Thursday, October 15, 2009

My vacation so far, NaNoWriMo, and contests

Sigh, only a few more days left in my vacation. Where does the time go? I feel like I haven’t done anything productive. I caught a nasty cold and have been sick for a few days now. I’ve been sleeping a lot and I haven’t read near as much as I was hoping to.

On Saturday I picked up my car from the mechanic (it runs AWESOME!!) and took my nieces Ali and Hailey to Penumbra – a fantasy faire. It’s an event put on by the Seattle Knights. There were pirates and knights jousting and faeries and more!! We had a lot of fun and Dave Matthews was even among the crowd!! If you ever have a chance to go to one of their events, I highly recommend you do. You will not be disappointed. I wish I had some pics to post to show you the awesomeness of their performances.

On Monday, I signed up to participate in National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo for short. For those of you who don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, it’s basically a personal challenge to write a 50,000 (or more!) word novel from scratch between November 1 thru the 30th. There are no promises of a book deal or any other contest winnings, just the satisfaction of completing the task. I heard about this challenge back in 2005, but this is the first year I’ve actually committed to it. I almost forgot about it but Dave mentioned it a few days ago on his blog.

It’s been a life-long dream to write a novel. I participated in my first writing contest at the age of 11, but I’ve put my writing passion on the back burner since high school ended and I pursued accounting for a career. It’s only been just recently that I started writing again and began this blog. My writing skills are a little rusty, but you can’t sharpen your skills without practice, right? So, during the month of November, my faithful readers will get the privilege of seeing me post updates on my status in NaNoWriMo and if you’re lucky, I MIGHT post my story here if I finish it. If you’re a writer looking for a fresh challenge or a spark to light the stories bouncing around inside your head, I recommend you sign up to participate in NaNoWriMo.

If you get a chance, don’t forget to check out Shellie’s blog tomorrow and participate in her book giveaway!!

That’s all the excitement I have to share. I think I’ll take a nap now…

6 comments:

  1. I hope your feel better - and enjoy the end of your vacation.
    Thanks for the link to my giveaway!
    That festival looks like so much fun. We had one in Marin County CA it was wonderful.
    Take Care!

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  2. Go Crystal Go! It will be cool to see what you come up with. Do you have any idea(s) yet what you will write about? I'm trying the "outline" approach this time around, to see if that helps. I usually wing it, by nature.

    Two weeks left! We can do it!

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  3. I would LOVE to go to a Fantasy faire :) Glad you had fun!

    It's super cool your car is running good, congrats!

    Good luck with the writing project :)

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  4. @Shellie-Thanks! I hope you get more participation in this contest :)

    @Dave-Thanks! I have an idea about my protagonist, but other than that, I haven't decided on what direction I'm going to take my story. There are so many ideas in my head. I think I'm going to try to write an outline, too.

    @Krista-Thanks to you, too!

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  5. This is a great program. Congrats to you for making your dream a reality. I'll look forward to your posts (and your final story). What genre is it?

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  6. The fantasy faire sounds like a lot of fun. I'll have to look into that. :)

    Feel better!!

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