Day -61 and counting

Yesterday morning at church the kids did a great job giving their answers. It was great that I had two girls that come on Wednesday night but normally don't come to church on Sunday. I discussed after church with the other teacher of JBQ what we're going to do this coming month. Everything I'm doing now is preparing to open up November so that I can focus on getting my novel written in a month.

I think I might just put eHow to the side for now. I might just try some of the other writing sites and see if I can't do better financially with one of them. This working all month for next to nothing isn't worth it. I've got so much that I can do that is far more profitable. This morning was the deciding factor. I had extreme difficulty getting an article published. I never did get it published and it took over an hour of my extra time that I could be doing something else.

Day -62 and counting

Today the kids in my Wednesday night Junior Bible Quiz Class are going to demonstrate during our church morning service what they've learned during the past year. I'm kinda excited that we've been able to organize this event for the kids and they will be able to show what they've learned in front of the whole church. Also I've invited parents of the children who don't normally come to attend Sunday morning. I'm hoping at least the kids show up! Lol! I'm going to be starting a monthly newsletter that I hope will help the kids learn and help keep the parents informed about what we are doing. I'm thinking that maybe I can help the church with newsletters for other purposes too like maybe the women's ministry. But first I'll get this newsletter going and see how well I can keep it up. There are so many ways that all of us can use our talents to help our churches and other charity organizations. By offering my writing skills, I can assist my church in it's mission of reaching the Lost for Jesus Christ.

Day -63 and counting

Today is day minus 63 and counting to the great 2009 NaNoWriMo. Last night I had a dream about two people arguing. The man had feelings for woman but he was married to another woman. It was his wife he was arguing with. She was saying that he didn't love her but he argued back that he did. Because I knew the whole story (After all, I set the whole thing up in my mind) I knew that both of them were telling the truth from their personal perspective. She knew that he wasn't IN LOVE with her but what he was saying was also true. He did love and respect her because he refused to follow through with his feelings and decided instead to honor his relationship with his wife.This scenario is similar to a scenario I set up in my first novel (that has yet to find an agent). In my first book: When God turned His Head Kanter is in love with Drusilla but he marries Sarah and remains faithful to her for the rest of her life. It's important when writing any scene in a work of fiction to try to see the scene from as many viewpoint as possible. This adds depth to the fiction.

Day -64 and counting

There is some major dissatisfaction on the eHow site right now. A lot of people are dissatisfied with the fact that a lot of their articles were deleted some of them after several months. I haven't been making as much money on eHow as I would like and I've been thinking of perhaps diversifying my exposure with my articles too. There are a number of sites out there where I could add to my writing portfolio. I'm not sure however how this will fit into my over all plan. Do I drop the 200 articles from my plan and do the diversifying or do I go ahead and stick with my plan and diversify a little at a time and add it to what I've already got planned. I'll have to think about this for a while. I started a website today called Cygnet's Writer Approach The lite is located at http://sites.google.com/site/cygnetswriterapproach/ I've still got to complete my links to it. For some reason my connection from eHow to this site didn't take either which may account for why no one has checked it out yet. I guess I'll have to fix that still. Yesterday after writing in this blog I worked on my articles for the newsletter that I'm writing for and worked on my synopsis for When God Turned His Head. With the new website today I wrote an about me for the website that I'm also going to use for an agent who asked for a page asking about me. I have it on the website but also have a copy to revise for the agent. Overall, I'd say I've had a fruitful past 24 hours.

Day -65 and counting

Day minus 65 and counting until the 2009 NaNoWriMo begins. Today I'm kind of at a low point. The writing I've done today sounds interesting and witty. but other than that, not much is going on. I'm currently behind on my housework and I've got allergies that are getting me down. I've got several writing projects that I really need to work on but I don't have much motivation to do them today. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that my eyes are watering and I'm coughing and my throat is sore. I hope I don't feel like this in November. I read an article yesterday that said that while we're marketing a book that's been published, we need to continue writing on our next project the writer of the article said that he wrote 1000-1500 words on his novel a day or at least that was his goal.I haven't written on my novels much in a while. At least not to that extent. I think I'll just keep with my current plan of getting these other projects finished so that I can throw myself into the 2009 NaNoWriMo.

Day -66 and counting

Yesterday I didn't write in this blog but that doesn't mean that I didn't write yesterday. I wrote two more articles for eHow and worked on writing up a list of projects I want to get done before November.

There are twenty-nine projects I want to complete about half of them are writing projects and some of them are household projects. Some of the projects take more than one day to complete such as writing my 200th eHow article. But there are many that I can do all in the same day if I just put my mind to getting them done. Some of the projects I can do now. (And I am) and others need to wait until closer to November.

Yesterday too, they deleted three of my previous articles on eHow so that means I'll have to write 3 additional articles but I'm okay with that. I just know not to write those kinds of articles again. (They said the articles were not in the eHow format.) Really no big deal it just means I'll have to write more articles.

To get my housework projects done, I'm roughly using ideas given to me by FlyLady. She's helped me organize my life so that I can write. my house cleaning is under control. I have a somewhat organized, clean house and my time is somewhat organized. If you need help in organizing your house, or your life, I highly recommend visiting www.flylady.com. Marla and her crew are fantastic!

Day -68 and counting

Today is Monday August 24th and on Mondays I clean house and try to start to get ahead for the week. Today I wrote three eHow articles and now I'm writing this one. I'm hoping to be able to work on a few other projects today too but first I'll have to clean the house. Maybe I won't have time for much else.

Writing for eHow has been a good experience for me even though I haven't made a lot of money doing it. It has given me exposure and has helped to pay for some of my writing bills. More importantly it helps be keep writing every day and that is very important for anyone working from home.

My husband and I have an agreement that if I make $1000 writing from home each month by next spring, I can keep doing what I'm doing. So one of my writing goals is to make that one thousand a month. I haven't reached my goal yet but I'm closer this month than I was last month and I know I'll be closer next month than I was this month.

Day -69 and counting

Today is day minus 69 and counting until I begin the NaNoWriMo. Yesterday after making my daily post I worked the character sketches for two of the maid characters for my novel. Head of Stone and Martha.The other two main characters I already has from my second book Soldiers Don't Cry so I'm not going to have to recreate their sketches I'll just have to add to them.Another thing I did yesterday was I officially signed up on the NaMoWriMo's official website as an official participant so I've got that taken care of. I've always like being one of those people who started everything as soon as it was possible to start anything. When I started nursing school I got all my paperwork in as soon as I could. (I was the first ) and whenever I was told I could take care of specific business, I did. I got all my homework done as quickly as I could after it was assigned. I figured out a system on how to do my clinical studies in just an hour when others were taking more than five hours at times to write theirs. I did great in school, was on the honor roll but I ended up being a lousy nurse. What I loved was the research, the learning, the talking to people. What I didn't like was the medication and trying to explain to doctors over the phone what symptoms the patient had. I'm a writer, not a talker. (Although I think I would do okay if I had a script that I learned and used it for public speaking. I think I'd surprise everyone.)

Day-70 and counting.

Today is minus 70 and counting until the big day when I'll be starting NANOWRIMO and starting the actual first draft of my novel on November first but I'm already getting ready by working to clear out my calendar so that I'll have all the time necessary to complete this project. Plus I want to have my momentum established already so that the adventure can be just that an adventure in writing.

NANOWRIMO was started in 1999 by founder Chris Baty and 21 others. Six of those participants became winners which means that they reached their goal of 50,000 words or 175 pages. NANOWRIMO has grown every year since then and has become an international effect. In 2008 The winners of NANOWRIMO are numbered to be over 21,30 and are said to have written over 1 billion words!

In NANOWRIMOs hall of Fame sits Lori Witt. Lori wrote her first draft in November 2008 and has written 10 first drafts since then. Go Lori!

If you've always wanted to write a novel but couldn't get started because of a mound of excuses, November's your chance to lay down the excuses and get writing. Write 50,000 words beginning November first and finishing just after midnight your time November thirtieth. To become an official winner besides writing the 50,000 words, you need to register on the NANOWRIMOs official website: http://www.nanowrimo.org.

For further inspiration get Chris Baty's book: No Plot? No Problem.

Day-71 and Counting

Just 71 more days until I begin NANOWRIMO! Today I'm getting ready by working on finishing some of the projects I want to have done before that day. I wrote 2 more articles for eHow today. I've written 120 and I plan to write 80 more before I begin my novel. I know this sounds like a lot but really it isn't. I'm writing two a day and it's not difficult at all, plus it is helping me create momentum. I've also done a few projects around the house that need to be done. I wrote the list yesterday of what I needed to do. It's quite an impressive list. Personal goals are so important because I work for myself. It keeps me motivated.

Day -72 and counting

November is National Novel Writing Month also affectionately called NANOWRIMO. On November first thousands of will-be-novelists spend the entire month of November writing on their computers until they are blurry eyed. Their goal? To write an entire short novel of 50,000 words in just thirty days.

Last year was the first year I participated in NANOWRIMO but instead of starting a novel from scratch, I decided to try to finish the two novels that I had already started. For about fifteen days I worked on both novels but after a while I couldn't keep it up so instead I worked on the one that I eventually finished which is called When God turned his head. Because of NANOWRIMO When God Turned his head is currently being seen by a literary agent for consideration.

Because of my success with using NANOWRIMO, I've decided to start my third novel and write it throughout November. Although a lot of people have started writing at the beginning of the month without a plot or any real idea what they're going to write. That's not my plan. My plan is to get ready to write this novel in the same way that a runner gets ready for a marathon. My plan is to get organized so that I have other projects out of the way and have set aside time during November to write up to 4 hours a day. I plan to have some idea what I'm going to write each day before I actually do the writing and I plan to write not just 50,000 words during the month but I plan on writing an entire 300 page novel during that month. It sounds like a lot but it is actually only about ten pages a day. A truly doable amount.

Until November I'm going to tell what I'm doing in preparation for NANOWRIMO and hopefully make it interesting. During November I will give you the day by day word count. If you like many others are thinking about writing a novel, kicking off your writing adventure in November is a great way to get started. Feel free to comment at any time about where you are in your writing process in your novel. If you need help with your subject, feel free to discuss it here. I'm willing to help in any way I can.