My Love Affair with NaNoWriMo

Since I heard of the concept of National Novel Writing Month in 2011, I’ve been in the thick of it. Each November. I’ve attempted half-baked, last-minute plots as well as detailed outlines, all in an attempt to see if I could make it to the 50k word finish line. And, if I wasn’t participating, I desperately felt like a fake writer or left out of something bigger than myself.

That’s the wild thing about an entire, global movement. A community-shared event. If you’re within it: it’s magical and pulls you closer to others. If you’re not: you can only sit and watch.

Let me tell you right now, that’s a terrible place to be in.

Fanfic: the Unveiling

Here’s the beginning of the fanfic I mentioned previously! It’s posted to my (new!) Wattpad account and will (hopefully!) be updated weekly.

This is the Wattpad synopsis I have for the moment:

There’s a new monster in Forks.

Bella Swan is home after her first year away in college, and she’s unsure. She’s unsure about her future as a Journalism student. Unsure about her direction in life. And incredibly unsure about her feelings towards the enchanting Alice Cullen.

When murders begin to surface in the area, Bella becomes irresistibly attracted to them. With the help of her research skills and less-than-willing friends, Bella begins to dig into what’s going on in the rainy state.

And, just maybe, Bella can start to unravel what she can be sure of.

 

Thanks for reading this far! Hope to see you there. 💛

But First: FanFic

I actually have an idea to specifically write about this week! My mind usually races for days on end, spinning its wheels before spitting out something stress-filled and emotionally charged (…like The Mental Toll of Zero Words). But not this week! This week I came up with a lovely, crazy idea.

And that idea involves Twilight fanfiction.

The Mental Toll of Zero Words

Hey. Hi. It’s been a while.

So, I went to a small town in Colorado at the beginning of the month (absolutely gorgeous; literally no cell signal) and that was the beginning of the end of my good habits. Sure, I did some reading and some brainstorming, but I never really got much done outside of that.

And that’s fair. It was vacation.

But now I’m back in Texas and still being a crummy goal-getter. I can’t be too hard on myself, since I came back to a new position at my job, but I still expect more from myself.  If I want to write, I have to write…right?? That’s all there is to it–tired or not.

So that’s where I’m at.

Feeling like I should be doing better than I am.

This brings us nicely to the topic I’ve been thinking on lately: the mental toll of not producing work.

[let the blood seep]

To Shelve or Not to Shelve?

Recently, this has been the question on my mind. Do I stick with this story or move on? Do I “shelve” my story or keep at it? Much to my utter disappointment, this choice isn’t very clear. It’s the opposite in fact. It’s murky and and lives exclusively in the gray area.

Plotter/Pantser…What?

Chances are, if you’ve been in writing spaces for any period of time, you’ve come across the terms “plotter” and “pantser.” Tons of writers are staunch supporters of their self-proclaimed camp and I’m here to tell you what the heck both of these mean.

And, of course, I’m here to poke holes in the definitions and throw some theories at you.

A Haiku a Day Keeps the Block at Bay

What a bold statement, I know.

But…maybe it makes sense. You’re writing each day for ten or fifteen minutes, focusing exclusively on fitting a specific structure and image. The exercise is small, but it flexes so many of your writer muscles. If you try to fit a specific theme, suddenly you’re trying harder to get all of your haikus to work cohesively. So, in the end, you’re wadding deeper into your creative river and then everything…uh, flows.

As you can tell, this exercise has done wonders for me.

Let us not talk exclusively about hypotheticals though. Let’s talk about how this mini challenge worked for me.

[words have become weighty]

Finding Time for Writing

Let me tell you, after creating a new schedule these past two weeks (yay, summer break!), I’ve run into the fun realization that there seems to not be enough time in the day for all of the things I want to do.

I can feel my boyfriend laughing in the distance because, of course, he’s been telling me this for months.

Granted, this feeling of exhaustion and limited time could be coming from the fact that I’ve had a one-day weekend and an intense travel weekend to bookend these two weeks on a new schedule–but I think this feeling of “not enough time” comes from bigger stressors.

Namely, not having enough time.

So, how have I found time for writing?