I like this section a lot

(Lilith is telling Alex about the meanings of her name and her sister Valerie's name.)

“Anyway, Valerie’s name is way less interesting than your friendly neighborhood Beautiful Night Monster. Although, it does mean the same goody two shoes ‘brave,’ in like, three languages. And Lian means Daughter of the Sun.”

“That’s kind of hilarious,” he said. 

“What? That her name is Brave Daughter of the Sun Sun?”

“No. Well yes, but I was thinking more that you’re the Night Monster, and Valerie’s the Daughter of the Sun. It’s pretty cool.”

“Eh. I guess so. Valerie isn’t exactly sunshine and rainbows though.”

“No, I guess not. Well, I mean sometimes. But really I think she’s more complicated.”

“I think we all are more complex than the shiny little boxes people stuff us into.”

“Yeah.” He took another sip of his root beer. Lilith looked at him. She tried to see what was shoved inside the shiny box labelled “Sensitive Nerd,” but Alex would have to open the lid for her first.

(If you know who I'm referencing with both the shiny boxes, and the imagining each other complexly, I love you.)

Pickle is an Awful Procrastinate-y Novelist/Student

Hello.

I have something to confess to you all:

I am really bad at deadlines.

This probably isn't surprising if you've read any of my posts on here from last year. I woke up at 5:30 am today so I could do my homework that's due in two hours. My novel won't be done until December 17th according to my stats. Although, I actually have an excuse this time, and also some tips.

Oh. Hi excuse hat. THIS IS NOT YOUR BLOG YOU STUPID HAT!

So My local Big Famous University (What? You don't have one of those?) has a biannual (twice yearly, not every two years) event where for a weekend, students and graduates teach classes to middle school and high school students. This weekend was my fifth time going. It's the coolest thing ever.

I love taking the writing classes, because, well... I like writing. This year, I took a class called How To Write A Novel In A Month. It was downright groovy. The teachers had some really great tips for making writing easier, not to mention the class came up with a list of what makes a good character.

Here is a tip that was super useful:

Graph your plot

This does not mean you need to know every detail of your plot. I'm definitely a Pantser.  My graph looks like this:

This lovely little bit of data (mmm.... data) is what I want my novel to be like. I want it to get interesting pretty quickly,  even off for a bit, and then get all exciting again. Now watch- 

BAM! Now it's a plot. Sort of. I have the ideas laid out, and I now where I want them to be! And if you're a Planner like our dear Potato, you can be as specific as you want. This way, if I get stuck, I can just choose a different point in time on the line. See?

Just remember kids:

The month of November might be a direct progression of cause to effect, but can write as wibbly wobbly timey wimey as you damn well please.

--PICKLE

P.S. I know my graph only goes halfway I'm only doing 25K, so it was a joke :P

Flip Flop, Stop and Swap

I switched my story. I feel like a horrible person. I abandoned my baby story. Glass Heart will never forgive me. I might come back to it some year, but then again I might not.

I have a better story (granted, I came up with this better story 2k words in to GH, but whatevs). I like this new story. Mr. Lester P. Cheers Starts a Business (working title) and I will be bffs forever.

And I will make evil eyes at Glass Heart, which let me down awfully.

Welcome Back Invisible People

Heey!

It's Pickle here. Wow, it's been a while. I'm glad to be back and writing with you a mere twenty minutes before I start some intense novelling.

I've been terrified since about ten o'clock when Potato and I were emailing. She has since gone to bed probably, because time zones.
I expect the real panic to set in soon.

I'm dressed to novel, in my pj pants, Green Eggs and Ham shirt, a fedora that clashes awfully with my hair, and the most badass gloves in existence. (I will take this opportunity to remind you that it's not swearing if there are actual donkeys on my hands.)
Not to mention some steampunk eye makeup that I just can't be bothered to take off.

Ok...
I'm going to go look at cat pictures or draw or something to distract myself for the next 18 minutes.
Bye!

--PICKLE

P.S This post really makes no sense. Forgive me.

I didn't win

But I'm still proud of myself, and I'm proud of Potato, and all my other friends who were excellant, and I think all won.

So wow...

I don't know about Potato, but I'm going to update you guys on my other writing projects every now and then, but don't expect it to be often.
If you want to hear every heartbreaking detail, I'll probably post it all on my blog: http://annieredsky.blogspot.com/

I would give you a link to Potato's blog, too but if you don't personally know her, you can't see it. Sorry.

But besides that, I guess I'll see you next year!!

Write on, PICKLE

Nano is over :(

It is done. We have either won or not won, but it's over regardless.
I felt like I did a really good job this year actually having a story as opposed to "collection of random scenes that mean nothing". Because last year my characters traveled all the way across a stereotypical fantasy land and never achieved anything. At all. It was horrible. So this year, I think I have a story. It's a story that would give an agent a heart attack if they saw it right now, but I think that once I've polished it, I will have fun with it.

How did your Nano go?

Oh yes i did...

I just started a scene with "It was a dark and stormy night."
I've been informed by my mother that that's lazy writing, and yes it's cliched, but if you pull it off?
*kisses fingers*  perfecto!

Write on,
PICKLE

p.s. when i'm down in the dumps and can't think of what to write, I look at this picture. It fixes everything.