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Friday Finds: Travel Week
Friday Finds by Should Be Reading
What great books did you hear about/discover this past week?
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From Baghdad, With Love by Jay Kopelman
Awww…I mean just look at the cover! And the synopsis makes it look even better. How would I not add this to my TBR list after finding it?!
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Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World by Michael Lewis
This is from the same author who wrote Moneyball. This book looks both interesting and funny and I’m interested to see how it is.
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Pass the Butterworms: Remote Journeys Oddly Rendered by Tim Cahill
What’s better than a funny travelogue from an author who relates his interesting journeys?! Nothing’s better for me!
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Here are my Friday Finds. Now that NaNo is finally over (though I do miss it), I can actually indulge in my favorite thing which I have ignored for the past month: reading! I’m extremely excited to get to these books on my TBR list!
Have a Great Weekend All!
Saying Goodbye to NaNoWriMo 2011
It is officially December 1st, which means that National Novel Writing Month 2011 is over. It’s both quite sad and refreshing at the same time to know that we have an entire year to wait until next NaNo.
This year was my first year participating in it and I must tell you how much I truly enjoyed it.
At first, I felt like the goal would be impossible. I mean, come on, 50,000 words in a month, that’s insane! But once NaNo officially started, I dove right into writing and felt that it would be a lot easier than I thought.
That feeling of “easy” faded quickly too as some days I just did not feel like writing. I did go days without writing, mostly on the weekends, and sometimes I felt like I was terribly behind. And only once did I ever feel like giving up and scraping everything I had just written. But luckily, that misery passed and I shook that thought out of my head and continued on.
On November 28, with two days left to spare, I reached the 50K word goal. I don’t think I have ever felt so exhilarated in all of my life! The feeling of completing what I thought in the beginning was an impossible mission, left me with the thought that I could complete anything!
I think that the feeling you get when you realize how many words you actually wrote in a month (whether you reached the 50K or not), is the true meaning of NaNo; it’s all about that end sensation and realization that you actually completed something you worked so hard for.
However, I don’t think I could have ever gotten to the end with out my fabulous Facebook NaNo Support Group! I did not find much help through the NaNo forums on the NaNo website, nor through the “writing buddy” option. Instead, it was a small Facebook group of 159 NaNo-ers where I found the bulk of my motivation and inspiration. And it’s the fact that we’re now creating a Critique/Editing group which is still helping me to write and complete my novel.
So for the first year of my NaNo experience, I must say that it was quite rewarding and worth it. I will definitely be donating and I suggest that all of you who participated should donate as well. Even $10 can help!
According to the NaNo website there was a collective NaNo 2011 word count of:
Not bad, NaNo-ers, not bad at all.
So let’s welcome December, and say goodbye to Novemeber and National Novel Writing Month.
And let’s promise each other that we will continue to write even now that NaNo has come and went.
Happy December, All!
FIN
Ahem. I’m am pleased to announce that you are looking at another National Novel Writing Month winner!
*pops open a bottle of champagne*
I have officially completed the 50,000 word goal, and it only took me 28 days!
While I am excited beyond no end, especially since it was my first year competing and I won (YAY!), I am still not done with my novel. Correction: I am way, WAY NOT done with my novel.
Let’s see. I have exactly 50,000 words and have just started chapter 6. There are to be 12 chapters, so…I have…6 more chapters to go and probably another 50K words to write. There is still a long writing road ahead of me to finish this damn thing!
But that’s OK. That’s OK because I chose a story that is interesting to me and one that I want to keep on writing. I will not give up, and definitely not let myself lose motivation. Just because NaNo is over, does not mean my inspiration and writing schedule is over. No, no, no. I can do this, and I will finish it!
However, for the rest of the night (it’s 9pm here in Spain) I shall be celebrating!
CHYEAH BOI!
Eating Your Creativity
Since Thanksgiving is tomorrow and there will be feasts of yummy food to share, I thought I would share this article I found on Huff Post Books.
Writer Wednesday: 9 Types of Brain Food for Writers
We all know that some food is good for us, and others are bad. But did you know that some can even help support brain function and make us more creative, helping us to write better?! No joke. And here are some of those foods.
~ Antioxidants: Fruits and vegetables high in antioxidants help your creative juices to flow. Blueberries are supposedly the most powerful. Mmmm…Don’t those berries below look good enough to eat?!
~ Green Tea: Many writers either require a steaming cup of coffee or a hot mug of tea next to them as they type away. Me, I’m a tea girl. And whoever else is also, you will be happy to know that tea helps the brain and mind age better. Not to mention that “moderate amounts of caffeine are said to boost concentration”. So drink up!
~ Glucose: When you ingest sugar, your body turns that sugar into glucose. Glucose helps the brain concentrate and increases alertness. So go ahead, divulge a little – but not too much!
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These are just some of the foods that help us writers with our brain activity. To view the full list and to see how each helps you as a writer, visit the article’s link above.
So, Happy Thanksgiving all, and I provided you with this list so that even though you feast out tomorrow, you can still know that what you are eating (if you include these in your Thanksgiving meal), you are still exercising your brain for the day after Thanksgiving. The day I know you all writers will be back to writing!
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*Note: Click on the links above to read the full article and to check my source. The pictures were taken from Google Images. I, however, summarized the article in my own words (anything I took directly from the article is in quotation marks) and the opinions, thoughts, phrases, and words in this post are my own: © Kalie Lyn, 2011.*
W… W… W… Wednesday: What, Where and Why
WWW Wednesdays by: Should Be Reading
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Usually the questions for W…W…W… Wednesdays are:
• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?
Since I am not currently reading anything due to NaNo, I have not finished reading anything recently, and I have no clue what I’ll read next, I have decided, just for today, to change up the questions a bit.
So here are my W…W…W… Wednesday questions of today:
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Q:
What are you currently writing?
A:
Currently, I am writing my NaNoWriMo novel, which is untitled at the moment. I don’t want to give away too much what it is about, but the genre is Dystopia (no, I do not categorize that with science-fiction), and it follows the life of a 15 year old girl named Lola.
I have finally reached 40,000 words, and now I only have 10K more to go before I reach the NaNo goal of 50,000 words! I am very excited to “win” and finish with NaNo (though I will miss it), however, I still have a lot more work to do even after I reach the 50K. I have 40K and I am only beginning Chapter 5 (there will be 12 chapters), so my book will run way longer than 50,000 words.
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Q:
Where are you currently writing?
A:
I am writing where I am currently living, in Madrid, Spain. There are three floors (including a basement) in the house where I have been living for the past three years, and then there is a mini loft – I guess you could call it that – that sits above the bedrooms on the third floor. That is my current writing office.
My desk is positioned right in front of the window, which I open up while I’m writing to get a breeze and to hear the sounds of outside. No one usually goes up in the loft so I have it all to myself, though I can still call down to the boyfriend to bring me a cup of tea when I need it. And it has a good atmosphere up there; I need a good atmosphere to write. So, I am happy with my current writing location.
Here, I just took a picture of it for you all to see:
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Q:
Why are you currently writing?
A:
I’m currently writing because I’m participating in NaNo. I’m participating in NaNo because I have always wanted to write a novel (I grew up wanting to become a writer) but have never had the time or motivation to actually sit down and write. NaNo has given me that motivation and inspiration, and I have made time for it all.
I am quite surprised that I have actually made it this far and am so close to my 50K word goal. It feels great. And that feeling I get when I write is why I am currently writing.
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If you are also doing NaNo, and have not read any books lately, then feel free to put your answers to my questions above in the comment section below!
Happy Writing and Reading All!
