I Wrote a Book!

I'm back!

After spending most of the month looking like this:

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I am happy to say that the frustrating, difficult, scary, self-doubt inducing yet incredibly rewarding endeavor of National Novel Writing Month is over! I completed my goal, and I now have a 51,019 word manuscript to edit and revise. I was really surprised that although this was a really busy month with family and Thanksgiving, etc., I managed to keep a pretty steady pace (although there were a few plateaus), and even finished a day early!



It was an amazing feeling after a month of watching that little graph inch slowly upward to see this at the end of it

Listening to Via Tania.

Picture-A-Day:

Happy Weekend!

Have a good weekend! I'll most likely be writing. As much as I love it, it does leave you feeling sort of solo though...hopefully I'll find some balance.

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Picture-A-Week:

Sunset as I leave my office, evening.

NaNoWordCount: 21,331

Give me a Parisian cafe, I'll give you a novel.

This is ridiculous.

That's all I had to say this day apparently. I don't remember exactly what was so ridiculous: writing so much or not having time to blog...in any case, I bet I would rather have been here:

photo by me

NaNoWordCount: 21,331

Nap Time

The night before this post, I had a random bout of insomnia and finally ended up winning the battle around 5:30am. Working off of two hours of sleep, all I really wanted was this:

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NaNoWordCount: 19,465

Felicity

Wow, writing a novel in a month really doesn't leave one a lot of spare time. And, I took up guitar lessons on a whim, so it's been pretty hectic. I started all these blog posts but never finished them, so I'll be posting the back log whenever I get a spare moment. I miss my blog, and I really miss picture-a-day, so that will be coming back soon too, hopefully.

That said, here is a post I started last week about a show I loved and recently found for super cheap on dvd, and so have started watching again. Go ahead, judge me. I would too if I were you. Actually the guy behind the counter when I was purchasing three seasons (shame) was definitely judging me, and kept asking me questions such as, "Is this like Dawson's Creek?" and then laughing. But it was a small price to pay because this show is awesome (at least the bit of the first season I've seen). I don't think TV like this could exist now--it's too tame and clean, especially for a show about college students in New York, but Felicity is so adorable and naive that you just get pulled into her wide-eyed romanticism and her awkward nerdiness. And call it the return of 90s fashion influencing me, but I also really love her style. Granted, the hair is the true center of her look (such a shame when she cut it off), but I also love the buttoned up, chunky sweaters, Chuck Taylors, casual collegiate thing she has going on.

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I definitely think her look can be reinterpreted. These girls seem to be channeling Felicity pretty well. I really need to find myself some chunky sweaters!

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But seriously, that hair! I love it.

NaNoWordCount: 17,740

Listening to because it is SO of the time.

Mondays

NaNoWordCount: 16,023

Listening to Santogold.

Happy Weekend! (I'm trying anyway)

This is how I imagine it to look inside my head right now. I am having a rough day, and not feeling particularly creative. But I am going to sit down, scrub out that moldy pool and fill it up with shiny new ideas.

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Have a good weekend!

NaNoWordCount: I'm working on it...

Listening to the Sesame Street interviews on Fresh Air.

Shall I Compare Thee to a Starvation Diet?

I once did the Master Cleanse for 10 days, and while I love writing and don't necessarily want to compare it to ingesting only lemon juice, syrup and cayenne pepper for over a week, I'm starting to see some similarities. As I recall, I made it through days 1-4 okay. There was hunger, sure, a lot of it, but it was bearable. But by day 5 I was ready to eat the crumbs out of my computer keyboard and was obsessively searching for pictures of food on the internet. Day 5 of National Novel Writing Month definitely has me craving anything that isn't typing, fruitless as those distractions may be, and I've never wanted to read a novel more in my life. Drink it in rather than force one out of me (hopefully you're not envisioning gross detox images there).

Anyhow, I'm soldiering on. Because as hard as day 5 was through detox, on the other side it was definitely smoother sailing.









NaNoWordCount: 8,976

Listening to Or, The Whale because K's band is playing with them tonight.

Font and Photos?

I am, for the most part, not a fan of putting font or writing on photos because I usually find it cheesy, but when I saw these by emilie79, I changed my mind a little bit. They're lovely.






NaNoWorCo: 7,481

Listening to Remember Remember.

Slight Procrastination (but the productive kind)

Spending more time at home trying to get a novel written may prove useful in unexpected ways. It turns out, when you need a break from one thing you'd like to procrastinate on, you inevitably pick up other things you've been neglecting. Getting some London pictures up (finally!). These are the first of many (very many), but it's a good start.








Really though, so far, NaNoWriMo has been really really fun. I know it's going to get more difficult, especially the more intricate the plot becomes, but I'm glad I'm attempting it.

NaNoWorCo (Yeah, that's right...I'm tracking my word count by calling it national novel word count, what of it? ... I'm so lame): 5, 483.

Listening to The Postmarks.

NaNoWriMo and Day of the Dead occur in the same month. Coincidence?

In honor of Día de los Muertos, I thought I would share some of these beautiful paintings by Sylvia Ji. Her work is amazingly rich and gorgeous.










Last year, a friend of mine had a Día de los Muertos party, and it was really fun and turned out beautifully. We painted our faces and put flowers in our hair. She made an altar, and there was a lot of good food.



We wanted to do it again this year, but we were too busy with the massive Halloween/Birthday party that took place in my yard.

Picture-A-Day: The moon is out when I leave work now :(

As I have decided to undertake NaNoWriMo this year, I am going to be very, very stressed and busy. So, I'm probably going to cut back on picture-a day to picture-a-week. At least for a little while.