Tag: Writing: NaNoWriMo

Writing: NaNoWriMo 2014 Wrap-Up

Posted 30 November, 2014 by Lianne in Writing / 2 Comments

(Oops, that came out larger than I thought; too tired to resize)

Okay, to be fair, I didn’t really get a chance to post any updates along the way (both here and on Twitter) as my blogging schedule was pretty packed and, as my experience turned out this month I was just really busy :3 Suffice to say, it was an interesting experience to participate this year as

I underestimated the power of group assignments all due this month O_O A lot of the time I was on the computer was towards completing them ;_;
For the first time, I’ve actually experienced being behind in the word count considerably. This was a frightful experience, almost as bad as any looming deadline
I had an idea of what the story was about and where it was headed and the themes invoved but it was so hard to put it all together. There are still a lot of holes in the narrative and a lot of work has to be put into characterisation in the edits.

I’m sure there’s a few points i’v missed in this list (my sleepiness from placement has finally caught up with me), but on a positive note I have a draft to this story now! The story that has been brewing in my head for a good decade finally has some kind of form xD And now I can relax (for now ;))

Did you participate in NaNoWriMo this year? If so, how did you do? What are you planning on doing next with your draft?

Writing: Projects & Updates for 2014

Posted 4 January, 2014 by Lianne in Writing / 4 Comments

So, here we are, a brand new year and everything’s shiny…guess it’s also time for me to do an update on what’s going on with my writing, lol.

image source

For starters, I actually meant to post an entry about NaNoWriMo back in November but just never got around to it. As some of you know, I had participated as a NaNo rebel, editing this project that I’ve been working on since around April/May of last year (I spoke about it at some length over here). I finished the draft but it’s still nowhere near readable and a lot of the details are still all over the place so I’m still continuing along on that.

So yes, this screencap to the right was actually made today =P I am locked down in front of my laptop and am working on editing the second act of this project. I had edited the first draft a few weeks ago at the start of my Christmas break but it’s taken me a while to start properly editing the second act because I didn’t quite have the timeline/progression of events down correctly (what scene should go first, how does this affect later scenes, etc.). Spent most of yesterday at my notebook and just getting the sequencing down (at least for the first half of the act) and now it’s just a matter of hopping from one scene to the next and keeping the flow and the characters going. I’m not even going to hazard a guess when I’ll have draft done; I guess the important thing at this moment is that I’m writing and I’m moving forward 🙂

Oh, and because this came up the last time I was talking about this project: this project I’m working on is a fantasy novel and is (as far as I know) a standalone =P

Not my gif and sure, I’m nowhere near done, but I consider each day working on this project a celebration of achievement =P

Meanwhile, I also started writing something else. I’m not entirely sure where it’s going or what exactly is it shaping up to be but it has caught my complete attention and I’m writing and seeing where the story is taking me. It’s still at its earliest stages of the story (I suppose you could categorise it as urban fantasy)–I’ve only written maybe three scenes tops–but we’ll see where this goes and if it concludes itself. In the meantime, that notebook is going to filled with sticky notes about plot points that will go in that story, lol.

So yes, right now I have those two projects going on. I’m hoping to go back and work on my Displacement draft from 2011 sometime later this year but we’ll see (I used to be so good at juggling several writing projects, not sure what happened here) 🙂

So, fellow aspiring writers/bloggers! Are any of you working on any projects this year (starting/editing/completing)? Any goals for 2014 writing-wise?

Ten Bookish and Not-So-Bookish Thoughts

Posted 7 November, 2013 by Lianne in Miscellaneous / 6 Comments

10 Bookish and Not-So-Bookish Thoughts

Bookish and Not-So-Bookish Thoughts is a weekly blogging event hosted by Bookishly Boisterous. It allows book bloggers (and non-book bloggers) to write about pretty much anything, bookish or otherwise (i.e. share exciting plans for the weekend, rants on things they’ve encountered during the week, etc.). According to her, “Basically, anything goes, and it’s a nice opportunity to let your readers get to know you on terms besides books. I generally do ten items, but there isn’t a set amount- go crazy. Or don’t.”

Christmas came early for me =P No, seriously: my copy of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey extended edition arrived in the post earlier today *points to image* 😀 I was going to wait until Christmas but I figured we’d watch it before we go and see the second movie, lol. Looking forward to all of the appendices/special features and the additional scenes that were included 🙂

Speaking of The Hobbit, I am ridiculously late (and would normally make its own post) but OMG the new trailer! *flails endlessly*

I don’t even know where to begin–Mirkwood! Thranduril! Legolas (though I’m still hoping that the CGI of his eyes won’t be so bad on-screen; it’s rather distracting)! Laketown! Bard! Thorin! Dol Guldur! And did the trailer start showing bits leading into the last movie with the Battle of the Five Armies? I’m also glad that we still haven’t seen a proper look at Smaug (I want to see it for the first time in the theatres) but we do get to hear Benedict Cumberbatch properly here. Is it December yet? lol *goes back to flailing*

Lynn Coady won this year’s Giller Prize for her short story collection Hellgoing. I haven’t read it though I have heard of the author here and there so I might pick it up at some point. The only book I read from this year’s shortlist was Dan Vyleta’s The Crooked Maid (review) which I’m quite proud of because I’m always late when it comes to these things xP

Sci-Fi Month hosted by Rinn Reads is on right now! I’m rather behind at commenting at the moment but it’s exciting to see all of these bloggers talk about all sorts of sci-fi stuff, whether it’s about a particular television show or about books they’ve read. I’ve posted a few entries so far in celebration of the event (from Orphan Black to 10 science fiction novels I’ve read that I’ve especially enjoyed), all of which you can browse through here if you’re interested 🙂

I think I finally recovered from my reading slump. Except now I’m trying to figure out what to read next, lol. I’m still reading P.S. Duffy’s The Cartographer of No Man’s Land, which has been interesting so far, but my reading has been pretty disjointed (the usual pdf issues, but anyway). *goes off to stare at her to-read pile*

I’ve been successful in transferring edited scenes from my printouts to Scrivener for NaNoWriMo but I have not written any new scenes yet. Ayiyah. And it’s not like there’s a lot of new scenes that I need to write for this round of editing either…

I’m almost done with Christmas shopping, yay! \o/ I just have my dad’s and my best friend’s and then I’ll be completely done for the season 😀 (well, there’s still Christmas cards which I’m definitely looking forward to)

You may have heard that my city is in the international news because our mayor. *le sigh* I…why I’m even mentioning this, I don’t know, it could easily take a whole blog post on its own, but that’s the big thing here right now (along with other, equally-dismaying news going on in our politics right now; I honestly wouldn’t mind if they called for elections tomorrow on all three tiers)

While it’s weird to see it so dark out while I’m waiting for the transit bus at 5 in the afternoon, I’m absolutely thrilled that daylight savings has ended. I actually physically feel better now that the time is back to whatever it was before. Or maybe this is me still all 😀 because we got an extra hour of sleep, I don’t know, lol.

My written final exam for my lab course is next week. Wut? Cannot believe that the end of semester is already upon us (more or less)!

If you’re participating in this, be sure to leave a link! I’d love to read what’s going on with you, bookish or otherwise 🙂 Happy Thursday!

Ten Bookish and Not-So-Bookish Thoughts

Posted 31 October, 2013 by Lianne in Miscellaneous / 10 Comments

10 Bookish and Not-So-Bookish Thoughts

Bookish and Not-So-Bookish Thoughts is a weekly blogging event hosted by Bookishly Boisterous. It allows book bloggers (and non-book bloggers) to write about pretty much anything, bookish or otherwise (i.e. share exciting plans for the weekend, rants on things they’ve encountered during the week, etc.). According to her, “Basically, anything goes, and it’s a nice opportunity to let your readers get to know you on terms besides books. I generally do ten items, but there isn’t a set amount- go crazy. Or don’t.”

So I went on a bit of a book-buying spree these last few days, notably for the following books on the image to the right from The Art of the Novella series by Melville House. I admit, the covers are aesthetically pleasing and that’s part of the allure, but I really wanted to read some of these titles (and given their age, I cannot find them on Project Gutenberg–well, okay, I wanted a physical copy of Carmen and my own copy of The Haunted Bookshop because I <3 it so much (haven't posted about it--yet?)). It seemed a little much all in one go (these and the other books, I mean) but then for whatever reason the following gif came into my head (and I don't even watch this show!) that justifies it all:
(gif source)
Penguin is re-releasing/re-packaging some classic Scandinavian and Northern literature. I’ve slowly ventured a bit into their classic lit with The Kalevala (review) and have been meaning to get around to the Volsungs. Guh, aren’t these so pretty?

image source)

I needs them in my life xP So yeah, I think I know what I’m asking from my family this Christmas =P

To be honest I’m still in a bit of a reading slump, which is blah. Some of the books I’m reading are interesting and others I haven’t quite gotten into yet but they’re not gripping my attention as much as I thought they would. So I started reading Nick Cutter’s The Troop, which I guess is pretty timely as Hallowe’en is today and this is supposed to be guaranteed chilling (I know some of you are Stephen King readers; he gave a quote about the book, saying “scared the hell out of me, and I couldn’t put it down. This is old-school horror at its best.” Feels like a stamp of approval, I think =))

I also started re-reading Sophocles’ three tragedies. I had read Antigone for my world lit course in undergrad but never got around to Oedipus the King and Electra. I only have Electra left but I’ve been enjoying it, there’s some really dramatic and powerful lines here and there. Antigone I think is still my favourite though, a few lines particularly stood out for me in that play.

NaNoWriMo is starting tomorrow. Am I ready (even though I’m essentially editing this month)? Not really. The drawback about editing by hand is that there’s hell of a lot to input into the computer O_o So you know what I’ll be doing this weekend alongside working on my portion of the presentation for one of my classes

I honestly laughed when I read this Tumblr post. It’s also rather sad.

I’m so sorry if you don’t want to think about it for another month or something but I’m already planning on Christmas gifts and when I’ll be ordering what when. Chapters Indigo stores already have their holiday items out so yup, it got me thinking. I still need to look for the Christmas cards that I know is somewhere in the house but yeah, the sooner I can get this done, the sooner I’ll feel relieved–kind of want to beat the bustle a bit this year.

I went out yesterday, browsing stores and whatnot, for a sweater or something and omg, there was nothing that I liked. Nothing at all O_o It’s like this winter season’s collections are just–yeah, they’re not my thing. So I ended up buying a scarf (as if I didn’t own too many scarves as is =P *loves scarves*)

And that’s about it for me! Hope everyone has a lovely Thursday and a good weekend! 🙂 If you’re participating in this, be sure to leave a link! I’d love to read what’s going on with you, bookish or otherwise =)

Writing: NaNoWriMo [Day 28]

Posted 28 November, 2012 by Lianne in Writing / 6 Comments

My first reaction?

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j/k!!!

No, I did not use a TARDIS and conducted some wibbly, wobbly, timey, wimey to get to this point (Doctor Who‘s “Waters of Mars” was such a good episode though) but I made it ;_; Especially after my last entry when I thought I was pretty much done for, it feels good to have crossed the finish line =)

Seeing as I just finished, I guess I won’t say too much about the matter for now except that it’s lovely to finally have all of the scenes that were running in my head about this character down somewhere. It’s a mess and a lot of the details are not down in a smooth and logical manner but almost everything about my protagonist is there: her family relations, her passions, her dispositions. I don’t think I’d recommend my approach to this novel to anyone else any time soon as clearly some of the details overlapped but ehh, it got the job done, and that’s the important thing.