I write because my passion is to tell people stories.
Stories of love and hate, of fear and hope. Stories where good people do bad things and bad people do good things. Stories of lives that are unexpected, horrible and beautiful.
I write these things because I believe they are true in real life, therefore should be in fiction too. But not matter what I write, I always seem to be asking 'why'?
4 years ago, on August 23 2006, I started blogging. It was a way of telling the universe that I was committed to writing – for real this time.
I started on blogger, and you can read from the beginning up until August 2008 (when I moved to WordPress) @ http://dustandstrangerthings.blogspot.com/ – but only until the end of January when I’ll finally be taking it down.
That first post was anything but elegant, but it made it’s point:
So why start a blog?
I know people who have blogs. Many people who have them say they are a good release for what goes on in their lives. Others, who I’m sure I’ll relate to more, say it’s a good excuse to not write.
You see I’m an author. No, I’m not published yet, but stranger things have happened. I’m part of a writing group, I try to write part of my novel everyday, and I’m serious about what I’m writing… doesn’t that make me an author?
When I started blogging I was on Chapter 5 of my very 1st novel, a science fiction novel that took place on another world and tackled issues like genetic alteration, racism, and coming of age. It didn’t have a title but I called it Mikayla’s Story. It turned out to be a very bad first novel, but I learnt from it and my writing grew.
More importantly, 2006 was the year I started to make plans and goals about my future. On my birthday of that year (which is in January) I wrote down 4 goals that I wanted to have accomplished in four years – by the end of 2009 or by January of 2010. They weren’t all writing goals, in fact only one was, but it was a good starting place.
These were the goals: By the end of 2009 I will…
1) …Be Published (once, and on my way to #2)
2) …Have gone on a warm-local vacation (Several if at all possible)
3) …Have bought a house/ condo
4) …Be engaged
So this is how I did:
1) I have been published 5 times, all in 2009 (in my timezone). All of them were short stories.
2) I went to Cuba. Only one warm-local vacation in the last 4 years but it was good.
3) I bought a house with my (at the time) common-law boyfriend in April of 2008. We also bought two dogs from an animal rescue society. It’s not part of the goal but they are very happy additions to the house.
4) I got engaged to my long time boyfriend in September of 2009.
I accomplished all of my goals. Now to set some new ones.
By the end of 2013 (four years from now) I will…
1) … Have two novels published.
2) … Have several smaller works (short stories, novellas, etc) published.
3) … Be married.
4) … Have quite my day job.
#1 & #2 are what being a writer is all about, gotta get my work out there.#3 will be easy (the date is already picked) and #4 will be very hard but I think do-able.
The Digest Version of “2009 in review”:
Projects Started/ Finished: FINISHED – the novel “Ice Debt”, my first script for a short animation film, several short stories.
STARTED – the novel “Riot Girl” will be finished by the end of January.
Event Highlights: – I was interviewed on CityTV news in April for the book launch of “Seven Deadly Sins”.
- I attended Con-Version 25 in Calgary and was on a panel called “Women who don’t kick butt: can they still win hearts and minds.”
- Live interview on Absolute Xpress’ BlogTalkRadio Show for Creatures of the Night Chart Rush
Submissions: ACCEPTED – I submitted to the first and second Flash Fiction Challenge’s by Absolute Xpress, and I submitted to the first ever Chinese Whisperings Anthology.
REJECTED – Submitted 2 stories to OnSpec and Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, I also submitted a Novella to Writers of the Future.
Personal Events: I got engaged, I think that’s the biggest highlight of the year.
So if you’ve been reading along, you know that on Thursday, November 24, I re-decided to win NaNoWriMo. And when I posted my re-decision on November 26, I had to write 25,000 words (half of the monthly total) in 5 days.
Now to prove my ineptitude at keeping to a daily schedule I’ve posted my word count chart from NaNoWriMo below. As you can see the last few days were interesting – the orange lines being what I actually wrote and the blue what I should have written.
And thanks to my love affair with twitter, I can give you a record of how those last few days went.
November 25th (3,742 words)
A normal ordinary day, with a lot of writing involved.
- 1380 words in 30 minutes. Now I need to get food before my lunch break is over. Only 3480 more words to meet today’s goal – sigh
- I wrote 779 in 21 minutes. Gotta pick it up. Still have 2000 words to go today.
- Today I broke the 25K mark on my #nanowrimo novel. Only half a novel left to write… in 5 days. Head-Desk-Smack (8:09 pm)
November 26th (2,007 words)
I’d made the commitment. 5,000 words a day. I could so do that. Right?
- My week 2 & 3 #nanowrimo recap. Still trying to make it for 50K by Monday. http://www.tinahunter.ca/20…(11:19 AM)
But that night I had problems with a scene, not the scene I was writing of course but a scene that was coming up and it was distracting me. I couldn’t figure out who to kill. So I turned to twitter and people actually responded – lots of people:
- #nanowrimo ’s help me chose which minor character to kill off -either will change the whole story. A) rebel leader or B) rebel leaders wife?
- Thanks 4 the votes. I guess I’m killing the Rebel leader. The wife gets surprise revenge
But in the end, I didn’t write that scene. I got close but I just couldn’t finish.
- Goodnight all. Alas it was only a #2kday My wordcount will be better tomorrow. (9:27 pm)
November 27th (3,027)
Ah, Fridays. Normally a relaxing day at the office. A good day for writing, yes. No. Not this Friday. But I still got a good word count going:
- I wrote 2701 words in 63 minutes with Write or Die. Up to 3067 for today and broke 30K total.
And I finally wrote that scene where I had to kill off a character and it looks like I didn’t need to poll the audience:
- Who knew? I got 2 the scene & both the rebel leader & his wife got killed
Then a shocking revelation about my plot, or lack there of:
- I have maybe 2k words before I officially have no more plot. And I still have 20k words left to write. I guess I’ll be winging it
November 28th (gave up – 0 words)
Yeah, I didn’t write on Saturday. The fact that I was missing a whole section of plot didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to write. I had it all planned out. But something about walking into the office felt hopeless, pointless. It wasn’t until we went out to a birthday party for a friend that I remembered that I write because I love to tell stories and that was more important that a silly word count goal (normally).
But regardless it re-inspired me to write on Sunday.
November 29th (5,690 words)
And write I did, but still wasn’t enough.
- 20k… 2 days… Can I call in sick to work tomorrow?
I didn’t, just in case you were wondering. And at the end of the day I felt like giving up once again.
- I just had a #5kday. #NaNoWriMo total at 36229. Close but I’m not going to make 50k, maybe 40k by tomorrow. Oh well, I tried.
November 30th (13,843 words)
Yet, for some reason when I got up on the morning of November 30th, I felt like I could do it. I didn’t look at the number of words I had to write I just started writing. And kept going.
It started with a hand written section of over 1,000 words written during a seminar (and surprisingly I was still able to listen to what the guy was saying – ok more like kind of):
- #NANOWRIMO update: 37,256 words. Written 1,067 so far. Now for lunch hour to bring me closer. (11:30 am)
And my lunch hour was very productive, as was my afternoon break:
- Just wrote 2000 words in 48 minutes. New #nanowrimo total after lunch is 39,256 words. Almost at 40K. W00T! (12:56 pm)
- I wrote 1178 in 28 minutes. New #nanowrimo total at 40,434. Only 9,566 words left to write in 8.5 hours. This might actually be doable. (3:30 pm)
Then I went home, tried to fix my Internet, gave up and let D do it, made supper, and then sat down for 5 hours to write. I’ll let the tweets do the talking:
- Only 6341 more words needed to hit 50k. I’ve already written 7430. 4 hours left. Fingers crossed (8:10 pm)
- 3777 words left. 2 and half hours left to go. (9:31 pm)
- 1311 words left. A little over an hour to go. Still can’t believe I’ve written 12,460 words so far today. (10:40 pm)
- I DID IT! I wrote 13,843 today alone & finished w 50,067 words total. Done & validated with 30 minutes to spare. Now 2 bed. (11:37 pm)
It’s been a roller coaster of a ride, but the funny thing was I didn’t expect to be as happy as I was. At 11:30pm I validated my novel and when I saw that purple bar with the word “Winner” I did a little happy dance.
Now this novel isn’t finished yet. I have 2 or 3 chapters left before this draft is done (and rewriting this one is going to be awful because I turned off the spell checker – yuck). But I almost have two novels written. Two novels in one year (if we ignore the fact that the other one took me 1.5 years to finish).
I’m thrilled that this is over but I have a lot of chores to do around the house to make it up to D for being so supportive of my crazy writing month. I’m very glad that in the end I didn’t get left behind.
I’ve just hit the 30,000 word mark on my novel. Only 20,000 more to go in three days.
And as daunting as that sounds, my bigger problem is this:
I’m currently standing with MC1 teaming up with MC2 to spy on the bad guys and find a way to defeat them – and I somehow have to get MC1 to overthrow the bad guys and MC2 to finally get revenge.
Now besides obviously figuring out how to defeat the bad guys, I don’t have any more plot points to help get my MC’s get to “The End”. None. Nothing. Just some general walking around, spy talk, and maybe blowing up a building (I don’t know why but it sounds like fun).
Now, I know some people are saying to just through in some super ninja monkeys and tiger zombies and I’ll magically hit 50K, but the real reason I wanted to take this challenge was to prove that it was possible to write something with a decent plot in 30 days (not that you can’t write a decent plot with super ninja monkeys or tiger zombies they just don’t fit into my novel right now)
Now writing something with a decent plot in 30 days may prove impossible, but regardless of that point…. I’m in a little bit of trouble here. I will need to come up with a large portion of my plot very quickly.
(PS: I’ve never had this problem before. It’s always been that I over planned my stories and got bored. But NaNoWriMo is anything but boring.)
Needless to say, the next three days should be interesting.
UPDATE: Just remembered the Seventh Sanctum website. It’s totally going to save my butt.
I have no fancy stats for you today. Only an apology that I haven’t continued to update you on my novel writing progress.
Essentially, my week two word count total looked like this:
Days 8-13 = 0
Day 14 = 1000
And my week three word count total looked like this:
Day 15 = 2000
Day 16 = 1760
Days 17 -21 = 0
On November 22, I should have been at 36,667 words. I was at 19,257. In the latest NaNoWriMo pep talk I’m part of the 3rd NaNo Writer group. The “Go On Without Me” group.
I could rattle off a list the length of my arm with excuses, but I won’t bore you with the details. Yes, I had a lot to do this month and yes I chose to spend it doing things other than writing this novel (because there was writing involved, but I digress). We all have busy lives and it’s how we “chose” to spend our time that matters.
So on November 23, just before I went to bed I checked out a few of my friends NaNoWriMo stats. Two of them had already met the 50,000 word goal. A little purple banner was next to their names with brilliant white text that read “Winner”.
I wanted one.
So I got up the next morning and wrote 2,438 words. Yesterday I wrote 3,742 words.
According to a bunch of word count calculators, I have to write just under 5,000 words for the next 5 days to win.
I’m calling all of my bosses (because I have multiple jobs) and asking if I can push back a couple of deadlines. Some I can’t, but some I can.
I’m hopeful that I can do it, even though I’m asking myself to write half of a novel in 5 days.
We’ll chat on Tuesday, December 1st, and you’ll find out if I made it or if everyone went on without me
“Remembrance Day” is what November 11th is called in many Commonwealth Countries – such as Australia, Barbados, Bermuda, Canada, Ireland, South Africa and United Kingdom (as well as the allied country Ireland). “Veterans Day” also falls on this day in the United States, and Armistice Day is celebrated in France and New Zealand.
In Canada, Remembrance Day is a statutory holiday, but sometimes I wonder if we really remember what this day is about? Is it just another holiday – a day where we can all celebrate not having to go to work?
I remember… Remembrance Day was dedicated by King George V, on November 7th 1919, to commemorate the sacrifices of members of the armed forces and of civilians in times of war, specifically since the First World War.
November 11th was chosen because WWI formally ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 (11:00am, November 11, 1918) when the Germans signed the Armistice Treaty.
Thankfully, a lot of people remember to bow their heads at 11:00am and thank the men and women who gave their lives in WWI and all the wars since. Some buy also poppy’s to show their support as well.
The poppy is Canada’s flower of Remembrance, has been since 1921, thanks in large part to the Canadian military physician John McCrae’s poem In Flanders Fields. As mentioned in the poem, poppies bloomed across some of the worst battlefields of Flanders in WWI, their red colour was an appropriate symbol for the bloodshed.
John McCrae wrote that poem in 1915 for the burial of his friend and it was published that year by “Punch”. It grew to be very popular, and least he got to see some of the recognition before he died of pneumonia in January 1918, just ten months before the end of WWI which his poem now commemorates.
At 11:00am on November 11th, Canada, and many other commonwealth countries, will observe two minutes of silence to remember those who have given their lives in the service of their country.
Whether you believe in war or not, this day isn’t about war. It’s about their lives and our freedoms.
My heart is with my dear friend Cpl. Levac in the Canadian Air Force, and the men and women that he serves with. You make me proud to be Canadian.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved, and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.
I Remember…