Saturday, June 25, 2011

JuNoWriMo, Awards, and Nine Million Other Things





Why nine million? Because I read once that nine is a mystical number. Cool, huh?

Anyway. I haven't ever mentioned it, but at the start of this month, I signed up for JuNoWriMo (June Novel Writing Month) on Shallee McArthur's blog (go and check it out, by the way - I love her posts, and maybe you will too). A spin-off of NaNoWriMo, this event was not designed to require 50 000 words by midnight of the last day. Instead, participants simply had to choose a writing goal. One writing goal. Simple, complex - it didn't matter. You choose. It might have been writing 5 000 words per day. It might have been writing 5 words per day.

In my case, it was to finally finish the plot outline for the first novel of my trilogy by the end of June.

On June 20, I realised how far behind I was. And I made a solid determination that I would work hard and complete what I had started, and grasp hold of what I had aimed for. But then, of course, the day after: my drama teacher tells me he would like my portfolio the next day (why wasn't I warned about this?), I remember about that short story for English, I realise that I have youth group after school for two days in a row, I arrange an important meeting concerning the kids program at church (which I help run) - and suddenly half my week had flown out the window.

However, in saying this, there is this amazing thing called night. Heard of it? It's a time when you don't have school, your homework is done, you don't have meetings; and youth group doesn't usually overlap into it for very long. And also, the sky is black, which makes the whole environment magical, and if you pick up pen and paper during night, then you are sucked into the world you are writing of utterly.

And that's what's been happening to me. Moral of the story: don't find time, make time.

I'll give you an update on JuNoWriMo at the end of the month, but for now, on to other things.



I loooooooong time ago, I received this award from David Powers King, which I was meant to pass on to others. But I didn't. So I'm doing it now! I would like to award the following people with The Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award:

Taryn
Laura Josephsen
Gracie
Jackson Porter
J.M. Tohline
Laura
Paul Joseph
Shallee McArthur

Seriously, go and check out the blogs of all these people. They're so awesome. If you didn't recieve this award, then here, you can have this one instead, which I got from Laura Josephsen:



In addition to this, tell me in the comments why you think you deserve "The Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award" and I might give it to you too.

Next thing! Blogfests. I've entered myself in two blogfests that are coming up:

Teen Writers Summer Blogfest
Loving the Language Blogfest

Loving the Language is on Monday, where I'm going to be posting my favourite lines out of every book I've ever read. Can't wait.

Anyway, I've only got one more thing to say (if you haven't noticed, this is a very miscellaneous post): you might have noticed that the page of my blog titled, "Ashed", has now become, "Ashed & Other Works". Which means that I'm going to be posting more short stories and poems on my blog for you to read.

So, that is all. I wish you all a great day/night. And remember to comment with why you deserve the award I dished out, if you didn't get it. Have a good one, guys. See you on Monday.
Posted by at

12 comments:

  1. ShalleeJune 26, 2011 at 1:57 AM

    Thanks for the award, Nick! And way to go finding the time to get your goals in. I always write at night too-- I usually don't have any other time to do it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AlyssaJune 26, 2011 at 5:44 AM

    Wow, cool! Thanks for the award. :D

    ReplyDelete
  3. LauraJune 26, 2011 at 7:02 AM

    Thanks for the award! I'm also doing the Teen Writers Summer blogfest, so I'll forward to reading what you write! :)

    And yeah, I keep a vampire's hours...wrote until 2:30 am last night. Well, morning. haha ;)

    ReplyDelete
  4. NickJune 26, 2011 at 2:02 PM

    @Shallee: No worries! I don't know if I'm actually going to complete my goal for JuNoWriMo, but I'm definitely going to try. Part of the problem might be that I'm working time-travel into the story, so I have to plot out some of the third book simultaneously, which takes a lot longer.

    @Gracie: Your welcome :) Keep up with those posts that make me smile or laugh.

    @laurathewise: No worries :) Yea, the TWSB should be awesome :) I'm looking forward to seeing your stuff too. Sometimes writing until 2:30 in the morning just fills you with glee - it's great. But only occasionally. Otherwise glee becomes exhaustion :P

    ReplyDelete
  5. Jackson PorterJune 26, 2011 at 4:16 PM

    I remember that! Jerk David... I'm just kidding, my blog sucks, nobody visit it. But thanks anyway Nick! :D

    ReplyDelete
  6. NickJune 27, 2011 at 9:19 AM

    It's actually pretty cool Jackson. You just have to get your name out there. Don't give up though.

    ReplyDelete
  7. AleezaJune 27, 2011 at 7:48 PM

    hey nick! just came to your blog from gracie's, and i love it! i think it's sooo cool you live in new zealand. i, um, have a bit of an unhealthy obsession with that place. haha, not really, i just really like it ever since i've been researching it for one of my books :)

    anyway, about that writing at night thing. i so totally agree. although the fact that my mom confiscates my laptop when i use it after midnight has me writing whenever i get the time. :D

    ReplyDelete
  8. NickJune 28, 2011 at 11:40 AM

    Thanks Aleeza! Yea, NZ is a pretty cool place :D Is your book set in New Zealand?

    Haha on the occasions when I write late at night, I'm always quite discreet :P But yes, it's great.

    ReplyDelete
  9. KelleyJune 29, 2011 at 4:40 AM

    Such a great blog post (I have to tweet about it). I give myself too many excuses to get out of writing, but this is like a kick in the pants ia a good way lol. Do you really write pen and paper old school? If so, you're even cooler in my book now.

    ReplyDelete
  10. NickJune 29, 2011 at 9:21 AM

    Thanks! As for pen and paper, I sure do! At least, I do when I'm plotting, which is what I'm doing now. I use a four-coloured pen and write in those 1B4 Notebooks, mainly asking and answering questions (you will hardly ever find a page of working without at least five question marks on it). And I also use the margins for side notes; so using pen and paper is really so much easier.

    But when I'm actually writing the story (as in first draft), I use my computer.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Laura JosephsenJune 30, 2011 at 9:11 AM

    Thanks so much for the award! And I'm glad you enjoyed the award I made. :)

    ReplyDelete
  12. NickJune 30, 2011 at 9:46 AM

    No worries! And yes, it was a very nice award :)

    ReplyDelete

Your comments are awesome. I usually reply to each one individually, so please click the "Subscribe by Email" button or check back here in a few days to see my response. Thanks for commenting!

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...