NaNo WriMo Update

It's three weeks into National Novel Writing Month now, and I'm actually pretty happy with the way things have gone.  I just reached 40,000 words today, so I'm on target to finish on time, barring any disasters.  Honestly, I write so slowly I thought I'd only be somewhere around 20,000 now, so I'm pretty excited.

At the end of last month, I found my local group and attended a few of their meetings before November began to get some advice.  I've had a chance to try most of it, now, and I think it's really helped.

First, they told me it's best to build up a buffer for yourself in the beginning, if at all possible, because you never know what's going to come up later in the month that requires your attention.  I've been lucky, so far, and haven't really needed to use up that buffer.  It does mean that I can have Thanksgiving off to spend with my family, though, so it was definitely worth it.  It also gets harder to keep yourself motivated to keep meeting those daily goals as the month wears on.  The middle days sometimes feel like the end is impossibly far away, and a buffer can help with that, too.

They also recommended attending as many write-ins as possible, where you meet up with other struggling writers to pound away at the keyboard and get more words down (or the leaps-and-bounds-ahead writers that make you suck it up and push yourself harder).  I have done a few of those and got a lot of work done, but I don't think I'd recommend trying to hit them all.  Pick the ones that most interest you, instead.  Remember to consider travel time.  The NaNo regions can cover some distance, so you might find yourself spending precious time driving when you could've gotten more work done if you'd stayed at home.  That being said, if you're having a tough time and there's a meeting during your free time, the drive might just pay off.

If you're one of the unlucky ones whose region is so big that there aren't any meet ups near you, there are also virtual ones you can find on the WriMo website.  Admittedly, I only tried one of these, so I didn't really get a good sampling of the process.  Watching others type responses and word counts in the messages after sprints didn't really motivate me as much as in person.  It does, however, work for others, so don't be afraid to give it a try if you're struggling.

Another WriMo also showed me how to find word crawls in the NaNo message boards which have helped keep me on task when writing on my own.  Other writers post stories, similar to choose your own adventure, which require you to write a certain number of words before you can proceed.  These can be extremely challenging, but, using them, I've managed to knock out 1500 words or so on a day when I didn't think I'd be able to write 5.

To any fellow WriMos out there, good luck and keep writing! Every word helps :)

Book Review: "Finders Keepers" by Stephen King (Book 2 of the Bill Hodges Trilogy)

Pete Saubers' family is floundering.  His father was gravely injured when a madman plowed his car through a crowd of people (the events from book one, Mr. Mercedes).  Though he survived, Pete's father can no longer work and is in constant pain.  His mother's hours have been reduced, and the bills keep piling up.  When he finds a chest filled with money and valuable notebooks written by a famous author who is now deceased, Pete doesn't think twice about using it to help them.  Unbeknownst to Pete, the chest is the spoils of a brutal, decades old murder, masterminded and committed by an obsessed fan of the author.  Now this murderer, Morris Bellamy, has been released from jail and can think only of reclaiming the precious books.  When he sets his sights upon the Saubers family, it is up to retired detective Bill Hodges to end Bellamy's plans of mayhem.

This second book in the trilogy is different from the first in that it is more thriller than mystery.  The reader knows from the beginning who committed the murder, and where Saubers' miracle chest really comes from.  However, this doesn't detract from the excitement of the story.  The reader follows along with Pete Saubers down a path that the reader knows will end in bloodshed, even if Pete's situation makes him believe otherwise.  The characters in this story feel very real, and that makes the story all the more terrifying.

The story follows after that of the first but is a separate story unto its self.  So, it's not completely necessary to have read Mr. Mercedes to understand Finder's Keepers.  There are, however, references to the fist book, and Hodges does spend some time with the murderer from Mr. Mercedes (Brady), but it isn't necessary to know this to understand the current story.  This arc seems, instead, to be hinting at something that may happen to the final book, End of Watch, which has recently been released.

If you like thrillers, I'd definitely recommend checking this one out.


Get Finders Keepers on Amazon

A New Start

I've been neglecting my blog for the last several months, but, as things are starting to get back to some sense of normalcy, I'm going to be posting more regularly.  For those of you who are curious what happened, last summer we realized my husband would need to relocate for his work.  At first, we hoped that would mean a move somewhere within Florida, but that didn't work out.  Instead, the ideal position opened up in my home state of Indiana.  I spent the first part of the year taking care of everything necessary to get my family moved from Gainesville to the Indianapolis area while my husband started work.

Side note: military families are awesome.  I mean, everyone made the move in one piece, but, well, let's just say I was a hot mess.

We're all settled into our new home now, and I spent the summer exploring the local family activities with my son.  He was quite pleased to learn that Indiana does, in fact, also have and grocery stores that sell the ingredients to bake cookies and parks with playgrounds.

This wasn't my first long distance move, obviously, but I had forgotten how strange it feels.  I didn't know where anything was--not even inside my own house.  Even a trip to the grocery store required an extensive search of Google Maps.  So, I still feel like we're always several steps behind everyone else, but I try to remind myself that everything's ok as long as we eventually get where we're supposed to be and no one gets injured in the process.  And we actually have found some pretty cool places and had a few fun adventures along the way.


Of course, whatever's left of teenage me is still throwing a tantrum, but, what does she know anyway? Florida is wildly beautiful, but Indiana doesn't have any flying roaches as big as canaries.

I still miss Florida and all our friends, but, the truth is, it hadn't been working for awhile.  No one ever likes to abandon a dream, but it would be far worse to stay in one that had stalled and was on its way to, if you'll excuse the mixed metaphor, car crash status.

For now, I'll take some time to recover and see where the next adventure takes us.

Next month I'll be participating in NaNoWriMo for the first time.  As someone who normally writes at glacial speeds, this will be an interesting experiment to say the least.  Are any of you planning on participating? If you've done so in the past, do you have any advice for newbies like me?