1667 words a day.

Sun, 24 Dec 2006 05:57:16 GMT

I can't explain it any clearer but here's the gist of what I told my best friend Mew.

When it comes to my writing, I find that I cannot write things as smoothly as they come out in my head, no matter what I do. My RP posts are out of character when before they never used to be. I cannot seem to get the grasp of a character like I used to. I cannot seem to make my posts flow without overusing words and such. I used to be good with that, like, a human dictionary/thesaurus, and now it's all disappeared, replaced by nothing other than everyday slangauge and I hate it!

I couldn't even write Anne Rice fanfiction anymore if I tried, and believe me, I used to be one of the fucking best at that. Both Bernie and myself. So what happened? I don't know what the hell it was, and it wasn't the drugs I did when I was younger, because I used to write all through those times and I was perfectly fine. I don't think it's the antidepressants and antipsychotics and valium and shit, because even when I was off of them, I still had my trouble.

So how do you get the grasp of a character when you write fanfiction or roleplay? Because I need to retrain my mind to learn everything it's somehow forgotten. I can't keep stopping RP's with Mew because of this ailment of mine, and I can't keep scrapping my fanfictions and novels because of this, it's not fair to me. I have a ton of ideas that I would love to put out there, but it doesn't help when I cannot even write a character (original or pre-made) properly.

Ugh. I hate this. Am I the only one who's gone through something like this? It's like writer's block, only not. Help?

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 23:34:20 GMT

I just fucking crossed the finish line. Actually, I crossed it at 330p, est. but I was too lazy to post until now xD

Proof:

Fri, 17 Nov 2006 17:10:25 GMT

HOHMAN! I AM CURRENTLY SITTING AT 29,997!!!!!! THREE FUCKING WORDS AWAY FROM THIRTY THOUSAND! I AM SO FUCKING INCREDIBLE DUDE!

Never have I gotten this far with NaNoWriMo, or ANYTHING and I am so so so so so so so fucking proud of myself right now, I could kiss someone.

ETA; I just added three more words to even out my count.

Current NaNo Progress

Thu, 16 Nov 2006 23:01:46 GMT

So, I just hit 27, 258 now, and so far I have written one het sex scene, one gay sex scene and currently I have one character in the hospital with a serious skull fracture amongst other injuries, due to her and her boyfriend driving a motorbike while drunk. The boyfriend has the lesser of their injuries as he was holding onto the handle bars and did not get thrown like his girlfriend did.

I think she oughta die, because everyone knows writing a good, sad, funeral scene would make my word count rise faster than with another sex scene.

I also just realized my characters forgot to practice safe sex.

Oh well. It gives them, er, character! And could work out in the end if I need another panic-stricken character. I just don't feel like researching STD's. LOL.

How is everyone else coming along?

19,335 (my current word count) out of 50,000 (my goal) = 30,665 (words) to go!

Sun, 12 Nov 2006 15:47:23 GMT

I've been spending the last few days sick as a dog, cranky as hell because I am sick as a dog, feverishly (literally, too) writing to up my word count...~~andreplyingtopersonalads~~

Anyway, back to NaNo progress and such... So far in my story, I have written one pr0n scene (het, not slash *shock*), had two characters have one flashback each and... no one has been killed off.

Yet.

ps; cheloya and I need to start having more word wars, mhmm.

It's a small, small world...

Thu, 09 Nov 2006 01:42:32 GMT

So.. on the way home from the weekly NaNoWriMo write in, Evelyn ("Hauckston" on the NaNo forums) [I needed a ride and she offered] asked me my name and I told her and she just looked at me and was like 'You're my brother's daughter!' So.. that makes her my aunt?

I just stared at her in shock and kept going 'Oh my god, wow!' over and over because like... SMALL FRIGGEN WORLD MAN! I KNEW EVELYN LOOKED FAMILIAR!

You probably don't care, haha, but I couldn't just keep this to myself. It's amazing! What are the chances you know?

I totally just posted about it at the Hamilton NaNo forum.

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 14:32:35 GMT

12276 out of 50,000 = 37724 to go!

So far my back ups are on: GJ, Writely, Gmail, my HD and my domain. I've also come up with about six new ideas while waiting for my therapist last night! Gotta love boring waiting rooms.

After four days of not being able to write (lack of imagination, creativity, writer's block) once again, I'm doin' good! *hopes I don't jinx myself again*

Sun, 05 Nov 2006 05:25:01 GMT

I slept most of today (as usual) and woke up to having my mom not only piss drunk, but verbally abusive. She hasn't been like this in weeks so it hit me pretty hard. Anyway... enough of that.

In short, I totally failed at getting anything written until an hour ago when I managed to get in my daily count (finished with one minute to go until midnight, est). So finally Saturday's count is as follows:

9623 out of 50,000 = 40377 to go!

Here's to hoping my muse comes back and this gets easier. How's everyone else doing so far?

Sat, 04 Nov 2006 07:05:46 GMT

So... 7951 words now that I've been doing word wars with a girl, Faith, who IM'd me from the NaNo boards. Yay for random people. Ooh, and anyone reading this might find this bit of info to be helpful: I've been using this NaNo calendar to track my progress lately. It's nifty and helps me figure out where the hell I am with this whole word count thingie. xD

I fail at keeping track of it in my head or sommat shit.

Current progress...

Sat, 04 Nov 2006 01:49:41 GMT

Oooh I'm on a roll! I slept most of today--been feeling kinda under the weather lately--but when I woke up around ten to seven, I immediately set to work writing. Stopping only to check a fact on Wiki, get some information on a location and use Merriam-Webster.com, I managed to churn out 2001 words in forty minutes. 2001 plus where I left off at 4193 gives me a total of 6195 words. I need 50,000 by the end of the month which means only 43805 more to go! I can totally do this! =D

Now that I've had a one hour break to shower and eat, back I go to writing!

Thu, 02 Nov 2006 20:55:40 GMT

Wow, I've been so fucken busy lately I've had no time whatsoever to blog at all! I miss blogging =(

But on to happier things. HAPPY NANO! Yesterday I clocked in with 1784 words and right now I am pushing 3058. I came home from giving out candy at Mew's on the 31st to find that I just didn't feel my former idea (the one I had spent the better part of the month researching and what have you) so I totally switched it up and went to something else. Fanfiction still, but this time based off of the cult movie Empire Records.

Don't roll your eyes—this isn't some lame Mary Sue. It's actually quite good with an awesome storyline, if I do say so myself. Consider this: I hate my writing, and very rarely do I actually have something good to say about it.

I really should continue writing rather than letting the interwebs distract me ;p

You'll notice, that I have added a little word counter thingie with my NaNoWriMo sn on it. If you would like to track my progress (why the hell for I do not know) feel free to give it a looksie.

So I went on a spur-of-the-moment weekend trip to NYC...

Thu, 02 Nov 2006 20:43:28 GMT

Originally wrote this out at Jes' place, but I'm gonna add in teh peekturs and shizniks at home. THAT WAS MONDO IMPORTANT INFO. Actually it isn't, but I felt like typing it out anyway, harhar. I'm home and in one piece (or else I wouldn't be typing this, now would I?) and I wish I didn't have to come home. NYC YOU CAN ADOPT ME ANYTIME. SYRACUSE AS WELL! The little thumbnails don't have a border, for some reason, but you can click them to get a bigger picture.

The New York trip went rather well. Left my place and got a ride with Jes to her aunt and uncle's place where we hung around for an hour or so waiting for Jes' uncle to come by with the bus. After getting everything sorted out and on the bus, Jes and I stuck these cute sticky glow-in-the-dark halloween themed window decals on the inside of each of the bus windows. Hahaha, we couldn't keep our balance, either, and were stumbling around like drunks. It was hilarious. After that we made the first pick up at Zellers on Mohawk Rd. E, then proceeded towards Centennial Parkway where the rest of the passengers awaited at the Burger King there.

The entire drive to the border I was nervous as hell. Nervous that Customs would refuse me like before, nervous about leaving the country, nervous about being nervous and nervous about being nervous about having a panic attack, harhar. I did good though. Got through customs with no trouble at all, made almost all of the way to NYC without getting a panic attack, until we were on the outskirts of New Jersey. Motion sickness decided to set in, and that triggered a mild attack but Jes stayed awake with me (I kinda sorta woke her up xD) and pretty soon we were going through the Lincoln Tunnel and leaving New Jersey to enter New York City. At first I couldn't believe I had actually made it there. That I was actually THERE there. It was like.. surreal. I kept expecting to wake up disappointed from the best dream ever. As we went through the industrial part of the city and then towards the WTC station (no pictures, long story, don't want to get back into it) I stared to feel like Johnny Cade from The Outsiders: “That time when we were in Windrixville was the only time I've ever been away from my neighborhood.”. The whole time I was in New York, I kept thinking of how I've always wanted to just get OUT of Ontario. Sure, I've left my city to go to other cities around it, but nothing more than two hours away (unless that Windsor bit counts...) and for the sake of my sanity, I had to get out, even if just for a day. As we continued along down Broadway and towards the core of downtown Manhattan, the excitement changed into something totally different. In a weird way, New York was starting to feel homely and that was kinda weird, considering I had only been in the city for about twenty minutes by that time.

After everyone was dropped off in front of our rendevouz spot for later on (St. Patrick's Cathedral) we all split and despite the pouring rain, I was totally fucken stoked, man. Jes and I decided to hit up the NBC Studio first. We wandered the entire building then headed downstairs to Starbucks for coffee. Or, in her case some green tea smoothie thing with whipped cream on top. It was rather... green. Like Lorne. Anyway... after abit of an argument (hahaha, it's so lame now but whatever xD) we figured out what we wanted to do and when and that was when I found (on the ickle map we got) none other than Strawberry Fields! (If you don't know what that is, I suggest you take a look here before reading on xD) I insisted we go there, and since it was closest to Rockafeller, we went there first. Trekking through the mud wasn't that fun, but whatever. It took us awhile to follow the map and finally we just followed Sheep Meadow and asked four people until one guy was nice enough to lead us to it's entrance. Jes took a picture of me standing by the plaque, then another of me kneeling in the middle of the mosaic. I snapped off a ton of pictures of both the plaque and the black-and-white mosaic.

After Strawberry Fields we headed down towards Times Square—EIGHTEEN BLOCKS AWAY. I love walking, but my fucken hell man, it was killing my legs something fierce. I do believe we stopped at the NBC Studios again for something else to drink or something, but I don't really remember (this is why I wanted to blog on the bus but the lights were out and I figured someone would bitch if I turned on the itty overhead above my seat). At some point we ended up at Times Square. What a change from the rest of Manhattan! Jes said it best though: “You like, attempt to walk around that place and it's like you're having sex with everyone who tries to walk by you.”. It's true, too. So many fucken people man. Insane. I got a ton of pictures here though the only businesses we actually went into were the ESPN place (so I could use their porcelain god), the Disney Store and the four-storey Toy's R Us. Got some pictures of the Disney store, this dude who was AWESOME at DDR (Supernova, was it?), the Hard Rock Cafe, the Virgin Megastore as well as some other random buildings and such. Afterwards, we went and hunted down the second reason I wanted to go to New York: The CBS Store. I was in heaven! All the CSI merch, man. Totally ignoring CS NY, I poked through the Vegas and Miami shirts until I finally settled on a CSI Vegas one =D It's teense too big, but it's the smallest size they had. Besides, I wanted it damnit! We went to a couple touristy shops where I got something for my mom (cutest stuffy evaar) then Jes got this cute keychain she totally fell in love with. Haha.. they had this penny up front, in a little container thing and it was called the Bush Penny: Keeps getting smaller and smaller and smaller.... The thing had the circumference of a no.2 pencil eraser head! Amusing, to say the least. We did spend a couple hours inside of the NBC Studios Starbucks after that. I had taken my anxiety med when we left Toys R Us (or before? hohshit i forget -_-) because all the people were making me feel like my environment was out-of-control. That was when Jes and I decided lunch was in store and had some Subway. It was amusing when Jes ordered lunch, as they call swiss cheese 'American cheese' xD It's like when I went to Buffalo after 9/11: the fries at McRaunchys were called 'Freedom fries'. I refused to call them that which pissed off the person at the cash. Ahh fond memories from 5+ years ago, lol.

After that (and my two hour nap in Starbucks xD) we walked around the rest of the day, snapping pictures here and there, visiting a couple more stores and such. That's when I stumbled upon Trump Tower. It's the most tackiest building I've ever seen. Inside at least. It's all gold and red and mirrored and really fuggen ugly. No offence ;p Was amusing to be in, nonetheless. Wow, this entry is long as fuck and I'm not even finished! xD I'll just summarize what else we did to conserve space and all that, lol. I began taking more pictures of the architecture, as well as some signs and stuff I thought would make good stock photos/textures for later on. Also took photos of some places I'm going to be using in my NaNoWriMo, including a spot that gave me an awesome idea for a crime/crime scene. Thank you, NY, catering to my NaNo needs ;p Nearing the end of the evening I was more than exhausted and huddled against the side of St. Patrick's Cathedral to keep the damn cold as fuck wind away. I also kinda sorta napped, hahahaha. A cop stopped in front of me and asked if I was okay. Was pretty amusing. Then our bus came and of course, I didn't sleep a fuggen wink the entire time. Damn caffiene, man. It's the devil. All in all, the trip was terrif and I wouldn't trade that day for anything. Thanks again, regen for being fucking amazing. I plan to go again next year, and a couple more times after that, though most likely on my own =)

Since there are about 240+ photos, you can either choose to view them all, or check them out by click one of the tags below (**NOTE, some of my best photos are under architecture. I put more effort into those than the ones of the tourist stops):

• architecture
• amazing DDR dude at toy's r us
• hard rock cafe
• strawberry fields
• ladder 54 memorial
• lincoln tunnel
• jes and i
• miscellanious (signs, buildings, etc)
• nbc studios
• radio city
• rockefeller center
• st patrick's cathedral
• time square
• trump tower

Writer's Resources - Downloads

Thu, 05 Oct 2006 18:42:40 GMT

Since I posted a list of writer's resources (that I find useful/am using) over at the Hamilton, Ontario NaNo forum, I thought I would share it here as well. All are free and easy-to-use. Note, most of these features lists/descriptions are from their respective websites. It's abit long, sorry.

YWRITER download

Features:
Organise your novel using a 'project'.
Add files to the project, each containing a chapter.
Add a summary to each file, showing the scenes in each chapter.
Print out summary cards, showing the structure of your novel.
Display the word count for every file in the project, along with a total.
Saves a log file every day, showing words per file and the total. (Tracks your progress)
Saves automatic backups at user-specified intervals.
Allows multiple scenes within chapters
Viewpoint character, goal, conflict and outcome fields for each scene.
Storyboard view, a visual layout of your work.
Re-order scenes within chapters.
Move scenes from one chapter to another.
Automatic chapter renumbering.

Languages included:

Castellano (Spanish) Deutsch (German) Français (French) Galego Enxebre (Galician) Italiano (Italian) Nederlands (Netherlands) Ðóññêèé

*TIP While there is no formatting option in Ywriter, if you would like to make words italiac, put an underscore around it

ex. Oh my _gosh_!

That way, when you export your file into another word processor, you can just search and replace words with _ on either end ;p

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ROUGHDRAFT download

RoughDraft is a freeware word processor for Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000 and XP. Although suitable for general use, it has features specifically designed for creative writing: novels, short stories, articles, plays and screenplays. It's designed to be as practical as possible, offering all the features you need, but without being complicated or awkward to use.

RoughDraft has the following features:

* Special modes for plays and screenplays which make formatting easy.
* A side panel that makes common operations quicker and more convenient.
* Instant backup of all open files to the device of your choice - a very convenient way to make sure you don't lose your work.
* Automatic creation of cover pages for manuscript submissions with word and page counts.
* Automatic insertion of user-defined words - for character names or commonly used words.
* Four extra clipboards for inserting longer phrases or paragraphs.
* Importing of files in Word 6.0, Word 97 and HTML formats.
* Up to 100 files open at the same time.
* Spellchecking. British and American English dictionaries are included. Dictionaries for many other languages can be downloaded.
* Live spellchecking that underlines misspelled words in red as you type.
* A custom spellchecking dictionary so you can add your own words.
* A dictionary and thesaurus facility (provided by Anthony Lewis' WordWeb program, which has to be installed separately - it's not required to run RoughDraft, but strongly recommended).
* Comprehensive text and paragraph formatting options.
* Saving of files in the popular Rich Text Format (RTF), meaning they can be opened in just about any other word processor.
* Full find and replace, including the ability to list all the matches in the current file or in a number of files.
* Font styles for quicker formatting.

RoughDraft is not designed to compete with major commercial word processors and does not provide the following features:

* A full page view for editing (although it does have a full page view for print previewing).
* Indexes and tables of contents.
* Tables.
* Pictures.
* Footnotes.
* A grammar checker (eeurch!)

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GOOGLE NOTEBOOK download

Google Notebook was created to give you an online "notebook" where you can organize all your research, add personal notes to it, and share it with others. Google Notebook surfs along quietly with you as you browse, letting you clip and annotate whatever text, images, and links that help answer your question, all without ever leaving the webpage you're on.

You can download a Firefox plugin (Don't know what Firefox is? Get with the times and DL it! MSIE is ruining your browsing experience!) for Google Notebook which keeps it at your fingertips (mousetip?) at all times. Easy shmeasy.

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WRITELY download

With Writely, you can:

* Use our online editor to format documents, spell-check and more.
* Upload Word documents, OpenOffice, RTF, HTML or text.
* Download documents to your desktop as Word, PDF and more.
* View your documents' revision history and roll back to any version.

Plus, since its online, you can:

* Invite others to share your documents by e-mail address.
* Edit documents online with whomever you choose.
* Publish documents online to the world, or to just who you choose.
* Post your documents to your blog.

ps; now is the ~~greatest~~ time for me to of gotten sick. I HAD NANO PLANS TO MAKE DAMN YOU COLD GERMS!

Mon, 02 Oct 2006 07:32:36 GMT

AHHHH SIGNUPS HAVE STARTED!

I'm so fucken excited. It's been an hour and a half or so and I'm still completely bouncy! I've postwhored at the forums already, did my profile and bookmarked a ton of threads I want to keep my eye on.

I'm superfreakingsexcited! *squee*

Drifter can ya make folks cry when you play and sing?

Thu, 28 Sep 2006 17:28:37 GMT

It figures that I now have three novel ideas, and there is only one November this year.

I'm thinking of putting the autobiography on the back burner for now and focusing on the fanfiction piece I have in mind. I have a basic outline done, which is good, and I was going to go ahead and get chapter outlines done so that on the off-chance my muse gets NaNo-shy, I still have something to help me reach the fifty k mark.

I should look into getting a couple writing buddies or something, but who knows. I might want to work it solo this year, that way if my partner quits, I won't be stuck without a writing buddy, and if I happen to quit, I won't feel guilty for leaving them ;p

Only a few more days until the October 1st sign up! I'm totally sexcited. Even now I have this whole sexcited feeling in my stomach.

That, or it's gas, harhar.

Soo... change of plans.

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 08:56:59 GMT

I was going to use this for my NaNo submission--and still am--but this journal needed an entry of sorts. I really need to find some NaNo'ers on here to help push me along when I feel like I want to quit, come November.

Really-really. Or else I'll not allow myself on the computer until the story is finished.

Or something.