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Showing posts with label JuNoWriMo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label JuNoWriMo. Show all posts

Friday, July 11, 2014

Vampire Friday: Vampire Heart part 15


So for Camp NaNo this month, I'm writing my second science fiction novel, there will even be equations in it and I have a second physicist to help me check them out. That story still doesn't have a title though.

Anyway, that doesn't stop our vampire story to continue... We start right where we left off last week, Viorel was talking about snacking on the Jäger. (<--- Correct spelling here and wrong through the entire draft, you can see the purpose of editing.)

Don't forget to get your copy of Harajuku Kiss it's 25% off for the all month of July at Smashwords. My other books are all 75% off.

Final word count for the moment, nothing changed here:

Here is today's part. Enjoy! (Don't forget to Enlarge this document in a new window for a better reading experience.


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Friday, July 4, 2014

Vampire Friday: Vampire Heart part 14

JuNoWriMo is over and I managed to reach my goal of 50000 words for June, I even wrote 50003 for Vampire Heart. I'm not going to continue to work on it for camp NaNoWriMo July, as I need to do some research about Vikings first but I will still be posting 5 pages on Fridays.
Viorel's trip is going crazy. He is making a lot of enemies and discovering new things about his friends. 

Don't forget to get your copy of Harajuku Kiss it's 25% off for the all month of July at Smashwords. My other books are all 75% off.

Final word count for the moment:


Here is today's part. Enjoy! (Don't forget to Enlarge this document in a new window for a better reading experience.



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Sunday, June 30, 2013

JuNoWriMo: Vampire Heart part 8 and WIN !


Sorry for the post running later and later on this blog but I'm kind of shifted in time, I guess that's what you get when you sleep about 4 hours at night during the week, and more than 12 hours during the week-end.





Anyhow, I am not here to discuss my crazy sleeping pattern, but to announce that I finally reached 50083
words of Vampire Heart for JuNoWriMo !

This not only makes me a winner, but it also brings me to  a total word count of 103360 words for the story and it's still far from being finished, I would say I'm not yet half done. This will be the longer story I ever wrote if you consider that I can cut my never ending demon related ideas into smaller pieces.
The next challenge is coming soon, stay tuned!!


As last time you had very little to read, it is logical that you will have a lot more this time. You will also meet two new characters full of secrets. No killing, no blood sucking, just strange meetings and thoughts from Viorel's mind.
Enjoy Vampire Heart !!

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Go to Vampire heart part 7
Go to Vampire heart part 9 


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Saturday, June 22, 2013

JuNoWriMo: Vampire Heart part 7

It's Saturday again and time for a JuNoWriMo Vampire Heart update. 
This week I spend most of my time editing "Demon and Fairy" with the help of the critique I recieved and advices from a English native speaker friend and beta readers. It might not be perfect but it will be awesome! I was already told twice that it is better than Demon Soul, I think it's because my skills as a writer are improving. Anyway it will reflect who and where I am at now and I hope you will enjoy it.

But the problem, with all those hours spend on the editing, is that it didn't left me much time to write Vampire Heart. Even so, the story is progressing nicely as I have been planning a lot while walking to and back from work. Viorel has killed a lot of people, vampires included. He will soon move to Kraków in the kingdom of Poland and meet with other interesting people and a surprise for my readers. I'm really excited about this story, it might be the longest I ever wrote, it might even be a trilogy and there will be so much more to it to come in the next few month. I also like the psychological analyses of mankind through the eyes of a vampire.
All Novels Drafts 


But no more talking, enjoy today's part. 

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Go to Vampire heart part 6
Go to Vampire heart part 8 
 

Saturday, June 15, 2013

JuNoWriMo: Vampire Heart part 6

It's the end of JunoWriMo's week 2 and it is time for me to give you the next part of Vampire Heart. 
This week I have had some  problems with my writing. Maybe I was a little bit burned out or ran out of motivation, or needed to sleep but I had quite a few days when I couldn't feel like writing. Luckily this didn't last too long and I managed to catch up with my schedule so you'll have something to read today as usual. 
I didn't write yesterday and probably won't write today as I'm trying to finish the editing of "Demon and Fairy" this week-end but I have six days advance on the normal schedule so I can allow myself a little bit of rest. 

The more I progress into Vampire Heart the more I feel like this story is far from being finished even though I already hit 80000 words, so I decided to aim at 240000 words which means that I should have the equivalent of three books for it. Either I'll have a really big novel out of it and a lot of parts to cut out or I'll have a trilogy like I have thought many time. I'm hoping to have the first draft finished sometimes in August. So you'll have a lot more Vampire Heart Saturdays coming up.
All Novels Drafts 

JuNoWriMo word count so far: 32716 words




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Saturday, June 8, 2013

JuNoWriMo: Vampire Heart part 5


It has been a week since the beginning of JuNoWriMo. I spend the first day rereading Vampire Heart which had been abandoned in a corner of my computer for no less than three years. I can't believe that I remembered so much about it and I even remembered the part of it I hadn't yet written at that time. I think that story never really left me and was still hoping to be written some day. I had stopped writing it because it's not really my usual thing. It's a Vampire Story and I really often use vampires in my stories but it's also an historical fiction. It starts about 600 years ago in Sighişoara which is located in today's Romania but was part of Hungary at the time the story start. Viorel, the main character is escaping and traveling West to Europe to find himself and a way to take revenge. I wanted every historical fact and geography to be correct over 600 years of travel. That was overwhelming! After 69449 words, I have only covered 4 years but they are 4 amazing years. I also want to put some science in it as to how a vampire can actually live on blood and so on... It is another challenge that I'm ready to work with now.
What I discovered while rereading was all the editing needed but it didn't stop me and I'll go for it and finish this draft. It might be my longest draft ever because Viorel is still very far from his goal and has a lot to learn before going back to Sighişoara. I had thought once about making this story a trilogy but I guess I'll decide that when I have a full draft in my hands.
All Novels Drafts 

Anyway, enough talking let's go to the facts. I'm at 16208 words in total for the current JuNoWriMo challenge. I was supposed to be at 17500 words last night but I decided to sleep instead, I can't possibly go to bed at 4am every night. I'll catch up today.







And as promised here is the fifth part of Vampire Heart for you to enjoy.


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Saturday, June 1, 2013

June Challenges

Today is the first of June and also the start of many challenges for me. In one hand it feels like "WHAT first of June already? I'm not ready for that!" and the other hand it feels like I had been waiting for it for a long long time.
So yesterday I wrote a list of everything I'm supposed to do during this month and my boyfriend ended up telling me that I can do it all only if I'm not human. As one of my friend has been calling me a monster I think I might have a chance. So I'm going to try anyway. You have to remember, I hate to lose (Oh god! I lost the game!) so I'll do whatever it takes... including not sleeping, not eat, not breathing... you got the idea ;)
So now lets stop the joke and write down the to do list:

To Do List for June 2013:

1) Finish the 6 Week Challenge
I have until the 12th to get 61 hours of Japanese study which means my usual 5 hours a day routine, so it's really doable.With update on the blog every Wednesday.


2) Read more or die (please join here)
My goal is to read 1200 pages of Japanese novel before the end of the month 30th midnight which means 40 pages a day. I think that's the most challenging thing for me this month. I used to read in the bus but I'm not taking the bus anymore so I need to find a different time to read. The good point, it should increase my hour count for the 6 Week Challenge. The update will follow the update of the 6 Week Challenge.
You can follow my stats as I go here.


 

 
3) JuNoWriMo (please join here)
I decided to participate in JuNoWriMo to finally finish the first draft of Vampire Heart. Seeing that my demon characters won't leave me alone that is going to be a lot of fun. I need to cover 600 years of European and Asian history too. I stopped working on it because I was stuck about the history part and I haven't figured out the way out yet. It might as well be written as a trilogy as 600 years is a very very long time... so we'll see what happens. I'm aiming at 50000 words and decided to start with my usual 2500 words a day routine as explained in the tips post to win NaNoWriMo. You can start reading Vampire Heart here, a new part of the story will be added every week.




4) Daily blogging
The updates on the different challenges should cover some ground here.
I also have my participation to the Week-end Writing Warriors every Sunday, the entries can all be found here
I'm intended to write some character stories like I did for the A-to-Z challenge back in April this time using characters of Vampire Heart. The character stories for the A-to-Z challenge can be found here.
I will also finish the travel series about France.
Then for the day with nothing I'll probably find something interesting so no worries.

5) Mich's summer mystery
Mich's summer mystery contest will be starting on June 21 and I need to prepare the story to be able to have regular posts about it on the blog leaving my clues. You can join the contest here, let's have fun together. But be prepare for the craziest thing I ever wrote in my entire life: crazy grammar, crazy plot, crazy character, crazy places. 

6) Demon and Fairy editing 
I need prizes for the Mich's summer mystery and I intend to have paperbacks of my new novel "Demon and Fairy" for the winner, so I need to have it edited by the end of the month to be able to use my NaNoWriMo winner coupon with CreateSpace. Wish me luck. You can find the excerpt for Demon and Fairy every Sunday as part of the Week-end Writing Warriors challenge.

7) Illustrations
I am still a bit short in Illustrations for Demon and Fairy and I want to illustrate the blog post of Mich's summer mystery as well so I'll be also drawing during the first part of the month. To be able to make it on time I will need to find a more efficient way to work on my art.


Now, as no-human can do it, let me become a monster... transformation...


Saturday, May 25, 2013

10 tips to win NaNoWriMo


As JuNoWriMo is starting in 7 days, I though it would be a nice things to make a plan on how to win this tremendous challenge of writing at least 50000 words in a month. The first contest of this type, where you only compete with yourself, is NaNoWriMo and is held every November. I already wrote few posts containing tips, but I want to organize them better in one places and to add some more.






Tip 1: Write as much as possible as soon as possible 
(previous entry on that here)

In the perfect world, you have 31 days to write 50000 words, that's 1613 words a day. But that won't happen. We all have a life. We all have priorities and other things to do than writing. Even with 2 or 3 hours cleared up every day on your schedule to write, there is the research, the blocks, countless things hiding in the corner to just get in your way and make sure that you won't write. So the tip here is to write the most at the beginning. Instead of stopping as soon as you reach your daily 1613 words, keep going. I would advise to chose for yourself a slightly higher daily word goal and to stick to it as much as possible. Mine is generally 2500 words a day which means that every two days I am one day in advance. If I have a problem and can't write for a day I can still easily make it.
The second reason to choose a higher daily word goal is that the beginning of something new can be really exciting so it's really easy to write a lot. At the end you have seen your friends give up, you are maybe feeling alone with that, you want time with your relatives and family, you see that you are getting closer to your word goal but you are no where near the end of the novel which can be discouraging (I need about 80000 to 100000 words to finish mine so NaNo takes me above half way), he end is harder to write than the beginning. If you have more words than needed by the 20th of June, you can do all those things and still happily sit to write even if a little bit less. Save yourself the tears of being late.

Tip 2: Update your word count on the NaNo website every 5 minutes.
(previous entry on that here

This one is about motivation. And what keeps you motivated. Every word counts. Make them count, update your word count. Seeing the big number grow even a little is going to make you feel good. You will have a visual effect of it growing. You can even make up little games. 
1) I write for 5 minutes and see how much I can get, update. Let's beat the previous 5 minutes word count, update.
2) Write 100 words, update. Every one can write 100 words easily, remember that 50000 is only 100 words 500 times. Update.
If you don't update for yourself be nice and update for others, find someone with who you can play catch up and see who reaches the goal first. 

Tip 3: 10 words are better than 1.
(previous entry on that here   
I learned that one at a NaNoWriMo hang out when I was in Belfast for my first NaNoWriMo. Use adjectives, increase your word count by writing more than you want to. What you are writing now is a first draft, it will change when editing, everything will change and you will have plenty of time to find the right words later. Don't try to make it perfect now so that you don't need to edit it because you will need to edit it, there is no secret about it, you will edit it like mad anyway. Stay focus on your purpose, you want 50000 words and a finished draft. Add details. The more I do NaNoWriMo the more I find this advice useful, because the details you add actually help a lot when editing. If you don't really know how to say something adding a lot helps when you are trying to remember what it was all about when editing. Don't be afraid of useless words or ideas, at this point, they are your friends.

Tip 4: Flashbacks add three dimensions to your characters and words to your word count. 
(previous entry on that here
Let's say you are a little bit stuck. Your character is somewhere that you don't know and you don't know what he can do to get out of here and go back to the plot. Give him a break and time to think. Make him remember what happened before. I'm a big fan of flashbacks. In my first novel there is an entire relationship only built on flashbacks in someone's memory. Flashbacks make your characters more real, every body think about the past or project the future, readers relate more to characters they can do that with. Whenever you don't know where to move forward too, project the thought on the page, that will add to your word count. 

Tip 5: Abuse WRITE OR DIE! 
(previous entry on that here
I gave this advice for the past Camp NaNo last month to some people and they hated it because it was eating their precious words. I'm sorry to say but if they had been writing it wouldn't have (I can be really mean like that.) WRITE OR DIE is the replacement for a word war. You can't do a word war if you are alone, and word wars (another made for them is "words sprint") are so efficient to keep you going. I'm on the other side of the planet compared to most of my writing friends when I write they sleep. I use write or die to have my private word wars and it works as long as you keep writing. 

Tip 6: Think about what you are going to write during your "dead" moment. 
(previous entry on that here)
Contrarily to common beliefs, you don't need a computer, a notebook, a quiet room to be working on your novel. You can be working on your novel 24 hours a day. (Including when you sleep, yes, yes!) 
There are hundreds of moments when you are actually waiting for things (dead moments) and even moments when you are performing tasks that don't require your full attention and brain functions. 
I like to work under the shower. I was recently ask: "How can you write under the shower?" well it's very easy indeed. I think. I know where my characters are at and I'm creating what is happening next, then when I finally come back to the computer I just have to type. Thinking and typing at the same time can be slow. If you already did the thinking at least partially typing becomes a lot more efficient. It also give you the inertia to keep going. The easier the beginning of your writing session the longer you will keep at it.

Tip 7: Never stop at the end of a paragraph/chapter/section.
(previous entry on that here) 
Yes it totally makes sense to stop when you finish something, but at the same time it doesn't help you start again. So you finished your paragraph and you are happy. You just go to bed leaving your train of thoughts go away from the novel and when you open your document the next morning and start to write you don't know where to start because there is nothing before, nothing to give you a clue. When I wrote a linear novel, from point A to point B without really leaving the character, it might not happen much but when I was working on Demon World with three different stories going on simultaneously and alternating with each other, this tip became really handy. I always started to write the introduction of the next part before going to do something else. When in rare cases I didn't I had a lot of troubles knowing what to do next. The thing is that while you are in the writing process, you still have coherent ideas, if you stop the coherence might get lost.  

Tip 8: Don't edit. (But if you are to edit...)  
Don't edit. You can argue all you want, just cutting out large pieces of work in a moment of everything-I-write-is-bad-and-I-can't-stand-it-it-has-to-go crap is not going to help you toward your goal, which let me remind you in case you forgot with all my rambling advices, is to get your word count to 50000 words and call yourself a winner. But I know it's hard to avoid rewriting stuff, just rewrite the paragraph and add it to the entire thing, don't remove the previous work, those words were also written they count, no matter how bad they feel, they are still words and they are still yours and they are going to help you toward your goal even if you have to throw them away later. Don't go into a word killing hunt, keep them while they help you. 

Tip 9: Stop beating yourself up for being late and setting unreachable new daily word counts. 
So you had some little problems for the entire week but now it's over so you are going to write 5000 words a day. Now the end is near and you are going to stop being a very bad writer and you are going to sit at the computer and type until your fingers start bleeding on the keyboard. You need to stop being so bad and lazy and to write. And... let me tell you, this is not going to happen. 
Don't try making yourself a better person because that is not going to happen, it didn't happen during the previous NaNos and it won't happen during this one either. 
There is a large problem called the planing fallacy which basically says that people tend to overestimate what they can accomplish and result in taking more time than expected to do it. 
So here are some ideas to avoid becoming a victim of the planning fallacy. 
1) Remember the past. No matter how hard you tried you couldn't get to your daily word count. Reduce it. Remember, 10 words is better than 1 and 1 word is always better than 0. Create a new daily word goal that you can reach. If you reach it once, then twice, you are allowed to increase it again. Learn to know yourself and to know what you can accomplish for real, not in a dream or perfect state because those don't exist. 
2) Forget the past. You are late, too bad, no point whining about it, it won't help. Just forget about it, start the new day as a new start and write something, anything. 

Tip 10: Reward yourself for little wins. 
In general if you tell yourself that you'll get something when you reach this or that it keeps you going. Of course the last word that you are going to write is important, it makes you win. But you couldn't have win with only that word. You also needed the 49999 words which came before, every single one of them. This is better explained here on AJATT. He gives you a lot of examples. 
Reward yourself for small achievement. It will keep you happy and if that's not already enough, it will keep you writing.

Tip 11: Decide!
This is probably the most important tip because even if you don't follow any of the above it will make you a winner. You have to decide that you are going to win this no matter what. I believe that winning it is before anything else a decision.

I hope you found this helpful. Please share your winning plans with me and help create more tips to help more and more people be a NaNoWriMo winner. We need those books.