Friday 16 August 2013

I'm a Terrible Person...

Okay, i'm not a terrible person the way that most people might see terrible people, but i haven't written a post since FOREVER!
And i fell pretty bad, i mean, dear god it's been, what? Two months?
*facepalm*

Anywho, i'll make sure to leave a little present for you at the bottom of the post, but in the meantime i guess i'll just catch you up on the goings-on with me, and hope that you'll find that in any way interesting.
First, NaNoWriMo! Ummm, let's just say it didn't go as planned, however i am glad to say that i didn't let procrastination get the better of me; for a solid week i met my word count goal, but i guess i just can't cope with what NaNo is really about. It's about writing frantically for thirty days WITHOUT editing as you go along. But the more i wrote, the worse i felt my work was becoming because i barely had time to think about the next chapter before i was writing it (by hand, then typing it up, fml) and then i couldn't even muster up the strength to read it through again and fix all the stupid plot points and mistakes.
So yeah, that happened.
How'd you guys do? That's what i want to know, i want to hear your success stories!

In other news, i've started writing a new novel to hopefully be entered into the Sony Young Movellist of the Year competition (Google it, it's crazy awesome) and as of now i have HIGH hopes! After two and a half weeks it isTHE most popular historical fiction on the whole of Movellas, i'm so happy i could die ^_^.
Of course, there are historical fictions not under the HF genre, but romance or somehting that are more popular but sucks to be them for being against hundreds of craazyyyy one direction fanfictions to battle for most popular! Mwahahaha...

So, Hannelore (the HF) is my current project, if you'd like to read it, click here:
http://www.movellas.com/book/read/201307221309551803

To end (yes, that's all that's happened to me since i've been gone) i have two questions:
1: Did you do NaNo? How'd it go?
2: What's your project? I'd love to know, and if it's online, throw me a link and i'll check it out!

Here's that pressie i was talking about, in the form of a teacup kitten, and i hereby promise to post more regularly.


Au Revoir!

P.S! That's not all that happened!! I entered into The Columnist competition for IdeasTap to be their new columnist, how awesome is that? Cross your fingers and toes for me, will you? Thanks :)

Wednesday 26 June 2013

NaNoWri- Wait, the last viewing of Star Trek is tomorrow? Better go book my ticket...

Procrastination: The act of procrastinating; putting off or delaying or deffering an action to a later time.wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

The art of procrastination seems to be something that many other teen writers that i am in contact with excel at. I see myself as Queen Procrastinator. Modest, i know, but honestly, you should just watch me.

Today, i said to myself, 'Righto Saskia, today, you're going to finish chapter three of Orbus. Right? RIGHT.'

So, after waking up around eleven in the morning, i replied to a very important email, which i laboured over for a good half hour; had breakfast; watched New Girl; watched The Mindy Project; wrote a review for When We Die overat Movellas; ate lunch; worked on embroidering my earphones (SO. COOL.); watched a couple of episodes of Family Guy; wrote a review of "Fail" on ReviewFuse; watched CSI: Miami; had tea; had pudding; and now here i am, writing the first entry of my blog and watching CSI: New York, not having written a word of Orbus, my new sci-fi.

And people wonder why i'm only on chapter three a good month after starting. 

I see Procrastination as a serious medical condition. Us writers, we love to write, but it seems like everything else is just to good to miss! However, i believe that Procrastination is curable, we can beat this.

So, my three best cures for this unholy condition (yes, i know there are many, many more, comment your ideas!):

1) It simply has to be done, you can't get around it - This, of course, is the most potent medicine. You have a deadline that you can't push back and you can't avoid, you can't not do it. However, this is really only a pill for those lucky authors who are already published, whose publishers have set them a date by which to finish their book. Not so for us my dear friends, not so.
2) Treat yourself! - Just say, 'hey me, today, if you write at least a thousand words, you can have that cookie you've been eyeing in the co-op for the past week'. Of course, this injection doesn't quite reach the bloodstream if you go up and buy the cookie before you've written your set words, and you end up eating it anyway, for trying.
3) NaNoWriMo - Would you look at that, we've finally got to the other half of the title topic! To me, NaNoWriMo is a force in itself. It spurs me to write because i so badly want to be that person who can write 50,000 words in a month. 50,000 words of unedited tosh, but 50,000 all the same. I'm doing Camp NaNo next month, and i'm hoping that my Cabin buddies will spur me on to the finish line, unless they cop out first, in which case all hope is lost. Wish me luck!

So, are you participating in NaNo this year, camp or not? Do you have any more suggestions on how to beat procrastination? And perhaps most importantly, what did you think of my first blog post? Too long, too short, too boring? I'm very open to tips on how to improve :)

-Saskia