Did someone say MarNoWriMo?

Caitlin Black

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What I really want to do is buy a fire-proof chest, and stick my external hard drive inside it, along with other things like photos. Alas, no space or money for that right now, so if there were a fire, I'd probably lose everything...

I actually came up with that idea when pondering something for a WIP. It's a line that has survived the first edit I did earlier this month, actually. The premise is:

When someone's house is on fire, the first thing they grab is the photo albums. So my MC decided that he'd keep his photos in a fire-proof chest, so if a fire occured he could grab his phone and a bottle of whiskey, which would be a lot more useful while he watches his house burn down. :tongue
 

K. Taylor

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Hey Silver, uh maybe if I pay like 300 or 400 dollars but other than that, the stuff's gone :(.

You are so right, Cliff Face, I used to have all of my files backed up on an external hard drive but that got shot too, and I was saving to buy another. Sigh, so now I got to buy 2 hard drives.

It's easy to back-up docs online for free. W1ndows Live gives you a ton of space, there's Dropbox, and you can e-mail yourself your latest versions. There are more, but that's a few examples. Having hard copies is good, too, but when you're broke, thank God for free options.
 

FoamyRules

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It might be an idea to buy a thumb drive, too.

I have a 1GB one purely for writing stuff. 1GB is more than enough for "just writing stuff", and it cost me about $6. I also have an external hard drive with ALL my important files backed up onto it, which has been a godsend, but yeah - thumb drives for the win.

(Actually, I have 3 thumb drives... a 4GB one has music on it, and one is still in its packaging, which I got free at some point or another.) Even with a 4GB thumb drive, I probably only spent about $12.
Now that's a good idea. I just may buy some thumb drives just in case. I mean, hard drives fail, it happens which is why it is smart to back things up.
 

aliwood

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Another 250 today, and a little reading too.

Agree with the idea about the thumb drive. It's saved my work more than once, definitely recommended. :Thumbs:
 

Silver-Midnight

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I wrote a little bit more today. Probably not as much as should've written, but it was some.

EDIT: Great, now my inner-critic is starting to show itself. I'm almost at the 11K mark. It's going to be hard not to listen to it.
 
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Caitlin Black

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Read 3 more chapters of Jane Eyre. It's now been a week since I started it, and I'm closing in on the end. Thankfully the rest of my readings aren't quite so long...

Had a lecture on Dracula today, wherein the lecturer showed a scene from Alien to highlight a technique Stoker used in Dracula. At the end of the scene, there was a very piercing scream from probably 2/3 of the class - when the alien showed its face after a couple minutes of suspense.

That's an experience I'm not soon to forget! A hundred or more people screaming for less than a second, all in unison. It would've been very inspiring if I'd been a horror writer.
 

eternalised

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I'm at 56k in my The Sleeping Kingdom MS. I'm hoping to reach the 60k mark today.

I've also become a member of some critique circle forums, and hoping to get some valuable critique on my Soul Thief MS, which is due for a rewrite. I'm not much of an editor, and although I know I'll have to learn to edit my own books, I could use some help. So critique websites, here I come! :)
 

VP_Benni

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That sounds awesome, Cliff! :) I would've loved to hear that scream... Sounds like fun.

I have no school today! There is a LOT of snow outside, and we've lost about... Oh, about half of each of four of our trees... :tongue Lazy day for me...

~Amber~
 

Caitlin Black

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Read 1 chapter of Jane Eyre, got a reading assignment back (10 out of 10! Woo!) and now have 3 days to myself.

Of course, in those 3 days I need to do some reading homework, and also finish packing for moving house in 7 days... Eep!

Actually, it works out pretty well. We move on a Thursday, and I always have Friday through Sunday off Uni. So yes, I need to rearrange classes that would normally be on a Thursday, but it also means that I have 3 days to adjust before going back to Uni.

:)
 

FoamyRules

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So, the most I've done is finish the outline for my Camp Nano project, and now I'm planning out a gothic novel I'm itching to write. I just got home from school, thankfully it was a very light day.

Sigh. But I'm still using my mom's laptop for now. Hopefully, next week or so I'll be able to fix my computer.
 

eternalised

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Oooh, a gothic novel, you say? I'm intrigued. :) I LOVE gothic novels. They're my absolute favorite genre, but boy, are they hard to write.

I'm at 70k. Yep. I'm getting there. I'm guessing another 5k, and I'm done. Now I'm at an epic battle scene - I hate those though.
 

Silver-Midnight

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I'm really thinking my WIP is going to end anywhere from 17K to 25K. I'm at 13K right now, and I'm about to start Chapter 7. I'm actually proud myself for sticking through it. Even though I think this thing is horrible (haha!), and will need a huge re-write/draft before I even consider showing it a publisher, I'm proud I've gotten this far. I honestly didn't I'd be able to write this much in one piece. I've proven myself wrong. This doesn't mean I'm going to go out and take on a huge 50K novel, but taking on a novella doesn't seem as daunting anymore.

I still have to watch for Showing versus Telling because I might be having problems with that again, but I'll hopefully be able to pick up on all of that--along with some other stuff--when I do my re-write.

Let's just hope I do well on my Calculus test on Tuesday. :ROFL:
 

eternalised

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@Cliff Face: What did you enjoy reading more: Jane Eyre or Dracula?

@Silver-Midnight: 25k is great. That's novella length, and most epublishers will be glad with that. 17k however is a bit on the short side (most publishers I've seen accept 20-40k for novellas). But hey - you're already 13k into the story, so you're getting there!

My problem is that my stories tend to be too long. For the one I'm currently working on, I had to cut an entire storyline, and I'm already at 70k now. Imagine what it would have been like with that storyline still in the book. I'm now thinking of maybe turning that line into a novella. It's not long enough for an actual book, but I could probably write 30k about it. We'll see, I guess. I really love the characters of this book though.

My guess is: about 2-5k left and I'm done. Phew! Those finishing lines really are the hardest.

So, my problem would be writing a novella, since I tend to expand and expand and expand. Hah :)
 

Caitlin Black

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For the most part, I've enjoyed reading Jane Eyre more than Dracula. Some parts of Jane Eyre are a little slow and hard to read, but I've at least been engrossed in the storyline. Dracula just didn't engage me very much.
 

Silver-Midnight

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@eternalised: Yeah, I'm thinking it's probably going to be just under 20K; plus not mention a few rewrites, I might have 20K at the end of this thing when all is said and done. I'm going to try to go over that, just so when I edit it and fix it, I'll still have 20K or more. I think I'm going to take one aspect out of my WIP though; I'll still keep some of the stuff, but it's not going to be the same way as it is. I don't like it as much as I though I would.
 

Sarah G

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^^ good luck on the test:)

I finished editing one Novel:) I'm now back writing again, thank god. I hate editing! got 1,336 words down tonight and still going most I have wrote for a long time:)
 

Caitlin Black

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I've been to the bank, resisted buying 3 novels at a book sale (can't afford it) and am now home.

It's Saturday. This weekend I have to:

-Finish reading Jane Eyre. Got about 7 chapters to go.
-Do reading assignment for Philosophy class.
-Mentally prepare for English tute.
-Finish packing all my shit for the move on Thursday.
-Take stuff to the new house.
-Prepare paperwork for an unemployment interview with the Government.
-Try to not go insane.

So I'm going to be pretty busy, I think.
 

Sarah G

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^^ good luck Cliff

I managed to get up to 2,100 and I'm calling it a night now, sleepy:) the test will be to not delete it all later:)