Last Year and Now
After checking my wordcount today I realized that I was 6,000 words behind.  That wasn’t very encouraging, I’ve been wondering how I can make it to 50k (my goal was 100k) before the end of the month with everything else that I need to get done.  I have a wonderful boyfriend I am with all the time, plus school, plus anything else that comes up!  Then I decided  I needed a NaNo Report Card to track things so I could tell where I was at and where I needed to be.  None the forums would open with Works (I haven’t added any other word processing on my computer yet) so I was making my own and I opened up my screenshot from last year, o

Finally Getting There
All week I have been having this problem of not being in the mood for my book.  I’ve been writing but it’s been going slow.  However, today I finally have had a breakthrough and have spend some actual time just working on my novel without procrastinating or without chopping up my writing time with spider solitaire.  My music shut off, the sun went down and my room got dark, but I still wrote.  It was an amazing feeling!

Her Name Was Sybil – Cover!
So I got a new laptop, downloaded Gimp and have made a cover for Sybil. Here it is:   EDIT: Just noticed the white line…will fix later.

NaNo Prep #4
Names. They’re important.  They can make your novel what it is…or isn’t.  For me naming characters is not always easy.  They have to have the perfect name that fits the character.  I’ve spent time scrolling through the lists at behindthename.com (linked to above).  Though that’s not always what brings about a solution.  However, Behind the Name is very helpful in that you can search by meaning, language, by most popular in some years, alphabetically, or have it bring you up random names.  Oh yes and I’m posting this partially in celebrating the naming of my NaNo MC f

Advice to Writers
1. Avoid alliteration. Always. 2. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do. 3. Employ the vernacular. 4. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc. 5. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary. 6. Remember to never split an infinitive. 7. Contractions aren’t necessary. 8. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos. 9. One should never generalize. 10. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.” 11. Comparisons are as bad as cliches. 12. Don’t be redundant; don’t use more words than necessary; it&#