Showing posts with label NaNoWriMo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NaNoWriMo. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

NaNoWriMo: Final Results

Hey guys. Well yesterday was the last day of National Novel Writing Month, or the end of hell in my words. Haha. I will like to take this moment to give you all pats on the back or shoulders because we made it out alive. Even if some of us didn't win the event, it's the effort of trying our very hardest with the butt kicking and getting an idea out there in the world that may be the 'one' we will crown ourselves with the title of author.

So let's get to it, what are we going to do after NaNoWriMo? Well one or three things. Either plomp into food comas, read loads of books, or write some more? I go with all three if I was you. As writers, we have to balance our lifestyles with our writing and realistic choices like being an adult/student. It gives us the chance to breath and the chance to pretty much do whatever the hell we want since no one is around to stop us from taking a break. They see the way we look, talk, or even walk after dealing with our characters for a month straight, so the people of the outside world have to get use to us when we are in (how to put this nicely) our demonic forms. It's basically a sign for people to stay away till at least a week later or a month.. or till whenever we want a touch of reality..

MOVING ON.. haha. As I mentioned before, we writers are entitled to a break, or get that burst of energy to finish the damn novel! All I can really say is do what makes you happy when NaNoWriMo is done. If you want to keep working on the same project, do it. If you want time to work on another project, do it. If you want to binge eat, play videos games, etc- do it. It's entirely up to you as a writer and as a person. You can keep kicking ass like you normally do in your writing and edit the stuffing out of it.

I myself am taking a minor break from writing for a few days because I just gotten my new laptop (Trying to figure out scrivener and alternative to Microsoft word *don't have it yet..*) and work is giving me more hours (yikes) so there's that.. However, I will be blogging more now! Since I don't have to use my mom's laptop now, I can post book reviews faster than the speed of light. (Or try too at least lol). I dunno, my mind changes so many times that half of the stuff I say on here could be a bunch of lies or not.. Haha.

So what are you planning on doing now as a writer? Let me know in the comments below and I'll see you guys with another blog post really soon. Happy Howling!

Ps: You're crazies are beautiful and here's my final word count of the event.

Word count: 50,550
(So much better than last year! Two time 'champion' here lol)

Saturday, November 28, 2015

NaNoWriMo '15: Week four

Hey guys, so here we are on the final week of National Novel Writing Month! How are you guys doing? Decent? Did you win?! o.O You have to tell me, or not it's up to you haha. Today's short post is about music and how does music gets us writers in the mood to write when everything is rather distracting to the naked eye. I myself have a hard time focusing writing unless there is constant noise around me. (Which is normally why I write more in the kitchen where everyone is around instead of my room/desk.)

I wanted to exploit my musical tastes for you and maybe get you guys inspired with the music. If my musical tastes don't help ya, then so be it. Perhaps you would like share your favorites in the comments below? :) So let's begin shall we?

Ever since I was thirteen, I found myself falling in love with Japanese Rock/Pop/Metal. From the moment I found Gackt and Hyde, and anime shows like Wolf's Rain, Naruto and Loveless, I was hooked.

The way the Japanese was able to compile their music was heaven to me, a life's saver when I needed a escape from reality. The English lyrics are powerful in some songs and it inspired me to write and grow my career as a writer during high school. My favorite songs from Gackt is Redemption, while Hyde's song Season's call was heaven to my heart. To this day, I never forget to blast though songs when I'm in my room when I'm angry or in the mood to write. Along with the Japanese music, I listen to other bands like Breaking Benjamin, Linkin Park, Evanescence, etc, just to get different ideas for the stories I'm working on and they help, but the Japanese/anime music sparked my love for writing and for anime. It taught me how to embrace other types of music and culture while working on the writing.

So what type of music do you listen too while writing? Tell me in the comments below and I'll see you on Sunday with another blog post. Happy howling!

Current word count: 48,286

Hyde's Seasons call:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H12yeB7Lmo
Gackt's Redemption:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXp0v93ZRTs


Sunday, November 22, 2015

NaNoWriMo Week Three

Hey guys, hope things are well. How's NaNoWrimo going on for you thus far? It's been officially three week since this epic event started and man, we are kicking ass with our novels right? (or getting inspired everyday right?). Probably by the time you read this post, it would already be Sunday morning and I'm on track for the word count (35,000). Hopefully you all are kicking some ass with your writing too. :) I wanna hear about it..

In today's post, I felt that I needed to talk about one of the most important things in story writing. No it's not about plot or grammar since that those are the basic stuff in writing in my opinion, but I wanna talk about the way I see characters. Characters are what brings the story to life with their personalities and actions because about 80% of the time we want to go on epic adventures instead of dealing with stupid stuff like being an adult or student in school. When we write, we create these people out of our own minds, usually about what we desire to be or fantasize people that we want to see in real life, but never really do. However, sometimes they don't always get along with us and we can't write their stories until you break their grounds and force yourself to write shitty and revise later.

With my characters, its truly a hit or miss. They traveled with me everywhere I go like work, random trips, or their buddies' stories to examine what will happen to them if they don't behave. I mean, I don't know how you guys get along with your characters, but I'm just gonna point out how I manage to deal with them. Maybe these tips will help ya, but maybe not.

1. Torture: Blast music in your ears to block them from annoying you or torture them with shitty music if you're focusing on one project instead of five at once so they will behave and let you work. When you want to work one specific project, it usually works quite well.

2. Watch guilty pleasure shows: It's gonna help you get inspire to write and gather ideas for writing. In a way, its like your characters are watching the show with you so they can get inspire as well to be more developed once you get down to writing.

3. Eat sweets (Loads of it): If you want to treat your characters like human-ish beings, then you want to treat them with sweets so they can get along with. (It can be use as doggy treat when they're not working nicely with ya)

and finally 4. Have a conservation with them: They need that humanity to meld their personalities and motives because that's one of the most important parts when writing/reading. Characters are vile, we need them to read about them in order to enjoy their story to the fullest.

So there you have it, my odd tips of how to make get along with your characters. How do you get along with your characters while in the middle of the writing process? Let me know in the comments below and I'll be with another post real soon. See you later and happy howling!

Word count as of 11:30 for NaNoWriMo: 35,479 words

Saturday, November 14, 2015

NaNoWriMo Week Two

Hey guys, so I apologize for not committing to the twitter sprints. I had work during the times I wanted to do them so I couldn't really get to a computer without passing out. So as a result to it, I'm not gonna do the sprints this year, but next year for Camp NaNoWrimo in April for you all. :) Now on to the next activity, week two. This week, I barely made the word count for the past few days. Throughout this week, I had to work odd shifts at work and the motivation to write was crashing down so hard since all I wanted to do was watch Arrow.

However, after tonight, I'll be caught up and reading like a speed demon for reviews, I just hope you all can forgive me and join me in April for twitter related fun and what not. Any who, what was planned for this week was me listing down some (hopefully) helpful writing tools that helps us get through the day of writing like a fiend. So today I'm going to list ten tools I like to use to get me writing and maybe inspire you guys the stuff you like to use while writing. :)

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1. Laptop/computers: That one is pretty oblivious right? The laptop are the godsend objects that allow to hide away our drafts in a locked and key location. To help gather information for our lovely projects, and to watch Netflix when bored.

2. Scrivener and Microsoft word: Now I'm still getting use to scrivener, but Microsoft word has been a godsend to use. It helps me write my manuscripts in private, and there's so much to learn about the program while editing the shit out of the drafts too.

3. Notebooks, Pens/Pencils, binders (etc): These older tools are still legendary to us writers, but yet we still use them for private journals, school, just about everything we can muster. It helps us keep organize and enjoy ourselves in the daydreaming world.

4. Food/Books: People gotta eat, have snacks, have a few drinks to get the heat going in their systems. Plus, books are a huge ass help to feel motivated and get tips on how to grow as a better writer too.

5. Comfy clothes: If a writer is comfy, the writer is happy. If the writer are wearing stuff that involves going into reality to do adult things, then we are not happy at all.

6. Comfort drinks: Many of us like coffee and liquor. I'm on the liquor department, but after drinking ice tea, water, hot chocolate, the energy just keeps on going haha.

7. Music/head phones: Let's use the time wrap again! Music is the best thing in the entire world.

8. Blankets/pillows: To keep our bodies warm when we don't want to move from the bed or couches.

9. Pets: The comfort of animals is a wonderful thing when you're dealing with stress. Animals have a weird ability to know when someone is need to be relax while they work. My dog helps me whenever I'm alone and she sits with me like right now as I type this for ya.

10. Family/friends: We all need a party of people that jumpstart our fan base. They are there when you cheer, cry, vent too when stress. They know how you act and feel and support you even when they tease you about hiding in a cave for days just to write.

So that was my list, what's your list of tools when writing the big stuff? Let me know in the comments below and I'll see you on Monday, happy howling!

Saturday, November 7, 2015

NaNoWriMo Week One

Hey guys, well today at midnight is the end of week one for the NaNoWriMo. Since this post is mainly about an update and some quotes, I figured we should get right down to it right? So, how are things going for you all? Are you reaching today's goal or just writing for fun without a focus on the word count like I am? :) On my end, I'm meeting the goal, but at the same time, I'm taking my time because real life and laziness. So far, I'm about to reach 11,000 with my bucket list, but I have a fan-fic project taking over the bucket's manuscript and you don't have much control over it whenever the story pops right into your head. But, other than that silliness, things are decent.

Now onto the main focus of week one, writing quotes. We all get into those horrible ruts that deepens our depression and lowers our confidence levels by let's say 50% of the time. When we don't have that special motivation, sometime we look to other things that would boost ourselves to our fullest to keep on going with our writing. So, today to motivate you lovely writers, I'm going to present ten writing related quotes I found on good reads and hopefully you'll enjoy them to the fullest. :) Happy Howling fellow writers!

1. No one can tell your story so tell it yourself. No one can write your story so write it yourself.

2. Forget all the rules. Forget about being published. Write for yourself and celebrate writing." -Melinda Haynes

3. Writing is a struggle against silence

4. Every secret of a writer's soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works." -Virginia Woolf

5. Be courageous and try to write in a way that scares you a little. -Holley Gerth

6. As a writer, you ask yourself to dream while awake." Aimme Bender

7. The secret of becoming a writer is to write, write, and keep on writing.- Ken MacLeod

8. Writing is the painting of the voice!- Voltaire

9. Your biggest problem is yourself. Getting out of the way and letting your imagination take over is the best way. Jerry Cleaver

10. There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter--and bleed. -Ernest Hemingway

Sunday, November 1, 2015

National Novel Writing Month 2015!

Happy NaNoWriMo! Or in the writing, happy exciting hell month to us! I know many of you know what this month is all about so I won't go into details or at least the long ass ones. But, this year, I'm making time to make blog posts about this joyous event since I'm no longer in school. All of the information I'm gonna give you are going to be dates I'm going to be posting in relation to this so we can interact with each other as writers and maybe do random sprints on twitter if you're interested, of course. ;)

Originally, I wasn't going to take part of this, I was planning to stay hidden in the writing cave to work on it with no pressure from the limited time. Life can affect the writing and 80% of the time, I don't have the ability to balance stuff until its too late. However, once I saw the famous book tubers talk about this event, I realize that I can't do that. I needed to make a goal and kick ass like the rest of you can with your novels. In my writing, I'm a messy one that likes to work multiple projects at once instead of sticking to only one. Last year and 2013, I worked on my Reaper series and surprisingly I had success in it, including getting to 50k each time.. (Maybe its the calling novel? Just wait and see haha), but this year I have a messy method on writing various chapters of my bucket list stories. You heard me folks, I'm gonna work on my bucket list stories as a 'novel'. Twelve stories with multiple chapters, 50k, simple right? Maybe, maybe not. I just hope that things are gonna do decently and kick ass with you all on this monthly journey. So let's give each other the  motivation we need and enjoy ourselves because if we don't write, our minions (characters) are gonna kick our butts in our dreams lol.

Thank you for being a part of this post. I'll leave all the dates and twitter hashtag down below for you and let's be great writing friends on NaNoWriMo as well. Keep kicking ass and I'll see you guys with a book review on a random book in my shelves. Good luck and happy NaNoWriMo!!!

- - -

Links:

NaNoWriMo: Rayne Wolf

Twitter: xTheWolfWriterx / #wolfwriters15 (on Wednesdays at 3pm & 8pm eastern times, will say otherwise if something is going on; starting on 11/11/15)

Watt pad: xTheWolfWriterx

Dates for NaNoWriMo posts:

11/7/15: Week one & Ten writing quotes (to keep us going)

11/14/15: Week two & Top ten writing tools

11/21/15: Week three & How to get along with our minions aka characters

11/28/15: Week four & Writing Music Hour

11/30/15: Final day, what's next for us writers?


Wednesday, October 28, 2015

NaNoWriMo Tag

Hey guys, today we are going to do something a little different because we are almost to the time of hell and fantastic fun times. That's right, its almost time for National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo for us crazy writers. So, I figured let's start the Pre-NaNoWriMo with a fun tag I found on youtube created by Kristina Horner. It's basically a tag about the experience of NaNoWriMo and to encourage people to try this event out for the first time.

Let's get started!

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1) How many times have you done NaNoWriMo?

I've done it on and off for five years now. As a person with very low confidence in thyself, I never really sat and done it because events happened during that time. But, last year was an eye opener because I did it and won with my Reaper story by five words lol.

2) How did you find out about NaNoWriMo?

Umm.. Through fiction press and the blog "Let The Words Flow/(Pub)lishing Crawl" when I was sixteen. Helped me get through a rough patch in my life at the time and encouraged me to write again.

3.) What was the name of the first novel you attempted with NaNoWriMo?

Ring of Roses, a fantasy about a ritual gone wrong and a girl finding out the truth about her biological mother.

4.) Give us a I sentence summary of what you're writing this year.

Uh.. I don't have one.. I'm still debating if I'm doing this at all this year or not. Sorry!

5.) What's the best writing advice you've ever been given?

My grandpa told me before his death "Just write the damn book, we're always behind you if you need the push" so I keep the words close to my heart because he was my biggest fan..

6.) Did you ever take a year off from NaNoWriMo? Why?

Yep, Personal reasons that I don't want to explain on here.

7.) What's your biggest inspiration when figuring out what to write?

Anime, music, and probably daydreaming.

8) Read us the first sentence from one of your novels

I can't really read it since I can't record stuff at this time, but I have one for you guys from a random thing: "Every memory is similar to a single petal of a flower. Holding onto its vibrant scents of the specific memory till it looses its gentle grip on the unbearable reality forever."

9) Why do you love writing?

I don't have a reason behind it, I just do.

- - -
Alright so that was the NaNoWriMo tag. What are your answers for this cool tag? Send me the links to your blog posts or videos so I can see them! I hope you all have a great day and happy howling my fellow wolves!

Links:

My NaNoWriMo (Let's be buddies!): http://nanowrimo.org/participants/rayne-wolf

The Tag video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjP-mr0hprY&index=1&list=FL3ujVaxy12x5398r3CqihvA


Friday, December 12, 2014

The end of it all, Welcome December!

Hey everyone, happy late December! (I'm a few days late, sue me, ha).

What is up everyone, welcome to the month of Winter's beginnings. NaNoWriMo was officially over a week ago and surprisingly I kicked it's ass! o-O It's so weird, but it felt awesome to win the event for the first time ever. I somehow managed to get to the 50k with five words ahead and only 2.5 hours remaining. I could've written more if I wanted too, but I had other homework to attend too at that time, including now since it's finals time.

Anyway, I'll keep this post short and basically go over the concept of what are the future plans I have in store for you all. I plan on writing throughout the majority of my month long break and posting on watt pad. When I have my first actual story posted on the 19th, I will be putting a link of it in my next post for you guys to enjoy. Along with that, I'm currently prepping for the booktube account I mentioned a little while ago and I'm praying I don't sound like a major idiot on you tube. Like the watt pad, I will be posting a link of my channel in the next post. However, I will not be posting a video till January 1st, mainly because of the 'new year' fever, but rest assure the videos will be began and also I will be returning with blog posts as well.

That's all I really got to say at the moment, right now finals are kicking my ass and I have to get back to work. Bye for now wolves and remember:

happy howling!

Friday, November 28, 2014

NaNoWriMo Post: The final countdown, help us all.

Hello my fellow wolves!

So I'm returning here to give you all a update on NaNoWriMo and let me tell you something important because I think you may take this to heart if you are a student like I am. NaNoWriMo is hard as all living hell!! School will kick your sorry butt into the curb till you will become brain-dead once all of the major school you have done is completely. Don't get me wrong, going to college will help you get somewhat further in life and I'm not bitching about that, but after dealing with so much crap and school work, it makes writing fairly difficult. I will tell you know, I am really surprise to be at 26k right now and I truly didn't think I would get that far this year in school, but hell if I lose this year's event, I will be happy to be where I am at now than to never start it from the get-go.

Since we are nearing the end of the event, I bet all of you are speed demon writing like I am just to get to a high ass word count. As a writer, I will push you and tell you to keep going because after writing for a certain amount of time, you will develop the urges to keep writing even when you can't because of life in general. The urge is strong I tell ya, it's crazy. If you are doing well, then congrats you're kicking ass, but if you're like me and are lacking, it's okay, keep trying even if you don't have the emotional and mental energy to do. I'm telling you, this event will make you grow as a writer. I promise. If you keep trying, things will get you far in writing.

In other relatable news, I've decided to try out book-tubing next year. I'm sort of figuring out, what better way to try to meet writers/readers than by doing that. I've always wanted to try it, but never had the guts to do it (plus I'm not that pretty to stare at..). But, considering I am going to be done with my second-to-last semester of my senior year in college, I'm starting to warm up to the idea of book-tubing. When I watch the other book-tubers like Polandbananasbooks, katy-tastic, etc and authors like Susan Dennard-- I get so excited because of the way how they are able to geek about books and other things freely without the bitter judgments. In a way, I feel like I need to start making a impact in literature and give out my opinion as a repayment to other writers and readers that want to explore the world that fiction and art can give us.

But yeah, that's all for now. Till I get things set up, I will be posting the links to share and get some stories prepped up for you guys on watt pad as well.

Till next time, guys.

Happy howling!

Sunday, November 9, 2014

Weekly post of NaNoWriMo One

Hello everyone, welcome to November and in the writer's world-- NaNoWriMo! So I know I promised to be around more in the blogging world, but school took over my soul. Damn you college and the senior year. Okay, small hate rant over, let's talk.

NaNoWriMo is a time of heaven and frantic hell. A time where the writers to come together and enjoy our company to share our stories and bounce off inspiration. But, it's also a fun contest. Now I know what you're going to ask me, 'Do you win anything? How is this a contest?', in all honestly on my part, when I talk about a contest for NaNo-- it's basically a personal contest. A mental and emotional goal to yourself to reach the 50,000 word mark of whatever novel you're currently writing. I mean yeah you don't really any official prize, but you do get a chance to feel the burst of excitement when the creative juices pour into your mind and the empty/unfinished document you have sitting on your laptop.

It's suppose to encourage you as a writer and have fun with other writers around you in your home town or in another part of the world. It's a fun global event that I personally recommend for you guys to try out some time. Hell, you can join right now and get your butt into speed writing. This is a hard and fun event, but very fulfilling if you are truly serious as a writer.

In my personal weekly update, I'm somewhat close to the daily word count, but if as a college student, it is very difficult to maintain doing the event and keeping a keen eye on making yourself write. Since the event started, I somehow managed to get to 10k with my draft thus far, but this weekend was seriously lacking on my end and I didn't meet the word count for the last two days. So at this very moment, I'm working on it for day 9 so I can update the word count this coming Wednesday, why you ask? Well because I can, muhahaha and I also want to see if anyone will catch up or smash me like a ton of bricks with their high word count. Oh course that being said, I do have to keep up with the homework since I do have a major paper due on the 21st and some other wacko stuff approaching soon, so I'm not sure how this is gonna work out with NaNoWriMo.. I don't know, my school life is odd, like yours I'm sure. Hehehe.

So how are you guys doing in NaNoWriMo? Let's chat about it in the comments below. I hope to hear from you guys. And remember, Happy Howling my fellow wolves, stay tune for a few upcoming reviews for the week and next Sunday's NaNoWriMo weekly update on Sunday the 16th.

Bye for now!