I'm done! I've been done since July. The first draft, I mean. Let me explain.
I thought I'd be ending the book EONS away from where I am now, but I've decided to change a large part of it into the sequel. So, the first book is cutting off when Zoe receives Fisk's letter.
I wrote that part on vacation this summer.
So I'm done! And didn't even know it! Huzzah!
So now I'm going to write every little backstory of the world of Zoe Shadow into my handy dandy little purple Moleskine notebook. And then, come November, I'm doing Nanowrimo. Look it up. And I'll pen the second draft.
Any qu
The first draft.
Is. Done.
It's been done since July...
Let me explain. I thought the book was going to end EONS from where I am now (well, maybe not eons, but a considerable while), but I've decided to make all that jazz into the sequel. So the end of the first book was actually penned back in July, while I was on vacation. How about THAT!
So yay! I'm going to go over every little backstory now, in my little purple Moleskine notebook, and then when November comes around, I'm doing Nanowrimo *LOOK IT UP* for the second draft. Questions will be and
Friday is Bamboo Day! I ask you all to join with me in celebrating this completely made-up holiday of randomosity. I might even put it in Zoe Shadow. But it won't be August in those books until... a long time. Right now, Zoe is actually looking forward to Christmas break. That's swaaaaazi for her, but we get BAMBOO DAY!
On Bamboo Day you celebrate pandas, bamboo, relaxation and time with your friends and family, as is the lifestyle of pandas and bamboo. You use everything you have with bamboo, or buy things with bamboo if you don't have any (I have a bamboo lamp, a bamboo tiki torch, a bamboo staff, etc... and a bunch of bamboo in my back yard which we make the BAMBOO DAY TREE out of!). Also, you order/go out to eat Chinese food, which is yummily appropriate.
If you guys tell me that you celebrated Bamboo Day I will post a new chapter. I swear to it. So get your panda on!
Does anybody have any good, original riddles? Because Sensei Tezuka (Redthorn's Martial Arts geizer teacher... who is now one of Zoe's three Ninja Masters) likes riddles. That much I know. But I'm not the greatest at coming up with riddles for him to say.
Take into consideration that they're not supposed to be funny riddles... they're supposed to be cool and, erm, ninja. I appreciate any help you can give. :)
For starters, I need a descriptive riddle which can have multiple answers. It should be able to apply to any element (fire, earth, air, water) as well as time. So it's sort of a test to see which answer Zoe will come up with. It vexes her... I like that word. Vex. It has an x in it. Like... XEPHYR!
I haven't updated the "where I am now" section on the other excerpts page in a while just because I like the bit I put up last week. It has Xephyr! Sorry if anyone was waiting for a new one.
The green notebook is done. Which means I've gone through the entire trio of matching notebooks: orange, blue, and green.
Where to turn now? Well, the best choice I had (I have a bunch of notebooks lying around, a lot of them too weird to put a novel in) was my old Social Studies composition notebook from this past 8th grade. I only ever wrote like 8 pages in it, so it's all cool.
It's in the following same collection, but more... compositiony. It has polka dots.
Oh! And check out the "other excerpts" page to the left. I added a new bit there, where I type up the last few paragraphs of my most recent writing. Should be interesting. So read it. :) Thanks. And comment here! Questions (you know, confusion) are welcome.
What a title. I am such a genius (note: sarcasm) XD
So, I was just wondering: how many words are in my novel so far? Of course, this is a first draft and there's A LOT to cut down as well as a bunch to add on. I haven't checked since November, at which point I had about 10,000 words (I was keeping track of that month for NanoWrimo, look it up). A novel is AT LEAST 50,000 words at a general look. In my notebooks I fit roughly 300 words on a page. My novel is currently 237 pages long (I think... give or take a page) of notebook paper. 300 x 237? 71,100.
And I am not quite sure how much longer the rough draft will be, but at a guess it will exceed the 100,000 word mark by just a bit. That's REALLY LONG. I read that over 110,000 words is too many. But it won't be an issue since in further drafts I'll be cutting away a bunch of stuff anyway. :)
I don't know about you people who are BUSY in summer (I chuckle at the thought) but for me, summer is ideal for writing. I just wrote a lot and still have a bunch more in my head... I'm not rushed so I can take the time to map out what I'm doing and think about why. As the first draft draws to a close (DRAWS is an exaggerated term... I don't actually feel like I'm that close) I am just really really excited to see how it all works together. I will go crazy when I finish, I'll be that excited. I know it will be almost unreadable- it's a first draft; that's why I don't let other people read my notebooks (sorry)- but that's what second and third and so on drafts are for. So if you're writing anything... best of luck. I think summer's a good time for it.
Owen is so cool.
Hey, it's been nearly a month! Sorry for the lack of postings.
Today is our chorus concert and we needed black pants, so my mom got these random black jeggings for me... I never really wear jeggings/skinny jeans and it just keeps reminding me of Bondivitsky :) Ha ha.
So, I'm really moving along now. I'm at the part where the Trio's just allied themselves with Vivi the Alchemist... I've spent the last few days just trying to wrap my mind around ALCHEMY. You know how in any partially-fantasy book there's a whole set of alternate-universe-laws or whatever? They're a lot easier to read about than to write about. But I'm working it all through and it's pretty cool. Alchemists have a rich and colorful history if anything...
I really just want to get this first draft, PLOT being the main thing, done. But there are so many little stories going on inside it, and I really wish I could take the time to write them all as they deserve right now... but that's what editing will be. I have to keep my inner editor locked in the basement (well, not the basement, I actually go down there a lot)... until the editing.
Also- Ashlinn and Owen are so cute XD
Okay, so here (AT LONG LAST) are the winners for that contest of long ago.
Since it wasn't really formal, I'm just going to make up a bunch of categories to express how awesome I thought you all were.
Pretty much everyone who entered had a pic of Zoe Shadow, and it was really hard to choose the "best" one... in fact I couldn't choose a "best" one, so I'm just choosing the one that was closest to how I imagined her.
The winner of the Zoe Shadow pics is... dun dun, dunnnn...
Lucy!!! Her picture will be available on the images page.
Anyway, there wasn't much competition for any of the other characters, but I might include some other pics in the future of other characters. Thanks to everyone who participated!!!
I'm at an awesome writing part. Redthorn (Zoe's evil ninja school) is sending 4 students to Lupex (the rival Alchemist school) in exchange for 4 students... let's just say it's going to be epic. :)
Happy Spring Break to anyone else who is on it!!!
Yes, it is true. I finished the blue notebook last night and now I'm onto the green one! Which is good, I think, for a spring-y mood... fits today perfectly, what with this 80 degree, absolutely glorious weather. LOVE IT. Anyway, I found out that both the orange and blue notebooks both had 80 pages, and then I have the first three chapters, which were about 30 pages all together in some other notebook... so I have... dun dun dunnnnnn... roughly 190 notebook pages!!! Which are, of course, shorter than computer pages, so it'd be less on here, but, yeah. I am not even close to done, or so it feels at times. So this will probably be a fairly lengthy book. Anyway, I'm psyched for the spring and this notebook. Also: check the Writing 101 page; there's a new conversation question I made that I am interested in hearing answers to. I'll also post some of the best contest entries I got in a bit, so this is anyone who hasn't posted's last chance to do so! Thanks. CYA.
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