September through December...November is the Exception

September is here!!

Wow the summer passed by super fast and with in the warm weather. Time to pull out the favourite pull over and fluffy pajama pants.

I don't know if I mentioned in past posts that I wasn't going back to school in septemeber...I could have just left off with wanting to get into Res for next semester but it's true I'm not in school.

Last semester left me with a few health problems, the travelling was getting a bit out of hand and well with my grandfather passing away, the result of my grades weren't the greatest...in fact they completely caught me by surprise and now I am going to have to redo my sememster. < the hardest part about redoing the semester is I'm kind of disappointed in myself...it's not everyday that I fail at something...and when I've always done so well in school in the past...it's a harsh blow.

But I've got a plan and I'm working on getting better. The doc says it's a great thing that I'm not going back so soon, I couldn't handle much more stress.

My Plan for success:
1. Live on campus...if not possible move close to campus or invest in a car to drive. (working on the investing in a car < I've finally taken driving lessons to get my G2 Woot! - and I'm also going to work on the staying on campus.)
2. Healthy Mind and Body...this wasn't exactly my top priority since January...in fact neither my mind nor my body was very healthy...I skipped breakfast, my classes blew through lunch and half the time I wasn't hungry anyways and dinner was always eaten around 10pm (not to mention when I did decide I was hungry besides dinner it was always out of the campus caf). Priority: controlling the stress...shouldn't be much accept for homework ...eating properly and physical excersise.

A typical Day Last year:

Wake up 4 a.m
out of the house by 5:15
at the mall and on the city bus for 5:30
At the station for 6:15
on the bus to toronto for 6:45
At transfer point for 7:15
On second bus for 7:30
At school for 8:15
Class at 9:00

Class ends at 5:05
on bus for 5:20
transfer point 5:50
bus 5:55
arrive at station 8:00
city bus 1: 8:20
transfer point: 9:00
City bus 2: 9:15
final stop: 9:50
either walk for 20 minutes or take a transfer cab 5 mins

^ doesn't leave much time at the end of the day for sleep or homework...it was usually a toss up between the two

I mentioned November in the title...November is pretty much a write off...as I usually do NanoWrimo and this year is no different than last...only this year I've stepped up to the plate with my notebook planner...the time that I've been off I've been planning the novels I want to start writing. I shouldn't have an excuse to why I shouldn't be writing...the video posted on the NaNoWriMo website on August 5th (it's now in the archive as theres a new one up) provided some great inspiration...really seeing that someone else besides myself had trouble writing. It put things in a whole different perspective and I'm going to try something new this year...usually I've been a panster but I'm a planner this year. It might prove to work out. < I'm going for the gold


As well with the time i've had off I've been working on my sketches and designs and been playing alot of sims 3...very fun!!

The Planning is…well it’s going

So the other day I ran across a forum post for something called a novel bible. This really piqued my interest because well probably like most writer’s this is the only thing my organizational mind can’t reach and that’s my writing files on my computer. I’m a clean and organized freak in every other aspect of my life but when it comes to my writing forget about it and most of the time I usually lose a file and what not and I can never find anything. Just this morning I found a whole half novel that I had started writing but thought I lost. It was covered in dust at the bottom of a file folder in something I would have never thought to look in otherwise on my hard drive.
A novel bible or binder if you couldn’t already guess is everything organized into one place for you. It includes everything that you might think you want to put in your future novel. Over the course of the last few days I tried making a hard copy of one, something that wasn’t on the computer but it go really disorganized fast and I was wasting paper which wasn’t something I wanted to do. So then I started thinking of programs I could possibly use to have it electronically. Some people keep it simple and in word or in evernote. Well point blank I highly dislike Evernote and use OneNote instead, and Word was too constricting.
Yesterday I had attempted in Evernote and made a small dent but still got frustrated when it got too confusing and then I realised I was doing it all wrong. It was me being over organizational again.
So instead of having a gizillion little uncatagorized pieces I have my binder organized as follows (it’s all alphabetical which will drive me insane since I want it organized by importance – may yet have a solution to fix that)

Against All Odds Novel Bible
Characters

• Major Characters
• A
• B
• C
• D
• E
• Minor Characters
• F
• G
• H
• I

Location

• A
• B
• C
• D
• E

Pre-Plan

• Rough Plot Ideas
• Rough Timeline of Events

Research
The Plot

• Uncatagorized Scenes
• Time Line
• Chapter One Scenes (Section for each chapter of scenes)

The Sequel – Pre-plan

• Ideas
• Rough Time Line of Events
• Uncatagorized Scenes
• Probable Characters
• Locations

Under each section lets say for character I can have under Character A, a page for each of the following: Photos/Character sketch, And then one for each biography category and anything else. Of all the methods I tried this one was the easiest to work out and set up. Of course the outline above for my catagories may work for myself and not for you. You’ll just have to play with it and find what way works for you.
Anyways I feel with this method I can keep track of my novels. Not to mention OneNote allows you to have many notebooks at once. Unfortunately the program only comes in the Microsoft Office bundle and costs a bunch…though if you’re a student you can get it for free.  Totally worth it. 
My last post I mentioned that I wanted to plan before I ever attempted NaNoWriMo again or writing at all  and well I’m sticking with the program, though I have started writing down some uncatagorized and totally rough scenes when an idea or two has popped into my brain. I feel this method of planning will totally work.
Laters for now,

Happy Writing!

Camp Nanowrimo

Fellow aspiring writer's if your looking for a fun filled writing event to join in on, then I suggest you go on over to Camp Nanowrimo and sign up. The event is much like Nanowrimo in November only we have 31 days and it takes place through the month of July. Your still writing 50,000 words but it gives those a chance who are in school or if life got in the way in November to try their hand at writing a novel in a month.