A Birthday and Nano Crap!

I have a couple of things on my mind; neither of which are very interesting. Except maybe to me.

First is that today is my beloved niece's 30th birthday. And I am Not That Old. I can't be. For kicks I will share this picture we took, um, yesterday...

Oh yeah.
We're hot.


(On a side note, wow, my nails look really great. I had no idea I had nice nails back then!)



So other than not getting to celebrate this special day with my niece I also got to run out of gas and therefore my day was thrown. 

I don't do will with those kinds of tweaks. I'm "plan A" have I told you? In other words, I'm sure I have a touch of Autism because don't we all? Anyway. I took a nap, which I probably didn't need and now I'm already ready for bed. 

Lame. 

The other thing on my mind is that NaNoWriMo starts in two days and I am so not ready. 

I mean, I am ready because my story is ready. 

Yes, I said that! My. Story. Is. Ready!
(Okay, that got me excited!)

I am co-writing (not tried this before) a fantasy novel with my brother (the one not pictured... er, well, you can kind of see his ear if you look really close-lol). We have been talking about this story for a little while because I had a dream and then called him and jotted down the plot. We bashed it around a little and have been working on a basic outline which I summed up and emailed him yesterday.

In preparation this year I was able to take a Nano Pre-Game class through Storywonk.com and WOW! I feel ready! Yesterday's class was a basic run-down of "tips and tricks" and some the ideas got me really pumped. One thing they are offering is a DAILY podcast to help with motivation and ideas. I have signed up for that and there are just a few more things left to do.

One of the two assignments was to create a collage and I did that (mostly) with the characters. I created a Pinboard on Pinterest and you can see all the characters and how I will be visualizing them initially. They are already forming personalities in my head, of course. 

The second assignment was to create a soundtrack which was kind of hard for me because I need QUIET when I write. But it was explained that it was more like a movie soundtrack. I have most of the music picked out (it might surprise you) but haven't actually made a playlist so I'm working on that. I might need kid help because it's technology I'm not as familiar with (this is the girl that taped songs from the radio with her little tape player).

This story is actually book one of a trilogy and (ahem) I wrote the basic structure for all three books and that's what The Brother got last night. 

Yeah. I'm excited.

I have learned a couple of things about how I write. I can't do the 15 minutes here or 15 minutes there because I immerse in the "other world." I have to be left alone. I am going to try and do my writing first thing in the morning but I don't know if that's feasible given I have kids and all. Reasonably speaking I can take approximately 1-2 hours between 9:00 AM and 2:30 PM Monday through Thursday when my kids are at school. 

Fridays are Superman's day. Superman is home and he doesn't really "let" me write. I say that with a grin because he just sees Friday as the day to "get things done" so I can't ignore him and lock myself in my room. I can, if I tell him, but usually it is a day to get things done so we'll see. (It will mean less time with my Superman, and I need that time!)

I am going to try and gung-ho for the first week or so and get as much out as I can. Those of you who have been through this with me before know that I peter out pretty quick so I'm taking my natural tendency to QUIT and figuring out how to overcome it.

One thing I have to remember, and dear Lani Gave Me Permission, to shut off my internal editor and Just Write. Write Crap. Write a conversation with a character (if she/he misbehaves). I can write backstory (that may or may not be relevant in the end). I can write crap. She told me I could. And I shouldn't edit until six weeks later, so we're talking January or February before I even look at this nonsense. YES!

I also don't do Nano Communities very well and I'm trying to do that as well, but the time it takes me away from the task of writing (can you say AVOIDANCE) will determine how much I spend in a community.

One last thing. To those of you who want to read what I'm writing, I'm okay with that. The only thing I have to say to you is; REMEMBER it is my first draft. It is ROUGH. It might not make sense. It might be all over the place and what I will want from you is; WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE PART. Identifying what is Good about it will be the job of my initial readers, if you want to be included. 

Wow.
I feel better. I was feeling kind of blecky but blogging about Nano really got me going.
Tomorrow I will work on my soundtrack and some other prep (non-writing) I need to do.
Yes, I will be blogging through the Nano and the blogs may or may not stay with my daily themes. We'll see.

Woohoo! Here we go!

P.S. It looks like I scored a B in my last class which was a Biology lab and I was Hating it! So glad it's over and honestly, a little shocked I got a B. LOL.
I will be taking a TED class in November (already started) which I am NOT excited about but it doesn't look to horrible. It's Special Ed. so it should be good for me and Crackle. ---Crackle, a whole 'nother post!--