Winning National Novel Writing Month

Last month was the ever so popular National Novel Writing Month.  Each participant had the chance to reach the goal of writing 50,000 words.  I started participating in National Novel Writing Month  around the second week of November.  There was a lot of time sitting at home, turning down friends who wanted to hang out, or leaving parties early to return to my novel.

I'm not sure how I would have felt if I did not reach my goal.  There was a ton of sadness I felt at the idea of not reaching my goal.  I guess that sadness was the competitive side of me who did not want to tell my friends that I did not reach my 50,000 words goal; especially after turning down so many chances to hang out with them.

Last month I believe I spent the most time in years typing my story down.  There is a good feeling in no longer having my story exist in my head.  In other words, National Novel Writing Month was fun.  I hope to participate in the event again next year.  

Networking and National Writing Month

Getting Tips in Unlikely Places

So last week was Nekocon, an anime convention.  At the end of a panel titled "How to Make Your Geek Job a Reality", I had the opportunity to share with the panelists the websites I have created.  While I was there at the anime convention to promote websites not titled "Indie Author Tiffany", one of the panelists discussed National Novel Writing Month.  

National Novel Writing Month 

Apparently November is a month when writers get together and write a novel as soon as possible.  Before I turned ten I was able to quickly create long stories within a month and check my grammar and spelling mistakes to the best of my abilities (the best a ten-year-old could).  I find with a deadline, cases with writer's block has been happening less and less now.   My deadline for this month is to finish my rough draft for my story or at least get REALLY close to finishing my electronic book.

I just created an account today on National Novel Writing Month.  There are prizes for people who accomplish writing 50,000 words at the end of November but I am more concerned with finishing my rough draft.   

This Website 

For anyone who is actually reading this website, may have noticed that I barely update.  The reason for the lack of updates is simple; I do not know what to write about on this site.  That's the honest truth.  In addition to writing my first draft at a quick pace this month, I will be looking at other indie author websites and seeing what these authors put on their websites.   By doing this, I will get some ideas and there will be more posts in the future.

This post brought to you by the website: Indie Author Tiffany

Writing Myself to Sleep

I have been writing while following a schedule to the best I can for some time now.  For some reason I lack the skills to type my story directly into Microsoft Word.  When writing on paper, I find my words come out a lot easier.  When I open up Microsoft Word, without preparing anything on paper, it takes me a few minutes for me to type a single paragraph.

As far as a schedule of at least 30 minutes a day, writing myself to sleep has worked well for me.

Sitting down on my bed, putting a pen to paper and writing away till I fall asleep.  The best part about this process is that I tend to dream about the last activity I have done before sleeping.  Dreams can provide a lot of writing material for me to work with in future stories.

I would like to know what other techniques others have used in order to continue writing.

As for my story, the story has changed from what information I posted about it a few months ago.  I hope to finish the rough draft or at least come close to finishing some time in December.

Researching...Writing...Typing

So some of you might think that this was an abandoned website but as of today’s post, indieauthortiffany.com is alive and well.  There are many reasons for this website to not have many posts and the two main reasons are writer’s block and the fact that I write on paper 90 percent of the time.

WRITER’s BLOCK

My story involves Virginia Beach, Virginia as the setting in present day, merpeople, and witches.  I used to write a ton of modern fantasy when I was younger but now since I am an adult I have the habit of trying to add common sense to my stories.  Nagging thoughts like “people know merpeople do not exist”, “do I make my own version of witches or do I research them?”, and “I’m not the best at grammar so why don’t I come back to writing my book once I have taken an English course at a community college”.

The majority of these thoughts are losing their effect on me and I will tell you readers why in future posts.

Researching

Virginia is a state that I have grown used to since I moved to the state in 1993.  There is a ton of history to work with while still being able to insert my own fantasy elements into my electronic book.  Since my merpeople will live near water, I searched a few real estate websites with a large database of homes on or near the oceanfront. The next part was looking up the mythology commonly found for merfolk.   The research for merfolk helped me recall a lot of information I used to know back when I was fascinated with merfolk as a child.

Summary for my Electronic Book

Apollo has been ordered by his king to take residence in his recently murdered uncle’s house on the surface in order to continue his late uncle’s study on humans and the witches.  Although dedicated to his race, Apollo finds the human race annoying and would rather return to his original duties; finding a bride for his older brother under the sea.  When Apollo becomes interested in his neighbor Jacob, Apollo finds himself involved with the witches and and the humans who killed his uncle.

Jacob’s mother has been given Jacob pressure, for a year, after graduating high school to get a job and move out of the house.  On top of the pressure, his mother has been sending him to a therapist for years after the disappearance of his sister in the middle of the night.    With his demanding mom’s threats to send Jacob to the navy just like his brother, Jacob rides his boat during the night time to be by himself.  When his mother forces him to get to know his new neighbor Apollo before the family reunion, he finds himself getting closer to the whereabouts of his sister and group of witches.

Lastly

This book is modern fantasy with romance as the sub genre.  I thought I should set the summary for two of the main characters as their activities and their families’ activities influence each other.

Setting a Writing Schedule

For a while, I have been getting into the habit of writing.  Of course the most common and cliched advice I have ever heard was to begin writing at least thirty minutes a day.  Making myself put a pencil to the paper and force myself to write for thirty minutes helped me develop a habit and a schedule.

Without developing this habit, my story would forever stay in my head and would never become an electronic book.  The discovery of making new ideas or changing a few elements to make my story more exciting and understandable is fun.  Of course I am still a human being and I have missed the opportunity to write my story and my idea out for the day.  Sometimes the harshness of life or unexpected events in my life do get in the way my schedule.

Because I write my ideas on paper first, I am able to travel to different areas in order to write.  Traveling to different parts of my neighborhood and writing a story which takes place in my state, really helps my story's setting.

So far, my story is a contemporary fantasy set in Virginia Beach, Virginia with merpeople, witches, and romance.  I may or may not have a summary for the story in the next few weeks.

One Way to Get Ideas for a Setting

I found I was missing an important element of writing a story when trying to write an idea for a Fantasy ebook.  I had the characters, conflict, and general outline of the story figured out.  When I put my pencil against my notebook paper, I realized I somehow forgot to figure out the setting of my story. Sometimes coming up with the setting for a story can be difficult. 

My fantasy story is set in my state of residence so making up a different world was not necessary. I needed to pick a nearby or far off neighborhood with a lake and start the story there. 

1. Simply typing my state and the neighborhood into Google's search engine was not enough. I never saw my desired neighborhood in Google images or I did not see anything inspirational for my writing.

2. I thought Youtube videos would work for me since there are a lot of people who do video logs outside in their backyard.  I targeted video logs with lakes in the background.  I still wanted to see more of the background.

3. Watching videos on TV or informative shows about lakes gave me the feel of what life by a lake was like.  This was information that I really do need but I felt like I wanted more.

Finally I felt like moving away from lakes and writing about oceans and life at the beach.  My state has a well known beach which plenty of tourists travel to during the summer.  At times, I would visit this beach to go swimming, shopping, and observing the tourists.  There are plenty of concerts, carnivals, and other forms of entertainment at specific seasons of the year at this beach.

With all the events going on there, I knew this beach was a good place to set my story in for conflicts and characters.  The best part about this beach was that I could visit the beach on my time off and experience the shopping, concerts, and carnivals myself.  When I am done and ready to leave, I could simply take pictures and look at them for reference.

Sometimes we need to touch the sand, smell the salt, listen to the seagulls cry, or hear the loud music of concerts in order to get inspiration for writing settings. I am fond of searching on Google for ideas, looking at video logs of people's experience on Youtube, or informational shows on TV.  However nothing beats real life experiences. 

Indie Author Tiffany Facebook Page

I decided to make a Facebook page in order to connect with people who love using Facebook.  There will be updates on the status of my electronic books, when I am writing, and how I go about writing.  

Those that wish to follow me on Facebook please click here or use this link:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Indie-Author-Tiffany/353695661402247

Indie Author Tiffany

I am an independent author looking to start her writing career with electronic books focused on the Fantasy genre.  Sometimes I may put a bit of romance in my ebooks but the main focus is still Fantasy.  I could write complementary  historical, urban, or medieval fantasy.  There is no telling what my first book will be about  at the moment.

There is also the issue of me staying dedicated to writing a story for an amount of time before writing another story.  Of course I am attempting to stay dedicated to writing my first book by making a schedule for myself.  Right now I only have a few ideas for my first book involving merfolk and a fictional place that might take place in Virginia.  

I also have a website.  You can click here to go there.  Later there will be ebooks posted for purchase.  There will also be special blog posts posted there than here.