Laura's blog

The good news: Contracted just passed 100k words.  That means that I finally reached my NaNoWriMo goal, which was to add 50k to this wip. It also makes me look back and laugh at when I thought it would be a quick and simple short story. That also means that Contracted is the most words I've written on one project in the least amount of time.  The other good news: My rewrites for Part I of the The Book just ended at 32,431 words. I think I may have added more to this section instead of cutting -- but whatever the wordcount difference, I managed to resolve some serious plot and character problems. I now have a solid foundation on which to build the rest of the book. The rest of The Book which was originally 100k to begin with. Now for the bad news: Contracted just passed 100k words and still has more to go. Part I rewrites on The Book are nearly at 33k.   The bad news is that I CAN'T WRITE ANYTHING SHORT. I am the person that people roll their eyes at when t...

I was nominated for the College Writer Tag by Patrice of Whimsically Yours , whose blog you should totally read. There are owls all over it, if that makes you more inclined to do so. (I like owls.) Oddly, I don't seem to know as many college bloggers as I knew high school bloggers. Several of the blogs I used to follow in my age group dropped off the map during college. Luckily, this hasn't been the case for everyone! The Questions: What year are you? I'm a senior. Ack. It's senior project and senior recital year. It's also "finishing up all the gen eds I didn't take before" year. I should have done the gen eds back in freshman or sophomore year, when I still thought that every class was a life or death matter. I recently got my grades in, and they were a lot better than I had expected. I really want to go on to grad school. I want to focus my studies in the area that I know I am interested in and good at. Unfortunately, I still ha...

I like the new What's Up Wednesday banner -- winter wonderland edition. What's Up Wednesday is a weekly blog hop hosted by Jaime Morrow. What I'm reading I'm wrapping up Proxy and Bess of Hardwick: Empire Builder. The first is for fun, the second was for class. I'm also frantically reading my history textbook as I study for my exam in...let's see...an hour. Gulp. What I'm writing Even after NaNoWriMo is over, it's hard to get out of the NaNo mood. I wrote a post about dealing with NaNo burnout. I wrote a review of MILA 2.0. Other reviews are in the works, but have been put on hold while I handle finals. I had to write a manifesto proposing a new aesthetic movement in theatre for one of those finals. Ack. And that was just one part of a three-part final. I have also been trying to get back to writing normally as I work on Contracted. I have to keep reminding myself that I'm not "done" with it just because NaNo is over...and that I...

As happy as I am with my word count for NaNo 2013, there's still a "but." The same thing happened last year -- I'm suffering from NaNo burnout. It's not as bad this year because I'm not sick as a dog like I was last year. Still, I'm definitely feeling the burnout factor. I opened up Contracted the other day, noodled a few plot notes, wrote a beginning of a scene and tried halfheartedly to continue it, but stopped. I could have pushed through and written more -- like I had to do for NaNo -- but, just, ugh.  Part of the issue is that the motivation offered by NaNo is gone. I now have to self-motivate. I'm still very much invested in this wip, but I have no tangible goal to work towards. Perhaps this is why so many people quit writing -- with no reward in sight, they aren't as motivated to continue. Perhaps this is why NaNo is so helpful: it stresses finishing, and it gives you a reward when you do.  (I'm glad that NaNo doesn't offer ...

My final word count for NaNoWriMo 2013 was 38,644. Well, technically it was 39,948, but I didn't get the chance to add in my last few words written before the site closed. It's 11,356 words shy of the 50,000-word goal, but I don't mind. November is not really the ideal month to write a novel in, particularly with my schedule. I am extremely pleased with what I've accomplished during that time. Especially compared to last year, my first NaNo attempt. Last year, I began Mask , a YA contemporary novel about the captain of a high school girls' fencing team. There was much drama, but it would all have worked out OK in the end -- if I'd gotten to the end. Alas, I stopped at about 17k. This first NaNo taught me a lot, and I'm sure I have the beginnings of a good story somewhere in there.  But I was never really meant to finish Mask , and I didn't expect to. It was a bad, stressful time. For one, I was sick a lot and tired all the time. I also hadn't ...