Ready, Set, WriMo!

Yesterday was the kick-off for National Novel Writing Month –NaNoWriMo. I am excited to participate this year. The rallying of writers everywhere in support of each other is a heady, motivating thing.

Despite my enthusiasm, I only managed a measly 819 words yesterday. Probably because I went adventuring instead of writing! Derek took me to do the ridge approach of Mount Superior outside of Salt Lake City.

Trying not to get blown off the mountain.

The day started off gorgeous, before it turned windy and wintery. We had expected to make short work of the mountain, but I was not moving fast enough. I’m not sure if it was the altitude, the wind, or just being tired from not sleeping well but I could not make myself move any faster. With each gust of wind, I experienced a wave of vertigo that left me frozen, clinging to the rock in front of me. It kinda sucked.

After a few hours of this, we decided to turn back. The descent went a lot faster than the approach as Derek found an easier route to get back down. I did end up getting too friendly with a cactus, which caused us a minor delay while Derek helped me remove all the little spines from my pant leg – ouch!

Today has been a lot more productive for writing. This morning I got in 2,243 words bringing my total up to 3,062. I still plan on getting a few more hours of writing in, but I feel a little less frantic about it now that I have some momentum behind me.

Anyone else out there working on NaNoWriMo this year? How are you doing? My profile name is Suzie Marie if you want to be Buddies :) 

Plot Driven

Another writer (Megan Reed) recently posted her tactics for formulating the plot of her novel. She writes out each scene on an index card and tacks them onto a push-pin board. She can then fill in any holes and see the whole story-line at once.

I love this idea. It reminds me a bit of writing research papers in college - not the sleepless nights and coffee induced heart palpitations, but the way I would divide the paper down into its usable parts to make the task of writing a 30+ page research paper more manageable.

I'm going to try this with my novel for NaNoWriMo 2014 and see what happens.

Relaunch!

I'm back. I know you missed me. What am I doing here again? Well, I missed writing self-centered rants about... well.. myself. So this is going to be my new WRITING blog, because I am now actively working towards becoming an author.

Check out my improved About page for more info, and check back often. This is gonna be a process.