Everything's Okay at 20k

Once again I found myself lowering my total NaNoWriMo word-count. It has come to rest for the rest of the month at 20 000 words, because my month has been too busy for my original word counts of 25k and 30k.

Honestly, I'm a little disappointed that I wasn't going to make it to 30k. But I understand also that my family needs me and my brain can't stay focused enough to go the whole way. I'm a slow writer, and sometimes pressure doesn't work.

I'm going to skip Camp NaNo in July so that I can focus on other things. I need to get ready for college, and that means saving any money I can. I also need to focus on losing weight so that I can enter in to college without having to worry about how I look all that hard - and by then I should have THM down pat.

Writing may slow so that I can find time to read (I need to finish The Reluctant Duchess before May 1st so that I may review it and send the review off to Bethany House Publishers). I have so many novels in my To Be Read pile that it's ridiculous! And I didn't a request a novel for review in May because none of the novels they presented to me were of any interest to me. So May is open for whatever novel I choose to read.

I need to finish reading the last book in The Dragons of Starlight novel series by Brian Davis so I can move on. I have several ebooks I would like to crack open, such as The Secret of Pembrooke Park or The Dancing Master by Julie Klassen, or A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan, or Cinder by Marissa Meyer.

I should also crack open The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Hobbit, or Murder on the Orient Express so I can review another classic for the Back to the Classics 2016 Reading Challenge I'm in.

There's so much I want to do, but so little time, lol!

Well, I better get back to writing. I've got laundry to fold and change over as well.

P.S. Maybe I should devote time to learning German and French on top of all this...

Do Not Let the Distractions Win!

It's that time of NaNoWriMo again where we're down to the crunch and some of us are running out of things to write, and/or unsure of what to write next.

For me, this year, I had planned my novel almost to months in advance while battling through Math 30 - which I was upgrading my math with (thank goodness I'm done with that). I thought I was ready to go and that I could handle a 40/50 year old protagonist who is also a captain and has family troubles concerning his daughter.

When I began to write, I quickly realized how unprepared I was for the story that was The Infinity Machine. I've struggled through the novel all month while juggling driving my brother to school - it's his first year in the private school since he was in Grade 1, and Mom's on painkillers for her knee so she isn't supposed to be driving - and helping around the house. I also promised myself that I would spend more time with my family, which means sitting down in the living room while writing (which is nigh impossible since the TV is almost constantly on with the news blaring about terrorist attacks and terrorist sightings. Do you know how distracting that is?), playing video games with my mother and brother (Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze with Mom, Disney Infinity 3.0 with my brother), helping out with meals, and watching Dancing With the Stars (yayy! Bindi Irwin won!!!)

And it doesn't help that I've gotten hooked on BBC's Sherlock! Woe is me!

But I managed to write a total of 3,517 words, which, most of it, I did in the evening. I hope I can do so again tonight.

If anyone doing NaNoWriMo is reading this, I wish you Godspeed. Because if anyone is lagging like me, we need it. Time is obviously not on our side.

Will I Ever Stop Running?

It's halfway through the month of November and I'm still desperately rushing to keep up the wordcount-you-should-have. I've just been so busy, life hasn't been easy. And my inspiration for the novel I decided to write this month has all but dried up.

What can I do? Well, I've decided to star rewriting By Diadem's Light between when I write bits for The Infinity Machine. I'm not going to let that Years Won/Done dot for this year stay blue this year. I want it to be purple! lol

Nail Polish Continents

Today, I looked at my nails and decided that they need to be redone before me and my family go camping the day after tomorrow. I still haven't painted my nails, and I probably won't until tomorrow.

But today, when I looked at my nails, what was left of the old white paint on my left middle finger instantly reminded me of a continent, and I suddenly found myself picking up my small sketch tablet so I could scribble it down, never wanting to forget it. (I'll have to take a picture of the boring outline of the continent and its island when I have the time.) This was one of the first times I had ever gained inspiration from my own person when I was examining how much nail polish I would have to remove before I could put some more on!

This little continent I've just invented will have to be stored for future reference, probably to be used in some sort of fantasy I might get to write in the future where the world it is on has scattered continents that look more like islands. I'm afraid I'll not be able to use it in this month's Camp NaNoWriMo. Ha.

Speaking of NaNoWriMo, here's my word count.

Word Count: 18 327
The Word Count I'm supposed to Have Today: 22 580 or higher

I can do this! I can ignore all distractions and plow ahead. I have another story calling my name, but I'm trying to resist its call, and my mother was filling my head with ideas of writing a novel to tie all the loose ends of The Pretender (a show my parents have gotten me hooked on that I'm nowhere near done watching) together, since the channel it was being aired on abruptly shut it down without giving the producers any chance to finish it so that they could go on to air JAG.

(Though, I can't be mad at the existence of JAG, though, because if there was no JAG, there would be no NCIS or NCIS:LA.)

There's a bunch of other things trying to pull my attention away from NaNoWriMo, but I will not let them! (lol)

~ Mikaela