Unproductive Month

So it's November 25th. Last year at this time I was rounding out my last ten thousand words before finishing my first successful NaNoWriMo challenge. This year there isn't the same amount of excitement, and alas, for this month I have only written three thousand words and counting. I'd like to say it's because my Nano challenge for this year isn't the same, since I'm just continuing an old story (because it's like an old shoe now; comfortable but not shiny and new and flashy) and besides, I had a rocky start with no power for the first two weeks of this month. But that's not why.

However, it is a good segue into talking about Hurricane Sandy, as if you haven't surely heard enough about it already. (If you live in the US, anyway. Blogger has informed me I have international viewers, so thanks and holler to y'all) I live in central New Jersey, which was literally smack in the middle of the storm. It was scary as heck, but I don't live right on the coast, and I'm also on high ground so flooding wasn't a problem. I did lose power for almost ten days straight, however; seven days from Sandy and then two days later, another three day outage from that badass snow storm we got. The snowstorm was really the scariest, though it wasn't as violent. We got about five to seven inches of really wet and heavy snow-- heavier than I've ever seen before in my seventeen years, but the scary part was that I live in a heavily wooded area and we literally had trees bowing under the weight. There were trees taller than the telephone poles that had their higher branches tugged down so far that I could jump on my driveway and touch them, assuming that I wanted a potentially painful faceful of snow. The night of the storm we realized that there were trees (that we could hear very loudly groaning and cracking under the weight) bending and swaying directly over our roof and specifically my room. Between the audible stress on the tall oak trees and the neon blue explosions of the transformers up and down the road we were pretty terrified. At some point we got our coats and shoes and were ready to walk out for fear of trees crushing the house. (I live kind of in the middle of a small forest with a bunch of heavy trees)

The reality of all this though, is that I really got out scott-free. I know people whose cars were flooded out, who lost their homes either to the storm on the coast or flooding farther inland, or for other reasons have had them condemned. People are equating this with the damage Katrina wrecked on New Orleans, which I think is a bit excessive, but it's a valid point, seeing the damage on certain areas. There's a really (dare I say cool?) interesting collection of before-and-after satellite photos of the worst of it, which I'll link to. The Jersey Shore and boardwalk is seriously an icon for everyone who lives in the area and to see some of the rides, like the huge ferris wheel making their way towards Europe in the ocean is really startling. Most of the damage is due to us Northerners not being prepared for hurricane or tropical storm-force winds, which is our fault, but that's really because we never expected to deal with it. That's historically Florida's cross to bear. (and ironically where we send most of our old people) So basically this isn't related to my writing much but it really sucks for a lot of people, and here's my high five to everyone dealing with it like bosses. It's kind of funny that this happened right before Thanksgiving, because it's given me and a lot of other people cause to think of how really lucky we are and how thankful I am for everything I have and everything that hasn't been taken from me. It's more than just 'thank you for not smiting me with a branch to the head, God'. I am sincerely thankful for everything I have, all the opportunities I've been given (yes, even those I didn't take) and everyone I know, whether I like them or not.

So stay safe everyone, and brace yourselves for the holidays, where everyone is going mushy. The Lifetime movies have already begun.

Sandy Before and Afters: http://www.abc.net.au/news/specials/hurricane-sandy-before-after-photos/

Current Word Count: 130,966

Blockage

Writer's block is something that I've always been stupid about. You know how you'll see people on the news, or read about, for instance, accidentally pregnant teenagers? (Sorry; I watched the Pregnancy Pact last night while I wasn't writing.) They stereotypically say "I never thought it would happen to me!" as if the world is at fault due to their ignorance. Well that's me, with my writer's block. I never thought it would happen to me.

NaNoWriMo is the cure for this, but unfortunately my writer's block is very specific, as in it only applies to my book. Thankfully, I suppose, because not only can I still write rambling blog posts complaining about it, but I can still get school work and college essays done. But I also can't do NaNoWriMo with a mostly finished story; it's just wrong, and I also wanted to be done with the first draft by the end of this month. I'm not so sure it's going to happen now.

I've never had real writer's block before, figured it was just something I could push through, like the rough patches I've hit before, but it isn't. Maybe it's this bad now because of other stuff that's been going on. I haven't been having a good time lately, vague, I know.

Anyway, I just wanted to vent, since I set aside almost four hours last night to write and came up with a measly 1.5k. Ah, helpless frustration.

So that's why I haven't had a lot to post about lately.

Current Word Count: 127,874

Mick

There's one character that I've noticed I have a habit of drawing.

This is Mick, the top two are not exactly alike, I know, but that's because I don't exactly know what she looks like as a young woman. The one on the right is actually my favorite, but I didn't know I was drawing her until I was done.

In the story she isn't this young; she's around seventy, and looks more like the vague drawing at the bottom.
But I like drawing her young; both because I can't draw old people very well, and because she's full of life. She cracks me up, at least in my mind. I'm sure it doesn't translate as well onto paper.

But that's what editing is for.

No updates on word count.

And Writing...

I just wanted to update y'all. Though I haven't written much in the past week (I go back to school in two days!) I feel like I'm nearly done. Maybe another 30k words to go before I start editing. Maybe I'm just in a hopeful mood.

Current word count: 124,258

Interested?

Elle had never known anything but the path she was shown, until the older people in their dark cloaks came to fetch her from the orphanage, two years early. These strange people knew she was destined along a different path, on which power beyond her wildest dreams would catch up with her. But they hadn't been the ones to set this path. The prophecy had.

Current Word Count: 113,600

Hello All

Thank you for visiting. My name is Leigh Shine, and right now I'm in the midst of writing. Writing what? Well a book, naturally. It actually is yet to be named, but for now The Prophecy sounds dramatic enough, so that's going to be the page name. That won't change, even if the book title does. This story has been in my head since I was five, growing each night as I told it to put myself to sleep. I decided, for the past year's NaNoWriMo to use this story, after failing the challenge in the 2010 round. (If you don't know what NaNoWriMo is, check out the link in the sidebar!) I finished the challenge, writing fifty thousand words of the story in the month of November, and am now on a quest to finish it. I'll update with my word count as we go along, and I'll have a premise up soon. Please, stay along for the ride, and hopefully the book will be finished soon.

On this blog I'll post character and setting sketches, and maybe a teaser or two once I get into editing. I'm currently a bit over halfway through the story, with nearly one hundred thousand words. I plan on finishing the book by the fall, and spending November to edit it.

If you want, you can check out the blog I run with my good friend Alison, over at LithographyoftheMind.blogspot.com -- that's in the links also.

Well wishes,
~Leigh