{ March 4, 2009 @ 10:56 pm } · { NaNoWriMo, School, Script Frenzy }
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I haven’t posted in ages and I’m sorry, but I have a life so many other things on my plate right now (always, actually). I’m exhausted because of the upcoming final exams, I’ve been studying like 8 hours/day and electromagnetism quite simply sucks, you know. And I suck at it. Luckily in a couple of weeks at least this cause of stress will be history (though that’s such a short time, I can’t get into my head everything I’d like to have there).

So I just realised that it’s April next month and that means Script Frenzy and I was driving home today and went like ‘omg, the site must be open o.O’ And I’m not even sure if I want to do it (though I will, of course…), but then I started having ideas like ‘what if I did an adapted screenplay of Imaginary’ and that actually sounds like something I could do. I’d have to finish the novel before, though. Or I dunno. I know how it’s going to end, so I could just draft it and then do the adaptation. Perhaps…

I also noticed that I haven’t said anything about last year’s NaNo here. I hated most of it, the last couple of thousand words were endurable but the rest of it… gah, let’s just say I’m glad I don’t have to return there. I won though, and that was some achievement, ’cause I was pretty worn out back then. And I did write 10k in two days, that’s a small victory too :)

{ October 11, 2008 @ 9:10 pm } · { NaNoWriMo }
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I just read almost every entry in this blog and guess what I want to do? I want to revisit Imaginary, ’cause I certainly made it sound more interesting than I remembered it being :D It’s still an unfinished thing, and I’d like to finish it because I actually do know how it should end. Knowing me, it’ll never be done, though. But one may dream, surely?

i mean siriusly

{ October 10, 2008 @ 8:59 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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My heart’s bleeding. I’ve just read through this thread and as that Swede pointed out, it’s really weird to think that I know some things about English better than the native speakers. Someone said they felt sorry for the non-native speakers because the language is so hard, and I was like ‘I really thought these things were so clear to everyone.’ I don’t think I’d used any of the words in the wrong way; that is, I know the distinction between all the similar words mentioned in that thread. I’m not saying I don’t make mistakes, but in those cases I’m sure they’d've been completely accidental typos, if made at all.

Oh damn. All my life I’ve been wishing I was a native English speaker and they just keep shattering my world like this.

well…

{ October 4, 2008 @ 10:37 pm } · { Steely Challenge }
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It’s October 4th (so like me, all the time stating the obvious) and I haven’t even started on Steely Challenge. Don’t know if I will. Right now I’m busy getting things done (i.e. read) before November (and being madly in love with The Shoebox Project). I think I’m currently reading five or six books from the library, and I’d like to finish them within a reasonable time. I’ve also got school – maths, physics, physics lab, social studies, Finnish and geography and no doubt I’m going to have to write a lot of things. Plus I don’t really have any ideas for SC, and I don’t even really feel like writing.

I might not feel this way in the middle of the month. We’ll see.

{ September 22, 2008 @ 8:29 pm } · { NaNoWriMo }
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A friend of mine had a NaNoWriMo poster today, she was obviously planning to put it somewhere to let people know about that great event. So, we just started talking about our upcoming NaNovels (she’s set on winning this time and I’m just going to prove something. What and to whom, I don’t know, but it’s just a part of my weird mind to be like that (: ). She told me she had a few characters planned (and they did sound interesting!), and I’m quite envious because I’m not sure about anything at this point. I’ve done this before, of course, but one still gets a little nervous.

So what I came up with during our shortish conversation was some sort of an rpf+God-thingy featuring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie in some form ^^ *insert a bit of fangirling* (I spent the weekend listening to Fry’s podgrams and so on). I remember planning a few NaNos ahead and there definitely was a God+Heaven themed thing amongst them, and, well… I think this suits me fine.

But I hadn’t really realised we were so close to November, but oh dear, nanowrimo.org is already closed for whatever they do during this week! This year I’m not going to be one of the first ones to spam the forums (thanks to having a maths exam, several hours of physics lab and singing lesson on the 1st) but that isn’t so relevant as I’m going to be spamming there anyway!

I’m so excited!

well I always thought updating every 4 months is quite alright

{ August 23, 2008 @ 1:23 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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but of course I’ve had nothing to write about since I haven’t been writing anything except blog posts and frustrating Finnish papers and… that’s pretty much it. I finished SF quite neatly, but since then nothing. Wasn’t a surprise, though. I’ve been watching a lot of tv instead :D

This time last year I remember being quite excited about the upcoming NaNoWriMo, now I’m most of the time horrified about the matriculation exams that are only a few weeks away. I’ve had some ideas about NaNo’08, but I’m not at all sure yet what I’m going to write.

I’m strangely intrigued by Yuletide challenge. I’m not sure whether I’m up to it – fanfic has never been one of my strong fields, I feel like poking my nose somewhere it shouldn’t be when I’m even thinking about writing something about characters that aren’t my own, no matter how much I love them. But if I know myself at all, I’ll find myself signed up for that thing too. After all, I never believed I’d win NaNoWriMo when I signed up for that.

Day 26 (oh so close)

{ April 26, 2008 @ 8:11 pm } · { Script Frenzy, success }
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I had good times, I had bad times and then I started feeling desperate because I was kind of stuck (though I actually wasn’t, it was more like an illusion). And then I hit 75 pages and decided that damn right I’m going to do this.

Yesterday evening, at 78 pages I told Miccoh that I was going to hit 80 during the evening and then write ten pages on both weekend days. Today I just sat down and wrote what is currently 12 pages and now I’m happily standing at 94 pages. That is almost 95 which is only five pages away from winning (ooh, mathematics…) and then the sun will shine and all my problems will be gone forever.

Now I’m going to bake a cake (it’s my dad’s birthday tomorrow but the real reason is of course Screnzy :D ) and then watch some comedy and maybe write, maybe not. I’ve got tomorrow and the rest of the month, I’m not in a hurry anymore.

… continue reading this entry.

Day 13

{ April 13, 2008 @ 8:27 pm } · { School, Script Frenzy }
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I’ve almost written a whole episode, about 44 pages! This pilot episode covers one day at a crazy school, and I totally suck at making believable* original characters, but I think in my case that isn’t the most important thing. The good news is I feel somehow more able to write dialogue than ever. I don’t know if it’s funny or anything, but at least there might be a bit more dialogue than descriptive passages.

I had an excellent day yesterday; my page count increased with 10 pages. I was behind schedule, now I’m tightly on it. I think I’ll have to write a couple more pages today because I’ve got my hands full of not only maths but physics, chemistry, English, Swedish and piano as well on the normal weekdays. Sometimes I’d have skipped chemistry and English completely, but we have evil wordtests in English and actually things to calculate in chemistry. Something new for a change. And I do love the groups I’m studying in ^^

So… 44 pages. That’s a bit over 7,000 words now. I’m gonna be so fine :D But not if I give in to the urge to watch some more House… Although I’m going to do that anyway…

*after watching Green Wing** over and over and over again, I’ll believe anything.

** I’m actually not payed for advertising GW everywhere and all the time. Should be though :P

Day, whatsit, eight

{ April 8, 2008 @ 12:02 pm } · { Script Frenzy }
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Yay, my exams are almost over! I had the second maths test today and it seemed easy enough. Now I have a bit more time for Screnzy (currently I’ve written 13 pages – this is going to be an epic fail if I don’t pull myself together). But I feel so stupid! I’m a fourth-time-participant if you count NaNoWriMos, so I should know, but it wasn’t until yesterday that I realised that hey, I could use some dares! It’s not like I haven’t ever used dares before, I had just forgotten about them completely! And I’m writing an absurd comedy, so dares would fit in perfectly. That was a real headdesk-moment yesterday.

And now I’m going to open my script document, be very brave and write something that felt impossible on Sunday. I’m not going to fail!

… (day 2)

{ April 2, 2008 @ 9:27 am } · { I just suck at this, Script Frenzy }
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I have now officially written four pages of my script for a comedy that seems to me quite boring and not funny at all. I think I’ve learned something about tabs in OpenOffice but my writing style is still leaning towards description too heavily. I recall complaining something about being unable to write dialogue during NaNoWriMo. Well, as we all know, scripts are quite a lot about dialogue… But at least I’ve formatted in a nice way, so I don’t have to write so much.

But four pages in one day… that’s ahead of schedule. Maybe, just maybe, I might actually survive :)

just now

{ March 31, 2008 @ 8:30 pm } · { Music, Script Frenzy }
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2 ½ hours until fade-in, I haven’t used Celtx since last June so I’ll probably have to write the first lines with plain old OpenOffice. Not that there’s anything wrong with it.

I keep having serious doubts about Screnzy even now, which is kinda worrying. I’m going to write a comedy script, and though I love watching shows like Green Wing or Frasier, comedy’s never really been my thing. Of course, last time I proved that I can write absolute shit that would interest no one (and this isn’t modesty, I really mean it), but still… The bigger problem, though, is the fact that I’ve got all the exams coming just now. I had two courses maths, and biology and religion and Finnish, so it’s not going to be a piece of cake. Once the exams are over, I’ve lost like a week of the month. I’m so going to die.

I bought a nice new cd, Poets of the Fall’s Revolution Roulette.  Love it.

{ March 10, 2008 @ 8:58 pm } · { Script Frenzy, misery }
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Please forget me ever promising anything. I’m not gonna keep it anyway.

There hasn’t really been much to tell, and I make enough nonsense-entries in Imaginary. I do have enough on my plate already (or I’ve made myself believe so…) so I haven’t had energy to plan Screnzy (although Haru-chan kindly drafted a charming pianist guy for me) or really anything. I haven’t even browsed the forums much, so I’m not sure whether I’ll make it this time.

This wasn’t supposed to be so gloomy entry. Actually I have only two reasons for my misery: a hurting leg and a stupid Finnish essay due tomorrow. The reason I don’t have time to do anything is House. That’s about it.

Ooh, Script Frenzy!

{ March 2, 2008 @ 1:59 pm } · { Script Frenzy, TV }
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March already? I’m still scared, I’m still having doubts but I should’ve known that I’d get as enthusiastic as always. I found a OpenOffice document full of funny Screnzy slogans from last year and got swept into the interesting world of icon-making. I’ll probably be making more and post them here for your enjoyment.

I’m going to write a tv-script. I’ve watched relatively few movies, so the whole idea of a movie seemed kind of frightening. I don’t suppose tv-writing will be any easier, but I’m more familiar with tv than films. And then I accidentally got the idea: Green Wing meets school world. I thought I might ask a few friends to scetch one or two characters for me so it wouldn’t be just my dull imagination just writing my own teachers a little bit more odd than they already are.

Screnzy 2008 participant

There it is, pretty, isn’t it :D Now I’m going to go and browse the Screnzy forums and make some more icons (and read Oliver Twist and write the bloody essay…) but I promise more frequent updates from now on.

And while I’m at it, please let me recommend to you the excellent comedy series Green Wing (have I mentioned it earlier? Err…). It’s set in a hospital, but don’t make the mistake thinking it’s an ordinary hospital soap – it isn’t. Oh God, I wish I could write something half as funny.

Edit: I was a bit bored so I made a couple of SF-themed icons. Enjoy!

{ February 4, 2008 @ 11:49 am } · { Books }
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I know I’ve been bad, not having updated this blog or indeed written anything. In December I wrote 2,000 words of my NaNovel, and since then it’s been sadly neglected, even though I know how it’s going to end.

It’s also true that I’ve written practically nothing after that brief return to Imaginary. I had to write short pieces for school of course (and I did visit Holeworld in a story called Eric the black mage), but it’s been quiet. I’m not a writer and that’s it. I like doing NaNoWriMo once a year, but writing isn’t one of the most important things on my mind. That’s okay, it’s not like anyone’s forcing me to write or something. I’ve found other ways to express creativity and I’m quite happy (though now and then I’d like to write one or two lines of witty dialogue to that other story, but I don’t usually make it so far as to switch on the computer).

Script Frenzy then… I’m not quite sure if I’m going to participate this year. I know it’d be cool to say in a ten years’ time that I’ve won every single Script Frenzy, but that bloody scriptwriting seemed to be all about dialogue, in which I suck, and it seemed to have so many rules compared to basic prose-writing. I haven’t made any decision about Screnzy yet, but please don’t try to talk me into it. Maybe it just wasn’t my thing after all. But who knows…

And to other things: I spent a great deal of my Christmas holidays reading Stephenie Meyer’s Eclipse (well, it took me one night to read but I thought about it a lot…), watching Green Wing (haven’t stopped yet), which weren’t really healthy for me. So no life.

Back!

{ December 8, 2007 @ 9:35 pm } · { Books, NaNoWriMo, Other challenges, Other writings }
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Hi!

I just made a new page to make your lives easier. It contains links to all the texts I’ve posted in this blog and it can be found here. For now everything is in Finnish, but I’m currently writing a piece in English, so stay tuned.

I was asked to join Kiwi Writers, so as a New-Zealander, I did :D There was this awesome challenge of a cat story and since I’m bored, I decided after a moment of hesitation to participate. I’m also gathering the will and strength to go back to NaNo and finish it.

I didn’t read almost anything in November, so I’m taking it back now. I’m reading two Pratchetts at the same time, but a week ago I bought Stephenie Meyer’s New Moon and read it during the weekend. I admit being young and romantic, but I can’t help loving those books (I’m planning on buying Twilight and Eclipse as Christmas presents to myself). And the point is that even thinking about those books makes me want to go back to NaNo and finish it, but somehow it seems impossible. One day I stared at the text in Q10 and thought: “Oh my god, I just can’t write a single word more.” It’s not that I don’t like the story, maybe I’m just afraid of finishing, because as you know I am Miss Unfinished Tales.

NaNoWriMo 2007

{ November 27, 2007 @ 10:28 pm } · { Music, NaNoWriMo }
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I feel obliged to somehow sum up this November, but I haven’t really found the time or the energy to do that before. As you may have noticed during the last couple of days, I’ve been a happy owner of a NaNo’07 Winner widget.

It took me 25 days to reach 50k. That’s one day more than last year, but I’m happy with that. My best day was 5,000 words but on the other hand my worst one was only 560-ish words. I think I never failed to write 1,300 words a day last year.

My story was called Imaginary as everything else in my life at the moment (or that’s the title I’m going to write to the Winner’s certificate). I’m of course secretly hoping to publish it one day, but that seems most unlikely, especially given that the novel is so not finished. I’d like to finish something once in my life, so I’m going to try and finish the story to the bitter end.

I managed to get my FMC married and seriously ill, my MMC in love with her and when I hit 50k they were on a strange bridge and they almost kissed. But then there was 50k BANG and I stopped right there. Now I’ve got to study for the whole week, but maybe I’ll have time for NaNoFiMo. The story went on pretty slowly, but I don’t know if it’ll be that slow to read. It’s almost depressing to know that I’d spend probably a few hours reading the story I’ve fought with two hours every day. I really can’t see the thing in a larger scale, it’s just a bunch of events that hopefully form a story, but I can’t see it from a reader’s point of view, if it’s too slow or too fast, not yet anyway. And I’m planning on dedicating the following year to Hamnet (NaNo’06), I’ll try to read it again and maybe edit. Finishing would be cooler, though.

Some very interesting stats:
Words per day average 2,000
Time use 48 hours 47 minutes
Words per hour 1025

Didn’t kill anyone (yet), and I introduced way less interesting supporting charachters than I intended. The whole thing was almost dareless – I used two dares from the Risingshadow forums (the other one was Vehka’s MCs-trying-to-make-each-other-laugh and the other one was to include a bridge in a place where no one in their right mind would build a bridge) and a couple of use-these-words -things (most of them were surprisingly from my maths teacher (such as tyriä, mainio & huikaisevan häikäisevän helmeilevän hieno (x2).) They’re kind of tone of voice things, so they don’t really work on paper, but I wanted them nevertheless. They lose some of their shining in translation, but tyriä basically means screw up, mainio is great, and the last one is just something that is dazzlingly and brilliantly wonderful.

But this time I found that I actually can write in a serious tone. Last year there was constant sarcasm and the whole thing owed a lot to Terry Pratchett. This time I had no particular idol, so the text must be different.

It was my second experience with NaNoWriMo and I’m so going to do it again next year.

(And a lovely song I’ve had on repeat during the writing of this entry: Loreena McKennitt’s Dante’s Prayer (with a Legolas-video o_O).)

Day 18 and the angels

{ November 18, 2007 @ 4:39 pm } · { NaNoWriMo }
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I’ve met – not the love of my life, but a thing which makes my life easier: Q10, a lovely program for NaNoing. It’s a full screen writing program, and there’s a timer system which allows me to word war myself all the time without staring at the clock. And it sounds like a typewriter!

With the help of q10 I’ve reached 35k today (that’s already over 5,000 words for this weekend!) and now I hear the angels humming the victory march.. (what do you mean by ‘you’ve apparently read the Breaking news box’?) I’ve felt all the time that I’m a little behind (though I wasn’t) but now that feeling is gone, and the remaining 15k should be an easy one.

So what have I written? In October, I walked outside with a bouquet of dead flowers (I was going to throw them away) and I had this picture of a dark wedding, where the flowers would be dead and everything would be dark. I wrote that scene yesterday, and that brought in an interesting turn of my plot. I’ll have to work hard if I want to tie it all together. The endings are my weak part, I can actually write 50k of a story and know little about how it’s going to end.  Maybe I’ll finally get to that murdering people point, but I want to get this one finished, I really do.

I feel I’ve neglected my MMC a bit, because my FMC has a more interesting life. I don’t want to listen to him complaining about the lack of electricity all the time, so the solution is obviously getting FMC Elizabeth married :D And someone in the picture is a jerk, but I don’t know who it is… probably me. I just feel being a little too close to the story, that I can remember only the current moment, not what’s been said or done a couple hundred words earlier. Realism gets thrown into the wind:

I was crying against his shoulder… [insert some random and confused thinking] … I laughed at him…

(Baaaad translation and as bad example, but you get my meaning.)

Day 16

{ November 16, 2007 @ 9:55 pm } · { NaNoWriMo }
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I haven’t yet written one single word today, and it’s almost 10pm. But I did buy some reward chocolate, and I’m still being realistic if I say I’ll pass the 30k line today. I ended up spending too long in the internet looking for a certain song or at least information about it. We’ll see.

Seems that I didn’t have anything to say.  29,068/50,000.

Day 11, Minister

{ November 11, 2007 @ 8:35 pm } · { NaNoWriMo, TV }
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Yesterday was a wonderful day at least numerically, I wrote over 2,700 words. Today was also a good one, though a bit slow, I’ve spent 2,5 hours writing 2,230 words. But anyway I hit the 20k line today, and as a reward I watched my all-time favourite Yes Minister episode Skeleton in the Cupboard. I don’t know how they’ve managed to write that episode the way that 70% of my YM jokes come from it.

(”God moves in a mysterious way.” “Let me make this perfectly clear: Humphrey is not God, OK?” “Will you tell him or shall I?”)

I do love that episode. Humphrey freaking out in the end :’D

And what is happening in NaNo?  My MCs Will and Elizabeth went to Will’s house and sat there through the night (I guess about four hours) waiting for the pouring rain to end. I hope I was able to create a bit of tension between them. Some philosophical thoughts appeared at least. At last they fell asleep in their armchairs but they woke up at 5am to hear that Will’s little sister had disappeared during the night.

Really, how could I spend 2,200 words on that? NaNo amazes me constantly :)

I really should do my maths homework and play the piano a bit before I call it a night.

Day 9 (will adopt smart dialogue)

{ November 9, 2007 @ 9:00 pm } · { NaNoWriMo }
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Still a bit ahead (finally got to the Halloween party!), but today hasn’t really been a good day. I need to write dialogue between my MCs, but I suck at that. I know that practicing should fix it, but my dialogue doesn’t feel or seem or sound as good and witty as I’d like it to. I speak little in real life (though when I do, I’m too loud and say things before thinking), so I’m not trained in being funny or anything. So most of my writing is just description or thoughts, and now and then I realize my characters really should talk more to each other.

Maybe I should set my next story to a land of dumb and deaf people. Or write a play.

Anyway, the official word-count widgets have made a comeback, so I’m too excited to actually write. Though I have to admit that I don’t like them looking like this:

[There used to be a lovely word count widget with a bar for each day, green or red depending on whether I'd written "enough" that day, but apparently it had been reset and was showing the grey bars of '08 :D ]

I’m not that pathetic, you know, but I don’t always update my wordcount immediately. If I write a few hundred words at 11 pm I’m not returning downstairs with my laptop and connecting to Internet, I’ll wait for the next day. This thing says my worst day was 726 words, but actually the lowest wordcount yet has been 1,244.

And I feel guilty saying that I’m on schedule when others struggle at 5k or 7k or whatever. Why do I feel that?

(Oh yeah, 15,641 words and 19 pages. MMC & his family, FMC and a few random characters introduced. Murders 0, kisses 0, events 1, chapters 4)

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