Yikes!

Well, November has zoomed by in a haze of wedding planning, moving house, welcoming a new addition to our family - the cutest little maniac of a kitten who we call Jinx. Amongst all of this, two weekends ago before we moved, instead of packing (which I should have... most disorganised move ever) I had the sudden urge to write. Josh was out, and the place was quiet, so after watching a movie (The Mask! Oh man that was a blast from the past) I switched on my laptop and started furiously writing in the dark. I got about 3,000 words written and man did it feel good! So now I'm up to a total of 6,377 words with two days left of the month. Can I do it? Will the kitty let me or will she insist on chasing my fingers around the keyboard? I really don't know, but I'm going to try. I know 10,000 words is a tiny goal in the scheme of things, but it's a goal nonetheless, and it's good to have goals! How is everyone else going out there? Made it to 50,000 yet?

And here's a picture of the cuteness/procrastination tool that is Jinx...

Downsizing

I said from the very beginning that I wasn't expecting to finish NaNoWriMo this year, so it probably comes as no surprise to you all that I've decided  to downsize my expectations. While I don't want to give up completely because there is still a story in my head to be written, I know there's no way I can get to 50,000 words by the end of the month. There's the time thing, but there's also the mental energy that writing a novel requires that I just don't have at the moment. There has been a crazy amount of stuff going on in my life lately that has used up most of my mental energy to the point that, last week I spent most of the week with my brain partially switched off and just trucked along doing the bare minimum. I think that was my brain's way of saying, "ENOUGH! I can't think anymore, I'm out."

So I'm not giving up! But I'm only at about 3,000 words and I should be at nearly 20,000 by now, so I'm downsizing my goal to 10,000 words by the end of the month. It's not ideal, as there's a great story to be told, but it's something, and the rest of the story is going to have to wait until life slows down and my brain wakes up.

I'll still be doing updates though, so don't go anywhere! :)

The novel writing weekend that wasn't

After getting off to a great start and hitting the daily word target on Friday, over the weekend I pretty much forgot that I was doing NaNoWriMo. So I didn't intentionally procrastinate... I'd just made other plans ages ago and went ahead with them. On Saturday I spent the day with my bridesmaids trying to find shoes and other little wedding bits, then went to dinner at another girlfriend's house that night, then on Sunday I went to my parents house and worked on some wedding stuff. Guess I haven't quite got into the rhythm of it yet... and I guess I underestimated how much wedding stuff would get in the way. But hey, I'm confident I can catch up!

Anybody else having time issues already?

It's GO TIME!

I've been looking forward to today for months! At first I was like, "Sarah, don't be dumb, you can't write a 50,000 word novel in a month right before your wedding". But then I thought... naaaah I can do it! Well, I can at least try, right?! I'm so glad I'm doing it, because it just feels so good to be a part of something like this - it's like you and thousands of other people are working towards a collective goal, and I keep having to remind myself that I actually wrote a whole novel last year and I could potentially have two novels waiting to be edited by December - how exciting is that?! Halfway to my dream of being a published author!

So instead of rambling on about why I'm so excited, maybe I should just start huh? Yeah, good idea... catch you later with a word count! And good luck to the rest of you doing NaNoWriMo! :)

It's November on Friday!!

Wow that crept up quick! Here I was thinking November was aaaaages away, and all of a sudden it's THIS FRIDAY! So that means NaNoWriMo starts THIS FRIDAY! I'm really excited :D

What have I done to prepare? Not a whole lot... But I've still got a few days, so wish me luck. Fellow NaNoers - what are you doing to prepare? Are you nervous? Excited? Tempted to start right now?

Making a plan

We all have different ways of working - some of us like to plan, some of us like to wing it. For last year's NaNoWriMo I had an intro, and the conviction that I wanted to story to be told from the point of view of a jar of jam in a cute country cafe. I had no clue where the story would go, or even who the characters were, so I just made it up as I went along. When I got stuck, I went to my partner for help and filled a space on a wall at home with yellow post-its with a couple of words each - "sheep", "man falls from sky", things like that. It was fascinating letting the story take on a life of it's own, back tracking every now and then to shape my characters.

This year, I'm taking a different tack - I'm planning the story in the hope that I won't get stuck, because this year I don't have time to get stuck, I have too much else going on in my life to spend days agonising over my next step. I think the best way to start is the way I plan most projects - with a blank A1 piece of paper propped up on my artist's easel, as I always feel like I need loads of space to just let my ideas run free. So that's my task for this week: plan and prepare. I'll let you know how it goes!

How are you planning for NaNoWriMo? Or are you just winging it? Tell me about it in the comments!

Coming back to life... for now

Hi everyone! Long time no blog! Well, here anyway. I've been blogging over at my new home, The Green Room, and although it's been hard going fitting in blogging lately, I've been really enjoying it - it's great having a focus and a mission - I'm only trying to save the world, no biggie ;)

Anywho, I'm reviving You May Say I'm a Dreamer until the end of November because I've decided (against my own and probably everyone else's better judgement) that I'm going to do National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) again! For those of you who don't know already, I'm getting married on December 7th, so the month before is probably not the best time to write a novel. But screw it, I'm gonna try anyway. I don't have as much faith in winning as I did last year, but I'm hoping to make some headway the one of five novels I've started.

Last year I wrote 50,000 words worth of foodie goodness - a little country tale revolving around food told from the perspective of a jar of jam sitting high on a shelf in a charming cafe. This year, I'm exploring reincarnation with a story about a boy who lived twice. I came across a story on You Tube about a little boy who had all of these crazy details about a previous life in his head - a mum, a dad, a house by the sea, even how he died. He truly believed he had lived another life and when he died he saw a light at the end of a tunnel and ended up were he is today. The family, for the sake of the documentary, actually researched his claims and took him to the house he believed he used to live in and the look on his face - that of a grown man who has realised that everything and everyone he had known and loved was gone forever, not an innocent five year old boy - is burned into my brain. I can't forget it. So I'm using this story as a starting point for my own story about a boy who lived before.

So why am I doing this when I have a month until my wedding (when it starts)? Simply put, because I procrastinate a lot and let ideas fester in my head and it's a lot easier to get on with it when there are thousands of other people in the world doing the same thing and going through the same web of emotions with you. It's also cool to see that word count rise every day... or every few days.

I decided to blog about it here because I kind of miss blogging about random things. Plus, it holds me accountable.

So hello old readers and welcome new readers! Lovely to have you here. :)

Round two! Let's go!

And so the procrastination sets in

I'm now over the one week mark with NaNoWriMo, and that procrastination bastard has started to kick in. I'm up to about 11,000 words, so I'm still on track, but I don't really know where to take my story next so I'm "waiting for inspiration" but really, I'm just refusing to think about it.
Last week two of my colleagues who are also doing NaNoWriMo and I challenged each other to get to a word count of 10,000 words by the end of the weekend and, although I made it, this week's goal of another 10,000 words is not looking promising. But they tell you not to be too hard on yourself, so I'm trying not to be. But I do need to write something today. The idea was to write 2,000 words a day from Monday... so technically I have to write 8,000 words today... and I have no idea what to write. But I'm going to figure it out. Today. Because I don't have a choice. I have to get to the 50,000 words. I have to finish this.

Maybe you can help me with some ideas... basically I have a bunch of people who live in a small town, but none of them are from the small town, they're all running away from something. Question is, what are they running away from people?

Ready, Set, NaNoWriMo!

One by one the teardrops fall as I write you 
One by one my words come falling on the page 
One by one my dreams are fading in the twilight 
One by one my schemes are fading fast away 

This song came on as I was thinking about the start of National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo) and I thought, how perfect... For the month of November, I am sure many teardrops will fall caused by frustration and panic, but I hope most of the times the words will simply fall onto the page... but everything else will fade into the background, or into my favourite time of day, twilight, for safe keeping until December.

So today it begins! A 50,000 word novel in one month. Can I do it? Well, if this girl can write a novel a month for 12 months, I reckon I can do one!

NaNoWriMo virgin

You may have noticed a sneaky little logo that appeared on here yesterday >>>
Yep, I'm doing National Novel Writing Month this year for the first time! Although it's been going for years, I only just heard about it this year - I don't even remember how I heard about it - so I signed up about a month ago and then forgot about it, thinking I would just casually start writing in November, on my own, and not really tell anyone about it... but then my coworker asked me if I was doing it, and now that it's crept up closer, there's this huge buzz about it on Twitter, on Facebook and all over the blogosphere. Not as casual as I had thought. But that's made it all the more exciting. And it's put the pressure on me to actually do it because, not only do I have myself to answer to, but I have 116 of you lovely You May Say I'm a Dreamer followers and 400 Twitter followers to answer to.

I'm one of those annoying people who starts a heap of projects and never finishes anything - I drive myself crazy with it - so I thought NaNoWriMo would be the perfect opportunity to finish something.
Even if I don't get it published or even show anyone my 50,000 words, I'm looking forward to the satisfaction of getting something finished and showing myself that I can actually do it - I can write a novel - and get rid of the fear of finishing.
So expect to see many posts dedicated to the excitement, frustration and confusion of my first NaNoWriMo experience over the next month (and probably more after that - I plan to edit!) along with a weekly Friday update on my word count - but don't worry, I'll still find time for other posts! Feel free to offer advice or encouragement! Or to ask for it!

So I'm sure you're dying to know... what am I writing about?! Well remember that quirky little story I wrote a ways back about a jar of Strawberry Jam just for fun? Well I'm going to take that and run with it! I've got a few characters, a setting a general plot direction, but I've decided not to plan too much because all too often I "overplan" or "overthink" things and they usually don't turn out as planned, so I'm going to let the characters and the strawberries take me wherever they like. I'm so excited I actually have butterflies!

A jar of jam sitting high on a dusty shelf in a small town New Zealand cafe watches the comings and goings of the town, where everybody who lives there is running away from something. It's a fairly quiet and peaceful place until the cafe's elderly owner and the town's matriarch dies and her granddaughter arrives from the city, bringing her demons with her.

Who else is doing NaNoWriMo? If you are, leave me your username in the comments box and I'll add you! Or you can add me! My username is just Sarah Hardie :)

Good luck fellow NaNoWriMoers! xo

Feel good friday

                 








Not a lot has happened this week, so today it's all about the little things making me happy:

♥  Making an amazing batch of raspberry and orange muffins
♥ Starting a new book (Nancy Wake by Peter Fitzsimons)
♥ Writing a couple of chapters for Missing Since Tuesday and Strawberry Jam (which I'm now calling Demons in her Garden - just for a change, might not stay that way, who knows where the story is going? Not me...)
♥ Sitting in the hot sun yesterday - the first truly hot, summer-feeling day so far this season
♥ Joining National Novel Writing Month (anyone ever done this before?) - so excited, might actually finish something for once!

What's making you happy this week friends? ♥ 

Oh, and don't forget to follow my Facebook Page :-)