Preparing for Camp National Novel Writing Month - April 2016 pt 3

Today's Ear Worm: Masashi Hamauzu "Storm Before The Calm"
Today's Date: March 28, 2016

You know what? I thought I would do something different than what I wrote originally for this blog.

As I write this blog, it's only the 17th of March (St. Patrick's Day) and I just dragged my falling apart recliner out to the garbage.

So as I was trying to post some pictures to Twitter (which apparently hate me), I decided that I should do a blog post about the physical aspect of preparing for Camp National Novel Writing Month.

So here it is!

How I physically got ready for the free for all of Camp NaNo.

Told in pictures. And a Video.

The view from my bed. Messy yes?

A better view. 

I'm going to have to do some major cleaning before I start building the desk up!

I built the desk and killed myself doing so.

I'm ready. Bring it on!

There's a few people that I really want to thank for being such wonderful, inspiring people. And that I hope I don't annoy you to much.

Thank you, so much, for listening to me rant, rave, moan, and babble about my writing. You all inspire me so very much!

Note: All names are linked to their personal websites if I can find one for them, otherwise it's linked to their twitter or facebook. If I can find one or have one.

Necia Pheonix: NP, as I often call her, is a mother with a husband who is often working. She has some wonderful kids and one of them is actually getting into the writing world! She's a wonderful writer, an even more awesome mother, and an awesome snake mommy with some lovely babies.

She even has an Instagram to see her snaky babies on! Not going to link that though since she does have pics of kids on there to.

J.A. Marlow: Jammy! 

I met Jam back in...2013 right around the time that NaNo was starting (November). They were a wonderful person then and they're a wonderful person now, so I'm honored that they are so delightful.

They just lost their mother though, Mother Hen, and the world wept when she finally lost the battle. 10 days after she went to sleep and never woke up. She was a fighter to the end and loved all things art and writing. I just wish I had gotten to see Mother Hen when she was healthier, more there and doing what she loved to do. 

But I see MH in Jam and I'm always honored to know this wonderful person and to read their stuff.

...And to get attacked by bunnies from them. 

Lazette Gifford (her picture blog and her Joyously Prolific Journal): I know Zette a bit, but she's always delightful to talk with and her writing abilities are awe aspiring. Her books are perfectly wonderful and I love seeing her cats. They are so beautiful, and always trying to help mommy with the words!

I am amazed and honored that I know her. And I hope that life keeps treating her well.

Ashe Elton Parker: What to say about this wonderful person? Ashe is always willing to chat and talk about writing and life as it goes along. They're a wonderful person and have been through a lot themselves. But they are happy and living life which is a beautiful thing.

They currently have only had stuff published in the Forward Motion Anthologies (2012, 2013, 2014, and I believe they put a fourth one in 2015's to, but I can't be sure) currently but they are working hard on creating a build up of stories.

Still, they're a wonderful author, a lovely person, and someone I respect. 

Jennifer Amriss: Ah, what to say about the ever beautiful Arya? She is relatively new to the publishing world but less so to the writing world. She is beautiful and wonderful and so brilliant even though she worries about not being good enough.

I can tell you right now, I got my picky as all get out bibliophile of a friend ADDICTED to her stories. She's good. Trust me.

Take some time, go check out her site and bask in her amazing worlds. Buy her books as they come out and help support her and her kitty Punks. The kitty could use some catnip to drive her mommy even more insane.

Connie Cockrell: I have met Connie and I can tell you that she's a lovely, lovely person who needs more people reading her stuff. She started to write on a dare and got bit hard by the need for it! 

But she's a wonderful woman who is a wonderful person, who comments occasionally on my posts here, so thank you, Connie. Really. Your words are always a welcomed sight to my eyes.

Kathleen Roberts: I actually met her on...Im' not sure where but I have her on facebook, and ever since I have been getting to know her quite well. She's got an amazing mind and goes outside of the box for her ideas. So I'm happy to have her in my life to. 

:D It's always nice to have a friend who enjoys writing just as much as you do.

Now there are some people who I can't link to for various reasons, but I want to send out my thanks to Tonya, my heart sibling, Susan, a wonderful woman who is always willing to squeal about my stuff and is a dear friend, and her husband, Vaughan, who is like the brother that I always wanted. 

So thank you three. For being my rock outside of my mother. Really.

And thank you to all those who are here now, who follow my twitter, tumblr, or facebook page. Who silently support me in their own ways or take time to send kind words.

It all means a lot. 

Thank you.

Preparing for Camp National Novel Writing Month - April 2016 Pt. 2

Today's Ear Worm: Is surprisingly a horror game playthrough from one of my many favorite Youtubers, Markiplier. Poisonous Play Through Play List
Warnings for the game: some screaming, some jump, but mostly puzzle as it goes with all Amnesia games.

Todays date: 3/21/2016

So, as I said in my last blog (Preparing for Camp National Novel Writing Month - April 2016), I was kind of going "What the flying hell am I going to do for this round?"

Well, I was talking about rewriting two of my stories, which I have decided to do after all! I decided to rewrite my rather short stories "All You Need" and my "Untitled Lex/Rose Story". I have been working on creating outlines and basic summaries for each of the stories before April comes around and I decided that I would share them now.

Let me tell you right now: I write mostly M/M stories and novels. That means I write two men having relationships of various kinds. Rarely do I write F/M pairings in my novels but most of my worlds DO have pairings of some kind.

Cause I love me some lovin' okay?

Now that I've warned you guys about that, let me talk about my novels.

Untitled Lex/Rose Story
Genre: Not sure, but mostly modern M/M Romance
Summary: He had moved into his house when he had been 4 years of age with his parents, grew up in it, learned all that he knew about gardens in the house. He had also heard of his families ties to the older families of the city, but he didn't really care about all of that.

He was much more interested in the man who was moving next door, supposedly to fix up the old house and write a novel. Or ten. 

Rose was a gardener by trade, a manager at a nursery as a job, and on the odd weekend off, he played around with creating a book about how to create gardens of various levels and styles. 

Lex was a lover of books, writing and editing for his career. He moved into the house because of the fact that he could get his hands on all of the materials that were connected to the house, wanting to write those stories instead of his usual mystery fare. 

What neither of them were expecting was to find a connection with each other. Much less love.

Between storms that knock out power, a cat that seems to want to take over Lex's office chair when he can escape from Rose, and nosy neighbors who want to see Rose out of 'their' neighborhood, it's an interesting time for them.

I'm sure you're staring at the fact that I put the summary in a different font and color. That's mostly so I can talk about this story without you thinking that it's a part of the summary of the story.

Lex and Rose was actually a story prompted by a friend who suggested it to me one day. So I wrote it. It's never been put anyways because I knew even then that I would need to rework the entire story. And then I lost ALL of my stories (fanfiction included) to my flashdrive reformatting on me randomly. 

I was far from happy about that fact you guys. I screamed in rage and then found an SD card which I'm still using mostly with 1 terabyte plug and play hard drives. Which make me happy. 

Anyways, another friend found a flash drive at her place, and lo and behold! I have copies of this story plus All You Need. I think I squealed loud enough for my friend to hear me up in Washington. Considering I live in the lower part of Arizona? That was pretty loud.

So here I am, with copies of my stories that I had thought I had lost and now I can rewrite them. Nearly two years after I wrote them!

So I'm just about ready to celebrate this fact, really. 

I transferred the original 11 chapters of this story to my GDoc's that I hold my shorter originals on so I can work on them anywhere as long as I can access my gdoc's and settle into bed.

I take about 6 pages of notes about the story lines and story plot and what I would need to add. I leave it alone for 3 days and start to outline it. I'm now running around 26 planned chapters for this story along with going more in-depth with the build up between them.

It might end up longer though depending on what happens as I write and rewrite this story because I want it to be the best that I can.

All You Need
Genre: Once more, romance, but with a twist.
Summary: I'm really not sure what to say about this one since it's different than what I've ever written before in regards to my originals.

All You Need was, once more, prompted by a friend to write and I did. Then lost it. Again, pissing me off.

But then I found it, transferred all 5 chapters to my short story gdoc, and started to take notes. There is just so much that needs to be rewritten and filled in that it's giving me a headache.

The main characters are "Canaris" and Brian. I'm thinking I'm going to change "Canaris'" name to something a bit easier to read and say, so I need to figure out what I'm going to do with it.

The story is about how "Canaris" has an escort Business called "All You Need". Mind you, the escorts that work for him are under strict contraction obligation to not sleep with their clients for money or for fun while they're working. All You Need provides dates, not sex as "Canaris" often says.

Brian comes in needing a date and from there he discovers that Canaris is one of the few shifting humans, the genetics of the human race mutating and changing.

It's rather interesting and the world building is being a pain in the butt, but I have no doubt that I'm going to have fun with it.

As it is, I have about 3 new chapters outlined and haven't even gotten into the main part of the story with these two. I want to build up the world properly since I'm having this odd feeling that this might end up as a series. Different pairings, same world. Probably going to call the series "All You Need" and title each book with titles that fit the story.

Like Canaris' and Brian's book would be called "Finding My Truth" since Canaris, in the world that they live in, is mostly a fetishized human since he can literally become anyone that he wants.

It's going to be different than anything that I've written and probably won't be put out until I'm a bit further into my publishing career.

But that's what I'm doing for April's Camp round this time. Here's hoping that I get this done and out of the way this time!

I've decided that my end word count for this round of camp will be 35K and I will work on these two stories.

I'm going back to working on things in preparation for this.

Hugs and loves all!

Got my Badges to!

Camp National Novel Writing Month 

Participant April 2016

Preparing for Camp National Novel Writing Month - April 2016

Today's Earworm: Is actually a show. The Lizzie Bordon Chronicles on Netflix
Today's Date: March 14, 2016

I find myself once more on the edge of another Camp round and can't for the life of me figure out what I actually want to work on this year.

Okay, I'm sure that those who are new to this blog, I join in on the wonderful world of National Novel Writing Month which happens from November 1st to November 30th. During this time, those who are participating try to write 50 Thousand words in just 30 days.

Now Camp National Novel Writing Month happens twice a year. April and July both. I tend to join in the both of them and I do pretty darn well. Then again, we can choose how many words we want to hit for during the month, and I tend to try for between 35K to 40K for each month.

Well, as of right now, I have 2 weeks and a few days until April 1st rolls around. I've already decided that I'm going to try for 35K and rewrite a couple of my stories into fuller, richer shorter novels. Probably novelettes or novellas.

Okay, okay, okay, I can feel the confused looks coming from the lot of you. I really can. Let me breakdown the type of lengths for each type of book.

First, there are short-short stories. They tend to be under 2,500 words total.

Short stories come after that and range from 2,500 to 7,500 words in length.

After short stories come Novellettes, which is a possibly where my two stories will land in. They range from 7,500 words up to about 20 thousand words.

Novellas are the next step. They range from 20 thousand words to 50 thousand words, which is about where most of the writers during NaNoWriMo are aiming for minimum.

Full on novels range from 70K to 90K words.

Now, the genre of the book does effect the total word count. As a general rule, young adult is mostly between 50K to 80K, while adult literary works fall somewhere between 80K and 110K, depending on the genre. Science Fiction (Sci Fi) and Fantasy though tend to be some of the few that get up there in length, along with historical, and a few others.

Disclaimer though: This is not a firm set rule! This is average on what sells and what people are looking for. When it comes time to publish or look for a publisher, you should do your research into what is the best word count. 

For me, as a paranormal horror writer mostly (with forays into romance and fantasy), I'll find my sweet spot between 80 thousand up to 95/100 thousand words total. And those numbers are based off of the Paranormal Genre (75K to 95K) and Horror Genre (80K to 100K) and mixing between the two. 

Now that I got that out of the way, as I said, I'm aiming for about 35K this coming April and the stories to end up around 20 to 30K. I write about 1,100 words per chapter, minimum, and I'm going to try for 20 chapters each. Minimum.

But then, I have this one story that is just sitting here.

Mocking me.

Begging me to write it.

I'm talking about NaNo's 2015 story, my mean bunny story, "When My Eyes Close". I have no idea where I'm going with it really. I have my plot points but I'm having to figure out a few new ideas for the characters since it won't happen in one night but instead spread out over a few months time. And one character that I was going to kill off is now going to live.

And have his own book if I can figure out what to do with him.

I sigh now.

Well, I have a bit of time, don't I?

Coming up next week, Preparing for CampNaNo April 2016! Here I go! Once more into the insanity.

The Writing Process: Writing Tools

Today's Earworm: Black Black Heart (Slow Version) by David Usher

Today's Date: 

I first want to say this: the reason why these are separated the way they are is because I don't want you guys end up reading long ass posts that drive you nuts and gives you way to much information than what you need. 

So that's why I've separated them the way I have and why they tend to be shortish. 

That and so you can skip over what you already know.

Just a warning though: Due to the subject of what I'm covering, this is going to be a split post, so please feel free to skim through what I'm writing when it comes to the software. Thank you.

Let's start today's post shall we?

What are you going on about this time?

Well, today we're going to talk writing tools.

Such as?

Well, for starters, pens, pencils and paper. This will be kind of short and simple because there's really not a lot to it, but still, we must talk about this.

Why? It's paper and pens or pencils.

Because it's a way that a lot of people do actually still write by. I myself do use pen and paper to write notes, some writing of actual chapters, and a few other things that I do.

Really? But...why? Really?

Because it can help the muse. While a person puts pen to paper, it slows them down so that they have time to compose the next line that they need to write. It's also a lot easier in some cases to carry pen and paper around with them instead instead of a computer. I prefer using a pen and paper when I'm traveling since I don't need power to keep my electronic working.

I can also rewrite and organize my notes and outlines a lot easier. This way I can shift and make notes on what needs to be changed and where. 

When it comes to actually writing a chapter, I tend to be able to add more details as I type up the story, fix up lines and the such. I usually do this in the first rounds of rewrites if I'm writing on my computer, but by hand writing, painful as it is, I can pretty much write out what is really a long information filled outline. 

It helps me with some of my stories, especially when I'm trying to figure out where I want to go with them.

Are we going to go over what you do when it comes time to write?

Actually, yes, I will be. I'll be doing that sometime between now and the end of this series. 

Let's go over computers and computer programs. 

I'm going to assume that you have a well working, good computer that you prefer using. So now that you have it all set up with mouse and keyboard (if you DO want to use them) let's get down about the types of software that you can use to write!

How many types of software are there?

So. Very. Many. 

But I'm going to do a short list of the good ones that are often suggested, both free and paid for. Along with some basic writing programs like Word, OpenOffice, and Google Documents. 

So let's go over the basic things. 

Microsoft Word: It's pretty much what you get with your computer. You can open it up, create a word document and write away. There's some set up, some learning if you've never used it before, and a few other joyful things that come with this, but it does come in handy to have.

I personally don't have it because my current laptop is second hand and the guy who owned this computer before removed the program. So I use the next item.

OpenOffice.

It is a free typing program that is a lot like Word. You can save .doc files, but the default is .docx when saving, so be careful with that.

It has a pretty nice word counter on it but when it comes time to put your word count into the NaNo word count, I use the validate word count so that I can have their programs word count. I think they tend to use word counts much like the Microsoft Word does, which doesn't count certain types of words as a word.

Google Document: I'm sure that you've all heard a lot about GDocs and I love it! I use them for most of my writing personally. I have my files and I can update them or use them as I want. I love the "See Revision History" option on it. 

Especially when you lose all of your work. 

It's easy to create a file that you want and you can download them as you need to. So that's always a nice bit of help. Really it is. 

I don't have all of my work and most of what is on there is what I'm working on AT THAT moment, or the latest chapters of my writing. Especially since I only have so much room on my drive that I can use. 

But if you're willing to pay for more room, it's a lovely option. And a great way to have your work accessible if you don't have a Cloud.

Let's go over some of the better paid options, shall we?

Why should I pay for something?

Because they usually come with all sorts of neat little perks that you can't get in free stuff, or that you can get but in smaller amounts.

I actually tried to figure out what would be good software programs but really? There are just SO many choices out there that you can make your own choice. From what I've seen, Scrivener is one of the top programs that you can buy.

PageFour is also a lot like Scrivener but looks to be simpler version of it and I can't really find a site for it. So if you want, hunt around, make sure that it's what you want. But it looks promising.

There is also Power Writer and Writer's Block, which are both writing tools. Power Writer is more like Scrivener and PageFour while Writer's Block is a way to block out the computer. You set a time or words and it blocks out the rest of the computer until you hit that count or time.

Warning: With Writer's Block, you will have to reach the goal or run out of time before you can get out of it. So I suggest short bursts of 50 words if you set a word goal, or no more than 5 minutes at a time while you figure out if you like it or not.

Alright, now that I'm done with that warning, let's continue on shall we?

Free writing software!

Something that we all like, yes? Well I like it most. Even though I really don't use any software outside of GDocs and OpenOffice myself.

Why not?

It's just not my thing. Thus why I'm going over the various options here that you can do. I've taken years to figure out how best I write, so take your time in figuring out what you want and need, alright?

Alright.

Onto the free software.

The software that I keep seeing mentioned a lot is YWriter, StoryBook, and Sigil. They are all built to help you write the novel, but as with every free thing, there are certain things that you aren't going to be able to do while writing. So be careful and research it. See if they are what you want.

I don't really know them really but I've heard good things about all of them.

Okay, so we have gone over writing software, but what about the outlining software?

Well now. What to say about Outlining software? I tend to use Outliner of Giants, the free version. The bad thing about the fact that it is free is that there are some parts of it that you can't use, but if you don't care about those, then this is actually a wonderful outliner to use! It also has a five (5) outline limit, but again, it's not so bad for me really.

I don't tend to outline more than a couple online anyways. But it's a great way to get things down and you can move bullet points around as you want. It's all about testing it out.

You can also use the bullet function on OpenOffice, Word, or even GDocs to create outlines. I've done so myself.

Pen and paper also works well but you do end up rewriting the outline some days. I still do that myself.

Liftlit is actually pretty damn good from what I've seen so far. It's pretty easy to use and you can set up your entire book using it, which is kind of fun. :D

Hiveworld is another one that is a free option. It looks well laid out and will help anyone who wants to test out online outlining and noting.

Now, I said that I would tell you guys about note software but...

But?

But all of these options can actually be used as Note holding to!

Shocking I know right?

With GDocs, you can tab your bullets in and create a new line under the main line as  you want.

With Outliner, there is an option called "wiki" where you can add a bullet that is not a part of the actual outline, but has information that you want for that chapter.

You can also add information for your chapters in Liftlit and Hiveworld, so it's not that hard to do so.

Guys! It's not hard to make notes.

So for now, I hope that this helped. Considering this drove me up a wall.

And I'm talking very much up the wall.

Enjoy!