NaNoWriMo/Secret December Project

So I know I've been a terriblr blogger lately, and I'm truly, sorry, but I've got a good explanation, I swear...
It's called LIFE.
Life (mainly school) has been getting in the way of everything else I should, could, or want to be doing lately, like writing, replying to mountains of e-mails, going out for coffee...God, I miss coffee. Oh yeah, and leaving the house. Haven't done that one in a while. In fact, it's been so long since I've stepped outside of the house that when my mom called the library today, the librarian on the other end asked where I've been! I know, sad, isn't it? And also, (confession time) I haven't started training for the triatholon yet either. I know, shame on me, but I've vowed that after tommorow, AKA the END of finals week in college/HELL, I'll catch up on all the things I've put on the backburner. All I can say now is: YAY! I can't wait for this semester to be OVER so I can finally have a BREAK!

In other news, as you can probably tell from the craziness metioned above, I didn't end up finishing NaNoWriMo this year, BUT, I did learn a lot of valuable things like how hard it actually is to write every. single. day. But, I did it (until about two weeks or so before the end of NaNo, then I just kind of petered out) and then in the middle of petering out, I realized that it wasn't just me who had petered out, it was also the story I had been writing. That one was just kind of going know where fast. I mean I know the whole idea of NaNo is quantity, not quality, but that story had no direction, it wasn't really going anywhere, it was just a big mash up of all these different scenes and it got a little annoying knowing that I was writing a story that wasn't going anywhere. So, even though I knew that I would feel guilty for bowing out of the challenge right before the end and that other people would be bummed, I decided to make a decision.

And so, on the night of Thanksgiving I began writing a story known as "The Secret December project", and since then...it's been going really well! Because first off, with this story I had a pretty good idea of where I wanted it to go and so two weeks before I even put pen to paper I wrote the plot down on a bunch of notecards so I would have some idea of where I wanted to go before I even started writing. Now, normally, I shy away from outlines when it comes to fiction writing, because I like to just go by the seat of my pants, let the story lead me where it will, but this time...This time having an outline is actually helping! In addition to writing the plot down on notecards, I also wrote a chapter-by-chapter outline in the notebook that I'm writing the actual story in and that's been a huge help! Because every night when I sit down to write I just flip to the chapter outline and just pick up right where I left off! Using this method, I've actually been able to write a half a chapter to a whole chapter each time I sit down to write! The whole process has been very rewarding now that I know my story is actually going somewhere! It's very freeing to have directions and it's also been a lot more bearable because I'm not forcing myself to write every. single. day. Now I just write when the urge strikes, and I think I produce better (and finished!) work that way.

Also, I've been posting chapters of the story (now know as "The Stranger") on FictionPress.com if anyone wants to read and review them!

And, last but not least, I've been thinking about new story ideas already for my next project (but don't worry, I'm not going to start anything new-except maybe the occasional short story on the side-until "The Stranger" is complete!) and the one that I'm thinking of now has to do with, um...Fish. That's all I'll say for now, it has to do with fish. What kind of fish you ask? Well, that's a post for another time. :)

Love you all and I promise to write more then once during break!

~Ella