Why are things so hard!?

I can't believe that I am only att 11k, while I should be on 41k :O

Hi guys *amazingphil-wink*
Because Amanda had to hint about our love for Charlie and Dan, I just had to remind you all of Phil. Big love for that guy.

Anyways, so after writing my heroic 'I-am-gonna-try-my-best-post* I ended up procrastinating. Or well, I did wrote 2k (2, not 1 ;P) words, on monday, but ended up deleted everything, and about 30 words more, so I ended up on minus. I don't know why I didn't wrote on Tuesday, I sat in front of the computer for atleast three hours. From Wednesday to Friday I was sick, but that wasn't really a reason, I wasn't THAT sick, just a little feverish. And I don't know what happened yesterday.
What I do know is that I kinda failed, and it is all my fault. Today I wrote like 2k, but that is far away from enough. I just keep putting it off. It's like, I am just gonna to that, and then that, oh, and I also need to to THAT.
I also forgot about the blog... Damn! It could have been a helpful procrastination tool.

Promise to myself; keep it up next year. Eh, I mean, manage the 50k this month! (Ah, everyone knows that I've given up on that)

Btw, December is on its way, and I both fear it and love it. I mean, on one side I will probably fail nano, and December will but the final F-stamp, but on the other side, santa och hot drinks and snow and alot of great stuff :D And I am going to read Amanda's novels, both of them. She is better than she gives herself credit for, I really want to read it. The downside is that I have to show my work to another living human (Amanda is the human in this case, even though I might be as brave as her and put my work on the blog for you to read, but I don't know if I can, hehe). My feelings about that can be described in two words:
Panic. Attack.

Also, I have to talk about my new bunny. I am in love with my cuddly, tini, tiny plot bunny. I want to write about that, not about this stinky, lousy, OLD story. And I am starting to dislike every aspect of it. Yeah...

But anyway, I'm gonna disappear back to my word document. I am kinda stuck again, otherwise I wouldn't be writing another post ^^

See ya later, alligator
Xyssify

P.S., if you're participating Nano, and need a laugh, maybe you should check this out http://nanotoons.net/

Procrastination

Well, I'm a pro at that at least. I really don't know how I am thinking, but somehow I'm always convinced that I'll write something... soon. And then tomorrow, when it gets to late. And then the day after that.

Procrastination is way too easy when you have access to the internet. Not to mention that whenever I get a flow going, someone always seem to interrupt me.

I think Xyssify has a major issue with this too, but she doesn't acknowledge it ( :'P ) And this may be a little tittle-tattley but whatever - she wrote like 1000 words or something.... and erased it! ALL OF IT! So yeah, that's maybe not going too well.

Here's some really nice youtubers (Charlieissocoollike and Danisnotonfire) talking about procrastination:

Xyssify and I LOVE these two, so I just had to put them up. Seriously, they're awesome <3

(And a little side-note, writing on this blog is procrastination too.)
- Amanda

I hate myself...

It's just... I did the ONE THING you are NOT, absolutely not, supposed to do. Yay me, really. So, what did I do? Well, I figured (at day seventeen) that hey, I wanna write in Swedish instead. So I put my original novel aside (even though there is nothing - okay, a lot - wrong with it... and wrote another one. In Swedish.

(Saw what I did there? That was a fragment! And I don't have to worry about these anymore, since I'm not writing in English... yay, again)

Anyway, it was sort of stupid - I know, I tend to do stupid things - and well... that's that. I'm writing about a Wilbur right now and it's going okay. You can see my progress on the side under "bokpanda".

While Swedish is a really nice language, I feel like as if I have forgotten how to write in it (which is really weird since I obviously can't write in English either) and it gets very cluttery and stuff. But I like the story a lot, so I'm considering this a very bad first draft instead.

Another stupid thing is that I'm so not prepared for writing a novel i (13?) days. Before writing Winter's Song, I had it all figured out, more or less. That was great. Knowing what your story is "sort of" about, but not what is happening or should happen... not so great.

Well, almost-last-thing: I would LOVE it if you took your time to read what little I've written of Winter's Song. I'm guessing that it is really bad (I haven't read it yet) but I would really appreciate it if you did, seriously. And it's only 27 pages, so it's nothing major (not to mention; you can read - and not read - as many pages as you want) Give me some feedback? It would be awesome.


Here's the file for reading: Winter's Song

NOT SURE IF IT WORKS THOUGH. I have been trying to figure it out for like an hour. I wish blogger just had an "insert pdf-file here" button...

Oh and, last thing: XYSSIFY IS (sorta) BACK. YAY!

Awwh,
- A

Shit happened

You know, shit happens, and this time it did.

I have been gone for a good while now, and I don't have a good reason really.
I got the stomach flu, like two weeks ago, and it took soo long getting rid of it! For a whole freacking week I felt bad. I could barely leave the bathroom. Not exactly the perfect mood for writing. And when I came back to school my teachers decided to drown me with homeworks and test, while things happened at home, and I actually started to get a social life. None of them would have been hard on their own, but mix them together and things... yeah, things will not work out the way you planned.

But the part that really made me abandon the writing (and this blog) was the pressure. Studying is mostly unnecessary for me, so it was mostly an excuse for not writing. I suddenly felt like a failure whenever I opened the document and tried to force out some words. Writing stopped being fun, simple as that. I still find opening the document and start writing hard, and I am forcing myself to write this post, but I have decided that I can't pretend that I don't want to write and hide from it. Why? 'Cuz I really do love writing and I know that it will be wonderful and great and blah blah, once I start again. And if I let myself quit, it will be another hobby on the list with things I stopped doing just because of some minor obstacles. And I hate that list, I really do. If we see it like this, if I keep quitting doing everything that might turn into a failure, my life will be a big fail and I might wake up one day hating it.
So I am starting Nano again, even though I actually played with the thought of quitting.
Today I can't, but it doesn't matter if I fail on the Tuesday test, I AM writing tomorrow (I wish I could do it now, otherwise there is a tiny - or rather huge - chance that I won't to it tomorrow either). Screw studying, I know that I will do good on the test anyways xD.

Basically, big tips for NaNoWriMo, make sure you don't get sick if you're like me, and quits when it gets hard.

I hope your Nano is going great, and that if you're thinking of giving up - DON'T! The real goal with NaNoWriMo is pushing yourself, nothing else, and as long as you can say that you did tried your best, you ARE winning, because that is the point of the competition. Not reaching 50k. So don't give up (y)

Hugs and kisses from the cheesy Xyssify that drops by once in a while.

(Btw, thank you Liam, aka Litteradge, for your video, Do It Anyway, otherwise I would not have heard that one.)
(Oh, and this was probably filled with typos and bad grammar, I am so tired right now -.-)

Question about Hats

Okay, so I've gotten to the point where I get distracted with small (and sometimes impossible) details. For example, there is this guy named Wilbur and he has a very characteristic hat that looks like this:

But I can't for the love of God *inhaling deeply* figure out what this kind of hat is called. Anyone who knows the name in either Swedish or English? It would be a great help.

Thanks, A.

Update

I seriously don't know why, but things have been going soooo slow with our novels (I think Xyssify's sort-of dead, writing wise) but well... I'm trying to get back again. I'm about 10 000 words behind but.. it's not impossible right? I really want to "win" this year ;)

- Amanda aka Bokpandan

There are highs... and there are lows.

So, as of this day, Nano has been going for a week. Seven entire days. And they have all been very special days, with a varied quality and efficiency. We've had a couple of days when the story seemed to flow like water and we could easily write three days worth of words - that's about eight pages - and those days have been amazing. But overall, most of our days have been average. We've written more than the everyday minimum and kept on schedule.

But where there are highs, there are definitely lows. I haven't been able to talk to Xyssify for a couple of days, but when I last heard of her she wasn't feeling to well. According to Nano, she's just a little bit behind (though she might have been writing some without updating Nano) and I've had some very busy days, getting home after 8.30 three days in a row. So neither of us has written as much as we should have, I reckon.

Well, I'm hoping that things will go better soon - and I think they will, too. Until then... blaha, it can go in any direction it wants to. We're at least trying our best.

- Amanda aka Bokpandan

Ugh... Fragments

Okay, so we've been writing steadily (sort of) for five days (FIVE DAYS?! FEELS LIKE TWENTY!) and have realized a lot of things about Nano and writing and English and stupid novels and dictionaries and good sights and so on... and one of those realizations I wanted to talk about is.... fragments.

Du-du-du-duuuh! *dramatic music*
Basically, fragments are sentences that doesn't contain verbs. This is really frowned upon when writing in the English microsoft word, whilst it doesn't even exist in the Swedish one. And honestly? It's really annoying. I'm accustomed to writing a lot of fragments, it's a part of my writing style. They're short sentences to either confirm something or emphasize a question and they are really necessary in dialogues. Or rather, they exist a lot in dialogues. It doesn't sound natural if you don't have fragments when the characters are speaking.

For example, when calling someone's name. Normally, you would just write "Amanda!" but THAT is considered a fragment. So you would have to write something like: "Is that you Amanda?" or "I can see Amanda!" And I know that you don't have to write fragment-less every time, but I can't stand the green underlining. Ugh, I can now consider fragments my mortal enemy! or something like that.

Anyway, the novel is going great (thank god) even though it took a surprising turn (well, I was surprised at least) and that's great. How are your Nano's going? If you have one^^

blah, blah, blah, I'm really supposed to be writing right now,
- Amanda

Sorry, I'm awful ^^

So, we are four days in Nano, and I think I have posted only one blog post. Sorry, I am awful, I know. But I thought I was goint to write a short, quick one, filled with typos and incorrect grammar and all that good stuff.
I have so many excuses, but mainly me trying to juggle school, social life (on minor scale, of course ^^), my pets - that I usually love, but for the moment are mostly draining my time and energy away from me - and Nano. And in difference from the amazing Amanda (I hate her... she's making me feel bad) I am a reeeaaally slow writer, partly because I suck, partly because of my perfectionism. I am serious, I have big problem with Writers Block, a.k.a. Writers Angst. 

While Amanda managed to write almost 7k words on the first two days, I just wrote 6,7 today, and I have been writing everyday... And her writing is usually much better than mine, so I can't even say that it is quality before quantity.

But so far everything is going well. I am not as quick as I hoped, but I know for sure that if I put my mind into it I can do my choirs, homeworks, and the daily goal (barely) AND I think that my story is going pretty well...

No, that was a lie. Not the manage-the-daily-goal thing, but the my-story-is-going-well part. It sucks.
But I am having so much fun, so it's definatelly worth it.

Also, plot bunnies are killing me! I just wanna snuggle with them all, and I have to force myself to think of my current plot when I go to bed, or taking the bus or whatever I am doing that would be a perfect opportunity to plan my story. But no, my mind wanders away to the thing I am going to write next. Rawr.

Sorry for short post, I will try to do a longer one tomorrow.
- Xyssify

First Day of Nano

Well, this has been the first day of NaNoWriMo and it's been crazily funny, stressy, creative, writers block-y, full of food, candy, shouting and music.

I was so eager to start in the morning when I woke up, but what I realized was that it is really, really hard to write in English. Not impossible, but definitely more time-consuming and brain-wrecking than Swedish (That's, after all, our native language). But I have a hunch my English is going to be so much better after this November.

I have four new favorite sites after the first day. They are really handy when I'm looking for a certain word or phrase or a synonym for something. Tyda.se - the best when looking for many suggestions for just one word (translating), google translate - for sentences rather than words, synonymer.se - for the kind of zombie moments when I don't even know the Swedish word and then.... thesaurus.com - I'm soooo in LOVE with this page right now. My English teacher suggested me using it and I'm really thankful for it. It's awesome, so good synonyms and definitions, I'm lovin' it <3

I've also successfully found sites with lists of about thousand names on imaginary/most common fantasy names, house-names, first and surnames, town-names, names on schools.... the list goes on. It's a great time saver, rather than me getting stuck all the time.

I suppose (or hope?) that you're interested in how the writing is going. Well, I've written about 5 full pages by now and exactly 3 411 words. You should write at least 1667 words per day, so I've got both today and tomorrow covered already haha. I've also concluded that it takes me about 55 min to write one page. It's almost one freaking hour! Just how am I supposed to get by when school starts again? o.o

Xyssify is a really good kid who's been to school and done her homework and all that (not to mention she's writing a really complex novel - mine's pretty simple) so she ain't got time to write a blogpost (not now at least) but she gave me a message:

"It's really hard to have homework and Nano. at. the. same. time." *choking sound*

We have been sitting for about 4½ hours by now, talking over Skype while writing. She does random shouting at me sometimes, because apparently I talk too much, which is distracting x'3

As for my novel... so far I love it! If any of you would like to read it, just ask, I would love it if you did <3

xoxoxoxo
- Bokpandan (Haha, I'm SO HYPED! 8D)