlet 3 only has one more molar to break through, that we will have more restful nights in the near future.
Back to this year’s NaNo, I am considering hiring a babysitter/mother’s helper on the weekends some to help me free up some time to write. It’s hard to concentrate on the story when every five seconds you have to go chase a two year old off his latest climbing expedition. It also makes it physically hard to type on the keyboard when you aren’t at the computer. But with a helper, I have a possibility of escaping to the library or coffee shop to do a little writing. Or even just plugging earbuds in and not having to worry about kid disasters for awhile.
We will see as we get closer to the start of November, but I worry that trying to manage the job, the kids, the house, my sanity and doing it all may make reaching my writing goal harder. It’s hard when your spouse doesn’t support what you do.
Anyone else giving NaNoWriMo a try?

It Feels Like Fall. Busy, Busy Fall

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While I had grandiose plans of all the things I wanted to accomplish this summer, it mainly fell to two things: doing some things with the kids and resting/rejuvenating myself.

I have been enjoying every Friday off since around the beginning of summer and each week I make a list of the millions of things I am going to accomplish. Each week, I have accomplished very little on these lists. Most of the time, I have demands from the two littlest people in my life to contend with. My middle child doesn’t act like your typical three year old and would give most adults a run for their money. Meanwhile, Mr. ClimberPants is busy trying to scare the daylights out of me and find new, exciting, Dangerous! things to do with his time.

Other mornings, it takes the whole morning before I can enjoy my coffee and catch up on the internet. That may sound like some serious time-wasting to some folks, but the internet is where most of my friends live. Particularly my writer friends. I spend quite a bit of time hanging out with the cool people of the Absolute Write (AW) Water Cooler, so this is my socialization. I don’t get to maintain many real life friendships, so the online ones really count. Plus, the people are really awesome and get all the weird facets of my personality. Fellow writers unite!

But the last couple of weeks have welcomed a change. I think I’ve finally decompressed enough from some of the stress in my life to start living it again, which is a major thing. But I’ve managed to tackle some of those projects waiting out there for me to get done.

I’ve been writing again as well. I think that is an effect of hanging out with the hooligans of AW’s chat more often. They encourage and pester and challenge me to Word Wars until I want to write. Then the words flow like magic, which is awesome. My biggest writing hump is usually getting going. If I stay away too long, I lose my momentum and forget what I was going for when I wrote the last time.

One of the other big things to tackle is to getting rid of the clutter in our house. I have let things get severely out of hand and now the job is enormous. I really just need to break down the cleaning up and tackle chunks at a time. So, I’ll keep making lists and work harder to get more things checked off. Motivation seems to be a hard thing to hang onto these days.

And I’ve got some big things planned for the kiddos for Christmas this year. A kid-sized entertainment area, which requires getting rid of some of the things we have now and implementing new systems to manage and store things. I’m still sketching out ideas in my head, but I think the kids will like having a private area just for them

Quite a bit of the time lately has been me in pain again. It’s all in my hips and lower back. I strongly suspect ankylosing spondylitis, which is a degenerative, inflammatory spinal disease that is autoimmune based. It’s also hereditary and my dad was diagnosed many years ago. I keep putting off going to the doctor to get an official diagnosis, perhaps out of denial? I can’t acknowledge what isn’t confirmed, you know? But the pain is getting out of hand.

Also, I need to take up yoga because that would help a lot. But I don’t really have the time or babysitter to get to any of the classes around here, so I’ve been looking for a good beginner’s video. Then once I get the computer room cleaned out and the kids’ area set up, I should have the perfect spot to do yoga. Maybe I can get the kids to join me. They’d like that.

I have a lot of topics I’d like to write about. I’ve been trying to give my writing the attention it deserves, so I hope to get started on those sometime soon in the future.

NaNoWriMo Progress

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So we are between a third and halfway through National Novel Writing Month. I am behind, which I expected. But I am now taking my week of vacation, so I hope to be able to catch up among other things.

I will admit I have been getting up a little early to squeeze in a few words most mornings, which if I did this regularly, I could probably write year round. It’s a habit I need to build because I love writing. It’s fun, relaxing and just a part of me.

This last week, my husband has been exceptionally helpful around the house, so that makes my life easier too. I’ve crossed the 3k mark on my NaNo novel, which was a random idea I did for one of the Sunday Flash Fiction Challenges from Absolute Write. Best place on the interwebs evah!

I am looking forward to doing this though, so I am going to keep trucking along.

November Hallmarks National Novel Writing Month

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November hallmarks the beginning of National Novel Writing Month (also known as NaNoWriMo or NaNo), where writers attempt to complete a 50,000 word manuscript in one month. That averages out to 1,667 words a day.

The purpose is to get those writers who might be hindered by their inner editor or who have never written novel length before to just let loose, get the words on the page and worry about the rest of it later.

As someone who has been a part of a writing community for nearly a decade, I can say that there will always be revisions, so just getting it down on the page is an important first step.

Some writers use NaNo to write something vastly different than they normally would.

Unfortunately, as much as I love NaNo, I’ve yet to complete a year. Something I want to remedy this year.

So march onward writers and write many words!

My Love Affair with Social Media

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It started so out so simple and innocent. I think it was a few of my writer friends from Absolute Write that introduced me to Twitter. Then I eventually joined Facebook. Now I can’t keep my hands off social media.

The biggest thing I love about it is that I can interact with so many different people. There are so many viewpoints and you can have a well rounded conversation with all sides of a topic being addressed. I know I can throw out something I’m having issues with and get a ton of good ideas in return.

And now that businesses are really stepping up their game, I get all the benefits there. From special offers and bonus coupons to well-targeted customer service, companies that manage to hit the mark in the social media market are going to be well ahead of the rest of the game.

All the methods of social media provide an easy way to keep in touch with family and friends I rarely see. Now, my personal preference is to keep close family and friends on Facebook and loads of other people on Twitter and in the writing forums I belong to. This is just how I segregate the really personal stuff from the not-so-personal stuff.

The various social places I hit up include:

Absolute Write Water Cooler – This is an internet forum and while forums aren’t a modern form of a social network, I would consider them one of the first. There are people from all walks of life here and everyone shares advice, information, and support unconditionally. It’s a labor of love for everyone involved and one of my favorite places on the internet.

Twitter – The primary reason that I got an iPhone was so that I could tweet any time, any place. Seriously. I love Twitter. Most of the people I connect with on Twitter are big into writing, social media or the weather. And speaking of weather, Twitter is my go-to spot if the power goes out and I need updates because our Tri-state area does a fantastic job of keeping up with real-time updates of what’s going with the weather.

Facebook – Mostly I connect with my family and friends that I know in real life on Facebook. I talk a lot about my children, sharing frustrations, joys, concerns, photos and video. It’s not the stuff I really want everyone to see, so it’s more private. I don’t friend people I don’t know.

Social media provides a means to connect people who might otherwise never meet up and I think that’s a very important thing. It’s really broadened my perspective to talk to people I would never have known of if it weren’t for the internet.

It’s why I love it so.