Rachel Inch's Blog, page 3
January 1, 2015
WriYe and other Writing Resolutions
2014 has bowed out to make room for 2015 and with it comes New Years Resolutions and goals for the upcoming year. As many of you know I’m an avid supporter of NaNoWriMo and Camp NaNoWriMo. I talk about both all the time and harass my Facebook with word count updates and novel descriptions. At every opportunity I share what I’m working on and how well I’m keeping up with my writing goals. It’s a great motivation to be honest.
This year… or should I say, last year, I had the great opportunity to meet a number of talented writers via my Facebook CampNaNoWriMo group. Among this group of wonderful individuals were a number of whom I came to call ‘the WriYe girls’ which could be classified due to their insane word goals for the year as well as for the NaNo months. (FYI, WriYe isn’t all girls.) Through this group my new writing buddy Tiffany introduced me to the yearly challenge known as WriYe. I was completely blown away by her word count goals she laid out for herself and has done so again for this year.
I’ll take a moment to explain what WriYe is to the best of my ability. Just remember that I am a complete WriYe newbie so please bare with me if I don’t have all the information or say something wrong. WriYe is a YEAR LONG writing challenge born from NaNoWriMo. Its an unofficial group with no affiliation to the official NaNoWriMo website.
Here is the official forum where the magic happens,-> WriYe Forums.
You don’t have to join at the start of the year, but I understand that this time of the year is the most active as everyone is excited to get their challenge started. Its easy to join, just sign up on their forums, everyone is welcome!
You can choose any goal you’d like for the year, as the goals are really a personal thing depending on what you wish to accomplish in your writing. Goals range anywhere from 50k to over 2MILLION words. I would just like to say right here, to the writers who are doing one million and beyond, “You are my heroes!”. I can not fathom the work and dedication that must go into achieving one million plus words in one year!
Once you choose your goal you sign up in the appropriate group and let the motivation begin! In your group you will find others with similar goals in which to converse and compare ideas. Not only do you have this one group, but you have the option to create your own thread where you outline your goals for the year. In this thread you can state what word count you’re looking to achieve, your daily goals and outline the projects you hope to work on. Personally I find this idea of your personal thread to be a kind of accountability which will no doubt motivate me to get off my butt and actually do the writing that I’ve outlined. You can also peruse the other threads and see what the other participants are working on this year. Trust me, there is some real creativity held within those threads and you’re likely to find writers with similar genres and ideas!
On top of your progress thread to keep you accountable, there are also challenge threads! There’s a calendar you can download which outlines which challenges are being run so you can keep up with what’s going on. You’re welcome to join any of the challenges. I don’t really know exactly what all the challenges are, but for example, I’m in a consistency challenge. The challenge is to write at least a set number of words every day for as long as you can. (The original challenge is for a week, but you’re encouraged to see how long you can keep it up.) As this is my first challenge I choose the 750 mark, which is 250 less than my daily goal of 1k.
There is a Skype challenge for those of you who like to get to know the other writers in real time and I’m finding it quite fun. I’ve already met a number of awesome writers and I’m enjoying sharing goals. I’m sure these veteran WriYers will be instrumental in my own success! A number of these authors have blogs of your own so here are just a couple in case you are curious:
http://violetfirebird.blogspot.com/
http://greymattermargarita.blogspot.com
I highly recommend WriYe to anyone who’s got a New Years Resolution involving wanting to do more writing. I think its going to be a highly motivating and fun experience!
December 28, 2014
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas to everyone! I hope everyone’s Christmas’s were awesome, I know mine was! We now have six beautiful black and yellow guppies added to our household which have been dubbed ‘the guys’ by my two year old. (Who technically owns them as they were his Christmas present)
It looks like I have once again failed with my regular update schedule so I’ve made it my New Year’s Resolution to make regular updates. (And if I’m not doing so, feel free to harass me in the comments section to remind me that I’ve got a Resolution to succeed at!) I hope to use this year to really get some consistency down in my writing as well as buckling down and getting Chaotic Galaxies out there to be purchased.
I did succeed this NaNoWriMo, thanks to a mad rush to write 6k words on the last day. I managed to finish the first draft for both Chaotic Galaxies: Fire and Sand (Formerly Chaotic Galaxies: The Big Race) and Chaotic Galaxies: The Exile of the Valoushins. Instead of finishing the first draft for Chaotic Galaxies: Escape, I found myself starting a new draft called Chaotic Galaxies: Into the Mist, which will concentrate on Hannah and her home world.
I hope everyone will continue to follow me in the new year and I can’t wait to start putting out more Chaotic Galaxies content for you to enjoy. This novel series is my greatest creation and I’m so glad I can share it with all of you. Writing is my passion and I’m blessed that I have the time to dedicate to that passion.
All the best in the New Year!
November 5, 2014
NaNoWriMo
Oops, this is a bit late, but here goes…
I won’t be putting up an update on my “Short Stories” page this week as I am wholly engulfed in the wonderful challenge that is NaNoWriMo. After my disappointing finish in July’s Camp NaNoWriMo I am determined that this month’s challenge will be won! I am busy doing my best to get ahead in my word count in anticipation of my usual week three slackfest! I am happy to announce that I am in fact ahead by a couple days, and hope to be ahead by a couple MORE days by the end of today!
Wish me luck!
To those of you who are participating in this exhilarating challenge, I wish you good luck as well! I know its not an easy task, but it is so worth it when you sit back and look at this thing you’ve created on December 1st! I send motivating words your way! In droves! Even some made up ones!
GOOD LUCK NANOers!
October 28, 2014
Chaotic Galaxies: Blood Cover Question
After looking at my sad looking blood splotch cover that I pointed a little while ago, I thought I’d sit down and try my hand at another novel cover for Chaotic Galaxies: Blood, if only for use for my proof copy. I posted my covers for my other, very talented writing friends to critique and I got a number of response. I tweaked the cover as best I could to incorporate their suggestions so I thought I’d show you guys as well!
The first cover was my original attempt, and the second is the one incorporating the advice I received. You may need to click on the image itself to be able to see the stars that I put in the background. I’m thinking of enlarging the size of the stars so they’re not just specks.
As always, any and all advice is welcome!
October 27, 2014
Edits and Updates
Hello wonderful fans!
I’ve been working on the first round of edits for Chaotic Galaxies: Blood. I am over halfway through these edits and its going pretty well! With NaNoWriMo on the horizon, I doubt I’ll get much time to work on it through November but I’m hoping to have a proof copy in my hand by December! With any luck it’ll be ready to be purchased in January!
For those of you who have been following the close call at Moby station, I have uploaded the next part of their story to my website! (www.chaoticgalaxies.com for those of you who haven’t heard it a thousand times yet)
As always, your comments and suggestions are welcome!
October 17, 2014
Back in the Groove
I sat down today to start working on my first round of edits for book two in my Chaotic Galaxies series! It was awesome to pick up Chaotic Galaxies: Blood again as it introduces some of my favorite characters! I am hoping that this will help me get into the groove for NaNoWriMo as well as help me get Chaotic Galaxies: Blood ready for publication! I do realize that I haven’t quite finished with Chaotic Galaxies: The End of Humanity yet, but my very talented mother should have the back cover fixed this week so I can order what will hopefully be the last proof! (Yay!)
Its been really good getting back into editing and find myself rearranging and correcting a lot of my first Chapter. Its amazing how much I’ve grown since last year when I wrote this draft! Now that I know the proper way to set up the file for both epublication and physical publication I can now make those changes now instead of during the third and forth round of edits. This should make the whole process a lot quicker!
Oh, and I also created a very rough novel cover for Chaotic Galaxies:Blood, and I do mean rough! It doesn’t really look quite right, but my blog lacks pictures so I’m sharing it anyways!
The blood splotch isn’t quiet right, but I’m working on it.
I also sat down and reconfigured my reference file (as its getting HUGE). Its amazing how many notes and details you come up with when your eight books into a science fiction series! I even added a few of my website images to make it pretty.
October 14, 2014
Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving!
I celebrated with family and friends while eating more than any human being should! It was great to be around family that I don’t often see, especially my great aunt who traveled across the country to see me. (Okay, so she probably came to see the whole family, but this is my blog so I can say she came to see me!)
Not only did I celebrate Thanksgiving with my family, but I also wrote an update for this week. I was not successful in getting it ready for yesterday, (as I was creating a mini Thanksgiving meal for my two wonderful sisters) but I did manage to get it completed for today! YAY!
The second installment of “Warning” has now been updated. Apparently our two new heroes are unwilling to simply accept their good luck and want to do something to get answers. (Curt more than Ollie, but we won’t look down on Ollie for being more realistic). As always, enjoy.
October 9, 2014
Random Update!
It may not be Monday, but I updated www.chaoticgalaxies.com with a short story anyways! I figured its been so long since I’ve been on a regular update schedule that it really didn’t matter that it was a Thursday.
I give you, “Warning”. See the inhabitants of Moby Station react when an Order ship passing by their beacon network. The Order are a horrible and merciless race which spark fear in the hearts of everyone within the known galaxy. You never know when or why they’re going to strike!
“Warning” introduces a number of new characters which will frequent the website in the upcoming months! For those of you who were following “Fated Visit,” don’t worry, I am continuing that story!
Enjoy!
September 8, 2014
Workspace or Lack thereof!
I’ve finally completed my move! I now sit in my new apartment overlooking… well, the parking lot. Its a decent sized apartment and we managed to fit into it without having to get rid of everything we owned, so score! Unfortunately we are now living among a hundred boxes… Not even full boxes, but the empty ones all broken down and clumped in their own boxes. Right now my kitchen table is completely covered in these boxes!
Unfortunately the kitchen table is also my workspace… I do have a desk in my room but I can’t watch my little one from there so the kitchen table has always been where I write… and game. I’m finding my temporary solution to be difficult for writing anything more than… well, this post! A TV table does not make for a good workspace! I’m finding it very difficult to sit down in front of my little TV table desk with the hopes of producing anything worthwhile.
So until those boxes are located elsewhere, I can’t really accomplish much. (It doesn’t look good for my attempt at a September NaNo either) I had hoped to get back on track and producing more stories from the Chaotic Galaxies, but it appears that it might be another week before I get my recycling sent out and my table screwed back together. I apologize for the delay, I really want to get back to regular updates!
Thanks for baring with me!
July 28, 2014
Packing and Updating
… really more packing than updating. I move next month, hince my lull in updates, so the steady stream of boxes has begun! Today I tackled the computer room, which was a lot of work given the massive collection of books and computer games which fills the room. I managed to get most of them all neatly stored away in boxes for the big move. (I say big move because there are stairs involved, not because we’re going far).
Luckily I also sat down to work on the next installment of Fated Visit, available here! See more of Rox’s childhood as well as the preparations leading up to the fated meeting of Chloi and Jerovin!
I really do enjoy writing about young Rox, as she’s one of my favourite character of all time!
“Rox groaned, this was going to be a longer day than she expected.”
Couldn’t resist adding in a line from the story. I hope you enjoy young Rox as much as I do!
