Migraine cures?

Hi there folks,

I really wish that magic was more effective in our world. That is, I wish that I could just wave a wand and have this stupid migraine go away. I had one Monday. Then yesterday and Tuesday were just ok. I thought that I had maybe dodged a bullet by the fact that I was only dealing with arthritis and cramps. (Eat bananas, y'all, they help.)

This morning, as I was going to put the wee heathens on the bus, migraine number two hit. I'm not fully over it. I have the blinds drawn to filter the light to keep my headache from being terribly painful. I've been alternating between generic Tylenol and pain pretty much all day. Coffee helps some, but only as a vehicle to help get that pain killer into my system. If this migraine business doesn't ease up over the next couple days (because I had a 3 day migraine last month and don't want to do it again), I will probably be going to my family doctor.

Migraines suck. I'm running out of ideas for how to work whilst dealing with this garbage. If you have any suggestions, that would be awesome. In the meantime, I think I have earned a gold star for getting through this post with out major typos despite the fact that my vision is a little off right now.

Writing wise, I haven't gotten much done because I'm working on presents for people. I am also working on setting up my bullet journal for next year. I'll be sharing some layout pages soon. Oh! I almost forgot, book three of the Umbrel Chronicles should be up and available for purchase soon. I just finished the editing process and I'm now working on getting it through the publication process on CreateSpage and Lulu. I'll keep you updated on that over the next few weeks.

Have a good day.

♥

Craft of Writing: Planning & Plotting

Hi there, dear Reader.

I'm glad you could join me. The holiday season is already a really busy time of year. Throw in things like managing getting ill, random stuff that pops up because life is unpredictable, and the fact that people tend to be more likely to just interrupt you if you're sitting still this time of year, it is pretty hard to squeeze in time for writing of any sort. Schedules help as much as it may any time of the year. And getting up a bit early to work on it is helpful, if you are able to sacrifice some sleep to make it happen. On the other hand, staying up late could possibly achieve the same effect.

The key to making it through any busy time and getting any writing done at all is to plan. I like my bullet journal and my multiple planners (4 calendars, a weekly planner, and a daily planner are what get me through). It is a good amount of work for me to reconcile everything. Part of the problem is I am drawing up my pages by hand. It is something I'm going to fix next year by getting the pre-printed weekly and daily pages if I can get away with it. I'm undecided, because it is going to be difficult to find something with a lay out similar to what I'm doing right now. Take out all of that drawing of boxes and labeling of dates, I spend around 30 minutes a week cross referencing all of my calendars and stuff to make sure everything matches.

I'm not telling you that you need to go at things like this. I was raised to approach pretty much all planning as though you were planning the invasion of Normandy ala World War II. This carries over into how I plan my writing. I start with a general sense of where I want to go with my work. In the case of my day planner and such, this is like knowing what month I am in and the major events of the month. I then try to assess what the significant events are that mark progression to the final goal. This is the equivalent of putting dates to those major events.

Obviously, who, what, and where are crucial to the plot events and the events on my calendar. Usually, I have a few bullet points when I'm at the initial planning stage for my plot that summarize these things in as few words as possible. That minimal level of notation is what goes into my weekly planner for events in my month. I then try to break the major events into a series of smaller sequential events that form the basis of them. Those get their own sets of bullet points. This is the equivalent of my daily plans for a given week. Sometimes those bullet points get broken down into individual scenes. Those are the hours of that day. (In some cases, this is a literal thing depending on the writing project in question.)

Now, my calendar is my overarching plot of the project. The months are the major divisions of the project. The weeks are the major sub-plots for each division. And the days are minor sub-plots with hours broken up for scenes. This practice is not one that evolved out of my calendar but one that started with how I was taught to write a research paper. It's kinda wild how you can apply nonfiction techniques for some of the driest forms of writing to fiction and get really good results.

When I was writing research papers, I was taught to make my outline as detailed as possible so that I was left with essentially taking my notes and plugging them in to make paragraphs out of the bullet points. It is a lot of prep work. I am not going to lie, it is tempting to just say 'Nope, not today!' when I sit down to organize notes. The end result of all of that preparation, however, gives you not only the structure of what you are writing but the ability to completely rearrange the whole document before you have written the first paragraph and have to figure out later in the first round of edits how to make chapter three and chapter thirteen switch places with out breaking your narrative.

Trust me, it is a whole lot easier to make those changes on the drafting board of your outline and pre-writing work than when you are editing a draft. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it will happen less. This makes for a happier and less stressed author and editor. It also helps make the final product flow better because you have been polishing your plot and transitions from day one. It works for pretty much any genre of prose. Poetry is its own beast and planning is done entirely differently.

Even one day spent planning saves countless hours of frustration. If I learned anything from my NaNoWriMo failure this year, it was that. I don't know if I would have hit 50K words if I did my planning properly. I do know, however, I would have had a much higher word count as of November 30th if I did. Learn from my mistake! ♥

NaNoWriMo 2017 recap.

Hi there,

I can say I did not 'win' this year. This year and last year were just really bad years for me. For some reason, I was sick most of the time and when I wasn't sick I had other obligations taking me away from writing, like parent teacher conferences. (Proud parent moment: both of the wee heathens have taken an interest in writing. The eldest wants to write for a newspaper and the youngest wants to make comic books, aka graphic novels. So I'm super excited about this.)

I have no idea what my final word count is. I have been so caught up in trying to get holiday presents finished and things like my bullet journal ready for next year that I just haven't stopped to count words. I am going to keep working on this thing. I have a nifty pin that I'm going to wear after I finish it. And when I reach the halfway point, I have a new set of earrings. (Total cost of jewelry was $6.00 because I get stuff on sale and go to weird places to buy stuff. Art pieces that are jewelry are just awesome. I'll share that pin when I finish this thing.)

The project for this year never got a title. It probably won't get one until much later in the process. I know that this is a work that is going to require heavy revision for it to make any sense. Right now it is just a rambling heap of words that are sort of connected. I wrote just about every day of the month. So, my little calendar for November has a whole bunch of sparkly star stickers. I got one for each day I wrote.

What I take away from NaNo this year is that I need to plan nonfiction, even if it is something autobiographical in nature. I also have learned that a strict writing schedule only works if you're not sick in bed half the day and parenting the other half. Writing in a notebook is useful when I can't sit at the computer, even if the laptop is infinitely more portable than a desktop computer. I think I'm going to resume my old habit of carrying a notebook for jotting down ideas in. And I think that is going to be my writing bullet journal, actually.

This month, I really did use the bullet journal and I think that my weekly trackers need to be tweaked a little bit. I am going to start using it for more than a weekly log of my writing time. Because the bullet journal is applied to all of my writing stuff, I am not going to be using it to draft out ideas. I will be using separate paper for that. I am going to make collections in it, though, for things like titles and stuff that I want to read. I think that I'm not going to go whole hog into making doodles, though it may happen from time to time. I will be using stickers and rewards, though, because that little star for effort really did boost more morale.

As for this year's project, I am thinking that I'm going to just write as I have been. Use that notebook as a brain dump for this project. Then sit down and do a more serious job of picking what exactly is my focus and planning how to get it done. I also am going to read more memoirs and related things in that style to get a better grip on the process. Beloved says I should write for myself. I think this is great, but I think that this may need a little more help to make sense. Which means learning more about the style I am going to be writing in.

Writing nonfiction is a huge departure from fiction. I forgot how big of a change it was. Not good of me to get rusty on that front. Expect things to get a little more crunchy in the craft of writing posts. And for there to be more interesting recipes or research notes popping up.

Nanowrimo Day 25: I have no idea what I'm doing.

Hi folks,

I have absolutely no idea what my word count is right now. I have no idea what is going on with my
manuscript. I've been writing almost everyday but it has been very hard to do so. I didn't write yesterday or on turkey day. It has been exhausting and I feel rather defeated. I suspect this is going to be like Glass House or The Red Chair, a manuscript I don't finish until at least a year later.

I have five days to cram in as much writing as I can. I don't think I'm going to get much done because I have a busy day tomorrow minding the wee heathens and appointments to deal with at least on Monday. Not to mention, I have housework to catch up on and stuff for Yule to finish. I am feeling disappointed with myself because I am just not putting up the word count goals I had set for myself. I tried to be modest in my expectations.

I am not sure how to feel about NaNoWriMo right now. I've been trying. I've been sick a lot this year. I also have had things just get busy. I find myself wondering if NaNoWriMo is just harder for me because I'm having an off couple of years or because I'm just losing my taste for it. It could also be the fact that this is the second year in a row that I attempted to do a manuscript by hand. You know, a literal manuscript. Perhaps I will attempt that at another time when I am not dealing with the stress of the holidays, school conferences, and cold/flu season.

I am also of the mind to say that my next hand written manuscript attempt is going to be generated from the most detailed plot map and researched set of notes that I an accomplish. This spending a few weeks to prepare was a bad decision for this project. And that I am going to probably not try to work on two separate novels by hand at the same time for the actual writing of the novel.

TL:DR - No idea what my word count is or what I'm doing. I'm contemplating running up the black flag on NaNoWriMo '17 but will likely go down with the ship.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Random nerd note: white flag was for parley, black flag was surrender on the medieval battle field for a good percentage of Europe prior to influence from others.

Nanowrimo Day 14: Prompts for EVERYONE!

Hi there, everybody.

At first, I had this wild idea that I was going to post the number of prompts corresponding to the number for the date. And then I fell behind. I sat here trying to decide how to approach the prompts thing and it struck me that I could just post a list of prompts and not do 14! prompts. Exponential numbers of prompts only works if you do it daily and don't fall behind. So, here is a list of 10 prompts that work for just about any genre you're writing, fiction or non-fiction. (If you're writing about a character, obviously approach these from the character's point of view. Or not, whatever works for you.)

1. What is the hardest challenge you has had to face thus far?

2. What is the biggest dream that you  wish to accomplish this year? Have you done it? If so, how did you do it? If not, what stopped you?

3. Where is your 'happy place'? Is this a place you can go in real life? Is this a place you envision when you are stressed out and can't visit when life gets challenging? What makes this such a special place?

4. Who is your biggest supporter? What has been their largest contribution to your success? How have you thanked them?

5. Where is the best place to eat? What kind of food do they serve there? What is your favorite dish?

6. Why are you working on this project? What do you want to accomplish and how do you envision doing it?

7. Who do you love and what do you love about them? 

8. How do you start your day? Do you have a favorite part to your morning routine? Why is it your favorite?

9. What subject confuses you? Do you wish to learn more about it? If so, why? If not, why?

10. What is best in your life? Why is it the best and how does it effect the rest of your life?

Nanowrimo day 13: Actual post content ahead!

Hi there,

I've been sick for a week and a half now. Still sick. I have an appointment with the family doctor on Wednesday. I'm pretty sure that the string of cold, norovirus, and flu has given me an ear infection and a sinus infection. It's made getting pretty much anything done hard. Sleep doesn't work that great when you're coughing and in pain. The body aches is worse than my arthritis, and that's saying something given how the weather has been just perfect for arthritis pain.

Writing wise, I'm well behind where I wanted to be by now. For obvious reasons, naps do make it hard to write. I'm still writing by hand. I finished Glass House last week on the 8th. It will be getting sent to the recipient Wednesday. Because I'll be out of the house doing stuff. Final total word count on that project was just shy of 40K. It was the novel I started last year and had to stop because I was so sick.

My still untitled manuscript for this year is a rambling mess. I'm presently at 7.5K on that. But my working on two manuscripts at the same time slowed me down. And I've been sick. On my good days, between both projects, my average word count has been around 3.5K. On my bad days, I've been much lower. I haven't calculated what my total word count between both projects would be for this week.

If I can, I will try to get that number up tomorrow. First week of the month, my total word count was 12.3K. I know that the total for the second week of the month is going to be much lower. (Thanks, flu.) And yes, I am writing this out by hand. My writing session is two hours long, broken up into two one hour units or where ever I can catch the time to write. I am writing this year's project in a composition book. I'm using a Pilot G-2 (07) ball point gel pen. Black ink, if anyone's curious. I can't tell you off the top of my head what my average number of words per page is except that it is higher than 200. I think it is 250, but I'm not sure.

Glass House was written up in a A5 sized notebook with a canary yellow color. I used a Pilot G-2 (05) with black ink. The average number of words per page was 240. I didn't bother numbering any of the pages for either project so I have no idea how many pages that I've written. But here's the status update I was planning to do for the last week.

Nanowrimo day 3: Prompt 3

Hi folks,

I'm taking a break from writing by hand to type this up. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have killer writer's cramp by the end of the day. But I WILL get caught up on word count. (I'm presently a day behind plus today's count.) Today's prompts go with the 'dark' mood of today's weather.

Prompt 3.1 - The biggest lie I ever told was ...

Prompt 3.2 - What is the worst thing you have ever done?

Prompt 3.3 - The worst mistake in my life was ...

(Murder cat because murder cat is adorable.)