I'll keep this brief because I'm trying to get up to thirty thousand words
this weekend and I've got a little way still to go now.
Normally I would have spent Saturday bumping up my word count, but instead I
spent a good half of the day working on my shepherds for my nativity. I went
into the weekend at 21,000 words so I felt like I could afford to take it easy
for a while. Luckily I don't show any signs of reaching the Second Week Slump
yet. I'm happy with the way my story is going, even if I am still only at the
early stages (despite heading into my fourth chapter).
I've managed to make it up to 25,000 words now. I wrote 4,002 yesterday; slightly less than the 5,000 I had hoped to aim for. I probably could've managed another thousand later in the evening after tea, since most of what I did was procrastinating on forums and blogs, but I'm still well ahead. I should get another 5,000 down today which'll take me up to a nice round 30,000. Not a bad start for the second week.
When I get around to rewriting it, I think I'm going to have to bring in
mention of the story's villain a little earlier than I am at the moment. The
dental conference he will be attending didn't get a mention until over 15,000
words and he still hasn't shown up yet. I tend to do this NaNo though, I start
things slow and get my word count up early and then rush through things later on
when I've got my word count in the bag. I am hoping to work on this book later
on down the line though, so that's something at least, I am writing it with
revisions in mind.
As I mentioned, I've been back to knitting my nativity again. My shepherds
now have arms. I just need to finish off their headgear and beards, then pinch a
couple of straws from my mum-in-law to make them staffs. Then it's on with the
sheep.
It's funny how I've been procrastinating on my knitting for so long and now
I'm using knitting to procrastinate on NaNo.
Aside from writing and knitting, we've officially started watching out
Not-Quite-Christmas films. So far we've watched:
Paddington (because Christmas at the end)
Ballet Shoes (because Christmas in the film)
Alvin and the Chipmunks (because Christmas song)
The Holiday (because set at Christmas)
Love Actually (ditto above)
The Wizard of Oz (because Mr Click insists it used to be on TV at Christmas when he was little)
Alvin and the Chipmunks was a bit of a sore point because Mr Click had put
his bet on it being The Wizard of Oz that he was drawing out of the pot, whilst
I insisted it was going to be Alvin and the Chipmunks. I guessed completely
right (with odds of 1/8). He was a little miffed.
He did get The Wizard of Oz yesterday evening. Unfortunately he fell asleep around twenty minutes into it, so I got to watch it (while sewing up shepherds' arms and hands) and he snored until the dog woke him up.
I should really get back to my NaNo now. See you on the other side of 30k!
Now that we've finished with the Lord of the Rings films, I think it's time to move back in time for Peter Jackson's second venture into Middle-earth. We're watching the Extended Edition of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. I've broken it up into five parts and then we'll move onto The Desolation of Smaug (hopefully Santa will bring me the final film in the trilogy so I can go onto that afterwards).
In this section Bilbo will take us back in time sixty years to a time where his peaceful existence in the Shire was shattered by the arrival of a familiar old wizard and a gang of Dwarves.
1. Are you sitting comfortably? Time to begin. I remember the thrill of seeing this in the cinema. In 3D. Like I was looking through a window into Middle-earth.
2. I love that it's Ian Holm who opens the film. So perfect. It links it in nicely for the people who fell in love with the Lord of the Rings films.
3. It also sounds as though this is Bilbo coming clean with Frodo, rather than the 'original' story about the Ring being a birthday present.
4. Dale looks like a cool place to live. Kind of like a nicer version of Bree what with the multicultural thing they have going on there.
5. Don't really fancy Erebor, personally. I'm not good with heights and they don't have nearly enough handrails for my liking.
6. I like that the Dwarves mining helmets are basically helmets with a candle stuck on the side. Not the safest thing to wear in a mine.
7. That Dwarf is all 'you can't have the shinies, neh neh neh neh neh'.
8. Moral of this story: Don't be greedy or a dragon will get you.
9. When I first saw this in the cinema I saw that dragon kite and my immediate thought was 'oh no, the dragon doesn't look very good'.
10. It wasn't until I watched the commentary that I realised you never really see the dragon at this bit. You see little glimpses but never the whole thing. It's quite clever.
11. And there's the Peter Jackson cameo. A tricky one because he's barely recognisable in his Dwarf-gear.
12. "And he never forgave. And he never forgot." Love it.
13. And there's Katie Jackson. How she's changed since the last Hobbit party she attended.
14. I love baby Bilbo. It's such a simple scene but it explains Gandalf's comment about Bilbo being an adventurer in his youth.
15. "In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit..." So glad they got that line in.
16. And there's Frodo. Looking a little bit older since the last time we saw him.
17. In fact, a lot older since the last time I saw him, since last week I watch Back To The Future II and he was just an ickle thing in that.
18. I'd love to watch all of these films with the scenes edited into order, because there's some nice Fellowship of the Ring foreshadowing here.
19. I still say that sign looks like it says 'No admittance except on farty business'.
20. And Frodo's off to the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring. We'll stick with Bilbo for an Unexpected Journey.
21. Clever transition into the past, no?
22. Martin Freeman is an awesome Bilbo.
23. And yay for Gandalf quoting lines exactly as they are in the book. Ever since the first Lord of the Rings film, I've imagined Ian McKellen when I've read Gandalf's bits in the book.
24. Which reminds me, I really must squeeze in a Hobbit reread before the end of the year.
25. Was selling buttons door-to-door ever really a thing? Did they have much cause for that in the Shire?
26. I like that Gandalf seems to have picked Bilbo because he used to want adventure, then decides to use him anyway to spite him. Gandalf's so sneaky.
27. Creepy wizard eye! That made me jump in the cinema. I don't know what I was expecting. A black rider perhaps?
28. I love this added scene as well. Anything to see a little more of the Shire. I want to go there so much.
29. I like to think that the Hobbit guy who looks a little like Sam, bouncing the small child on his knee is Hamfast Gamgee, and the small Hobbit-child will grow up to be Sam or one of his brothers.
30. There's the Sackville-Bagginses!
31. Oh I love Dwalin. In fact, I love all of this. It's not the way I imagine it in the book, but I think it's very well done. I mean, they have a lot of characters to introduce in a very short space of time!
32. Balin is one of my favourite characters in this trilogy which makes the Moria scene in The Fellowship of the Ring so much sadder now.
33. "It's riddled with mould." Hehe.
34. "I am sorry." "Apology accepted." I just love all of this bit.
35. I feel I should apologise now. I do have rather a crush on Kili. Also Thorin (when he's not ebil and gold-obsessed). I'll try not to drool too much.
36. Isn't Bilbo's dressing gown gorgeous? I only ever wear a dressing gown for hospital stuff but I feel a strange need for patchwork dressing gown.
37. It's very clever how they made all the Dwarves unique in their own well, with their hair styles, beards and accessories (or should that be axe-cessories in the case of Bifur?) It was something that I worried about considering in the book most of the Dwarves are fairly interchangeable.
38. If you think about it, the Dwarves are really doing Bilbo a favour. He's about to go away for a year on an adventure and they didn't want all his food to go off.
39. Anyone notice how Ori manages to jump from one end of the table to the other between scenes? He's sitting next to Kili one second and then when he burps he's somewhere else.
40. I love that they included this song! I know all the words!
41. I do feel tempted to have a go at doing this whenever I help wash up. Don't think it would end well.
Looks like someone else is about to join the party. Next week we'll get our introduction to Thorin, set out on this unexpected journey and come up against our first stumbling block.
I started this chapter last week but it was going on forever so I decided to
chop it in half. Small mercies, at least it was shorter than the actual chapter
in New Moon.
In the first part of this chapter very little happened, other than Bella and
Edward having an obvious distance growing between them. Oh, and at one point
Bella did play with the camera her dad got her and started to think about
filling in the scrapbook she got from her mum.
So let's get on with Chapter Three: The End. What Happens?
Edward announces that he and Bella must talk. It's one of those
talks. After he leaves Bella just wanders around in the forest until she is
found. Oh and Edward has sort of deleted himself from her life.
Thoughts as I read:
Are you enjoying this chapter? I'm still waiting for it to start. I can't get
over how dull it is. In short, Edward is distant and Bella is depressed about
it. This kind of reminds me of how I write during NaNo when I know there's a
scene I want to get to but don't know just how to get there so I keep writing
and writing stuff to keep the words coming until I figure out a way to tie it
all together.
At last we reach a point, after twelve pages no less, when Edward and Bella
agree to talk. Bella quickly figures out that this is a talk with a capital T.
After all those pages without anything happening, what comes next happens very
quickly. Edward announces he's leaving. I can't help but cheer a little when I
read this.
Edward is basically breaking up with Bella. He and his family are going and
she can't go with him. I'm guessing they're all going to Denali then. She's
really desperate for him not to go, but I can't help but read this as Edward
trying to gently dump the girl, whilst grasping the opportunity to escape with
both hands.
"Bella, I don't want you to come with me." He spoke the
words slowly and precisely, his cold eyes on my face, watching as I absorbed
what he was really saying.
He even tells her that he doesn't want her. She takes it surprisingly well.
Meanwhile Edward's still telling her that he wants to just be who he is, rather
than trying to be something he's not. This is a very good thing to do. Stop
pretending to be someone else. Be yourself. Tell Bella what you really think of
her and then get out of town.
Edward's still being very nice to her through all this. If you really wanted
to break up with her properly, you should tell her exactly what you
think of her. She definitely wouldn't follow you then, nor would she do whatever
'reckless' thing you're thinking she might try. All the same, he does promise
never to see her again. Well, I know that's one promise he's not going to keep.
Oh Edward, you just keep on letting me down!
I am slightly sad about the fact that Edward promises Bella won't see Alice
again either, since they're all going away. Although I know they're going to
come back again, I still think Alice is the most interesting character in these
books and we don't see nearly enough of her. Even if she does have some weird
thing going on with Charlie.
He gives her a kiss goodbye and then he's gone. Yay!
Bella does not share my enthusiasm. If only we could get rid of her as well,
this book would be perfect.
I walked and walked. Time made no sense as I pushed slowly
through the thick undergrowth. It was hours passing, but also only seconds.
Maybe it felt like time had frozen because the forest looked the same no matter
how far I went. I started to worry that I was traveling in a circle, a very
small circle at that, but I kept going. I stumbled often, and, as it grew darker
and darker, I fell often, too.
She'd better hope that the hospital gets a new doctor soon because it sounds
like Bella's going to need one.
We get the book title here as well. It's dark because it's a 'new moon'. It's
some sort of subtle message that, isn't it. This is the dawning of a new phase
in Bella's life, right?
She carries on lying out in the rain in the forest for hours, despite someone
calling for her. Eventually some guy called Sam Uley finds her. There's been
some search party out for her and we've still got another ten pages before this
chapter ends! It's never ending!
Charlie takes over from Sam and gets Bella home. For some reason Charlie has
trouble supporting Bella. I don't know why this bothers me, but it does. I guess
it's because I'm so used to the Cullen Clan picking her up and carrying her
around without any trouble. Sam seems to know something about the Cullens that
no one else does because when he found her he asked 'Have you been hurt?'
something that Bella doesn't catch on to until the doctor asks 'Are you hurt?'
It's a subtle difference that suggests Sam knows about his vampire neighbours.
Is Sam a werewolf as well? It would explain the snuffling sound Bella heard when
she woke up.
It appears Sam probably is since Bella mentions the men who were helping to
look for her were from the Quileute Indian reservation. Are all the people from
there werewolves or just some of them? There are other people who were involved
in the search as well, including the fathers of some of Bella's friends. Great
way to make sure that everyone knows about your break up. Bella fobs them all
off by telling them she got lost in the forest.
The news about the Cullens leaving has already spread. Apparently Carlisle
got some fantastic offer and they took off immediately. I get the impression
that Charlie has figured out just how Bella come to be wandering the woods at
night. She snoozes while Charlie fields phone calls that are obviously from
people who want to check up on how she's doing, until one of them isn't.
There's a fire some place. I was expecting it to be the Cullens burning their
house down or something but instead it's nowhere near as dramatic. The kids at
the reservation are lighting bonfires to celebrate the departure of the
vampires. The conversation then turns to how Charlie knew where to look. Apparently Bella left a note for him. Interesting considering she never actually
wrote one so Edward obviously suspected that she was going to do something
stupid.
I actually kind of like this last bit, Bella runs upstairs to her room,
having realised that in order for Edward to have forged a note from her he must
have been in the house. In her bedroom the CD he made for her is missing, as is
the photo of him from the scrapbook. Just like he promised, it's like he was
never there.
How profound.
And yet, I'm just wondering whether he took the stereo out of her truck.
I've not got much in the way of knitting stuff to share at the moment, so I
think I'll show off my crazy colouring in skills instead.
This was easily one of my favourite pages so far to colour in. I'd looked at
what other people had done with this on Johanna Basford's gallery and I very
quickly started picturing what I wanted this to look like in my book. It's not
turned out exactly the way I was imagining it, but it's pretty close.
I decided that I wanted the plants around the compass to represent
the changing seasons. So on the right side is autumn then winter, and then the
left side is spring and summer. Spring also sees a cameo from the Very Hungry
Caterpillar.
I wasn't sure about colouring in the inside of the compass, but in
the end I just went with it. I coloured in a lot of the blue while I was on the
phone to my Mum one evening. Looking at it now, I sort of wish I'd done all of
the centre in the same colour, though I think it gives a sense of the different
colours of the night sky which was the effect I was going for.
I'm slowly moving away from the green, red, orange and brown
leaves as well. I've managed to use some blues in my winter section of the
compass. I'm aiming to get some really fantastical coloured leaves before the
end of this book!
Week six of the Reading Challenge I've been taking part in this year was a
book written by an author under the age of thirty. I did consider picking a book
off one of my bookshelves for this one, but I couldn't be bothered with the
hassle of having to go through each book and calculating the age of the author
when they wrote it. I did also briefly consider finding a book by an author who
is still under thirty but quickly dismissed that as taking too long to figure
out.
In the end I settled on Frankenstein by Mary Shelley,
which I picked from a list of books written by authors under the age of thirty.
It was one of the first ones that I found as a free download and it's also
available on Project Gutenberg (therefore ticking the 'don't spend a fortune on
books' box).
It's a pretty well known story, but for those of you who haven't
read it, it tells the story of the titular scientist's monster which he creates.
The story is complicated, following the narratives of three different
characters; starting with Captain Walton writing to his sister about a man named
Victor Frankenstein who his crew picked up on the journey; Frankenstein then
takes over the story explain about his childhood and scientific pursuits prior
to creating his monster, he goes on to explain how he created and rejected the
monster; the monster also gets in on the narrating action, describing his time
in the wild observing a poor family. All the monster really wants is to be
wanted (and to get a girlfriend), unfortunately he's a little too murderous to
get a happily ever after.
I am glad that I read this book, but I don't think it's ever going
to be one of my favourites. I just couldn't get into it even though I kept on
telling myself it was a classic and must have been classed as one for some
reason. That said, it was a fairly quick ready (less than 130 pages). You could
almost read it in one sitting; perfect for a Halloween reading session.
I was surprised at the fact that the monster didn't come into the
story until about halfway through. In the past I've made the mistake of thinking
the monster was named Frankenstein and assumed that it was going to be all about
the creature. Instead a lot of the book is about Frankenstein before he even
made the creature.
I also found it surprising at how articulate the monster became
simply from spying on a family. He was able to tell all of his story perfectly
for someone who had such limited human interaction. I know it's a really silly
think to nitpick but it still really bugged me.
The different voices telling the story didn't really sound
different to my ear, so I struggled to remember who it was that was speaking at
any given time. I found them quite confusing and I think that was something else
that pulled me out of the story and affected my enjoyment of it. I would've
liked the voices to feel more individual. Perhaps if I was reading a print copy
the different narration threads would have been formatted differently to make it
appear more clear.
I also was expecting it to be a scary story and it wasn't really.
It was more of a depressing story. I'm pleased I've read it, but I'm not going
to go out of my way to revisit it again.
How's everyone faring during the second day of NaNo? Hopefully you're still
buzzing with the thrill of your fast growing story (and maybe a fair amount of
caffeine as well). If you're starting to flag, don't worry, focus on the end
result. In twenty nine days you'll have a story. Don't believe me? Well, let's
take a look at a book that's out tomorrow and was written during NaNoWriMo.
Raining Embers is the first book in the Order and Chaos
series by Jessica Dall. It introduces us to Palmer Tash, a young acolyte who has
a strange ability to hear things, and Brier, the daughter of a librarian who is
often forced to take to her room with a mysterious illness. When they are both
kidnapped one night they learn that they are not quite what they think they are;
they are in fact reincarnations of Order and Chaos, and there are people who
intend to use them for their own nefarious plot.
When Jessica asked me if I would be interested in reviewing
Raining Embers I was thrilled. I love reading a good book and it's
especially interesting to read one which was written during NaNo. I'm one of
those NaNo participants who writes away diligently for a month, then puts the
file away and rarely looks at it again (unless it's to provide some
entertainment in the current NaNoisms thread on the forums). I'm in awe of those
people who plug away at their work, tidy it up and turn it into something
presentable.
There's something quite inspirational about it because you can't
help but remember that your word vomit was probably quite similar at one point
to all those published books out there. And it serves as a reminder that if you
work at it, you can get your story published.
As you can see, this topic makes me rather philosophical.
I have to admit, I did kind of judge this book by its cover. I
took a look at it and thought, 'that looks like something I'd pick up'. The
premise intrigued me as well. I've read fantasy stories before where people
suddenly find they have new powers but I don't remember reading one where the
powers are due to characters being reincarnated deities.
I wasn't disappointed. I enjoyed the story and found it easy to
read, despite the setting being different from what I was expecting. I'm used to
fantasy stories which take place in a pseudo-medieval society, so the setting
for this one being routed in Italy was a pleasant change, though it took me a
while to get used to.
The characters were interesting. Palmer was easily my favourite. I
felt sorry for him in the beginning, an orphan being pushed into a role he
didn't particularly want. He's the classic reluctant hero. On the other hand
Brier annoyed me at first, though I suspect that was intentional. She's a
wealthy young woman used to a privileged lifestyle; once she was taken out of
her comfort zone she really grew on me. There's a point in the book where she
has to work in service to survive and her hands form callouses and at that point
I realised I actually really liked her and felt for her.
I would've liked to know a little more about their mysterious
illnesses/disabilities before they found out about their powers. Brier had to
take to her rooms when 'the rot' struck her and I'm curious about how that
affected the people around her. I also wanted to know more about the world in
which the story was set because it felt as though it was very rich and
well-planned but we only saw a tiny piece of it. I often complain about not
seeing enough of a world, either because it's not visualised well enough, or
because it is visualised well and I want more. In this case it was the latter;
it was such a unique world that I wanted more.
I'm looking forward to the remaining books in the series being
published so that I can find out more about what Brier and Palmer are going to
have to deal with.
In the meantime, I spoke to Jessica about her experiences with
NaNo.
1. You wrote this book during NaNo 2012, how did you come to do NaNo
for the first time?
It was Sophomore year of college, and I was planning on going to a Halloween
party with some friends. When I asked another friend if she wanted to come with
us, she said something along the lines of, "Sure, but I'll need to leave by
11:30 to go to a NaNoKickoff party." That lead to my saying, "What's NaNo?" and
being introduced to the craziness that is NaNoWriMo. I had written a novel in
High School, and started a number of others since then, but I'd been jumping so
much that I hadn't finished anything in a few years. I figured NaNo sounded like
a great excuse to try to throw caution to the wind and actually finish
something again, so November 1st I signed up, and I've been a die-hard WriMo
ever since.
2. In your Acknowledgements you mention a trip to Italy for research,
how did you prepare to write this book? Are you a 'planner' or a
'pantser'?
I'm definitely a pantser, as far as first drafts go. I might scribble down a
few ideas/have some idea of where a story might go when I sit down, but I've
always found over-planning kills that "rush" I get when writing. Instead, my
motto(s) tend to be "write until it makes sense" and "you can fix it in
editing." Of course, after I churned out a first draft during NaNo '12 I had a
lot of work to do to make everything work. I was lucky enough to go on a family
trip to Italy while I was working on edits, which allowed me to really soak in
the architecture/history (I now have a hard drive full of pictures that I use
for when I need to describe new places in the rest of the series). I also ended
up doing a lot of research into the Renaissance in general. I was interested in
getting out of the "medieval England" setting that's been so popular in
historical fantasy, and all the change happening in the Renaissance has given me
plenty to work with in my world building.
3. You've continued to participate in, and win, NaNo each year since
2008, what is it that brings you back to NaNo year after year?
The first few years, I think I really needed the motivation to get things
written and to seriously focus on my writing. Since then, it's entirely been the
community. There are so many wonderful, encouraging people on the forums, and it
is a great place to discusswriterly things when I start to feel bad about making
non-writers (read: my husband 99% of the time) hear about plot and character
ideas.
4. Do you have any memorable stories to share from November the year
your wrote Raining Embers? Any near disasters? Interesting NaNoisms? Moments
when the plot went completely the opposite way to what you were
expecting?
I mostly remember getting about halfway through and going "Oh no, I this book
is going to be much too short" since I was reaching the point where they were
going to end up in [the last place they are for the book] and I wasn't sure how
much more story I really had after that point. The good thing, though, is that
it was NaNo, so I figured I'd finish what I had and then go back and see what
could be done. I ended up having way more than I planned, and that is now the
last third or so of the book. The only other problem tied to NaNo was probably
that I hadn't picked names for a lot of characters before started, and that
meant that I ended up with two characters with rather similar names (one of the
characters is still named Cerise and another, at one point, was named Cesare).
When I got to editing, I realized just how terrible an idea that was since when
trying to read you really had to focus on which was which (when they shared 5
out of 6 letters of their name in rather similar orders).
5. What are your top tips for someone participating in NaNo this
year?
My top tip is probably just keep typing. NaNo is about not letting yourself
second guess where your story is going or if you're writing "correctly." Editing
fixes any multitude of writing sins, but it can't help an empty page. Other than
that, I'd say take care of yourself. It's a lot to write 50,000 words in one
month. If you find you aren't going to be able to do it because of a family
emergency or some other issue, cut yourself some slack. You can always set your
own goal, even if you don't hit the 50,000 mark, and really, any word count you
have at the end of November is more than you started with, be that 5,000 words
or 500,000.
