Ready. Set. Write! (Goals for Week 8)

Ready. Set. Write! (Goals for Week 8)

Posted by Raven M on 2:57 AM in goals, love in the time of comic con, ready. set. write!, unfair, writing,

HOW I DID ON LAST WEEK'S GOALS
In my last RSW post I said I was going to try my best to make myself write and last week...I wrote! I didn't get a lot done because I was busy packing for school but I did get some words written for both Unfair and Love in the Time of Comic Con, which I'm happy about. I hope I can get a lot more wordage written this week.

MY GOALS FOR THIS WEEK
Write, write, write!

A FAVORITE LINE FROM MY STORY OR ONE WORD/PHRASE THAT SUMS UP WHAT I WROTE/REVISED
Relationships. Particularly family and friend relationships. Both play a very important role in my wips, so the dynamics of both have been fun to play around with. It's also nice that my MC in Unfair has a guy friend that is just a friend. Often times, I read stories where the guy best friend turns into a love interest and, while I don't mind when that happens, I do want to see more stories where the guy friend is just a friend because those kinds of relationships do exist.

THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE I FACED THIS WEEK
It isn't really a *challenge* but I kept coming up with a lot of SNIs. If I were the same writer a year ago, I probably would've dropped everything and started working on it but I simply just jotted them down and moved on. Inspiration is a wonderful thing but sometimes, when I get inspired, I just want to write ALL THE THINGS.

SOMETHING I LOVE ABOUT MY WIP
I love that I can let my imagination run wild. Because that's pretty much what I'm doing with Unfair. I don't really outline, so most of what is going in the first draft is from the top of my head. That's how I wrote stories as a kid, so it feels good to be writing that way now.

I hope everyone had a productive week. Good luck with this one!

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What's Up Wednesday

What's Up Wednesday

Posted by Raven M on 4:04 AM in college, inspiration, penn state, what's up wednesday, writing,

WHAT I'M READING

Nothing at the moment. I haven't read anything in about a week or two and I don't know why. I have such a long TBR list to get through before I go back to school.

WHAT I'M WRITING

I haven't written anything since Monday. I didn't even attempt to work on any of my WIPs. I'm hoping this is a different story by next Monday. All of this lack of writerly productivity sucks!

WHAT INSPIRES ME RIGHT NOW

 

Well, in case I haven't mentioned this before, I have to go to a different campus to finish out my degree because my old one didn't offer my major (Sociology). I was a little nervous about switching and while I am going to miss my old campus a lot, finding out that I get to live in the best (from what I've heard) residence hall on campus is making me really excited to move in. It was designed by the same architect who did Harvard's dorms (once upon a time I wanted to go to Harvard for law school, so I think that's freakin' awesome), it's walking distance from most of my classes, and it's EXTREMELY GORGEOUS. I might not get much time to write next semester but if I do I'm inspired just by the thought of being able to write surrounded by such beautiful scenery.

 

 

This picture doesn't really do it much justice but it's really pretty in person.

 



WHAT ELSE I'VE BEEN UP TO

 

Aside from gushing over where I'm living next year, I've been preparing for next semester since it's literally around the corner. I am going shopping this week for school supplies. I honestly hate this part of the going-back-to-school process. It involves shopping; my least favorite thing to do.

 

In other news, I HAVE AN INTERNSHIP! I keep wanting to shout that from every rooftop haha. I know that it's going to be a challenge juggling my schoolwork and an internship but I welcome that challenge with open arms.

 

 

Enough about me, what's going on with you guys?

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Ready. Set. Write! (Goals for Week 7)

Ready. Set. Write! (Goals for Week 7)

Posted by Raven M on 2:47 AM in carpe juvenis, college, goals, love in the time of comic con, ready. set. write!, writing,

HOW I DID ON LAST WEEK'S GOALS
I worked on Love in the Time of Comic Con. I didn't get much done because other things came up but it's better than nothing. I also finished writing this week's article for Carpe Juvenis (the online publication that I write for), so I was partially productive this week.

MY GOALS FOR THIS WEEK
Try to write more because, really, trying is the only thing I can do at this point. I have less than 35 days until I go back to school, so I'm going to try my best to make these last days of my summer vacation count.

A FAVORITE LINE FROM MY STORY OR ONE WORD/PHRASE THAT SUMS UP WHAT I WROTE/REVISED

This is from LitToCC:

Sometimes people are too blind to see what’s right in front of them. Sometimes they just need for someone to peel open their eyelids and show them the big picture. But I didn’t want to have to be that person for my parents. I’m their daughter not their freakin’ marriage counselor.

THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE I FACED THIS WEEK
The fact that I had other things to do last week. Even though I do have about a month until I go back to school, this time of year is always a little hectic in terms of preparation.


SOMETHING I LOVE ABOUT MY WIP
It's letting me be as nerdy as I want to be. My friends don't watch the same shows that I watch and they definitely don't understand my love for Doctor Who (I know...one day I'll get them to watch it) so this story is like my nerdy outlet. I don't have to worry about it giving me the blank stares my friends sometimes give me when I make references to TV shows that I like hehe.

I hope everyone had a productive week. Good luck with this one!

 

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What's Up Wednesday

What's Up Wednesday

Posted by Raven M on 12:05 AM in inspiration, love in the time of comic con, unfair, what's up wednesday, working on my fitness, writing,

What's Up Wednesday is a weekly meme started by Jaime Morrow and Erin Funk where writers post about what's up by answering four questions. If you want to participate, you can click on either one of the links.

 

WHAT I'M READING

 

I haven't been doing a lot of reading, which isn't a good thing. I want to take some time to do that this week, especially since I won't have to do it once school starts back up. I go back next month!

 

 

WHAT I'M WRITING

 

I'm still working on Unfair although I might take a break from it sometime this week to work on my side project, Love in the Time of Comic Con. It's a YA Contemporary Romance that is about 5K so far. I love my main character, Jet. She's so much fun to write and she's a nerd like me, which is something I really like. I've never been to Comic Con (I'm going to go one of these days!) so working on this story gives me an excuse to watch all of the Comic Con related videos on YouTube and pin pictures from the convention on Pinterest. Not that I don't do that every year anyways hehe.

 

WHAT INSPIRES ME RIGHT NOW

 

This post on anger. Camellia, the main character of Unfair, is very angry. While it doesn't show all the time, because she does a great job of hiding it, it's really interesting to think about the different ways to show anger without actually using the word. It's a great post and I think it will help make my writing a lot stronger.

 

 

WHAT ELSE I'VE BEEN UP TO

 

I worked out a lot during the school year but once summer vacation came around, I got really lazy. I have been working out on and off but lately I have decided that I want to try to be more consistent with my routine so, when school starts, I can keep at it. So far, it's going really good. It's kicking my butt but I know it'll be worth it in the long run.

I also revamped the blog! It took awhile for me to find a template that I liked but I settled on this one because I LOVE the birds, for reasons that are probably obvious lol

 

 

So...how's your week going so far?

 

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Ready. Set. Write! (Goals for Week 6)

Ready. Set. Write! (Goals for Week 6)

Posted by Raven M on 7:51 AM in goals, ready. set. write!, unfair, writing,

HOW I DID ON LAST WEEK'S GOALS
I added another 500 words to what I wrote last week. Plus, I also caved and wrote a kissing scene that's is not supposed to happen anytime soon. I actually really like the way the scene turned out so I can't wait to get to that point, officially.

MY GOALS FOR THIS WEEK
Finish up the new beginning to the story and tie it into what I already have written of Unfair.

A FAVORITE LINE FROM MY STORY OR ONE WORD/PHRASE THAT SUMS UP WHAT I WROTE/REVISED
(From the kissing scene I wasn't supposed to write yet, No kissing in this line but it's one of my favorites.)

"I'm not supposed to tell anyone my name," The Huntsman said, face half in moonlight, half in shadow.

THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE I FACED THIS WEEK
Not feeling like writing. There were times when I had the opportunity to write but I just didn't feel like it.
  

SOMETHING I LOVE ABOUT MY WIP

The Huntsman! I know a lot about him from the few random scenes with him in it that I've written and I like his character. He's not one of the good guys but he's not necessarily bad either. He has his reasons for doing what he's doing and that's been really fun to play around with. I also like being able to make up a backstory for character we don't learn much about in the original Snow White story.

 

I hope everyone had a productive week. Good luck with this one!

 

 

 

 

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What's Up Wednesday

What's Up Wednesday

Posted by Raven M on 2:22 AM in deliver us from evil, inspiration, Pittsburgh, shadow & bone, unfair, what's up wednesday, writing,

What's Up Wednesday is a weekly meme started by Jaime Morrow and Erin Funk where writers post about what's up by answering four questions. If you want to participate, you can click on either one of the links.

 

WHAT I'M READING

Shadow & Bone still. I stopped reading to focus on my writing for a bit. I realize that at this rate, it'll take a million years to get to Ruin & Rising but I'm not in any rush to get to the end. I don't think I'm ready to say goodbye to this series just yet.

WHAT I'M WRITING

 

I added 1K since Monday, which makes me really happy. This means that I have about 27K words in all. The idea that I'm so close to 30,000 excites me. I know that I am nowhere near finished with this story but I get one word closer to my goal each day and that's all that matters.

 

It's a little rough and it might change in the next draft but here's some of what I wrote:

We’ve been through so much together so it wasn’t fair for me to pretend like he hadn’t lost as much as I have or that he didn’t hate the queen just as much. But because Wynn was stronger than I was; because he could bury his pain and anger without the help of the sun gods or sangria, I forgot that deep down he was just like me. We both had a shred of darkness in us. He just was better at making his darkness look like light.

I also partially figured out how I wanted Unfair to end. It might change once I get to that point but it feels good to have a scene to work towards.

WHAT INSPIRES ME RIGHT NOW

 
My main character. She's so different than I am and the things that she says/the choices that she makes always surprises me. I guess some people would say that I'm the one making up the things she's doing and saying but, sometimes, it just doesn't feel like that.

WHAT ELSE I'VE BEEN UP TO

 

I stayed with a friend over the weekend. We've known each other since freshman year and it already feels like we've been friends for years. I guess it's true what they say about the people you meet in college being life-long friends? Well, anyways, I had blast. We had a few adventures that were worthy of a YA novel and we also went downtown to see the fireworks for the Fourth of July. Needless to say, once we got down there for the festivities, we didn't see the fireworks because we got distracted BUT I was able to take pictures. Okay, I only took two but they remind me of just how much I love my city. I have always wanted to write a novel set in Pittsburgh so I hope, one day, I get the chance.

Oops! That guy wasn't supposed to be there lol

 

We also went to go to see Deliver Us From Evil. We got to the theater late so we missed some of the movie but aside from drooling over Eric Bana and Edgar Ramirez we were surprised at how much we liked it, considering that our scary movie standards are pretty high. My friends and I will go see just about any horror flick. We went through just about every scary film on Netflix when we weren't studying or doing homework. Some of them were extremely corny, others were so disturbing that we couldn't sleep afterwards. Deliver Us From Evil was far from corny and it wasn't really disturbing but it was...scary. I may or may not have screamed a few times. So, if you're into films like that, I highly recommend it.

 

 

How's your week going so far? 



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Ready. Set. Write! (Goal for Week 5)

Ready. Set. Write! (Goal for Week 5)

Posted by Raven M on 2:50 AM in goals, ready. set. write!, unfair, worldbuilding, writing,

HOW I DID ON LAST WEEK'S GOALS
I wrote! And I actually met my writing goal of 500 words. I wrote a little bit more than that but I am so excited! Especially since I wasn't home for a few days and haven't really been writing that much lately. This is definitely a step up from the three sentences I wrote last week.

MY GOALS FOR THIS WEEK
Unfair is currently about 26,000 words in all. So right now I'm just working on fixing the beginning and, more importantly, the pacing. The majority of the book takes place over the course of one day which wasn't my intention so I want to work on changing that but right now my goal for this week is to fix the beginning.

A FAVORITE LINE FROM MY STORY OR ONE WORD/PHRASE THAT SUMS UP WHAT I WROTE/REVISED

Here's the new and improved first line: "Kneeling beside Queen Rowena's massive left foot, it took everything in me not to launch a stone at her cold, expressionless face."

 

THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE I FACED THIS WEEK

Not being home was a challenge (I'll talk more about this on Wednesday) but the biggest challenge would have to be getting reacquainted with my main character's voice. I figured out part of the reason why I haven't been writing had to do with me not remembering how Camellia sounded. So, to remedy that, I reread parts of my wip to get a feel for her voice again and that seemed to do the trick. 

 

SOMETHING I LOVE ABOUT MY WIP

The languages! Okay, I'll admit. I haven't really came up with my own languages for the world Unfair is set in yet. Shadow & Bone and The Girl of Fire and Thorns are both books that do a great job of using existing languages and twisting them around a bit to fit their world. I haven't gotten to that stage so, as of now, I'm just using the actual language as a placeholder. Since Solterra (the place where my main character is from) is based off of Cape Verde (geographically not culturally), I wanted the people that lived there to speak Portuguese or at least a version of it. And in Casselein, another place in my story, the characters speak 'German' (this is mostly a nod to the Brothers Grimm since they are from Germany and this is a Snow White retelling). I hope, in later drafts, I can make the languages more unique but it has been fun incorporating them so far.

 

 

 

I hope everyone had a productive week. Good luck with this one!

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What's Up Wednesday

What's Up Wednesday

Posted by Raven M on 12:01 AM in carpe juvenis, college, inspiration, shadow & bone, unfair, what's up wednesday, writing,

 

What's Up Wednesday is a weekly meme started by Jaime Morrow and Erin Funk where writers post about what's up by answering four questions. If you want to participate, you can click on either one of the links.

 

 

WHAT I'M READING

 

 

 

I am still re-reading Shadow & Bone. It's going really slow but it feels good to revisit this world again. And, is it bad that I still really like the Darkling even after I know about all the things that he's done? I'm going to assume the answer to my question is yes.

 

 

WHAT I'M WRITING

 

Well I wrote three sentences! I know that's not a lot but it's a step up from not having anything at all. I'm really excited about getting back into the story and to be done with notes. Also, remember in my Ready. Set. Write! post when I said my flash drive was broke? Well, it's still broke BUT I was able to retrieve the updated file of my wip as well as some other files. I write mostly in Scrivener because I don't have Microsoft Word on my new laptop. I knew about the backup feature that Scrivener has but, I guess, in my frustration, I forgot about it. So, after remembering it existed and a few minutes of searching, I found the backup folders. Yay! And I do use Dropbox and OneDrive but I didn't think to save the files in one of those places (I know I know) instead of my flash drive. I have learned my lesson now. I won't be relying too much on flash drives anymore. I'm just glad I got some of my writing back! Thanks for all of the tips everyone. I think on top of saving my writing to Dropbox and OneDrive, I'll email them to myself too. :)

 

 

WHAT INSPIRES ME RIGHT NOW

 

The worldbuilding in Shadow & Bone. I like how it's complex but not too complicated. I just really love this book and the series and the more I read, the more it inspires me to want to get my own YA Fantasy written.

 

WHAT ELSE I'VE BEEN UP TO

 

I got some exciting school/internship related things in my inbox yesterday. My first article over at Carpe Juvenis also went up (which I was pretty excited about!!!), so the first day of July started off pretty good for me. I hope that it's a sign that this will be a great month.

 

 

How's your week going so far? I hope July started off wonderful for you guys!

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