Huzzah! she shouted

Published on by Sara Norja Category: nanowrimo, novelling, personal babble, poetry

I thought today was going to be a horrendous day, because I had to get up after barely six hours of sleep (for the third or fourth time running) and there was a panda zombie staring at me in the bathroom mirror.

It’s been much better than I thought. Firstly: there is snow! Huzzah! Beautiful, soft snow, been falling all day and looks like it’ll continue to fall all night. Because I don’t have a car and currently don’t have to rely on public transport to get to work, I can concentrate all my energy on being overjoyed by the snow.

I got another really nice rejection today (poetry) – so nice to feel encouraged by rejections to send more stuff to the publication in question and to send the rejected poems elsewhere.

I had a lovely half-hour nap after work because I feel like I’ve got a cold coming on (urgh). Naps usually don’t work for me, but I think this one did. Except that I’m far too chirpy now, at midnight. *sigh* Well, the nap got me through folk dance class, anyway. At first I was totally zombified and irritated by myself, but then eventually I managed to succeed somewhat at a lift that had been totally impossible before, and that felt good. My neck and back may not be entirely busted yet. \o/

Then I came home and wrote my final words of Nanowrimo, and now am a Nano winner for the 5th time. HUZZAH! Stubborn Sara made it. Next year… I will try to be more gentle with myself.

Poetry sale to Chantarelle’s Notebook

Published on by Sara Norja Category: nanowrimo, novelling, poetry, publication

My poem ‘October’s End’ will appear in Issue #29 of Chantarelle’s Notebook. Am very pleased that this poem (written way back in Oct/Nov 2009) has found a home. I’ll post a link when it’s up!

In other writing news, I wrote 6000 words of Nano on Sunday in a (rather successful) attempt at stress relief. Thus, I am now more than back on track (46,129 words). I already got some written today during an extended cafe session, but now could go for some more writing before bed.

After Nano is over, it’ll be the first time since the start of August that I won’t be working on a novel. Weirdness.

Drastic changes: they can work

Published on by Sara Norja Category: nanowrimo, novelling

On Wednesday, I finally decided to do something I’ve never done before in my five years of Nanowrimo: to abandon the story I was working on and start a new one.

Now, when I say ‘abandon’ I don’t mean entirely – no, I’ll probably work on the 31K of the first story eventually. Could work as a novelette or novella rather than a longer thing. But for now, in this dreary November when my brain is on overload, it just wasn’t the right story to write. I’m really glad I got it started – a lot of interesting things there – but I’m even more glad that instead of choosing to just plod along with the first story, uninspired, I chose to start a new one.

Of course I’m keeping all the words of the first story, Nano-wise. So, that means I should fit this new story into less than 20K. Hahahahaha. Erm. We’ll see. Because apparently, I’m pretty darned excited by this new, folk tale / family relationships / castles / changelings / folk music inspired story. Have written about 7500 words in the past three days, thus managing to finally – YAY – catch up on word count again. Currently at 38,621 words. Trying to resist the temptation to write any more tonight, because it’s past midnight and I should be somewhat awake at dance training tomorrow morning.

Anyway, I’m going to try to persuade my new protagonist Katherine to get her story finished in less than 12K; or, more importantly, within November. I don’t want to have an unfinished Nano-thing pestering me in December. December is for poems and short(er) stories, dangnabbit.

Procrastinating with poetry

Published on by Sara Norja Category: nanowrimo, personal babble, poetry, submission

Today has so far not included Nano-ing. I’m going to try to get a little bit written now, but doubt will catch up today (yesterday was not a good word count day). I hope to catch up during the weekend!

Anyway, in my defence, I’ve had rather useful ways of procrastinating from Nanowrimo today. First, I worked on some bureaucratic stuff for the folk dance group I’m in. And second, an even worthier reason to procrastinate from novelling: I submitted some poems. Haven’t done that for a while, so it felt good. Wishing my wee poems the best of luck 🙂

Now! for some writing. And then bed. Have I mentioned my difficulties with attaining a sensible sleep rhythm now that I’m working full-time? Well, er, difficulties, I can has them. And Nanowrimo, obviously, is not helping. *shakes head at self for attempting silly things during first weeks of new job*

November

Published on by Sara Norja Category: nanowrimo, personal babble, short stories

Two things on this dark, dreary November Monday:

1) Nanowrimo is still trudging along. I don’t really have too much mental energy to spend on my story, sadly, so it isn’t sparkling, and meanders too much, etc. But with much editing, this year’s Nano might perhaps have the potential for a novelette or similar shorter longfic. I rather like the premise, and if pared down, it could make for a poetic, language-oriented story. And I’m keeping up with the word count (I’m at around 19K at the moment – must get a-writing today’s portion!), which is nice for my word count -obsessive soul.

2) While getting rejections is never super awesome, it’s wonderful when getting a rejection letter makes you smile. I really appreciate editors taking the time to tell writers that they enjoyed reading the submission, and mentioning which pieces they liked in particular. And being encouraged to submit more stuff is nice. So, hooray for lovely editors!

After Nanowrimo is done, I hope to get down to some more poetry-editing and submitting stuff again. I’ve got quite a few pending submissions, but should get some new stuff into the rotation too. Also, there’s a short-ish (krhm, 10K) story that I should edit and submit to places. It involves this delightful theme.

I also discovered that there’s this Finnish-language sf&f short story competition with a deadline of 31st December. I… may have to see if I could write something in Finnish and submit just for the heck of it.

Nanowrimo, day 1

Published on by Sara Norja Category: nanowrimo, novelling

Heyup. Have officially passed the word count for the first day of Nanowrimo 2012! Fifth Nano year, here I come.

Exhausted from real-life things. But gosh, it felt rather awesome to escape into my own world for a while – to start something completely new, something utterly unknown!

My Nanovel this year is high fantasy. Something of the sort, at least. It’s about a woman and her journey to discover new things, it’s about languages and friendships and travelling players (maybe), about conflicting beliefs and epic landscapes and loves. Vaguest description ever! I do know more about the story than that, but frankly, I’m so tired now that I can’t do a coherent description.

But I’m enjoying it. Even though this is the least I’ve ever planned a novel (I have a few pages’ worth of scrambled notes, but that’s it). Pantsing ftw, this year! Who knows what’s going to happen to my main character? I certainly don’t. But I hope I’ll enjoy the process of finding out.

FINISHED FIRST DRAFT

Published on by Sara Norja Category: DV, flailing, novelling, revision

IT’S CAPSLOCK TIME.

I just finished the official first draft of DV. *FIREWORKS*

It is rough, especially towards the end when I started having serious lack-of-time problems; it’s a first draft. But for the first time ever, I have revised a novel. I now have a novel-length narrative (279 1,5-spaced pages in Open Office; 13,2587 words according to yWriter) that is actually coherent enough to show people, in theory. HOLY CARP.

And I finished it with three days to spare before Nanowrimo, too! With the power of sheer pig-headedness and love for my story. It’s been a crazy writing week (getting most of my words before this weekend written in 20-min bouts on the train to my temp job), with word counts occasionally rising far above e.g. the Nano daily word count of 1667 words. Today, yWriter tells me, I have added 4248 words. Hard to believe I could actually have written that much today, but then again, the clock tells me that I’ve been working around 5,5h.

Erm. Yes. Um.

I did it. *blink* Now DV will be laid to rest till December or so. And this coming Thursday, on to new writing challenges with this year’s Nanowrimo!

On being a stubborn fool

Published on by Sara Norja Category: DV, novelling, personal babble, revision

Apologies for the lack of updates this month! I’ve mostly just been plodding along with my novel revision. And then I, previously unemployed and with plenty of time on my hands, was suddenly inundated by a strange event: getting a job. Well, two jobs, in fact. One of them a two-week temp gig (next week is the second week), and the other a longer thing.

I am extremely relieved and pleased to be employed, but it does put a bit of a damper on writing. 😛 So, what with working all day long last week, and having plenty of evening activities, I’ve fallen behind on my novel revision schedule. Am currently starting chapter 18, when I should actually already be at chapter 20. There are 31 chapters in DV, and my goal was to revise a chapter per day in order to get the novel revised by Oct 31st.

Why this deadline, you say? Well, because of Nanowrimo, of course! I love Nanowrimo, have participated since 2008, and will cry bitter tears if I don’t get to participate this year. I want to finish my novel revision so that I can start a whole new novel on Nov 1st.

Is this foolish? OF COURSE IT IS. Even more foolish now that I’m lagging behind on revision and have lots of other things to do as well, oh, and getting-better but still chronic neck/shoulder/back issues. But curses, I want to meet my deadline! I want to start Nanowrimo on Nov 1st, with a fresh (and almost completely unplanned) novel to explore. I want DV to get at least a month or two to simmer before I go back to it.

So, I am a stubborn fool. I know it; but I want to meet my own deadline, dangnabbit. My dad lent me a mini laptop, so now I can write on the train to and from work next week. I’ll try to be as efficient as I can with the revision. And try not to panic when I consider that the final 10 chapters of DV contain far too many scenes that are currently just outlines in yWriter, not even drafts. The quality of this draft will certainly deteriorate towards the end. OH WELL.

This stubborn fool will now try to acquire her much-needed lunch, and then will be off to a friend’s birthday party. Writing is important, but I also want to treasure my loved ones.

Poetry in October Snakeskin!

Published on by Sara Norja Category: poetry, publication

A lovely start to October: my poems Fragments and At Right Angles with Myself have been published in the October issue of Snakeskin (issue 190). Yay!

I’m really pleased those two poems found a home. They’re two very different states of mind; I can remember with absolute clarity what I felt when writing each of them. I hope they’ll make other people feel things, too. 🙂 Feeling: one of the most awesome things about poetry.