So far, so good!

Well it looks like my first NaNoWriMo is going swimmingly. I just reached 35k. Remember the goal to reach by November 30th is 50k.

I charged through today writing six thousand words. Tomorrow (technically today but it is only a little after midnight) is a busy day for me. So I won’t have much time to write.

Sunday I might actually be leaving for Arizona to visit my brother, his gf, and their pets! I hope my travel plans work out! My brother moved out of there about six years ago for college and he’s anchored down there. I’ve never been there.

That’s why I blitzed out 6k today! I need to be ahead of writing. I may print out the last few pages of my story and bring a notebook to add on a bit, but I don’t know if I can fit it in my carry-on.

Perhaps I’ll get a little more down tomorrow night before I leave on Sunday morning. If you do not hear from me all week it is because I am enjoying the beautiful 80 degree Phoenix weather. Oh yeah, be jealous! It will be nice to revel in the warmth while in New York we are teetering on 40/50 degree days, and very chilly nights!

 

Still excited….

I’m still excited over NaNoWriMo, so I decided I just need to share my Facebook photo/cover photo. This is on my personal account. If you’d like to follow me, please follow on my professional public page, Laura T. Cerrone.

 

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Look how glorious this is! I have a crown! And the infamous British wartime motivational saying fine-tuned to feed the needs of a NaNoWriMo-er (that is getting to be a doozy typing out constantly, haha).

 

And now, back to the story!!

NaNoWriMo!

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NaNoWriMo [National Novel Writing Month] is changing my life. I expected it to be hard, exhausting, and consuming; and it has definitely lived up to those descriptions. But, for me, it is also cleansing and a journey of discovery. With a week under the belt I have over 21,000 words and my expected date of completion is November 19 currently.

 

On Thursday I churned out 6,000 words alone, my best to date. The task drained me and yesterday I reached a minimum. The important thing is that I wrote. And I am continuing to write.

The most interesting part is my personal interaction with the characters I’ve created. They surprise me. We have discussions and arguments about their lives. I can see a reflection of me in each of them, even the antagonist (which isn’t a person but more of the ideology of society).

‘Tortured writer,’ has a new meaning for me. It’s not just sitting at a desk, coffee or drink in hand barreling out words until one sheet of paper doesn’t become a makeshift basketball for the garbage. ‘Tortured writer’ is the emotional connection I have to my characters, to write their story with integrity, justice, continuity. For those I want to suffer, I make their suffering real, and with the hopes that the situation they are in garners the appropriate reaction of sympathy. If I’m off doing something else other than writing I’ll often have to stop to jot down a new idea or a phrase that really brings in the story to its crucial points.

The support of my friends has been fantastic. I’ve told them a bit about my story and they all have voiced their support that I can write this story. My family is a little more apprehensive, but I believe their concern is about the constant cries of back pain from me sitting at a chair all day (and night).

I can’t believe it has only been eight days in.

If I feel this much different, I wonder who I will be on December 1, when all the writing has stopped and hopefully I will have surpassed the 50,000 word minimum.

I’ll try and check in with my observations every week.

Happy NaNo!

Good afternoon!

It is November 1st! And that means the start of National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo!

This year is the first year I’m participating, and lo and behold I’ve just written my first sentence! A breeze. Thousands more to go I’m afraid.

NaNoWriMo has participants write every day, from Nov. 1- Nov. 30 and complete 50,000 words. A novel!

So I am not going to drabble on, since my goal is to hit about 2,000 words today and I’ve got… 27.

So I’ll bid you adieu!

The Journalism Toolbox

A funny yet cynical journalist page I follow on Facebook posted this highly useful resource list. I know about a bunch of the ones on the list but would like to share with you the completed list of media resources. I think tomorrow I will spend most of the gleaning all the good I can from these pages. This will inevitably turn into a multi-day thing, so I will be updating constantly with my new finds and my thoughts.

 

Here’s the page and if you have any others that are not listed there, please comment below!

http://journalismdegree.org/new-media/

 

P.S: I am also participating in NaNoWriMo this year! If you’d like to be friends there, contact me!