"A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings but a cat does not." -Ernest Hemingway

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Hitting the Pivotal Point

I have finally reached the infamous pivotal point where you have to decide between ignoring your inner voice and go all out for the glory or give in to its constant rambling voice, “hey you gave it your all but you just can’t do it so why not throw in the towel now and relax.”
What my inner voice fails to understand is that I am The Unknown Author and whether I win or lose the challenge I still come out victorious.  Because you see in a challenge such as NaNoWrimo it is more about the outcome of the experience than whether or not you hit the 50K mark by midnight November 30. 
For The Unknown Author it has been a personal journey to take that step outside their comfort zone, a challenge to their everyday strengths and a spark to fire up their imagination.  It is amazing what you can accomplish in a short period of time when you focus on the “What if” rather than the “Why bother” mentality.  Have you ever been challenged to step outside your comfort zone?  If so, what lessons and achievements did you accomplish in your journey?
Now The Unknown Author still has plenty of time to continue throwing caution into the wind and go for the gusto so stay tuned to see how far along they get in their NaNoWrimo journey and then share in their lessons learned (once they have rested and got caught up on their other WIP’s:  what is a WIP?  Work in Progress)
Until next time,
Keep on thriving, keep on striving and keep on writing!
T.K. Millin
The Unknown Author

Friday, November 12, 2010

Novel vs Short Story: Now What?

When The Unknown Author set out to take on NaNoWrimo and write a full length 50,000 word novel in less than thirty days, they felt they had all the tools in their author’s talent skill box to help them accomplish this massive goal.  What they didn’t expect to discover was how quickly those tools would help them sit down and whip out a short story from beginning to end instead.
Here is what The Unknown Author has to say:
“Having established my roadmap ahead of time enabled me to sit down and quickly fill in verbiage that told my story.  Passionately typing away, because I knew where I was headed, I thought I would be at the end in no time and then I would have the rest of November to enjoy turkey, stuffing and family.  Can someone say, “Please Hold the Presses!””
Sure all the structure of the story has been accomplished, Act One has been told, Act Two with its crises, struggles and epiphany has been written and even Act Three bringing everything to conclusion with a plan, a climax and a super duper ending has been checked off.  So you may be asking yourself then what is The Unknown Author’s problem?  The problem is they have done it all with 22,397 words! 
Now does that mean The Unknown Author is not going to win their first NaNoWrimo Victory Pin?  Not if their plan has anything to do with it. 
So what is The Unknown Author’s Plan?  To do just like any author does when they sit down to rewrite their second draft; add depth.  Simply put, take the one dimensional first draft and add life to it by writing in the five senses:  seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting.  Bring those characters to life!
Check in next week to see if The Unknown Author adds any additional words and what their next step to achieving a NaNoWrimo Victory Pin will be!
Until next time,
Keep on striving, keep on thriving and keep on writing!
T.K. Millin
The Unknown Author
     

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

What did it take to survive day three?

Have you ever had so much sleep that you found it hard the next morning to find the energy to get going?  If so, follow along on what it took The Unknown Author, after ten hours of sleep, to drag them out of bed and sit down to write another word or two in NaNoLand!
It’s been three days since NaNoWrimo began and already The Unknown Author has written their way through the Hook, the Backstory and the Trigger.  In other words, they've already made it through Act One!  If you want to know more about getting through Act One, click here.  However, if you thought by getting a good ten hours sleep the night before to shut off the never ending rambling dialogue in a writer’s head found them waking refreshed and ready to go again, think again; instead, The Unknown Author found themselves struggling even to think of one word!
They tried left over chocolate candy from Halloween, splashing water in their face even doing laundry.  Nothing seemed to help.  But then they looked through their NaNoWrimo Merit Badges and found the day's inspiration!  They were going all the way today and win the CAFFEINE ABUSE badge!  Yep, you got it The Unknown Author consumed dangerous amounts of caffeinated soda in order to get one word closer to their quest of 50K words or more before November 30, 2010!
How did it work?  Well after every 500 words or so they refilled their glass with ice and cool refreshing caffeinated soda and before the clock struck time to end the day, they once again exceeded their daily word goal of 1,667 words and wrote 4,039 words, for a total of 12,108!  (For those of you who follow T.K. Millin's Facebook, Efi Loo’s writer’s scarf is getting pretty bogged down with winner badges, but she doesn’t seem to mind, she proudly runs around showing them off!)
Are you a NaNoWrimo?  What little goals do you find yourself setting each day to get through?  Please share them, I’d love to hear about them.
Until next time,
Keep on striving, keep on thriving and keep on writing!
T.K. Millin
The Unknown Author 

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Day Two: The Day of Contradicting Contractions!

Well it’s day two of NaNoWrimo and I still seem to be surviving; however, I have to admit today seemed to go a little slower than yesterday. 
It’s not that I didn’t have anything to write about it was more like finding it hard to get my word count rolling.  So I opened up my packet of NaNoWrimo Merit Badges for inspiration and read all the pins I could earn throughout the month.  I found one I wanted to earn today and it’s the WORD-COUNT PADDING Badge.  I could either 1) Quote a song lyric or another book in my novel, 2) create a stuttering or triple-named character in my novel, 3) write all my contractions out or 4) introduce an unneeded dream scene or hallucination into my novel.
Which one did I choose?  The winner is:  Number three!  I thought how fun would my day of writing be if I tried to spell out all the contractions.  I had no idea how difficult that task can be.  I found myself constantly back tracking and having to retype, “I did not (didn’t) want to hear how you have not (haven’t) had any sleep in 24 hours,” or “I am (I’m) sure you were not (weren’t) going to tell him I would (I’d) punch him in the nose if he called me that one more time.” 
You may be thinking to yourself, is that not cheating?  Actually it is not.  For how can writing proper English be cheating?  We have just become accustomed over the years to reading contractions that we sometimes do not even realize what we are reading.  Did it help?  You bet, I exceeded my 1,667 daily word goal again and wrote 3,059 words for a total of:  8,069 and it is only day two!  (For those of you who follow my Facebook I gladly pinned my WORD-COUNT PADDING pin onto Efi Loo’s writing scarf!)
Are you a NaNoWrimo?  Have you found something that helps you keep striving and achieving, or exceeding, your daily word goal?  If so, please share.
Until next time,
Keep on striving, keep on thriving and keep on writing!
T.K. Millin
The Unknown Author    
       

Monday, November 1, 2010

Wow, What a Day!

Have you ever set out to do something extraordinary but were afraid of the outcome?  Well that’s a little how I felt about my first day in NaNoLand. (That’s lingo for us NaNoWrimos)  Anyhow, I had grand illusions of sitting at my writing desk at 12:01 a.m. on November 1, 2010 and stroking the first letter of Falltime Frights. 

Instead, I rolled over at around 8:30 a.m., still feeling tired from the Halloween festivities a few hours earlier, wondering how in the world I was ever going to write today.  But then I remembered I was The Unknown Author and I leaped out of bed, threw on my trusted writing clothes, fixed my favorite morning drink (water for those of you who don’t know me) and fired up my trusty old friend, my laptop.

I opened up my Falltime Frights folder and reviewed all the structure notes I had made the prior month and before I knew it 500 words had suddenly appeared upon the page and then 1,200.  Now since I set my goal at 1,667 words a day and it was only 10 a.m., I figured why not go for 2,000.  At 3 in the afternoon after taking a long deserved break, and 4,000 words later, I decided I’m going all the way today and earn my first NaNoWrimo RALLY PIN and type 5,000 words.  When I added the period to my last sentence of the day my word count said, 5,010!

So the first thing NaNoWrimo taught me is preparations do make a difference!  Think, scheme a little and then plan, plan, plan.  Like I said before; once you find your passion, (click here) and discover your direction, (click here) it's easy to start writing and never look back.

Are you a NaNoWrimo?  Please share your experience here and share with us what you’ve learned so far.

Until next time,

Keep on thriving, keep on striving and keep on writing!

T.K. Millin
The Unknown Author