Day 24 ~ Victory

You might have been wondering why I haven't been blogging much recently? Reason A: I've been horribly busy. Reason B: I've been writing a lot. So, yeah. I finished the book and won at the same time. :D I'll be able to validate it tomorrow. Final word count? 50,093. I'm honestly relieved that I got it over 50k, and I'll be able to beef it up a little when I edit. I don't have much description at all, it's mostly raw dialogue and action. I had hoped to pull off an early win, and I did. First NaNo? Check.

I'm going to give Legends of Light a long rest. I'll return to it in June. Sadly, July will be really busy so I can't do a NaNo then, but I'll probably still have time to edit LoL.

So, I'd say I'm pretty happy right now. My one little pet peeve? I achieved my word count goal, but my arrow isn't in the middle of my profile target. Just take a look at it if you want, you'll see what I mean.

This means that there won't be many posts on this blog for a while. I'll probably make a new blurb, and maybe give occasional updates on the editing, but that'll be it. I'll see you...later, I guess. And on the other blog.

Happy writing!

~ Sophia-Rose

Day 21 ~ Derail

I took a break yesterday. To be fair, I needed it. I wrote more today, but I'm not satisfied. Why? Well, to reach today's goal, I had to write five scenes. The first four went fine. When I reached the fifth, my day derailed. Why? I was supposed to get 750 words out of an ambush scene where the fight doesn't even begin yet. Here's the catch: If I'm even one little word short, my story will end before 50k. Ugh. So, I put it off until tomorrow. Yeah, I should stop doing that, but I have a good lead. Anyway, highlights:

• Writing wasn't much fun, but...I found my perfect noveling music! It's actually a theme from Wizard101, and it suits Wardiloth perfectly. Really. It's perfect. Here it is: Avalon glorious theme.

Well...all the scenes include spoilers, since I'm really, really close to the climax. Sorry. (These posts just seem to get shorter, don't they? Sad.)

Happy writing!

~ Sophia-Rose

Day 19 ~ Trouble

So, yesterday one of my highlights was that I killed a major character. That was at the very - I mean VERY - end of yesterday's writing, so today I opened with elaborating a little. And there lies my problem. I began to feel horribly guilty. Can't tell you why, but it really made it hard to write. It wasn't a hard decision to kill him, either. I had to do it to move the story forward. But I did have some highlights:

• Wrote ANOTHER whole chapter
• Went over 40,000 words :D
• My characters have finally escaped from their prison
• I developed a lot of characters
• I actually managed to write decent action scenes
• I ended on another great cliffhanger. Dun dun dun!!

It's pretty late right now, so I'm going to end this here. Sorry for the short-ish post. If I keep up at this rate, I'm slated to finish on the 22nd. :)

Happy writing!

~ Sophia-Rose

Day 18 ~ Dullness

Today had a great start. I got inside the head of my favorite character, whose point of view I don't usually do, and had fun with it. Then, my day just...derailed. Writing got boring. I don't know why, but I pushed through. Highlights:

• Wrote mostly hilarious scenes
• Wrote another whole chapter
• Killed a character (gasp!)

Yep, I killed a major character. However, I won't use it as an excerpt because I don't want to share which one I killed. Instead, here's a funny excerpt:

Alcasor sighed and shook his head. 'Peregrine, Peregrine,' he said. 'What am I going to do with you?'

Peregrine turned his grimace into a grin. 'I don’t know. Maybe take me on more adventures after this?'

Alcasor didn’t seem to think it was funny. He frowned at Peregrine. 'This is not a laughing matter!' he hissed, lowering his voice and nervously glancing around. 'We could all be killed, and you got us into it! I expect you to be quiet and cooperative while we try to get you out!'

That isn't the best part of it, but it's the best one I could find without spoilers.

Happy writing!

~ Sophia-Rose

Day 17 ~ Exhausting

I just wrote nearly 5k words in one day, which amounts to the longest chapter in the entire book. That's almost 1/10 of the story right there - I really impressed myself! And it was mostly action, so that was really good. Basically, it was a solo marathon - I wrote for four hours straight, got most of it done in one sitting. I feel good, and I'm three whole days ahead. Highlights:

• Wrote all of chapter 10 (So. Long. Six whole scenes!)
• Showed more of my favorite character ever!
• Had my characters disguise themselves, made some pretty funny scenes
• Set the stage for the next several chapters, building up to the semi-climax

I'm pretty tired right now, so I'll keep this short. No excerpt today, sorry. See you tomorrow.

~ Sophia-Rose

Day 16 ~ Intense

Well, today was...intense. But fun. I tried out my first real action scenes, and I relaxed a little when I discovered that I could squeeze more than about 200 words out of each one. That was definitely one of my highlights. The rest are:

• Wrote another whole chapter (only six from the end - eep!)
• Went around a huge story turning point (about to begin one of the most intense sequences - yikes!)
• Showed my villains happy, for once
• Introduced my first elves
• Hit 1,000 pageviews on this blog! Thanks, everyone!

I'm undertaking an intense challenge. This week is school vacation week, so I'm a lot less busy. I've decided to challenge myself to write one whole chapter every day. If that goes well, I'll finish the book this week. Early wins ftw! Right now, it's going quite well. I'm about 1k words above tomorrow's par. What some of you may find a little strange is I'm having a lot more fun now in Week 3 than I was in Week 1. Want to know my secret? Okay. Here it is.

NaNo is very rigid in general. To win, you have to write at least 1,667 words every day. I've discovered that it's so much more fun if you stop thinking of it that way. We're writers! We use words, not numbers! Instead of thinking, "I need to write 1,667 words today," think, "I want to write up to the part where _____ happens." It's more interesting that way, and feels less robotic. Just a tip.

I've decided that action scenes don't really have spoilers, so I'm going to go back to excerpts. There's A LOT of action in the next few chapters, so expect excerpts in the next few days! Here's one to kick it off:

"When Rayand heard Gabby’s urgent whisper, he knew what was coming. It came as no surprise to him when he saw the skeletal dragon walking out of the trees. The problem was that it turned its malignant beady eyes on Gabby. Rayand rolled his eyes and slowly stepped toward it. It didn’t seem to notice him, and blew a blast of black fire straight at her. She shrieked as the edge of her cloak caught fire, and tamped it out on the rocks.

The skeletal dragon leaped forward to claw at her, eyes blazing with fury. Rayand charged at it and smacked it with his sword. It faltered, stunned, and then staggered over to a nearby tree, where it clattered into a pile of bones. Rayand stared at Gabby. 'Did I actually just save your life?'

A growl sounded from the other end of the path. Everyone froze as another skeleton emerged, this one even bigger than the last. This time, it wasn’t focused on Gabby, but instead Alcasor, who stood calmly in its path. The skeleton paused, surveying its target, and then lunged."

Enjoy your cliffhanger! :D 

Happy writing!

~ Sophia-Rose

Day 15 ~ Milestone

So, I'm back now. And I hit 26k. Yes, I know that's not a very big milestone, but I had to hit 25k first. Which is halfway. :D And I wrote a whole chapter in a day, which is pretty rare for me. Basically, it was a 3k day! Highlights:

• Wrote all of chapter eight
• Wrote a scene where all my characters went crazy (not literally)
• Used more runes (hooray!)
• Ended on a cliffhanger (again)

So, fun. Yup. Want an excerpt? Sorry, no. I'm eventually going to post it on here, and from this point onward, everything has major spoilers. That's right: everything. So sorry. No excerpts = short posts, so instead I'll just talk more about my experience today. Like I said, I wrote 3k today, which is about as good as Day One! (And you know how happy I was on Day One.) Basically, it was like back to the beginning: new motivations, big story changes, etc. I had fun, and honestly, I was surprised. I'd heard that week 3 is terrible, and well...it wasn't - yet. We'll see how it goes.

Happy writing!

~ Sophia-Rose

Day 12 ~ Stress

My thoughts today while writing were mostly, "Aaah! I'm going to be gone all of tomorrow and some of Sunday and I need to get ahead!" Just so you know - that is NOT a good atmosphere for writing, and only serves to get you totally stressed out. I think I'm nicely ahead, though. I'm at just over 22,000 words, which is about 500 words above the par for tomorrow, so even if I'm a little behind when I get back, I can manageably regain a lead. Highlights:

• Quiet garden scene to catch my breath. This is good, since soon I'll have 2.5 chapters of nonstop action. Ah! That isn't my strong point.
• Did some character development on my FMC (Gabby)

All in all, though, today was sort of painful. It was a combination of quiet thoughtful scenes with the attitude of I NEED TO WRITE-WRITE-WRITE-WRITE-WRITE NOW!!! Not a good combination.

Most of what I wrote today either contains extreme spoilers or is very boring, so there will be no excerpt today. Sorry. Maybe I'll schedule something for tomorrow. Possibly an archived excerpt?

Happy writing!

~ Sophia-Rose

Day 11 ~ Inspiration

You may notice that I added a word after the "day 11" title. It's so much more interesting, isn't it? I have good news and bad news.

The good news is that I hit 20k words today! 20,396 to be exact. The more extra words, the better, right? I also got hit by a huge blast of inspiration. More about that later.

The bad news is that Camp NaNoWriMo feels so much more camp-ish now. "Well, why is that bad news?" you may ask. That's because the cause of it was that I got real poison ivy. >.< I'm super sensitive to it.

So, back to the good news. Highlights first, and then I'll talk about my huge blast of inspiration. Okay? Good.

• Finished Chapter 6! (Woot! It was loooong.)
• Wrote my rhyming legend, and threw some prophecy in there. (It isn't morbid, though.)
• HUGE BLAST OF INSPIRATION!
• Wrote more Peregrine awesomeness!
• Laid out the character's plans for the next several chapters, although they might not go as planned.

So, my huge blast of inspiration. Right. Ever since I first typed up the last few scenes on my spreadsheet, I've thought they were a little weak and boring. I just figured I'd see to them when I got there, and maybe I could write them so they wouldn't be so weak and boring. Well, today I was writing up the last verse of my legend/prophecy poem, and thinking about how it applied to my planned ending. Then, I thought of a whole new way it could apply to the ending and how that would totally help my plotless sequels get a plot! Awesome! Now I'm super excited to get there.

As for my favorite excerpt, this was easy. I left off the last two verses because they were the prophecy verses, and they have minor spoilers in them. Please, don't ask for context of this legend. Be forewarned: It probably won't make any sense.

When dragons of the glowing light

Have lost their family name

They seem to be in endless night

Without their powers’ flame.

But when all hope turns to despair

For light without a cost

There is another way, though rare

To bring back powers lost.

An ancient artifact of stone

By banishing the dark

May, by its light, its brilliant tone

Return the powers’ spark.

’Twas forged in fires of mountains old

And cast in magic’s spell

But is it valuable as gold?

Only the wise can tell.

When held with purpose strong and good

Its light, drawn forth, is cast

But when evil is understood

Its light is hidden fast.

The Lightstone of the mountain’s spawn

Has caused conspiracy

It was desired by elven brawn

Yet held in secrecy.

The powers of the Lightstone’s glow

When touched by elven hands

Are gone, and they no longer show

When cast throughout the lands.

Now hidden behind bars of black

This artifact is gone

It takes a warrior to bring back

And resurrect its dawn.

Is it any good? Personally, I like it quite a bit, but verse #3 could use a little improvement.

Happy writing!

~ Sophia-Rose

Day 10

I wrote lots today! :D It was fun! Let's see if I can list the amazing highlights:

• Finished Chapter 5
• Developed more tension between FMC and MMC, and reasons behind it
• Gave the characters a dangerous warning and everyone freaked out
• Introduced Peregrine (best. character. EVER!!)
• Laughed at my own writing again
• Wrote almost 1,000 extra words

There is absolutely no contest about my favorite passage. The dilemma comes in on when to cut it. It's 800 words of awesome which I sadly can't put on this blog right now, but here's the best part:

"Peregrine opened a closet and gestured toward it, still talking. 'You can put your cloaks in here. It’s pretty empty right now, since it only has my and Alcasor’s in it right now. That’s the way…there you go. Now, can you do me a favor? Alcasor doesn’t have much patience for my tricks, see, and he’s always demonstrating or reading or transforming things for customers. It can get boring being his apprentice, so you wouldn’t mind if I could show you one of my spells, would you?' He only waited about half a second before continuing his ramble. 'Great. Are you hungry? Good. Just watch me transform this bowl of water into tomato soup. You’ll love it!'

Peregrine pulled a bowl of warm water from a cupboard off to the side and waved his staff over it. 'Akwas cunvertendy is in pulmanty!' he shouted with a grin. 'Now, just watch the magic.' The water began to steam and swirl, turning a variety of rainbow colors. He jumped up and down, and some of the water sloshed over the sides. He ignored it and stared at the bowl, his grin growing wider. The miniature whirlpool slowly stopped, and the mixture turned an orange color and thickened. 'It’s working! This is exactly what’s supposed to happen! I’m brilliantly amazing!' His smile vanished as the mixture continued darkening and solidifying, much more than tomato soup is supposed to. When it stopped changing, it was a thick, brown sludge. He tentatively stuck his finger into it and tasted it. The face he made quickly morphed into a strained smile. 'Want some?' he asked, extending the bowl to Gabby and Rayand."

:D Happy writing!

~ Sophia-Rose

Day 9

Hello again. Today's scenes were thoroughly depressing. There was a death in it, and a few monologues. I wonder if it would be boring to read. I just sort of ground out 2,000 words, but I have one highlight:

• Introduced dragons! Big part of the series right here.

I did change a few titles in the series, though.
1. Legends of Light --> unchanged
2. Battle's Chill --> Power's Chill (this was awhile back)
3. Burning from Within --> Omens of Burning (love this one!)
4. Stormy Seas --> unchanged
5. Doom of the Dragons --> Dragons in Darkness (like this a lot, too)

Do you like the new titles? I sure do. Most of what I wrote was very depressing, so I don't really have a favorite excerpt. Tomorrow will be very interesting, though. I will introduce my favorite character ever!!

Happy writing!

~ Sophia-Rose

Day 8

So...yeah. These posts seem awkward and empty without the song, don't they? It was a pity to abolish my song, but it had to be done. Today was mostly dedicated to catching up, since I was behind. I hit the par, but that's about it. Tomorrow will be mostly dedicated to trying to regain my lead, since I'll be away for the weekend. Yikes! But I still have highlights!

• Showed MMC (Rayand) as someone other than a paranoid whiner. He has friends!
• Showed a somewhat humorous dishing-out-orders scene
• Had my FMC (Gabby) get lost
• Started Chapter 5!

Now for my favorite excerpt. I always have trouble picking these things! But here you are. By the way, Sulok is Rayand's best friend. I'm quite fond of him, even though he's just a minor character.

"Sulok counted on his fingers. 'The general said something about a precision attempt, so he’s probably only going to send a few people. I think that since it’s a spying mission, he’ll want one expert spy, one super quick person and one strong warrior for defense. The best choices would be Thendoryl, me, and you, but are you sure he’s going to pick the best of us?'

That got a laugh out of Rayand. 'Actually, I think he’s going to pick Thendoryl, Enthard, and Roydran, but that’s just my opinion.'

Sulok sighed. 'You’re probably right. Those are usually his favorites for spying missions. It’s too bad. Some of us could use a special mission to be promoted from guard to soldier.'"

Sulok is hinting in that last part. Well, wish me luck. And...

Happy writing!


~ Sophia-Rose

Day 7

You may notice that I didn't put a song. That's because today was terribly busy and I didn't get any words done today, and I was running out of ideas for the song anyway. I'll try to write lots tomorrow, but I'm not sure how that will go.

Happy writing!

~ Sophia-Rose

On the sixth day of writing...

...Camp NaNo gave to me six grammar errors
Five cabin mates!
Four times 2k words
Three new scenes
Two more characters
And a month full of writing fun, free!

So, today actually went quite well other than the word loss fiasco this morning. I'm still ahead, so I'd say I'm doing quite well. Lesson learned: always manually save the file every few hundred words. Highlights:

• Wrote a hilarious tavern scene

And...I'm sorry to say that's really the only new thing I wrote today. :P But here is another excerpt!

Just kidding! I already did an excerpt today, so there won't be another one until tomorrow. Sorry, folks. But...

Happy writing!

~ Sophia-Rose

Update! (This is good news, folks!)

Okay, I rewrote both the scenes I'd lost, hit 10k again, and even picked up 50 extra words. I won't complain. To thank you for the support and celebrate some major scene improvements, here is an extra excerpt (hooray for portal description!):

"Gabby touched down, much more lightly than she would’ve thought, in a round room, or perhaps a building, made entirely out of stone. She seemed to have gone back into the medieval era. On the wall ahead, the stone seemed to reflect a strange greenish tint. Curious, Gabby turned around to try and find the source. It wasn’t at all difficult. Directly behind her, there was a portal vortex exactly like the one she’d seen on earth, except this one was vibrant green instead of stark white. She wondered if portals were color-coded. If so, it would make sense for a green portal to lead to Earth.

What Gabby found especially interesting wasn’t the portal but instead the thin stone archway that surrounded it. It was engraved with decorative markings that didn’t seem to follow any particular pattern. Intrigued, she stepped closer and discovered that it was actually a fascinating runic handwriting that looked a lot like elvish runes out of Lord of the Rings."

Since I wrote the original 2k words that I lost completely in the afternoon, I think I can still write 2k more words today. I don't have much else to do except for another fiction writing project. The only problem: this one's for school. Thankfully, the maximum is 6 pages double spaced, so it shouldn't take too long.

Happy writing!

~ Sophia-Rose

It's gone...

My computer had to install so-called "updates" so it restarted and my past 2k words that I thought were totally awesome are ALL GONE. ALL GONE!! I'm going to lose now...it's all gone...hours of work and great story...gone. I can't stand it! I feel sick.

~ Sophia-Rose

On the fifth day of writing...

...Camp NaNo gave to me five cabin mates!
Four times 2k words
Three new scenes
Two more characters
And a month full of writing fun, free!

I have one thing to say. 10K WORDS!! :D Yep, I just hit 10,076 words on Legends of Light! I'm so happy! Well, okay. I actually have a lot more than one thing to say.
1. 10K WORDS!! :D
2. I wrote so much awesome today.
3. I've contracted NaNoFever.
And now, it's time to highlight that awesome mentioned in thing-to-say #2:

• My FMC (Gabby) and MMC (Rayand) finally met. They hate each other! :D
• Gabby entered the fantasy world for the first time
• I slyly introduced some very important plot points in upcoming books in a very subtle way
• I first wrote down some fancy runes in my novel (they look unspeakably cool, by the way)
• I introduced hints of a romance that I assure you will never develop further

In other words: awesome. The hard part was choosing which awesome to share with you on this blog. At first I wanted to do a segment of the part where Gabby and Rayand meet, but I didn't want to spoil it and I can't really cut that down to a few paragraphs. (It's all awesome!) Instead, I chose this awesomely cool piece of description of some portals in a special portal building. By the way, the green portal, not mentioned in this text, leads to Earth.

"'The blue portal leads to a valley in Elvindor, the northern region of Wardiloth, which may or may not be flooded at this point. It’s a good thing the elves currently don’t know how to activate portals, otherwise we’d be in serious trouble. We’re at war with them, you see. The orange one leads to the halls of time and magic. All the magic in every realm originates there, and even the power of time itself. Although nobody’s sure what, if anything, lives there, it’s probably best to be cautious just in case.' He lapsed into thoughtful silence.

'What about the purple one?' Gabby prompted.

'Ah, the purple portal. I suppose you would ask about it, wouldn’t you? The truth is, nobody quite knows to what realm it leads. We’ve sent scouts there to look, but not one returned. Eventually, we just decided that we should call it the realm of darkness as a warning to anyone who may want to try the portal, and leave it at that. We’re not sure what threats lurk behind the vortex, but it must be something gigantic. Everyone agrees that it’s a door best left closed.'"

Those excerpts just get longer and longer, don't they? I hope you'll understand. I couldn't bear to cut this one, since it's just better in its entirety! 

Happy writing!

~ Sophia-Rose

On the fourth day of writing...

...Camp NaNo gave to me four times 2k words
Three new scenes
Two more characters
And a month full of writing fun, free!

So, you can probably tell from the song that I hit 8k words today! I feel awesome. I don't have much time to write this post, so I need to make it short. Sorry. But here were today's highlights:

• Wrote my real fight scene
• Wrote a passage that made me giggle (that's really rare in my own writing!)

And here's my favorite passage. Guess what? It's the one that made me giggle!

"Gabby noticed a tall shadow up ahead. Was it a tree? That’s what it looked like. If so, she’d probably almost reached the park. She began to run, then winced at the slapping sound her feet made. Stupid sidewalk, she growled to herself. She wasn’t particularly interested in waking the whole town, and now she’d take that much longer to reach the tree. 'Unless, of course,' she thought with a dry smile, 'it’s actually a giant feather duster.'

When Gabby reached it, it turned out that it was neither tree nor duster, but instead a large, decorative shrub on a rotary in the middle of the street. 'It’s a good thing there aren’t many cars at this time of night,' she thought as she crossed back to the sidewalk, 'otherwise I wouldn’t be able to make those crossings without being seen!'

Suddenly, a rumbling noise came from Gabby’s left, and two tiny pinpoints of light began drawing nearer. Closer inspection revealed that they belonged to a car."

Happy writing!


~ Sophia-Rose

On the third day of writing...

...Camp NaNo gave to me three new scenes
Two more characters
And a month full of writing fun, free!

Today was very good. I hit my word count goal, and didn't get quite as many words down as I normally would have liked, but that was okay because I wrote three very high quality scenes in a relatively short amount of time. And speaking of quality...

When I look around on the Camp NaNo forums, I see threads full of people talking about how terrible their writing is. I don't know about you, but I find this really depressing. I understand that your first draft, especially one written during NaNo, is going to have some mistakes in it, but that's okay. Nobody's perfect. However, I'm seeing comments from people who think their writing absolutely sucks and completely hate it. Come on. Writing a terrible 1,667 words takes only about twenty minutes. Writing a good one takes an hour or so. I'm opting to take the extra time and make it decent. I find that I'm more motivated to write if I actually like what I'm writing. There's really no better way to lose motivation than to convince yourself that your writing stinks. Instead of complaining how bad your writing is, try taking a few extra minutes and make it just a little better so your inner editor doesn't throw a screaming fit. Personally, I absolutely love how my story is going right now!

Speaking of loving how it's going, here are today's highlights:

• Finished chapter two with another chilling cliffhangers (cliffhangers rule!)
• Wrote another very creepy meetup scene, including a very chilling murder

Here's my favorite excerpt from today: (Note: this one has a very different flavor from the other ones. Be warned.)

"Crackling noises suddenly alerted him to a presence in the woods. He drew his sword and held it behind his back, waiting for an opportunity. Suddenly, a young woman stepped forth from the trees, and before she knew what was happening, he pounced forward and thrust his blade into her stomach. Before she could cry out, he forced his hand over her mouth. In a few minutes, he no longer felt a pulse.

'No,' he said to the window. 'My swordplay is definitely not out of practice. No, not out of practice at all.'"

Murders. Good stuff, right? (In stories only. I do not mean real life!)

~ Sophia-Rose

On the second day of writing...

...Camp NaNo gave to me two more characters
and a month full of writing fun, free!

Today wasn't as good as yesterday. I didn't quite reach my word goal (a few hundred words off), but that was okay because I overshot it yesterday. To be fair, though, I was totally going to do it. I was all, "Okay, after dinner I'll get to 1,667 words, blog, AND I'll still have time to run that dungeon I need to do!" Sadly, it didn't quite work that way. A last minute shopping trip cropped up, and well...the rest is history. I did have a few highlights, though:

• Wrote an awkward conversation in which FMC now thinks minor character is totally crazy
• Wrote a very short sneaking-around short of chase scene
• FMC is now completely weirded out by two other characters

Not as great as yesterday, but I tried. Here's my favorite thing that I wrote today:

"Gabby silently slipped around the bookshelf she was hiding behind and slowly moved toward the novels section. The footsteps stopped for a moment among the biographies, then continued on the same path she had taken. 'Are they following me?' Gabby wondered. She circled back around toward the reference books. Once again, the footsteps followed her. She glanced toward the door. This couldn’t go on forever. If the clock above the door was correct, then the school would close in twenty minutes."

(Bit of context: Gabby, the FMC, has heard weird footsteps out in the hall and thinks they belong to her new enemy. When the footsteps enter the library where she is currently, she sneaks around behind bookshelves trying to stay out of his sight.)

I'm excited. Soon things in my story will really get rolling! MMC will be introduced in a day or two and I'm really looking forward to the first meeting scene!

~ Sophia-Rose

On the first day of writing...

...Camp NaNo gave to me a month full of writing fun, free!

I'm not sure how far I'll take the song, but we'll see how it goes. Today was GREAT! (Yes, it needed the caps.) I pounded out slightly less than twice the necessary daily word goal, and every word was lots of fun! My train of thought, and I voiced some of this, was literally, "I love this! I'm having so much fun! NaNo is awesome! I love my story!" All the while, my "at this rate, you will finish on" counter cheerfully prophesied that I'd finish on April 16th.

Some highlights of today:

• Wrote a whole chapter (almost a fourteenth of the story right there)
• Wrote an eerie nighttime meeting scene between the two main antagonists
• Described an explosion in graphic detail (don't worry, there was no blood or gore)
• Wrote a 400 word rant (literally!) from an absolutely psycho character (fun, fun!)
• Ended Chapter One with a very chilling cliffhanger

In other words: Day One of literary awesomeness accomplished and then some! I wonder how long it'll last.

This is the favorite thing I wrote today:


"Gabby found Mr. Crosby sitting behind his desk and giving her one of his signature death glares. His face was flushed, his lips were pursed, his eyebrows were plunging steeply downward, and his green eyes glittered with unspoken malice. 

"Soon enough, the malice shown so plainly through his expression entered into the open air. 'What,' he thundered, 'Is the meaning of this, Miss Nelson?! Lockers exploded, students unconscious, hallways a mess – is this your idea of a practical joke?'"

This is the beginning of the aforementioned 400-word rant that was pure joy to write. I was cackling madly throughout the whole ordeal. If you have not yet written a completely psycho character like that yet, do it. It's outrageously fun. (I think I should add it to my list of must-haves!)

The road to a month of awesomeness in writing stretches out before us. To infinity, and beyond!

~ Sophia-Rose