Cora Zane's Blog, page 3

NaNoWriMo Progress Check-in #2

Is it Friday yet? This has been the longest week ever. Part of it is the wacky school schedule. Half-days, holidays, homecoming. All of that this week, and there's still more of it to come. On top of that, I haven't been feeling well for the past couple of days.

I slacked off my NaNo project from about Tuesday the 5th. I needed to rest. Nevertheless, each day I managed to write roughly 1200-1600 new words before I tossed in the towel for the evening. That translates to an estimated...

NaNoWriMo Progress Check-In #1

I just realized my office calendar was still set to October, so I had to change it. It's Novel Writing November, which I'm super excited about this year, because I'm kind of in love with my spooky supernatural project. 
This morning I started working on Act 2 of my novel. The first day, I wrote almost 5k total, but I didn't track it precisely, which was a mistake on my part. I have no one to blame but myself. I had too much going on, and I got distracted. 

Refusing the Call - Then what?

(c) Can Stock Photo / yellowj
Happy Halloween, everyone!  I'm spending the day tweaking my outline and going over character sketches in prep for the NaNoWriMo kick off tomorrow. 
I decided to write this post ahead of NaNo because it was on my mind last night, and because nailing those first three chapters, or the sum of Act One of your novel - however many chapters that may be, can make or break your story. If you are struggling to launch your story past the beginning setup/scenario, keep reading. This may help. 
I don't.../>Ihelp. 
/>Itomorrow. 
Happy/ yellowj

Unwritten Monday - Characters and Groups in Fiction

I'm working on character sketches for my NaNoWriMo project today. My favorite guide for doing this is Susan May Warren's book The Story Equation. Her SEQ system helps me get to the core of my characters quickly. If that's something you struggle with, I highly recommend checking out her guide.

Note: I do not get any affiliate perks for recommending her book. This is simply my personal recommendation on the subject. It's 100% organic. (The link above goes to Amazon Smile. My charity of choice...

National Novel Writing Month

I've signed up for NaNoWriMo this year, and I'm currently prepping my outline for next week. I also cleaned out my account of old projects that I completed and published, or scrapped and didn't do anything with. The shoebox under the bed stories. Yeah, I ditched those. Then I wished I hadn't done it, because now it looks like I have only participated in one NaNo ever. Sigh. Closer to six or thereabouts is more like it, my favorite sessions being the Camp NaNo events. I love summer scribbling...

Story Growing Season

NANOWRIMO season is upon us. I haven't participated in a while, but I'm working on a novel right now. It's sort of in a blended prepping and scattered scene writing stage at this point. I thought that joining Nanowrimo this November might be a good way to kick around some ideas for it, but when I went to the website, there still isn't a local liaison for this area.

I started looking into how to add my region to the list, and apparently, there needs to be a municipal liaison volunteer i...

Friday-Eve Randomness Doot-doot-doot

There is this guide I'm currently reading, and omfg, I'm not sure what it is...the weather, the sinus infection that's brewing, or that snoozefest that is the text, but I can't seem to get through this $%#@ book. Instead of doing the smart thing and quitting it, or putting it back on eBay to sell, I've got the cat o' nine tails out and I'm beating myself dead horse style to finish reading this bloody book. Why do I do this to myself?

There are roughly 100 pages left to slog through...

Midnight-ish

Image by socialneuron on Pixabay

Happy weekend, y'all. I'm settling in for the evening to do some journaling and hit the TBR stack. About ten minutes ago, JakeDog came wooferating at my door to let me know he needed to be properly tucked into bed. I needed to check on everyone anyway, so I went into the den and picked up his blanket then waited for him to find just the right comfy spot on the couch before I put his blanket over him. That is exactly the way he likes to be tucked in, and if we d...

Final DNA.Land Tidbits

I got a notice not long ago that DNA.Land is no longer associated with Columbia University and the New York Genome Center. They have given those of us who only approved our DNA for research purposes a time frame to download our data before they delete our accounts. I went in and printed everything down, but for some reason, when I printed the info, some of the colors didn't remain intact. That being the case, I took photos with my phone to preserve what was there.

I have shared my raw data fro...

Fire up the Caldron

My dad has been known to break into song at any moment. His favorite is It's Christmas Time, and I'm all alone! We don't know who the band is that originally performed it, or what record it comes off of, but that's not the point. The point is he sings this song at random, can be any time of year, and it can elicit an eye roll from my mother within two seconds flat. Talk about a superpower. Great stuff!

Yesterday, I realized that I've inherited this boss, lyrical gift from my dad.