Sweating

I've been sitting on my bed all day trying to get these last two scenes out. Two. Two more sentences in my outline. I've been listening to classical music and Walls by Benton Paul-things that I've been waiting to pull up and use for these very scenes to set the mood. I'm so close.

I've been writing about the last night in this story for two days now, and I'm losing my mind with it. I can't get a fast word count out because I'm so flitty and excited, but hopefully what I am writing is decent. I also keep having to go back through earlier parts of the story to remind myself of certain characters that haven't been present for a while.

The suspense is killing me. By this time tomorrow I could have written a book.

-fidgets-

Back to writing now. I'll let you know when I get there.

Current Word Count: 188,992

On Style

Looking through my sketches, a lot of them are just character designs- my sketchbook is filled with people, as that's what I usually like to draw. Here's some pulled from my sketchbook that show how my characters tend to dress.

I call this dapper gentleman Simon Tylor[subject to change]. He's a minor character, but he was escorting the main character to a ball, so I drew him to get out of a rut when I wrote that part last July. In this fancier getup I decided to draw most of my inspiration from seventeenth century styles. Seventeenth century has since been where I get the basic shape for most male characters, but I'll never be comfortable enough with those tights so it's been modernized somewhat. Women's styles in the story I usually create drawing from Renaissance art.

On the left is a Renaissance girl, not one of my characters, but a sketch that shows what I have in the back of my mind designing the women. I modernize their outfits to my liking a bit as well. The story isn't technically in a different time period, just removed from ours and lacking an industrial revolution since hey, magic. On the right is another design, not taken strictly from the Renaissance, but also relevant to the styles in my book.

I realize that what the characters are wearing isn't of the utmost importance, but I'm very visual and it's part of how I immerse myself in the world. I draw to make it real to me and to make me able to see the characters and how they would interact and move within a scene and with others. And let's face it, I like pretty dresses.

I hope y'all liked the drawings!

Current Word Count: 187,767

Last Panic

I've had yet another unproductive week. I'm kind of stuck at this one point because I feel it might not fit into the story well, even though it was in my original outline. I've decided to write it anyway to give myself the option to take it out when I edit, but it's really awkward and hard to write when I'm constantly doubting myself. I'm also afraid writing something really awkward might mess me up for the ending scenes, which are supposed to be really nice and heart-warming and fun and I'm sooo excited to write them. Part of this is probably nerves- the procrastinator in me is freaking out that I might actually finish something and is stomping on the brakes, but I'll push through. -dramatic music-

I just went through all my sketchbooks from the past couple years and pulled anything slightly related to the story, which was surprisingly little-eleven sketches. One of which Picasa somehow shrunk down to one blue pixel, so I'll have to upload it again. The amount of things I've irreparably screwed up by hitting the wrong button is too large to count. (also why I have my manuscript saved online and in three other places)

So here's one- From a moment in the prologue. But believe me this character comes into play later as well. Just much, much later.

 Yes, that one is missing a finger. It'll all make sense later. Eventually.

Current Word Count: 183,793

Character Sketches

These are four stylized character profiles from a while ago. Bear with me-I really cannot draw older people well, which is why the bottom right is so strange looking. Will learn.

From left to right, top to bottom: Main character Elle, Queen Daniella, Officer Daryn, and Advisor Darius.
More sketches to come, once I charge my camera and stop being lazy. (ha)
I'm now realizing how old these are and thinking I might redo them. We'll see.

Also, I haven't written that much due to a huge project this week. I ended up presenting the thing in the school auditorium and it was quite a trial. Glad it's over.

Current Word Count: 183,686

The End! Kindofsortofnotreallyyet

Good news for anyone interested in NaNoWriMo- "Camp NaNoWriMo" begins today! I'll put it up on the links list, I actually didn't know when it began until logging onto Facebook a minute ago. It's just like the November run, it seems, only for April.
Speaking of which, April is National Poetry Month. I have at least one friend participating in a Poetry Month challenge, and she'll be writing a poem every day, and I think posting it on her tumblr blog. I'll link to that as well, I guess; it's called Misused Words. I'm not much of a poet myself, but I think my English Lit teacher is planning to have our class do something.

As for my own story, I know I've said this before (kind of) but I'm almost done with my first draft. Seriously; I only have the final showdown and then the resolution, and I'm incredibly pumped. My word count is severely behind schedule, but seeing as I'm so close missing my Easter deadline wasn't that disappointing. I'm waiting until I'm actually done before setting a deadline for the edits, but I think I might shoot for my graduation this June-a deadline that is probably wishful thinking, as I know I left myself a lot of work in editing.

In other news about my personal life I just recently sent my first deposit in to my College of choice! This means, for those not "in the know" about American colleges, that the first check has been mailed and I am, upon the check's arrival to the school, officially enrolled for the coming Fall. I'm very excited as I love the school I chose and their art department is amazing. I know less about their English department, but it's a very well-known school and I doubt I'll be disappointed based on what I've seen thus far. I can't wait to be immersed in what I love- both the subjects and the process of learning. I plan on a double major in Studio Art and whatever Writing major they have (the terminology changes for each institution and I forget theirs at the moment). I've also been playing recently with the idea of minoring in History as well. We'll see, I suppose. But all this is very invigorating, and I feel that teenage sense of stagnation lifting finally.

Current Word Count: 179,654
[for now Blogger doesn't seem to be letting me add links to the list so they're http://misusedwords.tumblr.com and http://campnanowrimo.org]

Progress and Ignorances

I'm really getting stuff done! I'm at a point in the story that I've been waiting to write for forever, and felt like I would never get there. It's exciting! Of course I have no idea what I'm doing, as it involves a war and I'm really lost with army rankings and strategy and such, so I'm mostly fudging it. We'll see if it comes out horribly. If any of you know about military ranking systems, I'd love for you to explain it to me! I've looked it up, of course, and gotten a better feel for it but it's still hard for me to understand because I've had no prior exposure to it.

I'm about a week and a half behind in my word count due to a huge school project a couple weeks ago that killed my momentum, but I'm making it up quickly. I've passed the 150k mark! That's so exciting to me. It's funny that I care so much about these landmarks and yet I always just write right through them and realize a few hundred words later.

I was procrastinating last night and looking through my blogs and I noticed I don't actually have many sketches up here. When I have bad writing habits I've found that I tend to draw more, so I have quite a few from those five months I did nothing. I'll look through them and post a couple.

Current Word Count: 160,991

Caught My Breath

So it's been three months and I have finally begun writing regularly again. I've been in a real funk the past five or so months, and feel that I'm finally coming out of it. Of course I may have just jinxed myself, but let's hope not. It's not that I'm really inspired to write, but I finally feel decent enough that when I sit down I want to, and once I do I am able to get into that where-did-the-time-go zone of it where I write a thousand or so words without once looking at my progress. I'm slowly getting over my disappointment in myself that I didn't have the first draft done by Christmas, but I've now set another goal; Easter. If I keep up at the pace I've been holding for the past two weeks I should be able to get there. Of course I don't know how many thousands of words I will need to complete the story-originally I thought I would be done in 150k but I realize now it's going to be a bit longer than that-but I think another fifty thousand should at least get me close. It's funny how, after writing so much, and after a summer of writing roughly 10k a week for two months, that doesn't seem like so much anymore. Once I finish this book I wonder whether it will be easier or harder to complete NaNoWriMo.

Current Word Count: 140,504