This is what this year’s NaNoWriMo stats look like. True to my New Years Resolution to write every day this year I wrote every day this November. I just didn’t always update my word count before midnight. (My resolution has been going quite well actually but that’s a story I’ll tell another time.)

So what was different about NaNoWriMo this time around? Well I made everything up as I went along. I didn’t have much of a plan, I didn’t know my characters very well and a couple of times I wondered if I’d run out of plot before the end of the month and my writing playlist? Yeah it doesn’t really exist. But despite the craziness of this November which was double that of last year, I finished. And it feels weird to be finished and be able to do something that I don’t have to do right this minute like write 1,667 words.

Am I pleased with the story? Hmm…the story has potential but I’m not as pleased with it as I was last year’s. Last year’s novel holds a very special place in my heart for many different reasons. I still need a couple days to wrap this year’s story up but when I’m finished with it I may read over it once or twice but I don’t think I’ll ever try to spruce it up enough to send it to a publisher. The idea was good and the characters had potential but right now I don’t think it lived up to it’s potential. I’m determined to finish it but I don’t think it was my best work. I’m sure there’s plot holes and the characters don’t behave very consistently and the story doesn’t feel very cohesive to me. Maybe I’ll feel differently about it after I let it sit for a while. But right now I think it’s going to be one of those stories that I keep on my hard drive and pull out to remind myself of how far I’ve come along in my writing.

What did I learn this time around? Well I learned that while I can be creative and on the spot with my writing I do better with more of a set plan. I also lived and died by the alarm on my iPod some days, word sprints were what kept me from falling behind as a lot of the story was written because I had to write something or risk falling way behind. I also learned that if I’m dedicated I can finish 50k words no matter how busy it just might involve a severe lack of sleep. (I had the pleasure of almost getting 11 hours of sleep today after 2 weeks of getting 7 hours on average if I was lucky and I still feel tired right now.)

Mostly I’m glad I finished instead of failing like I did for Camp NaNoWriMo. Part of the failure was the story and my displeasure at certain parts, part of it was my life at the time and the rest of it was that my cabin mates? Yeah none of us finished, one by one we all got further and further behind or quit altogether so atmosphere is an important part of the writing experience. (I didn’t quit I just failed and I’m very proud of that difference.) Finishing this year was what I needed to do in order to prove to myself that I am still capable of doing these challenges and I’m looking forward to doing Script Frenzy in April. (And I’ve already got an idea for that.)

So now with the semester gradually ending (finally! Major college level burn out was felt these past several days if not weeks) and NaNoWriMo over I’m faced with a lot of free time. I plan to start reading for fun again and continuing with my work on my 2 stories I’ve been working on as part of my resolution (slowly no big word challenges) and take a moment to relax again. If all the free time doesn’t kill me lol. Earlier today I went a little nuts on the library website, lots of graphic novels are coming my way

If you did NaNoWriMo this year I’d love to compare notes on how this year went weather it was your first time or your 10th. Leaving a list of the things you plan to do with your free time is also acceptable.

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My new favorite holiday National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short) is almost upon us so in celebration & to further prep and psych myself up for it I’ve decided to compile a list of tips & advice that I learned last year when I did NaNoWriMo for the first time.

But first, what is the purpose of NaNoWriMo? “NaNoWriMo eats writers for breakfast & poops out novels. That’s why we keep coming back.” I text that to my NaNo buddy as we were discussing NaNoWriMo and how excited we were for the upcoming November & I think it sums up NaNoWriMo pretty well. Basically you write 50,000 words in the month of November. That translates to 1,667 original words a day. Soul eating & novel pooping pretty much says it all. But here’s what we learned!!!!

Do
*Stay up late on October 31st. It’s Halloween, you’ll have plenty of sugar rushing through your veins so you’ll be up anyway. And NaNoWriMo starts as soon as that clock hits 12:00 am. Even if you only write 50 words that’s 50 words you won’t have to write when you wake up on November 1st. I swear this isn’t cheating.

*Have a Twitter account. I follow @NaNoWordsprints & @JaneEspenson both of whom run writing sprints which are a lot easier to do when you have other people telling you to do it & people to do them with.

*Sprinting is good for you! Writing sprints are periods of time where you get into writing position (I personally am a huge fan of placing my booty in a chair but if you write better standing rock on my friend), set your timer for the allotted time (5, 10, 15 or 30 minutes are popular times) and just write whatever comes to mind until your time is up. Sprints are awesome because they motivate you to just write whatever comes to your brain & move you out of that spot where you look at your story and go “I have no idea where to go from here.” Sprints are like excercises for your writing brain. The more you sprint the more creative your brain. (Creative is the new skinny.)

*Have a time you routinely like to do your writing. For me & my NaNoWriMo buddy is was in the evening. Sometimes I’d start after I crashed in front of the tv with dinner but often times we’d be texting each other at 1am going ‘need more words but I’m stuck!’

*Have a writing buddy who will post inspirational pictures on your wall when you’re feeling stuck. Or who you can text and be like ‘character A is doing this but I need her to do this so character Z can do this so this will happen.’ Having a backup brain is good.

*Let your characters help you write the story! Ok this one sounds a bit odd so let me explain. My story last year had a romance. I planned it that way. I also had all my characters planned out more or less. The 2 main characters were going to have the romance. Then my heroine (the little flirt) almost had a thing with a secondary character who ended up being even more important (and humorous) then I’d ever imagined. I hadn’t planned the story out this way but I went with what the story was doing (creating a love triangle and giving me a vehicle for some wicked funny one liners) and sure enough it gave the story another layer and actually made it more interesting. I could have forced my characters to behave the way I originally planned but that would have been too much work and it wouldn’t have read as smoothly. Characters & plot are more believable when they feel natural.

*Google! It’s awesome. Want to have characters speak magic spells in another language? Google translate is there as long as you don’t want to use Klingon. That you have to find elsewhere. (Yes I’m such a nerd I did a Klingon/Latin mix. Because I could.) Wikipedia is also good if you want to do research on things you don’t really need to be factually true. One time I needed a couple of characters to have other worldly powers & abilities & another character to do research to try to find out about these characters, but come to the wrong conclusion. So I did some superpower research on Wikipedia to see what research she could across & how I could have her come to the wrong conclusion. Funnest research I ever did.

*Have writing quirks. My quirks stem from my OCD but help me get in the writing zone. I find it really difficult to write without music playing & having a water bottle, lotion & lip gloss in arm’s reach. I don’t know why but it just helps.

*Be aware of days where you might not be able to reach your daily word count or write at all! The early days of NaNoWriMo are the easiest because your plot is fresh & easy so write as much as you can, surpassing 1,667 words a day is awesome & do able. Come week 3 when things get hard you’ll be glad to have those extra words written in case you have to skip a day of writing or worse have writers block and can’t reach your word count for the day. If those things happen you won’t be as far behind if you have extra words from the beginning to save you from falling behind.

*Don’t

*Think it can’t be done!

*Give up!

*Delete what you’ve written.

*Look forward to Dec 1.

*Be afraid to have fun.

If NaNoWriMo doesn’t eat my soul for breakfast I will try to post a round-up post in the beginning of Dec to see if my experience this year is any different from last year. Good luck NaNos! See you in a few minutes and feel free to talk about your NaNo experiences in the comments.

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So as you probably know by now thanks to the recent Internet explosion Joss Whedon filmed an entire movie with an all star cast in total secret. It’s based on the Shakespeare play Much Ado About Nothing and stars favorites Whedon alums such as Alexis Denisof (about time that man got recognized for his brilliance again), Amy Acker, Fran Kranz, Tom Lenk, & Nathan Fillion. Jed Whedon in addition to co-writing an original song with his wife will be scoring the movie. Whedon hopes to release the movie to theaters.

Ok recap of things you already know out of the way, let’s get down to business. WHAT THE HECK JOSS?! I love your work & this movie sounds awesome but where’s my Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog 2? Fans have been waiting forever and now you go and make a different movie in your free time? Oh Joss I hope you have something shocked awesome up your sleeve because at this point I think fans are about ready to give up hope on seeing a sequel. Much like I’m about ready to give up on a Star Trek (’09) sequel.

So that’s the rant that’s brought me out of my blogging slump. It felt good to let it out. What are your thoughts on the recent Joss Whedon news? I’d love to discuss.

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Yes folks, everyone’s favorite obligatory psychotic jackass turned love of Veronica Mars’ life is returning to your tv. The CW to be precise. Mr. Dohring will be playing a teacher on Sarah Michelle Gellar’s new fall drama Ringer who takes interest in one of her character’s step daughter. I for one could not be more excited by this news. Jason was sadly under used in Moonlight which is the most noteworthy show he’s done since the tiny blond one with a camera was canceled. Him playing a vampire should have been great, instead it was just disappointing in the long run. I’m hoping his run on Ringer is long, prosperous, shirtless and filled with many one liners. Essentially I want him to be Logan Echolls all over again.

You can read a lovely article with all the details on his role here. Frankly if Jason Dohring was my teacher I would completely change my opinion on people who have affairs with their teachers. Yes I’m way to in love with him. No my boyfriend doesn’t know this yet. I will break up with all my tv boyfriends, eventually.

Because I am currently unable to control my happiness over this I’m going to let you express your joy over this news in the comments because really what else is there to say other than how awesome it is to have Jason Dohring back on TV? God I love these last few weeks before fall shows come back, never a dull moment on Twitter. Everyday is like An Echolls Family Christmas or something. Ringer will premier on The CW Tuesday September 13 at 9/8 central which is Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s old time slot if I recall my Slayer facts correctly. This show is fast becoming a blast from brilliant tv of the not to distant past and I like it.

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Fables was something that I randomly heard of and thought I’d try. I’m glad I did because Fables was smart, sassy, witty and pretty awesome. I fell in love with it, the female characters especially. I’m about halfway threw the TPBs that have been released so far. Snow White (my favorite character) & Rose Red have recently taken a backseat to the central plot (in the last TPB I read, Arabian Days…and Nights) which saddens me but I’m sad no more. Comic Con was the lucky recipient of the news of an ongoing Fables spin-off called Fairest that will focus on Snow White, Rose Red, Sleeping Beauty and others who could be considered fairest of the land. (Girl Power!) You can read the full press release & see some really cool art work here.

There’s no set release date but with artwork out it can’t be long. I’ll try to keep you updated on any news regarding Fairest or other Fable related news.

I came across this on megcabot.com today and fell in love with it. How adorable is that? So adorable. I felt I should share because it made me smile and I’m still not finished with a couple projects I’m working so I didn’t have anything else to share today really. But what could be better than sharing a smile and an adorable kitten picture? Nothing in my opinion.

Photo Source here

This is a real quick update again but yes I, along with several nerd friends and about 2 hundred other people stood in line outside the local movie theater in the middle of the night so we could see Harry Potter at midnight. The whole experience was amazing and perfect. I have pictures & some footage that I’m putting together that I hope to share with you. We got to dress up, run around like dorks, be total nerds, and talk to some really great people. (a lot of who were fellow Doctor Who fans.) and there were so many hot boys in uniforms it was crazy.

How was the movie? It was everything I wanted it to be. Sure some things were left out but new ones were added that were just as good. I laughed, spent a half hour crying, cheered, was struck with serious nostalgia over the littlest things and when it was all over, man it was the most powerful feeling in the world. Because yes it was over but in a way it was still only just beginning.

The defining moment of my childhood may be over but sometimes it’s still possible to stay a kid forever.

And Neville <3 forever!

The fan made poster that had the whole Internet hopeful for an October release…

Photo Source: here

No release date has technically been released yet but we finally got a set photo! With Fran Kranz in it! Epic happiness.

Photo Source: here

The last few images all come to you curtesy of bleedingcool.com and the full article can be seen here. I’m not sure how I feel about these Buffy ones frankly.

Not sure what’s going on in that one but this second one is pretty cool.

And now for the Angel & Faith! If the inside art is anything like the cover art then this is going to be a fabulous set of comics.

Of all the covers for Angel & Faith we’ve seen so far I think this one is one of my favorites.

So there you have it. Which cover is your favorite out of the 4?

Photo Source: here

Yeah if I wasn’t in a general all around happy mood already this would do it. Jewel Staite of Firefly & Stargate Atlantis fame will be guest starring in episode 3 of Supernatural’s 7th season a.k.a. the episode directed by series star Jensen Ackles. It will be a flashback episode where Sam (Jared Padelecki) runs into his old friend Amy (Jewel) while on a hunt. Amy’s flashback self has yet to be cast but fan favorite Colin Ford will be back as young Sam. The episode will air October 7th which feels really far away. You can (and should) read the full Zap2it article here because they are awesome.

One reason many Joss fans love Supernatural (besides its general awesomeness) is its dedication to bringing us fabulous guest stars particularly from the Whedon verse. Jewel will be the latest in a growing list of female Whedon alums who’ve guest starred on the show: Amy Acker, Julie Benz, Mercedes McNab, Amber Benson and Summer Glau was this close to playing a zombie this one time. Now that we’ve had all these awesome girls on the show it’s time to get some Whedony guys on it! I’m hoping for Nick Brendon, James Marsters and Fran Kranz personally.

Posted by Strawburry17

Ok just to be clear I’m not an anime/cartoon geek. I don’t really understand Pokemon references at all I just think this song is kinda cute and I’m a fan of some of the people in the video. If you’d like to purchase this song from iTunes you can do so via this link because supporting indie music is cool.

Posted by BreakOriginals

Why isn’t this on iTunes?!?! I need this on my iPod so badly. This video/song is like, I want to marry it it’s so fraking lovely. Only bad part is that you can’t make you that he’s singing ‘Dollhouse’s cancellation hurt like Luke’s amputation’ which is like, so amazingly true it’s creepy. Please tell me Comic Cons are JUST LIKE THIS.

And because I always post 3 videos and don’t have another Tonight I’m Lovin You parody you get this little gem because you know, Deathly Hallows part 2 is almost out! WOOOHOOOO!!!!!

Posted by AlexCarpenter

Support Wrock (Wizard Rock) and awesomeness here because it is awesome. Now I need to go jam out to other Harry Potter themed music.