So, on my walk home from work today, inspiration suddenly hit! The idea is not completely thought out by any means, but in the 10 minute walk back to my flat (the only 10 minutes of peace I got today, having been run off my feet) I was musing about writing, and mentally tweaking an idea that had previously occurred to me.
I think it might work!
Unfortunately I've been pretty exhausted lately, stressing over stuff that I won't go into on a public journal, but suffice it to say that I've been fairly mentally wrung out. I'm starting to feel much recovered now that inspiration has hit!
So, I pulled out all my stationary again this evening (I get strange joy from playing with notebooks, post-it notes and other silly things) and I'm going to go and brainstorm now! I can't really start any serious planning tonight given that it's already after 10:30, and if I get serious now, god knows what time I'll be awake until.
Hopefully, if all goes to plan, I'll actually be able to do some real planning tomorrow night when I get home from work.
Now, if I can just get the characters to come to life, half of the job will be done for me... ;)
Monday, 21 July 2008
Tuesday, 1 January 2008
A New Year
As is no doubt obvious by this stage, I have not exactly been applying myself to writing.
Since the failure of NaNoWriMo, I've had family over to visit, been working and playing rather too much World of Warcraft, with little or no desire to write anything.
Well, I suppose that's not exactly true. I want to write, I just don't know what to write!
Add into that the fact that my PC has died (wonderful piece of not-so-modern technology that it is) and I'm relegated to a laptop (that barely works in its own right!). When you have to allow a 15 minute boot up procedure and use an external keyboard and mouse with a laptop, it somewhat loses its portability. Not to mention the fact that it seems to be overheating and that can't be good for my Logitech G15 keyboard sat on top of it.
That's a fairly recent issue though; the main problem is my terrible ability to procrastinate.
I may try my hand at plotting again this week. Even if it's not too successful, a few thousand words = better than nothing!
Since the failure of NaNoWriMo, I've had family over to visit, been working and playing rather too much World of Warcraft, with little or no desire to write anything.
Well, I suppose that's not exactly true. I want to write, I just don't know what to write!
Add into that the fact that my PC has died (wonderful piece of not-so-modern technology that it is) and I'm relegated to a laptop (that barely works in its own right!). When you have to allow a 15 minute boot up procedure and use an external keyboard and mouse with a laptop, it somewhat loses its portability. Not to mention the fact that it seems to be overheating and that can't be good for my Logitech G15 keyboard sat on top of it.
That's a fairly recent issue though; the main problem is my terrible ability to procrastinate.
I may try my hand at plotting again this week. Even if it's not too successful, a few thousand words = better than nothing!
Wednesday, 21 November 2007
Failed NaNoWriMo
A fitting title, I feel.
As I suspected might happen, following my trip to Norway, I didn't get back into writing. I delayed for the first couple of days, and found other things I needed/wanted to do, and slowly but surely it slipped out of grasp.
I'm so far behind now that I would have to write 5,000 words a day in order to hit 50,000 in time for the end of NaNoWriMo (I'd have to finish early due to family visiting).
So I've accepted that I won't manage it.
On the other hand, it's probably just as well. That plot wasn't really working for me. Or, perhaps it would, I just need to do a lot more plotting and background work before diving into it like that. The characters were too flat, the dialogue meandering, and the story came across very cliché. I also need to work on my descriptive text a bit, as I have a tendency to avoid describing things particularly in depth (mostly because thats the parts I tend to skim over when reading books myself). Consequently though, I think while I can picture where the story is happening, the reader would have a problem!
I have a vague idea for a different story actually; my inspiration began to return as I read a new series of fantasy books by Trudi Canavan. Unfortunate last name that; I keep thinking "caravan". Anyway, they were quite good; easy reading, classic fantasy, nothing too surprising, female main character with all the stereotypes (poor, excluded, becomes all-powerful, loses her love, the usual). I loooovve that kind of fantasy.
At the same time though, there were a lot of things I wanted to change while I read the books. There were several parts I felt I could have wrote better myself, and overall each book of the trilogy could have been half as long again if not twice as long. There was a lot of room for more plot and more description that I think was missed out on.
Nevertheless, it started the cogs going in my brain again and I want to write.
I'm not starting tonight though; feeling very tired due to lack of sleep the last few nights (new series of books to read = inability to go to bed on time!). Getting a hot bath and a good nights sleep, so that I can start work bright and early tomorrow. I can then go to the gym at lunch, and finish work before 6pm, leaving plenty of time for me to sit around and muse upon a plot.
As I suspected might happen, following my trip to Norway, I didn't get back into writing. I delayed for the first couple of days, and found other things I needed/wanted to do, and slowly but surely it slipped out of grasp.
I'm so far behind now that I would have to write 5,000 words a day in order to hit 50,000 in time for the end of NaNoWriMo (I'd have to finish early due to family visiting).
So I've accepted that I won't manage it.
On the other hand, it's probably just as well. That plot wasn't really working for me. Or, perhaps it would, I just need to do a lot more plotting and background work before diving into it like that. The characters were too flat, the dialogue meandering, and the story came across very cliché. I also need to work on my descriptive text a bit, as I have a tendency to avoid describing things particularly in depth (mostly because thats the parts I tend to skim over when reading books myself). Consequently though, I think while I can picture where the story is happening, the reader would have a problem!
I have a vague idea for a different story actually; my inspiration began to return as I read a new series of fantasy books by Trudi Canavan. Unfortunate last name that; I keep thinking "caravan". Anyway, they were quite good; easy reading, classic fantasy, nothing too surprising, female main character with all the stereotypes (poor, excluded, becomes all-powerful, loses her love, the usual). I loooovve that kind of fantasy.
At the same time though, there were a lot of things I wanted to change while I read the books. There were several parts I felt I could have wrote better myself, and overall each book of the trilogy could have been half as long again if not twice as long. There was a lot of room for more plot and more description that I think was missed out on.
Nevertheless, it started the cogs going in my brain again and I want to write.
I'm not starting tonight though; feeling very tired due to lack of sleep the last few nights (new series of books to read = inability to go to bed on time!). Getting a hot bath and a good nights sleep, so that I can start work bright and early tomorrow. I can then go to the gym at lunch, and finish work before 6pm, leaving plenty of time for me to sit around and muse upon a plot.
Wednesday, 7 November 2007
A Bad Day followed by a Good Day!
Yesterday I came home from work with the best of intentions, though zero enthusiasm. I knew I needed to write a couple of thousand words, but I was feeling too dispirited to do anything really. I didn't even have the ability to write on here, I was feeling so down. So, I passed the time by watching some Desperate Housewives with my fiancé and settling into bed early with a book.
I've been avoiding reading since starting NaNo for two reasons:
Went to work late, bad me, and worked hard. I was feeling better this morning, though far from inspired, and I went out for a steak again. I actually had the "Trio Gourmande" a yummy concoction consisting of 400g of meat; a piece of chicken, pork and beef, all flamegrilled and beautifully tender. Yummy!
After work, I sauntered home, wrapped up against the cold, and my muse suddenly started prancing around, throwing ideas at my story to see if they would stick. None of them were particularly amazing, and I may use one or two, but it's a start.
I got home and roasted myself a big bowl of chestnuts, and finished making the mulled wine that had been sitting soaking up spices for a few hours.
Armed with this sustenance, and multiple purring kitties, I retreated to my room and chained myself to the laptop for three hours.
I came out triumphant! Proud writer of 2,432 words, bringing my total up to 10,453. Technically, according to my plan, I should be at 13,043 by now, but all will be fine as long as I continue to write at least 2,326 every day for the next 17 days that I will be able to write (tomorrow, Thursday and then 14th-28th Nov).
As far as I know, I should be off work the weekends of 17/18 and 24/25 so I might manage to boost my wordcount on those days, allowing me to slack off on a day or two in the week.
And who knows, perhaps my trip to Norway will spawn all sorts of wonderful ideas for me to note down and scribble about on my flight back.
I've been avoiding reading since starting NaNo for two reasons:
- I don't want to accidentally steal ideas.
- Reading published writing makes me depressed about the standard of mine.
Went to work late, bad me, and worked hard. I was feeling better this morning, though far from inspired, and I went out for a steak again. I actually had the "Trio Gourmande" a yummy concoction consisting of 400g of meat; a piece of chicken, pork and beef, all flamegrilled and beautifully tender. Yummy!
After work, I sauntered home, wrapped up against the cold, and my muse suddenly started prancing around, throwing ideas at my story to see if they would stick. None of them were particularly amazing, and I may use one or two, but it's a start.
I got home and roasted myself a big bowl of chestnuts, and finished making the mulled wine that had been sitting soaking up spices for a few hours.
Armed with this sustenance, and multiple purring kitties, I retreated to my room and chained myself to the laptop for three hours.
I came out triumphant! Proud writer of 2,432 words, bringing my total up to 10,453. Technically, according to my plan, I should be at 13,043 by now, but all will be fine as long as I continue to write at least 2,326 every day for the next 17 days that I will be able to write (tomorrow, Thursday and then 14th-28th Nov).
As far as I know, I should be off work the weekends of 17/18 and 24/25 so I might manage to boost my wordcount on those days, allowing me to slack off on a day or two in the week.
And who knows, perhaps my trip to Norway will spawn all sorts of wonderful ideas for me to note down and scribble about on my flight back.
Saturday, 3 November 2007
Why does it have to be so damned hard?
I labour my way through writing, get over 5k total done - which, while less than my aim, will have to do, and then I spend almost as long as I did writing, trying to update my wordcount on nanowrimo.org.
Christ, but that site is a heap of crap. Every. Single. Night.
Christ, but that site is a heap of crap. Every. Single. Night.
Mood
It's amazing how mood can affect my inclination to write.
I was in a pretty good mood earlier, despite being in work on overtime (need money *sigh*) and was looking forward to getting home and getting stuck in. Planned to do enough to take my total to 7k words.
Then I actually got home, had a snappy argument with my fiancé, am hungry and feeling very irritable and - the icing on the cake - the internet is playing up. The only plus side is that my kitties were very happy to see me and I have Mango warming my lap and purring at the moment. That makes me feel more mellow.
So, somehow I have to force myself to write at least 2977 words, so that I hit my target of 6600 by day 3.
And somehow I have to stop myself from ripping this keyboard out and throwing it at the wall. Stupid i, f and c keys are awful.
I was in a pretty good mood earlier, despite being in work on overtime (need money *sigh*) and was looking forward to getting home and getting stuck in. Planned to do enough to take my total to 7k words.
Then I actually got home, had a snappy argument with my fiancé, am hungry and feeling very irritable and - the icing on the cake - the internet is playing up. The only plus side is that my kitties were very happy to see me and I have Mango warming my lap and purring at the moment. That makes me feel more mellow.
So, somehow I have to force myself to write at least 2977 words, so that I hit my target of 6600 by day 3.
And somehow I have to stop myself from ripping this keyboard out and throwing it at the wall. Stupid i, f and c keys are awful.
Today's progress
3623 total words, hell yeah :D
Ok so, I started writing again around 7pm. The going was fairly steady, I wrote around 1200 words (albeit drawing fairly heavily from a piece of descriptive writing I did a few years ago, also based in a cave).
I left the flat at 8pm and headed to Courtpaille, our local steak place, where I met my fiancé for yummy beefy goodness. This was accompanied by a Kir as aperitif, 25cl of wine with the meal, a kirsch desert and a Calvados brandy afterwards. I was rather fuzzy and warm on the walk home!
On the plus side, when I sat back at my laptop at 11:15, my fingers flew across the keyboard and I churned out another thousand words in 1/2 hour. That's fairly speedy even by my old standards of writing speed.
So, while my total is less than my personal target (I need to do 2,200 words/day since there are 7 days this month when I can't guarantee I'll be able to write, owing to being abroad/having visiting family) I still managed to do more than the "official" minimum word cound of 1667 words per day in November.
I also read a rather scathing article on LiveJournal today, that I was rather disappointed with. Basically it was laying into anyone who was stupid enough to do NaNoWriMo, taking personal affront that anyone could focus on producing as much content as possible and worrying about the quality later. Those people will apparently never be "real" novelists. The guy was completely up his own ass, and to be honest he came off sounding more jealous that he wasn't joining in, than condemning of it.
Anyway, what was perplexing about the article is that while he was a complete asshole and earned my disdain and pity, he is also the co-artist of my favourite web comic, twolumps.net.
How can one guy be so funny on one website, and such an ass on another?
Well, such is life I guess.
Now, as it's approaching 00:30, I'm going to retreat to bed. I have overtime tomorrow.
Ok so, I started writing again around 7pm. The going was fairly steady, I wrote around 1200 words (albeit drawing fairly heavily from a piece of descriptive writing I did a few years ago, also based in a cave).
I left the flat at 8pm and headed to Courtpaille, our local steak place, where I met my fiancé for yummy beefy goodness. This was accompanied by a Kir as aperitif, 25cl of wine with the meal, a kirsch desert and a Calvados brandy afterwards. I was rather fuzzy and warm on the walk home!
On the plus side, when I sat back at my laptop at 11:15, my fingers flew across the keyboard and I churned out another thousand words in 1/2 hour. That's fairly speedy even by my old standards of writing speed.
So, while my total is less than my personal target (I need to do 2,200 words/day since there are 7 days this month when I can't guarantee I'll be able to write, owing to being abroad/having visiting family) I still managed to do more than the "official" minimum word cound of 1667 words per day in November.
I also read a rather scathing article on LiveJournal today, that I was rather disappointed with. Basically it was laying into anyone who was stupid enough to do NaNoWriMo, taking personal affront that anyone could focus on producing as much content as possible and worrying about the quality later. Those people will apparently never be "real" novelists. The guy was completely up his own ass, and to be honest he came off sounding more jealous that he wasn't joining in, than condemning of it.
Anyway, what was perplexing about the article is that while he was a complete asshole and earned my disdain and pity, he is also the co-artist of my favourite web comic, twolumps.net.
How can one guy be so funny on one website, and such an ass on another?
Well, such is life I guess.
Now, as it's approaching 00:30, I'm going to retreat to bed. I have overtime tomorrow.
Friday, 2 November 2007
Dreams
Well after retreating from my laptop for the night, finally climbing into bed to go to sleep around 01:30 (bright idea when I had to be up by 7...) I had the first hint that Maeya might come alive. There was a distinct feeling of irritation in my head, at being left overnight trapped in a cave. Fingers crossed and she'll turn herself into a fully-fledged personality soon, like my RolePlay characters used to. Things got a bit noisy in my head once I was RPing 4-6 chars at a time though. They all wanted my attention *sigh*
Anyway, despite this auspicious ending to the day, I then proceeded to have the most random dreams. Plot ideas, certainly, but not for this book. Sod's law that.
One thing I've noticed is that I always want to write things that I don't particularly enjoy reading.
I don't enjoy reading 1st person books generally, nor do I like books with Dragons as a focal point. Having a dragon appearance is fine (like Scarlet in Terry Goodkind's books, or the dragon-whose-name-I-can't-recall in Katherine Kerr's books), but actually focused on dragons = not enjoyable for me.
Perversely, dragons is a big part in my novel. Central, huge, pivotal. And boy did I have to battle with my muse to avoid it being written in 1st person narrative. I like writing first person. I get less flat characters.
Next thing I dislike reading is a story told from the point of view of a sentient animal. I'm not sure why this is a pet peeve (edit: omg accidental pun!). Very strange considering my adoration for my pets. What is it that my brain now wants to write more than anything? A book from the point of view of a cat.
Amusingly, my dreams gave me a plot for a high school fiction novel set in our world. Which is strange since I neither read nor like high school novels and I only ever write pure fantasy, set in other worlds.
Still, I figure I can look on the bright side and be happy that my creativity is, slowly but surely, waking up.
Now, back to work for another 5.5 hours.
Anyway, despite this auspicious ending to the day, I then proceeded to have the most random dreams. Plot ideas, certainly, but not for this book. Sod's law that.
One thing I've noticed is that I always want to write things that I don't particularly enjoy reading.
I don't enjoy reading 1st person books generally, nor do I like books with Dragons as a focal point. Having a dragon appearance is fine (like Scarlet in Terry Goodkind's books, or the dragon-whose-name-I-can't-recall in Katherine Kerr's books), but actually focused on dragons = not enjoyable for me.
Perversely, dragons is a big part in my novel. Central, huge, pivotal. And boy did I have to battle with my muse to avoid it being written in 1st person narrative. I like writing first person. I get less flat characters.
Next thing I dislike reading is a story told from the point of view of a sentient animal. I'm not sure why this is a pet peeve (edit: omg accidental pun!). Very strange considering my adoration for my pets. What is it that my brain now wants to write more than anything? A book from the point of view of a cat.
Amusingly, my dreams gave me a plot for a high school fiction novel set in our world. Which is strange since I neither read nor like high school novels and I only ever write pure fantasy, set in other worlds.
Still, I figure I can look on the bright side and be happy that my creativity is, slowly but surely, waking up.
Now, back to work for another 5.5 hours.
Oh, frustration.
I am so incredibly frustrated with the general crappiness of the NaNoWriMo website today.
I mean, come on people, its been going 7 years, get some decent servers. Argh. Really, they know how many people will be trying to access the website on 1st November and onwards, and yet every single year, the website fails.
Part of my frustration is, in fact, due to my writer's block. And lack of plot. And complete lack of productivity today.
Despite having the whole day off, I managed a grand total of 1334 words, somewhat less than my target of 2200 (which I need to do in order to hit 50,000 by the end of November, as I won't be able to write for 7 of the days of the month). So, somehow I need to write 3066 words tomorrow.
I don't think it's going to happen, given that I have work, and the gym to do. Even if I get up by 7am (doubtful by this stage) and finish work at 16:30, I'll still need 2 hours for the gym, so realistically won't start writing till at least 7pm. And that's if I forget about getting dinner.
If I was writing at the speed I used to, then it wouldnt be a problem to write 3066 words in 5 hours. Given that it took my 6 hours to churn out 1334 today, I'm not optimistic.
On the other hand at least - despite many errors and non-loading of pages - I managed to update my word count on NaNoWriMo before midnight.
And, a reward for listening to my whining, here's the first line of the novel:
"When the earthquake began, Maeya was, rather unfortunately, underground."
I'm not entirely happy with it (damn that inner editor!) but it took several tries to come up with something I could even tolerate, so it will have to do for now. At least, when I said it to my fiancé, he reacted correctly; "Er, why was she underground?".
Yay! Hooked. You wanna read more and find out what she was doing underground :D
Now, bedtime methinks, before I expire from hunger and lack of sleep.
I mean, come on people, its been going 7 years, get some decent servers. Argh. Really, they know how many people will be trying to access the website on 1st November and onwards, and yet every single year, the website fails.
Part of my frustration is, in fact, due to my writer's block. And lack of plot. And complete lack of productivity today.
Despite having the whole day off, I managed a grand total of 1334 words, somewhat less than my target of 2200 (which I need to do in order to hit 50,000 by the end of November, as I won't be able to write for 7 of the days of the month). So, somehow I need to write 3066 words tomorrow.
I don't think it's going to happen, given that I have work, and the gym to do. Even if I get up by 7am (doubtful by this stage) and finish work at 16:30, I'll still need 2 hours for the gym, so realistically won't start writing till at least 7pm. And that's if I forget about getting dinner.
If I was writing at the speed I used to, then it wouldnt be a problem to write 3066 words in 5 hours. Given that it took my 6 hours to churn out 1334 today, I'm not optimistic.
On the other hand at least - despite many errors and non-loading of pages - I managed to update my word count on NaNoWriMo before midnight.
And, a reward for listening to my whining, here's the first line of the novel:
"When the earthquake began, Maeya was, rather unfortunately, underground."
I'm not entirely happy with it (damn that inner editor!) but it took several tries to come up with something I could even tolerate, so it will have to do for now. At least, when I said it to my fiancé, he reacted correctly; "Er, why was she underground?".
Yay! Hooked. You wanna read more and find out what she was doing underground :D
Now, bedtime methinks, before I expire from hunger and lack of sleep.
Thursday, 1 November 2007
NaNoWriMo
Well, National Novel Writing Month started almost 18 hours ago. Despite being up at that time, and having been out of bed for around 5 hours now, I still lack four vital things:
On the plus side, I have set myself up a nice corner in my walk-in-wardrobe, which is now half a study; comfy chair, laptop table, small set of drawers, a lamp, an ipod dock and the obligatory thermos full of coffee. What I didn't bargain for was my cats thinking this was the best thing since tuna, and spending their days in here with me. Crusha has just discovered that my lap is a very warm, comfy place to sleep, and is consequently stopping me from pulling my laptop keyboard in, and is slowly but surely making my left arm lose all sensation as he drapes himself across it to sleep.
But he's just too cute to kick off my lap >.<
A few years ago, I wouldn't have had any problem coming up with 50,000 words over a month. Hell, I wrote 35,000 in a couple of weeks, and several lots of 10-15000 in a week without trying particularly hard. That was a few years ago though, back when I was Role Playing my heart out at http://www.wheeloftimerp.net (now closed). Back when I was the tender age of under 18.
Then I turned 18, I finished school. The very same week I finished my A levels, I packed up and left the UK, opting for a life in Paris, France, where I had a nice job offer. I've stayed with my current company since then - around 2.5 years now - though I've moved into a different department with more interesting work, more holiday, more pay and flexible hours! That said, it is more hours each day, so it can work out quite tiring.
Since I moved here, I've hardly written at all. Except in blogs of course, but that doesn't count. I play World of Warcraft, spend time with my fiancé and my 5 cats, and generally procrastinate when I should be doing something more creative.
I've read Fantasy since I was a child, and have always loved it. I remember my Mum reading the Faraway Tree to me when I was very small, and I remember The Hobbit being my first "adult" book when I was around 8 or 9. To the incredulity of my teachers I then read through Lord of the Rings at 10, and a host of other books including the Belgariad and Mallorean series by David Eddings.
Now, I was no prodigy, I wasn't super-intelligent, but I was intelligent enough for my age and adored reading above all else. It was sunny and hot outside? I was inside reading. My friends were going out? I was inside reading. Lunch or break time at school? I was hiding somewhere, reading.
As I got a bit older, I branched out into writing. First my own stories, for school, then into novel attempts which - while utterly disastrous - were incredible fun. I created worlds, and languages, and characters. Sometimes this was with my accomplice, Charly, and sometimes on my own.
In the summer of 2001 I found the Wheel of Time RP and - being part the way through Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series - decided to give it a shot. I started out writing posts of less then 100 words, woefully bad stuff. By the time I left I wrote thousands in each posts, tens of thousands in a string with myself or others.
Sadly when I moved to France and left the site, I stopped writing. I need to rediscover my love for writing, and as such I decided to do NaNoWriMo this year.
Now the challenge is forcing myself to turn my very vague idea - girl protagonist, lives in town, finds item, goes on quest, learns magic - into a fully fledged novel.
I think I need more coffee!
- Inspiration - yes, that's right, NaNoWriMo has begun and I have no plot.
- A working keyboard - the laptop keyboard is broken, so I'm using an external keyboard that - you guessed it - isn't fully functional either. Hopefully it will last until I find a better solution.
- A word processor - my fiancé thought it would be a bright idea to chuck out my copy of MS office. Now I have to resort to googledocuments until he corrects his error and gets me a new MS office suite.
- Words - I have nothing written. What's more depressing is that certain other participants of NaNoWriMo have already written 25k words - less than 24hours into the month!!
On the plus side, I have set myself up a nice corner in my walk-in-wardrobe, which is now half a study; comfy chair, laptop table, small set of drawers, a lamp, an ipod dock and the obligatory thermos full of coffee. What I didn't bargain for was my cats thinking this was the best thing since tuna, and spending their days in here with me. Crusha has just discovered that my lap is a very warm, comfy place to sleep, and is consequently stopping me from pulling my laptop keyboard in, and is slowly but surely making my left arm lose all sensation as he drapes himself across it to sleep.
But he's just too cute to kick off my lap >.<
A few years ago, I wouldn't have had any problem coming up with 50,000 words over a month. Hell, I wrote 35,000 in a couple of weeks, and several lots of 10-15000 in a week without trying particularly hard. That was a few years ago though, back when I was Role Playing my heart out at http://www.wheeloftimerp.net (now closed). Back when I was the tender age of under 18.
Then I turned 18, I finished school. The very same week I finished my A levels, I packed up and left the UK, opting for a life in Paris, France, where I had a nice job offer. I've stayed with my current company since then - around 2.5 years now - though I've moved into a different department with more interesting work, more holiday, more pay and flexible hours! That said, it is more hours each day, so it can work out quite tiring.
Since I moved here, I've hardly written at all. Except in blogs of course, but that doesn't count. I play World of Warcraft, spend time with my fiancé and my 5 cats, and generally procrastinate when I should be doing something more creative.
I've read Fantasy since I was a child, and have always loved it. I remember my Mum reading the Faraway Tree to me when I was very small, and I remember The Hobbit being my first "adult" book when I was around 8 or 9. To the incredulity of my teachers I then read through Lord of the Rings at 10, and a host of other books including the Belgariad and Mallorean series by David Eddings.
Now, I was no prodigy, I wasn't super-intelligent, but I was intelligent enough for my age and adored reading above all else. It was sunny and hot outside? I was inside reading. My friends were going out? I was inside reading. Lunch or break time at school? I was hiding somewhere, reading.
As I got a bit older, I branched out into writing. First my own stories, for school, then into novel attempts which - while utterly disastrous - were incredible fun. I created worlds, and languages, and characters. Sometimes this was with my accomplice, Charly, and sometimes on my own.
In the summer of 2001 I found the Wheel of Time RP and - being part the way through Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series - decided to give it a shot. I started out writing posts of less then 100 words, woefully bad stuff. By the time I left I wrote thousands in each posts, tens of thousands in a string with myself or others.
Sadly when I moved to France and left the site, I stopped writing. I need to rediscover my love for writing, and as such I decided to do NaNoWriMo this year.
Now the challenge is forcing myself to turn my very vague idea - girl protagonist, lives in town, finds item, goes on quest, learns magic - into a fully fledged novel.
I think I need more coffee!
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