NaNoWriMo Meets Multitasking

So there's this long running joke that goes along with NaNoWriMo that for the month of November you give up everything that does not have to do with your novel. Except that in many cases it really isn't a joke at all! Many loads of laundry and dishes, and many showers are pushed back until the end of the month, as are other tiny details such as grocery shopping and making time to acknowledge your other family members.

Even if you are a fast typist you feel the press of time during November and all of us try to fit in our normal lives along with the daunting challenge we had just taken head on. Usually this works well for me. I've managed to be a full time student and go through finals for my past three Nano's and I've also had all sorts of things going on, such as a job one year and a little day called Thanksgiving that is really about five days long in my family.

While the hundreds of thousands of are off writing sometimes we have to multitask. Maybe that just means plowing through your word count as quickly as you can while the baby is sleeping, or maybe that means tying in your sleep because if you don't do both at the same time you won't get either! I was definitely multitasking today, but I didn't plan on doing so. I am a furious fan when it comes to Utah State University football and basketball, and of course since it is Fall I have both to deal with. I just so happen to have both happening today. I had it all planned out - write before the football game and during half time and then more afterwards.  Well it sure didn't happen that way! I ended up writing before and right through the whole game. I am honestly surprised that I managed to crank out 4K while listening to a football game that I was very much invested in! So, while I was sprinting away, I was also doing this:

Of course you just read all of my posts backwards, but you get the idea. Props to my writing friends for being worried about me going astray! That is what writing friends are for!

So, it is a Saturday in November, which means you are bound to have something going on. Were you doing any multitasking today? Or did you stick it out all the way, solid as a rock? If you did, you are amazing. Way to go writer!

- Heidi Nicole Bird

A Glorious Thing Called a Sprint

And so here we are nearly at the end of day two of NaNoWrimo. At least for me. Some of my friends are already on day three, which is crazy and awesome all thrown into a jar at the same time. Today really didn't go as planned, that is for sure. I had it all planned out that today would be another high word count day, but I really didn't think it would happen in the way that it did!

Every morning there are certain things I do. Exercise, read scriptures, eat breakfast, do some cleaning, etc. Today I ended up sleeping in, and once I had done all my usual things it was something like noon already. It was already noon and I didn't have any words down! Jeepers!

Have no fear though, I sat myself down and started to plunk out those words, starting and running some sprints as I did so. I had a good amount of words in finally. Awesome! So then I took a break because I had to make a menu for the week and go grocery shopping. Might I add that I paused my story at a point where my MC was also grocery shopping. Coincidence? I think not! That is the cool thing about being a writer. You live what you are a writing, or in other words you live what the characters are making happen.

By the time I had gone shopping, made dinner, and everyone had gone their ways I was wiped out. I only had 2,784 words for the day! (Yeah, yeah, I am an over achiever, I'll admit it). That was, until I was perusing the NaNoWriMo Facebook group and reading posts, which led my weary and dried out eyes to fall upon a poor soul calling out for an immediate sprinting partner. Who was I to say no? I, one of the most furious lovers of nano sprinting? And besides, it was only a ten minute sprint! I could do that.

And so we sprinting, and it was glorious, and I was proud to have a few more hundred words to add to my work count. Not a minute after that sprint ended one of my new good writing friends asked if I wanted to embark on a daring journey, "one last sprint" for the night, she called it. Okay, so I gave in, and we started without establishing how long we were going to sprint for. When I asked she suggested thirty minutes. THIRTY MINUTES!!!

Thirty minutes may not seem very long when it is the amount of time you will need to prepare dinner, or to drive to see a super awesome fireworks show, but to me in that moment thirty minutes seemed like the expanse of eternity! But, being the avid sprinter that I am, I agreed, throwing out a few words about how I didn't know if I would last.

Amazingly enough, I did. We finished our sprint and much to my happiness my two spontaneous sprints had put me up nearly 2000 words! And so I am now finishing the day off with 4,767 new words, giving me 8,603 for my grand total!

And so, my dear writing friends, whether you are doing NaNoWriMo or not, allow me to let you in on a not so recognized thing: word sprints are glorious things! In fact, I believe they are literal gifts from heaven. Write on people! Write on.

- Heidi Nicole Bird

The Final Countdown

Okay, so last night I was sitting at my computer, straining my eyeballs, baring blinking, and staring down the official count down on the NaNoWriMo home page, as many of my fellow writers did in their own places and time zones. I'd been hearing all night about my friends starting and how they had started off the new year with a bang, and it was finally going to be my turn. I seriously was barely breathing, I kid you not! As soon as that counter hit "0" BAM! I was off like a rocket! It was intense! It was a very appropriate moment for this song to be playing in my head:

I can not even tell you how wonderful it feels to be at this again! Earlier this year I wrote my first novel that was not for NaNoWriMo and I did Camp NaNoWriMo in August, but neither of those are even close to the same thing. There is just something about the real deal, doing it in November with hundreds of thousands of other people, all over the world, all of us trying to achieve that goal, that dream, of finishing a novel.

I was so proud as I was typing away like a maniac to know that for the first time my Mom was upstairs doing the exact same thing. She did Nano with me two years ago, but she didn't end up finishing and she has never written at midnight. It was a big deal. She is upstairs writing again as we speak. She is off to a great start!

I am also proud to say that I am very happy with what I have done today as well. I didn't spend a ton of time writing today, but I've ended up with a total of 3,836 for the first day. SCORE! Very proud indeed. It is definitely a great feeling to start out more than a day ahead. I am very blessed to be a fast typist and in my last 20 minute sprint I pulled off a rocking number of 1,146 words!

There are always some bumps in the road, and I am sure that this is going to help me out later on, especially in the doldrums and sludge that we all encounter each third week of NaNoWriMo. I swear, it is unavoidable, even for people who have been rocketing ahead. It is a good thing to be prepared, that is for sure.

I was a little worried about NaNoWriMo this year. The past three years that I have done Nano were the only ones I've done it and for each year I worked on a part of a trilogy, and this year is the first that I have done Nano with new characters. That was daunting to say the least. I've had the same characters along for the ride every time before this, and now I've got some new players of the game. I'm also tackling a new age group, which has been interesting, but that challenge has been fantastic! I am very happy with how things have gone so far, and I look forward to the rest of what promises to be a fantastic month! I'm definitely feeling one or more of my notorious 10,000 days coming some time in the near future!

So, are you doing NaNoWriMo this year? If you are, I would love to hear about it! Also, good luck! Even if you aren't ahead of the game from day one you can still make it to the finish line on top!

- Heidi Nicole Bird

Always, ALWAYS Backup!!!

Hey there! I just wanted to let you in on a little secret of mine, because I want as many people to know about it as possible! One of the most important rules you can follow as a writer is to always backup your work! Nobody can ever tell you that enough times. For any of you who have lost some of your work, you know just how painful it is to lose something you have written. So, I want to tell you about what I do to prevent losing my work.

In June I purchased my very first Android. Woohoo for awesome smart phones! One of the free apps that was included on the phone was Dropbox. I just let it sit there for a long time, but once I tried it I was amazed! You may have heard about Dropbox. You seriously need to check it out! It blows my mind! You can download it on all your devices (computers, phones, tablets, etc.) and have access to your work on every single one of them. As you add content using one device your Dropbox folder is automatically updated on all your other devices! You can also access all your work from the web. The best part about it all? It is completely free! You don't ever have to worry about losing your work again! If you one of your devices fails, no worries! You can still access all your saved work online and re-download it all!

Dropbox is seriously a glorious thing, and I am so glad that I found it and that somebody out there decided to make it! I have seen some other programs like this as well. Do you use something like this? What do you do to make sure you never lose a single word? Hopefully this will be helpful to somebody out there :)

-Heidi Nicole Bird

Look Out World, Here it Comes!!!

Hey everybody!  Welcome to my new blog! For those of you who were following my much neglected blog "Antonyms of Reality" my blogging has moved here! I plan on using this as a main center of operations to keep all of you up to date on what is going on in my writing world. To help you out there are some super handy dandy tabs up there! Things are still at the bare bones stage right now, but soon I will have all of those pages full of information for you. I can't wait until this more organized and centralized blog is up and running completely how I want it to. It is exciting!

So, obviously I haven't written in a while, which you should be able to tell if you look at the dates of my previous posts, which I imported from my old blog. I'm turning over a new leaf! Why? First of all because I love writing. Second, because it is nearly November, and for me that means NaNoWriMo!

For those of you who don't know, let me introduce you to the madness! NaNoWriMo was created by Chris Baty and it stands for National Novel Writing Month. It is a challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days during the month of November! Crazy? Maybe. Fun? YES! The other eleven months of the year I spend wishing that NaNoWriMo were here again, and finally, it is only within hours!

NaNoWriMo changed my entire world and my life. I was first introduced to the program by my long time friend and then roommate Rachael. She brought it to my attention and we did it together in 2009, and ever since I have done it ever year. I was instantly hooked, and I doubt I will ever be able to get out of this one!

NaNoWriMo is one of the programs that is run by the Office of Letters and Light, a non-profit that I will talk about under the "Sites I Follow" tab. I owe much to this organization  and it is one of my dreams to be an intern with them during NaNoWriMo some day. During the months of June and August many people also participate in Camp NaNoWriMo, which is the exact same concept in the summer "smack-dab in the middle of your crazy life." This year I joined in on the fun and participated in August.

Before I was introduced to NaNoWriMo I had started many stories, too many for me to even think back on and remember, but with a clear goal and a definite deadline I finally finished a story. So far I have finished four books and I am a little more than half way finished with my fifth. All of these have been written for NaNoWriMo or had something to do with it, and here I am, about to start my SIXTH novel for yet another Nano!

If you can't tell, I am excited! Why? Because I love writing, and I love NaNoWriMo! I love how it has expanded my world. I love how many friends it has given me, and how many I gain each and every day! I love what Nano has taught me and continues to teach me about myself. This year I will be tackling a story unlike any I have done before. It is going to be a challenge, but it is going to be awesome! I'll tell you all about it in another post, ideally tomorrow!

So, for those of you who have been following, thanks for tagging along, and for those of you who are new, come join the wild ride! I hope you follow my blog and keep up with what I am up to! Soon under the "Contact" tab I will have information including email, twitter, and Facebook ways that you can follow along as well. Here's to a great month ahead!

-Heidi Nicole Bird

Deep Sludge

One of my all time favorite movies is A Goofy Movie, and one of the most memorable quotes, at least for me (there are MANY!) is after Max tells a major lie to Roxanne. As he walks away from her doorstep he looks down and states "I'm in deep sludge."

That is what I feel like right now. I've hit a rut. A bump in the road. This is probably obvious considering how little I have posted this past while. The problem now though is that the bump in the road has inverted itself and created a hole. A sort of bad, sort of awesome hole. See, the problem is that all I want to do is write. That's it. All day, all the time. I don't want to do anything else. I just want to work on my two current novel projects and get into the published world!

Unfortunately I live in the real world (even though I prefer not to, and I try not too, hence my love for writing fantasy). Since I live in the rather dismal world that this is, I need money, which means, I need to get a job. Like now. I'm literally at the end of my rope, so much so that I canceled my cell phone! Annoying? Yes.

So, lately I've been checking out the online freelance circuit. There is definitely a lot out there, but there is also a lot of competition and a lot of places that don't pay very well.

So, my question for you is, have you ever done freelance writing? Have you been paid for your writing in some form? Last week I did score getting paid for an article, but not much. Still, it's a foot in the door!

- Heidi Nicole Bird

For Real

Ok people, I have returned to put you at ease. No, I have not died, I am still here and pumpin! And this time I intend to be back, FOR REAL!!! Crazy, I know, but lately I have been so gung-ho about writing there's just not much to do about it. I have created three more blogs about other things that I love to research/write about and I am determined to keep up on this one as well! I have also started to write in other places online, and I will also be getting back into my novel writing. Woohoo!!! My goal is to finish my current project and get going on making a second, MUCH more polished version of my first book. Here's to posting, writing, and editing! I hope the rest of you haven't been slacking like I have been, because it really isn't fun. Let's do this thing!

-Heidi Nicole Bird