Back from the Netherworld

Hello, people of the internet! I have an announcement: I AM ALIVE.

Yes, I know, I was gone for so long you all thought me dead. But I wasn't! I was just buried under a mountain of NaNoWriMo Craziness.

But I finished Nano! I'm so proud of myself; I wrote 20,000 words in two days. Of course, those 20,000 words are awful, but who cares? NOT ME.

My insane typing killed my hands and my brain so I gave myself a few days to recover. But now I'm back from outer space, and regular posting will resume tomorrow! (Not that it was ever that regular to begin with.)

You also might notice that I have changed my blog url. The last one was super boring so I wanted something new. This one is only slightly less boring, but whatever. It will do.

So congrats to everyone who won Nano! And congrats to anyone who tried, even if you only got 100 words! Writing anything is good, so here, have some gifs that express my feelings towards all of you guys:

And also have this gif because it is wonderful and no one will ever convince me otherwise:

Live-Blogging Nano

Hello Blogosphere. I have a confession. It is a terrible and heart-wrenching one. It is the kind of confession that makes you weep copiously while pounding the carpet with your hands as your family members look on in shame, wondering how on earth they could be related to you.

I am behind on NaNoWriMo. Like, way behind.

Now, this is my fourth year doing Nano. I'm used to being behind. But I've never, and I mean never, been this behind. I am currently 25,000 words behind where I'm supposed to be. Let that sink in a minute. 25,000 words.

This is a bit disheartening. But because I have this thing where I cannot imagine failure being a distinct possibility, I SHALL PREVAIL. It's the holidays, I'll just chug out a few 5,000 word days and be back on track! No big deal, right?

Well, it's not that much of a big deal when you don't have shopping to do, or family to visit, or knitting to catch up on or tv to watch or posses the most amazing procrastination skills on the planet. And so I have decided to take a cue from Beth Revis's live-blogging of her Nano experience and try it out for myself. Maybe public shaming will spur me on to my first 5,000 word day of the month.

So, I will update this post throughout the day with my writing stats. And, without further ado, LET THE NANO DAY OF AWESOME BEGIN.

Word Count at Start of the Day: 10,969 (Even though it's not really the start of the day, seeing as it's already 1:30 in the afternoon...DON'T YOU JUDGE ME. Sleep is important for good writing...right?)

Round One: 10,969
Time: 1:40
Status: Time for the important scene of importance that is filled to the brim with nightmares, ghosts, romantic tension and endless shipping. I am going to tackle this scene LIKE A BOSS.

Round Two: 11,505
Time: 3:40
Status: Well...oops. The good news is that I wrote 500 words! But the bad news is then I ate lunch...and cleaned the kitchen...and did laundry. Who knew cleaning could be a procrastination tool? But now I have tea and a cool scene to write. I AM BACK ON TRACK.

Round Three: 12,214
Time: 4:20
Status: THE CHEESY ROMANCE HAS ARRIVED. And it has arrived with a vengeance. It's literally like I've taken spray cheese and sprayed it all over my novel, you guys. It's so hilariously bad. Part of me is proud of my ridiculous levels of cheesiness. The other part is horribly ashamed.

To Kill or not to Kill?

I'm currently worrking on the second draft of my WIP. Essentially, it's a dark paranormal/horror YA. There is a murdering ghost, a haunted house, a witch, etc. It's going quite well.

Except for the fact that I think I'm going to have to kill my main character.

Don't ask me why. For some reason, I just feel that the story will lose all its impact if the MC survives. But now I have to decide, who else is going to die?

Should I kill off her mother, to make the MC's death even more depressing? Or will that make her death lose some of its punch because she now has less to lose? Should I just kill the MC and have her mother be heartbreakingly sad about her death? *sigh* SO MANY DECISIONS.

And then there is the fact that I know some readers hate it when the MC dies at the end. I don't want to alienate a bunch of readers.

So, anyone out on the blogosphere have suggestions? Comments? Concerns about my mental health?

P.S.-- Have a gif of my writing process at the moment:

Too Many Feelings

I have a new goal in my life: I want to be a "Successful Manipulator of Feelings".

Saturday night was the premier of one of the most anticipated Doctor Who episodes in a long time. It featured two of the Doctor's friends (or companions) leaving the show. And it was heartbreaking.

I don't mean the kind of hearbreaking where a single manly tear slides down your cheek, or the kind of heartbreaking where you sniffle a bit and make some hot chocolate so you'll feel better. No, this is the kind of heartbreak that immobilizes you to the point where you can't even get out of your chair to go make that hot chocolate. This is the kind of sadness that resonates so deep within your soul that you end up a blibbering mess on the floor, crying into the carpet while your relatives look on in shame and disgust.

It's the episode that makes you look like this:

 

Yes, this is just a television show, and these are just fictional people. But that's the power of a good story, isn't it? Making you feel something so strong that it might as well be real? Isn't that the whole point of stories in the first place?

And what's one way for a storyteller to do that? Powerful characterization.

Now, I am not going to go on and make this a deep post on Steven Moffat's characterization in Doctor Who, because that's a can of worms I don't want to open. I am simply going to talk about one single character arc, the one that was responsible for most of my feels: That of Amy Pond, the Girl Who Waited.

Now, since this is a post about Amy Pond leaving the Doctor, it is inevetible that there will be spoilers. This is your one and only warning. If you don't want to be spoiled, stop reading now.

It is arguable that one of the main character traits of Amy Pond is that her life revolves around the Doctor. She's the little girl who waited all night in her garden, who ran off in the TARDIS on the night before her wedding.  And in this episode, she finally stopped waiting. 

Amy's husband, Rory Williams, gets zapped back in time. She chooses to go back with him, leaving the Doctor behind.

Amy Pond finally became Amelia Williams. She stopped waiting for the Doctor and chose to live her life with the one person she truly needed: Rory. She grew up. It took three seasons and heaps of painful character development to get her to that point. And it was wonderful. Because she finally got to be her own person and live her own story, and I think she became a better person for it.

But, you may ask, if I am so happy for Amy's character development, why all the gross sobbing? And I shall sigh and simply say, "Because of the Doctor."

While Amy was able to let go and stop waiting, the Doctor was not. The Doctor is constantly potrayed as someone strong and unbreakable. He is bound by his morals and he does the right thing. But Amy is his best friend, and he cannot let go of her. For the first time he wasn't able to give up a companion -- he loved them too much instead of the other way around. He needed his Amy Pond, but in the end she did not need him. And that is what hurts.

 

So it is those two character arcs that made this story so particularly sob-inducing. All good stories need their characters to change, and this episode delivered on that front. And I am glad, because it was a change that needed to happen. But I am also still dead inside, because now the Doctor is alone and I will never get to laugh at Rory's face again. 

So now I'm gonna go cry some more.

Writerly Ramblings

As usual, there is homework to be done.  And, as usual, I am not doing any of it. Instead, I decided to write another post, because why the hell not?

I'm about halfway through Hush, Hush.  Somehow, it feels like nothing has happened and yet I'm still hooked on reading it. All I want is a steamy make-out scene, but the author keeps cutting them short.  Please, just give me my cotton-candy fluff? Pleeeeease?

In other news, Chanelle Gray is hosting an awesome giveaway over on her blog!  It's to celebrate the upcoming release of her YA debut, My Heart Be Damned.

(Look at that pretty cover!)

The story is about a girl named Amerie who, after her mother dies, is forced to be all badass and hunt evil souls called The Damned.  There is also a steamy romance.  And, judging by the cover, there might be a graveyard or two.  I have a not-so-small obsession with graveyards.  I am ridiculously excited to read this. So make sure to check it out on Goodreads, and don't forget to snag a copy when it comes out this Saturday!

Since this is also a bit of a writing blog, perhaps I should talk about writing? Errr...well...I recently had a huge revelation about my WIP that changed my entire story. I now need to figure out where the evil-villian-of-evil is going to fit in and also decide whether or not to get rid of the love interest. This was basically what my entire evening consisted of yesterday:

Needless to say, writing is going slowly.

How is everyone else out on the blogosphere?