Tag Archives: Nanowrimo

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NaNoWriMo Weekend # 2: Writing, but not the Novel

So here’s the second weekend and I finally broke into 20,000 words. I want to reach 25k before I sleep tonight, but as luck would have it, I have some other writing assignments that I need to finish. I have 12 reflections due for Didache 2010 next week, and to be honest, I wanted to write them all this weekend but it was impossible. I was too distracted. :( I’d rather write my novel, you know? But I must finish this.

So now I’m alternating between writing those reflections and my novel. You know when both is equally important?

I think it might be my last year for Didache. I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it. Or prayed about it. >_>

Anyway, writing the novel has been really fun. Week 2’s coming, but it’s supposed to be the hard week, but so far I’m not seeing any hard writing days yet. I want to start fleshing out the subplot with Ruth’s sister, but it’s not rearing its head, so I will go continue where my characters want me to go. Ruth’s gone speed dating and met Matt, reconnected with Ian and now she’s about to find out something about Glenn. And finally, Ruth is going on dates! I will finally make her go on a date with the guy who will ask her to buy term life insurance! I feel like I rambled for the first six chapters, but it feels just right to build up to her forced dating spree. Whee. This is the fastest progress I’ve had so far. :D I might just reach 60k. :D

I better get back to writing my reflections. :D And before I go, here’s an excerpt from Chapter 5:

Continue reading NaNoWriMo Weekend # 2: Writing, but not the Novel →

Dear Diary

What I love most about NaNoWriMo

I’m already at 9,028 words and I personally think this is my fastest progress ever. I’m trying to remember my 2006 stats (which I lost during the Ginger crash of 2007) but if I hit 10k today, that’s a pretty good thing, right? I’m actually averaging 3k per day. And what’s cool is that I’m still on chapter 2. Okay, I don’t know if that’s cool, but I guess that kind of means that my story is at least promising to be…er, long. I think.

Anyway. I don’t have any excerpts to share today, and I know writing this means I am procrastinating, but hear me out for a minute. I’ve mentioned this a lot of times, but I will say it again. There’s something magical about November. Ever since I joined the craziness that is writing a 50,000 word novel in a month, November has always been a month of bright ideas. The time where I meet people both in real life and in my imagination, all tell their own story. November is the time I dream and talk of novels all day, where I meet all sorts of characters who do all sorts of stuff: some like riding bikes, some have interesting back stories, some advocate healthy cooking, some eat ice cream all day long. This month is where anything can happen — in my novel, at least. :D And I know this is bad writing practice, but November is the only time I really get to write, and the time I really get to feel like a writer. Like I can make all excuses to not do some things because “I have some writing to do.” A bit pretentious, yes, but true, isn’t it? We all use that excuse. ;)

The thing I love most about NaNoWriMo is how my writerly senses become all active. I love how it revives my dream of being a writer, how it encourages me to just write and worry about the result later. I love how it helps me reach for my dream, even if it’s just one month in a year. And I would never ever trade the experience for anything else.

To be honest, I’m still scared for any of my babies to go out into the world…but maybe this year would change that. :) After all, everyone has a story to tell, right? And maybe this year, my story will be one of those that will be told. So I will write. :)

To all NaNoWriMo 2008 participants: keep on writing! You guys are one of my biggest inspirations this year, and it’s an honor to be a part of such a wonderful writing community. :)

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NaNoWriMo Weekend # 1: Word Wars

So it’s finally November, and weirdly enough, when 12 midnight rolls in, I did not feel like writing at all. Is it over-excitement? Or am I just stressed over supervising the first ever PinoyWrimo Word War?

Probably the latter. The PinoyWrimos had their kick-off chat starting 10:30 PM on October 31, and it was a crazy conference. Last year we have about 15 in the chatroom. This year we got 29 inside. Whoa. What a wacky, wacky group, this is. Quotable quote of the weekend: TONIGHT WE WRITE! IN CBTL! OMG, that cracked me up.

Anyway, I decided to join some word wars myself, from yesterday’s unofficial one to today’s official one and I realized that I can actually crank out about 1000+ words in an hour — and I am even distracted at that time, checking the chat every now and even worrying how to get back inside the chatroom after Yahoo! kicked me out. All in an ML’s day’s work. :)

It’s been great so far. The people are wacky and amazing, and it’s so nice seeing everyone’s word counts spike up on this first weekend of November. It’s going to be a great month, I can feel it. :)

As for my novel…I think I wrote the longest first chapter ever. My first chapter was around 6000 words! Scrivener is lovely to use, and it’s gotten me really organized and motivated to write even more. My current word count is 6,913 and I’m planning to break into 7k tonight before I go to bed. I like my story this year than last year’s and I really hope I won’t lose steam and I’d get enough motivation to finish the novel within the month. :)

And because everyone’s waiting for this…here’s the first excerpt of I Am Single (And Everybody Knows). This is a part of chapter 1. :D

Please note that this is unedited stuff, so expect mistakes! :D

Continue reading NaNoWriMo Weekend # 1: Word Wars →

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Script Frenzy 2008: Novels in Hollywood?

I was supposed to post something that my boss told me at work today, but something else caught my eye. :D I know I’m kind of been neglecting this website, which should’ve been launched, oh, I don’t know, 3 months ago but because of busy-ness, I couldn’t get around to sitting down and forming the site. Argh.

But let’s not get to that.

I got this from the Breaking News at the NaNoWriMo website:

I wanted to give everyone advance warning that the second-annual Script Frenzy will be commencing on April 1. We’ve moved it forward by two months, and made some changes to open it up to more writers. Now the escapade includes TV scripts, short film scripts, and adaptations of novels. As long as you cumulatively write 100 pages of script in April, you’re a winner.

If you’ve been thinking that one of your NaNoWriMo manuscripts would make an awesome movie or play, April is the ideal month to find out. I wrote my first screenplay for Script Frenzy last year, and learning to tell a big story using only dialogue ended up paying big dividends in my novel-writing as well. I’d say Script Frenzy made my novel dialogue and pacing 349% less sucky overall, bringing both of them all the way up to a third-grade level. A third-grade level! In just one month!

Sweet progress.

I was also pleasantly surprised by how easy the dreaded formatting turned out to be, and how many great pieces of free scriptwriting software there are out there to automate the whole process. Here’s to a heavily scripted April!

Chris

See the emphasized words? Adaptation of novels. That really made my day. I wanted to join Script Frenzy last year but backed out because of my schedule, plus I couldn’t write an all original screenplay without any basis like others who can put characters who are fascinated with collecting CAT5e. Even if I did use to write scripts back in high school, it was all based on another piece. I still like writing original prose than screenplays. My VD-PROD script was a perfect example, based on Shooting Star. Heh.

But I think I might just join this one. It’s my first time, and I’ll probably fail…but it’s a fun thing to try. :) I might be able to work on Red Meets Blue here, since I can see it more “on screen” than on paper. Or maybe that’s only because I make my characters burst into song all the time. Heh.

Is anyone planning to join Script Frenzy too? If you are, let me know! We can be writing buddies. :D

Dear Diary

Breathe Easy

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I had a very packed weekend, thank you very much. :) Packed, tiring but fun, so it’s probably a way to cap off my very tiring November and first week of December.

Friday night was supposed to be a day when I’ll be home early because I wanted to rest for a change, plus my brother would not pick me up because he has a date, and I have Aslan with me. Oh, and I had a headache too, because of all the laughing we did the day before for our boss’ video. I left the office at 8, thinking it should be easy for me to go home, right? Wrong. The line for the tricycle was sooooo long, it curved to the side of the street, and there were no tricycles! I went back to the office to call a cab, but then my teammate told me that it’s traffic everywhere…so I was stuck. I decided to just wait for my brother, so I ended up staying at the office until 11:00pm. Gah. Ate dinner with some teammates, teased a lot of people (heh), and spent the rest of the night chatting on YM with friends until my brother arrived.

My morning Doulos trip with the Godchicks was postponed, but I had to wake up early because it was the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Heard mass, went home and fell asleep again, missing the Leopard day with Happy, then headed off to the first ever Pinoy NaNoWriMo Thank God it’s Over party. :) It wasn’t much of a big party, as there were only nine who came, but it was fun hanging out with fellow NaNo-ers. Everyone went home with a prize and a really cool Pinoy NaNoWriMo pin designed by Roland and made by Kage (photos to follow). We had a lot of food care of Mira, and a Powerbooks session after. Since we’re all basically on a break until November, we’ll be starting a year-long writing project, which I will be hosting soon. :D Watch out for it.

Sunday was our account’s first team building. Long and tiring but fun day, and it was nice to be able to bond with other people in our account. :) I’ve never laughed so much in a day, and the entire thing reminded me of a YFC camp. Awww. Photos to follow once I get them from my teammates. :D

I’m finally…resting for this week. It’s not as hectic as the past weeks, so I’m taking advantage of the quietness of this week to do some things I should be doing:

  1. Do my Christmas shopping – self-explanatory :)
  2. Do my Christmas baking – Chocolate revel bars, ahoy! I’m also going to tr
  3. Make a new layout – this layout is almost six months old!
  4. Transfer my domain name and host (Hello Dreamhost). Refine Me is expiring by the end of the year, and after being hosted by Protagonist Webhosting for three years, it’s time for me to move to a bigger place, and try to manage my own virtual real estate. :) So hello, Dreamhost! Hello, new registrar (and possibly tinamats.com)! And ultimately, hello new domains and some business. :D I’ve got to get ready in backing up and transferring domains since this is my first time. Any tips?

And that’s the to-do for the next few weeks. For the next few days, I’ve got work, MV Doulos trip, shopping trips, payday, a Christmas party and birthday party coming up. Yeah, that‘s taking it easy. :P

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A Writing Request

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Hi friends,

Just this month, a big literary event happened. You may not know about it, but as of this counting, there are about 300+ Filipinos involved in it. This November, the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) happened. NaNoWriMo is a month-long challenge for everyday people who ever wanted to write a novel, a.k.a. the one day novelist. You know, those people who say, “One day, I’m going to write a novel.” NaNoWriMo provides you with that one day. This is a challenge to write 50,000 words in the span of 30 days — approximately 1,667 words per day. This is one of the biggest writing events of the year participated in by 100,000 people of all ages from all over the world.

In case you don’t know (or maybe you haven’t been paying attention), I am the Municipal Liaison (ML) for the Philippines for NaNoWriMo 2007. Being an ML means I was put in charge in encouraging these fine Pinoy novelists for the month of November, as well as organize events for them. These writers have toiled their way to writing a novel this November, and even if some did not reach the 50,000 word mark, they are still considered as winners for the simple fact that they allowed themselves to be challenged by NaNoWriMo this month. This, then, deserves some sort of a victory party. The first ever victory party of the Filipino NaNoWriMo community to celebrate the end of the event, and to celebrate our own personal writing victories.

In connection with this, I, as the Municipal Liaison of the Filipino NaNoWriMo community, would like to ask for some help from any of the readers of my blog. See, although we are starting to be supported by a really great group, we are not funded by anyone. Most of the participants are students, and I am not as filthy rich as I want to. :D So I am asking for your kind help for any kind of prize donations that you may want to give to inspire these novelists. These prizes will be used as a raffle for all the participants who will join the victory party tentatively scheduled on December 8. These prizes could be anything that would inspire a writer to continue writing, such as:

  • a journal
  • a nice pen
  • a writing book/manual — especially a copy of No Plot, No Problem!
  • a book written during NaNoWriMo and published
  • a novel about writing or reading (Jasper Fforde, anyone?)
  • any book would do, actually :D
  • coffee shop GCs, since writers like having write-a-thon’s at coffee shops
  • bookstore GCs
  • food – chocolates, potato chips — writers have to eat too
  • bookmarks
  • anything from The Office of Letters and Light Store (which ships here, I think)

Possible prizes are not limited to that. It could be as simple as a pin or as personal as a handwritten inspirational letter to a participant for NaNo 2008. It does not have to be as expensive as say, tickets to a Van Halen tour, just something a budding novelist could use to inspire him to continue to write. Cash donations will also be accepted, although I’m kind of wary with that. But if you do decide to give that, I assure you that (insert number here) stomachs will be happily filled by December 8.

If you would be kind enough to help me out and continue to inspire these Pinoy writers, kindly post a comment here so I can contact you, or just use the contact form and please put NaNoWriMo 2007 on the subject field so I know it’s about NaNo.

Thank you for reading this post, and I hope to hear from any of you readers (however few you may be) soon. :)

Tina (tinamats)
ML for the Philippines
NaNoWriMo 2007

Disclaimer: This is not an official NaNoWriMo site, nor is this request sponsored by NaNoWriMo. The content has not been reviewed by National Novel Writing Month. For more information on National Novel Writing Month, visit www.nanowrimo.org.

Dear Diary

So Ends Crazy November

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November has indeed been crazy, but let me just say: IT’S (ALMOST) OVER!

My posts for this blog has been considerably few for this month, and I blame it all on National Novel Writing Month. Writing a 50,000 word novel in a month is no joke, and this year it’s hard because I’m not so in love with my story as I used to the past years. Then again, my past three novels have self-insertions in it, and most of the other charaters are based on the people around me, so it’s easy to write. This year, there’s no self-insertion as the characters are based on mostly my imagination, not on other people I know (So teammates, no one is in the novel this year. Maybe next year?), though my friends and I made a cameo (Heh. That’s blatant self-insertion!).

NaNoWriMo 2007 winner!Oh yeah, I reached 50,121 words today, and once I saw my word count was enough, I stopped writing and I intend to bury that novel in Aslan until I can look at it again in the face. It’s not that I do not like my novel this year — I do. I just don’t like the way I wrote it. I feel like I lost my writing skills in the middle of the month, and you would not believe the amount of word padding I did in this novel just so I can get to my word count. Bah. Quantity over quality. I’ll get back to it when I feel like it. David and Marianne can wait (and oh yeah, I scrapped the entire Marianne recovering from drug rehab thing…it’s to heavy to write). Right now, let me rest and start making a dent on my long overdue reading list. Pride and Prejudice, here I come!

The next crazy thing that’s about to end together with this month is my first time as night shift for work. Hay, finally! Okay, I admit that I might have complained a bit about my being night shift but I did shut up in the middle of the month and managed being on night shift quite well. It was interesting to see so many people on our floor and to see how many things I can finish doing at night. I admit that I wrote a lot for NaNo during my shift, when I’m out of things to do. The only thing that made this month’s shift crazy is that we have this really demanding client, plus all our extracurricular activities that we all said yes to. O_o; Okay, it was a nice kind of busy, but it kept me too much on my toes that now, I just want to relax. And do the normal work we used to do.

Today’s my last day of night shift for this year (since tomorrow we’ll be on holiday), and come Monday, I am a happy morning person again. :) Yay. Will I go on night shift again or try mid-shift next time? It would depend on the need, actually. See, being on night shift has really nice financial perks. :> But let’s see how it goes. I’m not even sure when my next schedule is. :P

Hopefully the craziness with work especially this particular client would be over by today, just so it’s some kind of a clean slate by Monday. :)

So it’s almost December! My tentative list of things to do for December are:

  • Get that Dreamhost hosting plan and start transferring my files.
  • Change domain name registrars.
  • Make a new layout.
  • Start putting more effort on Mission: Sydney
  • Organize NaNoWriMo Thank God it’s Over (TGIO) meet up.
  • Christmas shopping!
  • Christmas parties (first one on Saturday for work)
  • Read, read, read!

And now I shall go to work. Later I shall post about something serious, and Enchanted ♥ ♥ ♥ . Keep safe, everyone. :)

Dear Diary

Crazy November

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Gah. I just woke up from a five hour nap. It’s fine, of course, but the thing is, I need to be at work early tomorrow, so I don’t need any naps today since I won’t be staying up all night. Ergh. I was supposed to have a productive afternoon writing, but no. Hmph.

Anyway, I’m too lazy to update this other blog (been too lazy lately to update any other blog, for that matter), so I’ll rant and update about my NaNoWriMo novel here. I’m currently at 36k+ words, which is not bad since I’m over the 35K thing, which should make all things easy…but really, it’s not. I’m aiming to get at least 40k words tonight, which means I have 10k words left to write for the next four days. Why four days? I’m going to be out on Friday for MV Doulos, All Leopard Day and lunch with Tuesday and Happy. I could cram writing at night, but not more than 1000 words please.

So why am I going to work early tomorrow when I’m still at night shift? Well, a big boss at work is coming to town, and my team was asked to help out with making a photo book for the guy. Two of my teammates were assigned as photographers, two of my teammates will work as the layout artists and we have a printer and a photobook that needs to be filled up. I offered my services to cut and paste them in the photobook (even if I seriously suck at cutting…but that’s why I offered my paper trimmer up as well :D). My part of the deal starts in the afternoon, so I could just go to work then, but I’ve got leftover work from another client at work (argh, argh, argh), and I need to finish it ASAP so if I have any revisions I could finish it immediately…hence my drive to get to work early to finish that first before any of the photo book stuff. *whew*

I knew November was going to be crazy, but this is…just…crazy. See emphasis, please.

This feels so much like school. Haha. Crunch time!

This point is totally senseless. But I guess the nap worked because I feel like I’m running on a full battery, so that should get more work done. Here’s to writing 4000 more words tonight.

But wait. CSI:NY Season 4 Episode 9 waits. Eeep.

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Don't get it right, get it written

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It’s no secret that I dream of being a writer. In fact, I call myself a striving writer because that’s what I am. I don’t have any fancy degrees in Creative Writing or anything related, and I know my English is not as strong as I want it to be. To be honest, I just write what comes to mind, and I’m sure I don’t win high points in any grammar book. My vocabulary is too limited, and I feel envious of people who write really well. I may seem like a good writer to other people, but if I was put beside all the other “good writers” around, I’d most probably suck real bad.

So last Saturday’s writing workshop was actually a big encouragement for me wannabe er, striving writer. Like I said, I don’t have fancy degrees. Reading classics make my head ache sometimes, and I hardly touch science fiction or fantasy because just like classics, I find it a bit hard to digest (yes, I’ve never read any LotR). I hardly have time to acquire and read Filipino literature (except for Bob Ong, hee!). I admit that I love ChickLit, and some people think that’s shallow. I love Young Adult too. My stories are all happy bubbly type of stories, which is why I quit the school’s literary folio back in college because I felt like my stories do not fit what they usually publish (that and I do not have time). I’ve pretty much given up hope being a writer until I got to know about National Novel Writing Month, where I finally found the reason to write and be creative at least once a year. And since the topic was pretty much about writing a novel in 30 days since Dean is also a Wrimo (and I just realized! A batchmate! I joined NaNo in 2004 too :D), the talk pretty much pushed the right buttons for inspiration. :P

Last Saturday’s workshop with Dean Alfar was an eye-opening and inspiring one. It made me want to learn more about the craft, to actually take this writing business seriously. It’s not going to pay any of my bills, but it’s what I’ve been wanting to do ever since I “met” Elizabeth Wakefield of Sweet Valley, and I don’t think I’ll ever really rest well without being able to fulfill my dream of publishing at least one fiction novel. As what I told Julie the other day, I’m really afraid of my works being shot down, but that’s necessary for the growth as a writer. It won’t kill me. Great adventure, yes?

So…by hook or by crook, I’m gonna get to 50,000 words on this year’s NaNo. I’m going to finish this novel (and finish last year‘s too), and write, write, write. Of course, read, read, read too. Because if I’m not going to write about the things I see and how I see these things, then who will?

Onward, Pinoy Wrimos! :)

* Much thanks to Read or Die/Write or Die for this great initiative. :D Mabuhay kayo!

Dear Diary

NaNo-preparations

I’ve bene staring at Flash MX all day, it’s not funny anymore. Wah. I’ve never been so lazy to program ever, but maybe it’s because I’ve been distracted with NaNoWriMo (if you don’t know what this is again, it’s National Novel Writing Month) all day.

NaNoWriMo 2007 ParticipantYes, it’s almost that time of the year again. The time where I temporarily disappear from posting because I need to put in words in my novel and when I do post, it’s always about the novel I’m currently writing.I’ve talked about it a couple of times before in this blog, but I’ve concentrated most of my updates in my official NaNo blog, which you can visit right here.

Why do I keep on talking about this? Well, besides the fact that this is an excuse for me to be creative, I am the Municipal Liaison for the Philippines for NaNoWriMo this year, so I’m definitely encouraging people to join up. If you’re a NaNo-er and you’re from the Philippines and you haven’t made your presence known at the boards yet, then do so now! Make sure you set your regional affiliations to Asia :: Philippines so you can see the Philippines forum. If you’re a newbie and you just decided to join, you’re more than welcome to do so. :) You’ll also get some free stickers if you do (I’m serious). We’ll be having a big meet-up at the end of the month, so the more people, the merrier! :) Join the creative insanity! :)

Now the only thing that’s kind of bothering me right now is that I’ll be going to Singapore on Friday, which means my writing will be halted a bit because of the travelling thing. I won’t be bringing Ginger there because I don’t want to bring too many stuff, but I obviously want to write…so I guess it’s pen and paper for me for the entire weekend. Unless I can hostage my dad’s laptop for the weekend, OR, if I can get my Aslan by that weekend, then that would be so much better. :) Let’s see.

Oh, and aside from all the novel-related posts, expect a post about Singapore complete with photos. We’ll be bringing a couple of digital cameras there (yes, more than one — our normal digicam, a borrowed dSLR, and my brother’s video cam), so I’ll be breaking the monotony of my words with photos. Or maybe in my way to preserve the words I churn out everyday, I’ll just make a photo post. Whichever.

Okay, back to preparing for NaNo. :) Excuse me a bit while I talk to my characters.