Dueling Bards - Realms Faire

Today, as you may know, is the first day of the Realms Faire. The Faire is primarily hosted by M. Pax though many other bloggers have stepped up to host various activities. One such blogger is Cassandra Webb, who is hosting the Dueling Bards event. And guess who's one of those dueling bards? ME.

Well, I guess, technically, I'm not, BUT one of my characters is. Rebbsie will be going up against Bevan McGuiness’s character, Slave, on Cassandra's blog on Wednesday. The winner of the duel will be determined by commenters, so please take the time to stop by and tell us how you think the duel should turn out! You'll be entered into the contest for the day's prizes.

Also, in case you don't know who Rebbsie is, I'll be providing more information about her on my blog the day of my duel.

And while you're waiting for Wednesday to roll around, I suggest checking out today's duel. Prizes include copies of Ellie Garratt's TAKING TIME AND OTHER SCIENCE FICTION STORIES and having a character named after you in an upcoming series. You may also enter the Rafflecopter below for the chance to win even more prizes.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

If that's not enough excitement for you, here are the other Realms Faire events:

Joust - Drench-a-Wench/Soak-a-Bloke - Stockade Brigade - Phasers - Masquerade Parade - Collective Performance - Castle Jumble - Dragon Hunt

P.S. I promise I will post a NaNo update soon.

Character Names - NaNoWriMo 2013

8 days until National Novel Writing Month

I love coming up with character names. I love the creativity, the thought, that goes into it, finding new names that, even if they aren't the one, speak to you, and, most of all, that feeling you get when you finally find the perfect fit. Like putting the last piece in a jigsaw puzzle.

Yesterday, I made my final decisions on the character names for my NaNo novel. I'm super excited about them and thought I'd share.

Before I get into the names, however, I should probably tell you the main idea behind my novel. It is based off the concept that luck can be a gene. Naturally, this gives people varying advantages and disadvantages in life. Due to the nature of these advantages/disadvantages, certain activities, such as gambling, have been outlawed. This has prompted a sort-of second Prohibition. Traveling gambling houses, with names like MARCO'S HOUSE OF OCCASIONALLY PROSPEROUS GAMING, abound throughout the country. When my main character, who has an acute curiosity and a draw to card games, stumbles upon this very house, she runs away with it. This is a retake on the phrase "running away with the circus."

And now...

• February St. Claude - protagonist, sixteen, lives in a compound away from society's "unluck" gene discrimination
• Erie St. Claude - February's sister, fourteen, feels like she's in her sister's shadow, lives in compound
• Rhys Baker - the boy everyone, including February, expects February to end up with, February's close friend, lives in compound
• 'Van Jacques ["Jacques" of Spades] - travels with the gambling house, helps February satisfy her curiosity about the world, love interest
• Kapri Jacques [Kap] - 'Van's sister, travels with the gambling house, becomes February's first close female friend
• Christian Hart [Ian/Kit] - frequent visitor of the gambling house, from prosperous family, good friends with 'Van, takes a small romantic interest in February
• Dillyn Elliott - Ian's girlfriend, disapproves of his gambling, slowly forms a friendship with February
• Marco - the gambling house master
• Mum [Ambrose Jacques] - 'Van and Kapri's grandmother, has large influence in the gambling house, becomes a sort of mentor to February

What do you think? Feel free to ask questions. I would love to talk NaNoWriMo with you. ^^

Now that I have the characters and their names settled, I'm going to focus more on my plot. I've begun to create this fantastic world in my mind and I want the plot to do it justice. So far, I've only done broad brainstorming. It's time to make decisions and add more details.

Also, would you be interested in reading excerpts about each character throughout November? I was thinking I might post them on my Tumblr, but would you rather read them here? Let me know!

How is your NaNoWriMo planning going?

P.S. I did a similar post to this back in October 2010 for THINKING OF YOU.

Productivity for the Win!

21 days until National Novel Writing Month

My NaNo is beginning to come together. A cast of characters has manifested and just thinking about their relationships makes excitement flutter in my chest. Prominent settings have been established. I also have the thinnest thread of a plot. And when I say thin, I mean nearly invisible. But at least there's something.

Planning isn't the only thing I've made progress on this week either. I have also added about another 1500 words to OBJECTION, putting it at a little over 45k. While this is great progress and makes me very happy, I think I'm going to have to alter my pre-NaNo goal. With everything I am trying to accomplish before November gets here, finishing the first draft of OBJECTION seems too ambitious. I am now aiming for at least 50k by October 31st. If I get farther than that, great. If not, I will have still made substantial progress.

That's not even the end to the good news. Recently, I've begun working with a new critique partner. This exchange has prompted me to take another step in my revisions of THINKING OF YOU. I completed the transfer to Scrivener and reordered the scenes to fit my new plot line. This is a big step because I can now see what I need to work on in an organized layout and tackle each task one at a time.

Overall, I am quite pleased with what I have managed to accomplish in my writing so far this week. I've gotten more done than I have in quite a while. This aura of productivity is the perfect lead in to NaNo.

What achievements, big or small, have you reached this week?

NaNoWriMo Planning Has Officially Begun!

25 days until National Novel Writing Month

It's October, my official NaNoWriMo planning month.

With me, planning isn't a very extensive process. I like to have a list of characters (including their names), a title, and a general plotline. Perhaps a touch of worldbuilding. I need a direction to head in and a few provisions for the way, but not a map of every twist in the road. As these things occur to me, I write them down in a notebook that I carry throughout October.

Planning notebooks are another aspect of my writing that is affected by my color coding system. The color paired with this year's NaNo, my untitled lucky genes story, is yellow. Hence, my notebook must be yellow.

Notebook without Strap

I had the perfect notebook picked out for this October. During the back-to-school sale at Wal-Mart, I discovered notebooks similar to the one I used for this year's NaPoWriMo but in bright colors. They were even in the clearance section by the time I went to purchase one. However, I had failed to notice the notebook did not come in yellow. I was devastated. To make up for it, I bought the notebook in every other color. Then, to top it off, once I got home, the strap on the green notebook snapped.

That was it. I took that broken notebook and made it yellow myself with the help of this video.

Here are a few pictures of the process that go along with the steps in the video:

Step 3

Step 5

Finished

My Planning Notebook

After my notebook was satisfyingly yellow, I decided to snazz it up a bit with some stickers. I also replaced the strap with a yellow rubberband.

For the past five days this notebook has traveled with me. I have yet to put much in it, but it's still only the beginning of the month. Soon it will be filled with all sorts of planning goodness.

Are you participating in NaNo this year? How do you prepare?

AAAAHHHH!

Sorry. I had to get the excitement out of my system.

Because you see... I made All Region! And I wrote every day the past week! And I'm almost done updating Goodreads! And all the things!

-takes a deep breath- Now. Now it's all out of my system.

Over seven days, I wrote 469 words. Though that doesn't even equal two pages, it makes me happy. Those are words that I normally would not have written during a week like last week. Every day needed more hours in which to get everything done. Yet, if only for a minute or two, I found time to tap out a few words. That's a special accomplishment to me.

Since All Region is over, I hope to get more words written in the upcoming days. However, I have heard that All State (which I now get to go to :D) is in October. If I really want to make it, I need to practice a lot more. I'll have to figure out a way to adequately adapt my schedule.

Also, once I finish catching up on my social networking, I'll have buckets more time to write. I just need to add these last twenty books to my Goodreads and update my NaNoWriMo profile, which won't take too long. Then it's off to Tumblr and Youtube. At the same time, I'll continue reading my backlog of blog posts. Soon everything will be back to normal.

To part with, because I promised Laura I would be posting my writing, here are the 469 words. Please keep in mind that they are rough.

...I start to read the words with a voice in mind. I can’t get it perfect. I can’t match it up.

With the prompt, our minds automatically turn to Armie, because that’s all we’ve been able to think about for days, and from Armie it turns to our meeting in the bar.

“We had lunch with a friend,” we say.

The computer takes a second to reply. We wonder what tests it has to run before it can give us what it considers to be the best response.

Tell me about your friend.

We cock our head to the side, wondering what we should reveal and what’s important to keep hidden, because somehow we feel there is something we shouldn’t share.

We’re taking too long. The computer nudges us. What is their name?

Again, we take a moment to contemplate. Do we want Armie connected to this? What if they decide to bring her in too for more experiments? What if her name pops up some weird flag and gets her caught as a revolutionist?

A small puff of breath escapes our mouth as we part our lips with no words behind them.

Where did you eat? The computer nudges us again.

“At a bar.” No thought required. I tilt our head to the side. “A Homo bar.”

Why did you go there? It is trying to sneak up on us. We feel it. It is trying to slowly twist the information we would not previously give from our throats.

We smile. “It seemed appropriate.”

The computer takes longer than usual to respond. We wonder if we should nudge it. Our lip twitches.

Have you gone there before?

That’s the hammer that strikes the nail on the head.

Because for me the answer is no. Never. Never. Never.

And for Eme the answer is a million times.

Loneliness and the slumped shoulders of exclusion well up in my mind’s eye and the cavity where my heart usually sits. Backs come up from memories. Backs that are shaking with laughter, having already forgotten me, having no need for me.

Eme is trying to intrude, trying to comfort. But the hurt is a thick wall especially made to keep her out.

All of this rips through me in a second. Just a quick flash. The littlest pinch. Yet it leaves me shaking as the two of us stare at the computer screen in a silence with too many words in it.

“It depends on who you ask,” we finally say after what feels like a millennium or two.

There is a pause. Which one of you I ask? The computer asks, requiring more information.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I think I need to go shriek with joy again.

Change of (Goal) Plans

In order for me to explain the changes I've made to my goal plan and the thought behind them, I will go through each step that led to my current format.

Go here for the explanation behind this style.

Above is the beginning set up of my goal plan, entitled The One Year Goal Plan - 2013 Edition. I'm reposting it as a refresher and a reference.

In June, I decided my original idea needed tweaking. Months went by where I barely accomplished anything. My March goals became my April goals became my May goals. I knew I wasn't going to reach my aspirations within the year. I began to stress. For those of you who don't know, Brooke + stress = JUST NO.

I had to find a way to fix my plan. Gone were the Year Goals. In came the Long-Term Goals.

However, most of my goals were still time-constrained. Even though removing the January 1st deadline relieved a lot of pressure, that fact still weighed on me. So a few weeks after I made this mind-blowing change, before I even told you guys about it, I decided to carry it further.

First, I made each one of my projects their own sheet in my Excel workbook.

Then, I removed the aspect of time. Long-Term Goals became Big Goals. Month Goals became Medium Goals. Half-Month Goals became Small Goals. Mini-Goals became XS-Goals.

I also added other features as I revised my goal plan.

As I was adding in goals, I realized I had some that needed to be completed, but that weren't necessarily part of a larger goal. Yet they weren't enough by themselves to be a Big or Medium Goal. These I called EXTRA Goals and typed in color. On the picture above, which shows goals for OBJECTION, the EXTRA Goal is in pink. This goes along with my WIP color-coding system. On the THINKING OF YOU sheet, the EXTRA Goals are blue.

I included counters for some goals, too. If you take a look at the OBJECTION image again, you will see that in the Finished column for Medium Goal #1.1 I show the number of words I have out of the number I want to have.

Overall, I am very happy with how my goal plan has turned out. I ended up with eleven sheets and I will get to each one in my own time. It's what I call freedom with direction. And it feels great. :)

What do you think of my new goal plan? What about freedom with direction?

Starting Today

I have reached a decision. I will complete the first draft of OBJECTION by NaNoWriMo.

Starting today. Every day this week I'm going to write. It doesn't matter how much, just that I do. I could write two hundred words or I could write three chapters. For this week, they hold the same level of achievement.

This method will work partly because I need to get used to writing on a regular basis again. Also, my All Region audition is on Saturday. One of my friends suggested I listen to my music while writing. That will help me better memorize the notes, which is great, but I can't type, look at my music (which requires turning pages), sing, and listen all at the same time.

I have yet to write today, but I plan to as soon as I sing all four songs at least once. It's already late, so I probably won't add a lot, but it will be something!

In other news, I'm already completely caught up on a third of my blogs. Now I'm working on my Goodreads as well, which requires going through all my shelved books and adding all my owned books.

I also finally finished my goal plan post. Come by Wednesday to see it.