Camp NaNoWriMo day 31

Today's Word Count: 50,108

It's the final day of writing and Bookkeeper is SO done.

Admittedly, last page of writing got pretty bizarre as she tried to stretch things out and wrap them up at the same time.

But it's finally over, and the bookkeeper can try interacting with her fellow humans again.

Over the last two or three days, the bookkeeper has been reading up on a mysterious thing called "good posture" which she'd been ignoring up 'till now.

It's so great to learn about all the wonderful back problems you can get from slouching.

Another thing that's been bugging Bookkeeper is just how hard it is to avoid cliches in her story.

The trouble with writing a fairy tale is that fairy tales INVENTED a lot of cliches.

Near the end, as she started to run out of inspiration, the Bookkeeper gave in to the cliches and decided that she could always edit 'em out later.

Well, that's it!

Here's the bookkeeper's final Nanoism for the month:

Camp NaNoWriMo day 29: Character Names

Word count: 46,427

Today Blogger isn't being very friendly and won't let her upload pictures for some reason. So you get to "enjoy" this post in 100% text.

Well, recently the Bookkeeper has gotten tired of writing - not that she's giving up, of course. But she decided that  her character's names were too long and has started calling them by nicknames such as:

Gabriele = Gab
Rumpelstilzchen = Rumpel
Lord Sigifrith = Lrd Sig
Liese = Still Liese, 'cause it's not a long name

Probably she'll be calling them G, R, L S, and L by Friday.

Camp NaNoWriMo day 27

Word count: 44,839

Hello there. Bookkeeper just found out that she never sent the post had planned for last Saturday. And now she's overwritten whatever it was that Saturday's post was supposed to say. 

So... here's the pictures for Saturday's post, at least:

We're not completely without text though, as Bookkeeper did make note of a couple Nanoisms she made:

They would have to go and take the key from Round Lord Sigifrith's neck.

That was meant to be short for "around" not Lord Sigifrith's title.

She was happy to see that no one had taken off Rumpel's head yet.

It was supposed to say "no one had taken the hood off Rumpel's head yet."

Camp NaNoWriMo day 22

Today's Word Count: 40,047

It's the 22nd day of OYANoWriMo and the 22nd day that Bookkeeper's been building callouses on her fingertips.

During NaNoWriMo last year, the bookkeeper noticed that the more she wrote, the smaller her handwriting got.

This year she realized she was doing the same thing again, going from 579 words per page to 1,729. That's more than a whole day's suggested word count on one page.

Just try not to think of how hard those tiny letters will be to read later.

Writing small is just one of the problems she'll have when reading her story later. There is another problem that plagues handwriters, especially those who write with pencils:

Eraser crumbs under the paper.

You never notice them until you hit one and your pencil slips.

Since the bookkeeper didn't notice any NaNoisms while she was writing and she's too tired to go back and check for them, she's going to end her post with this:

The lazy "book cover" she uploaded on the Camp NaNoWriMo website as the cover of her novel.

Camp NaNoWriMo day 20

Today's Word Count: 35,355

This last weekend the bookkeeper was finally able to draw her main character with a worried smile! It's harder to draw than you'd think.

And today the bookkeeper wrote a rather interesting sentence:

She had to read it a couple of times to remember what it was supposed to mean.

Here's a hint: "he" refers to two different people.

Camp NaNoWriMo day 17

Today's Word Count: 29,620

So! The bookkeeper has finally caught up on her word count. Now what?

It's not like she can celebrate with her Camp NaNoWriMo cabin mates.

Why?

Besides the bookkeeper herself, no one in Bookkeeper's Camp NaNoWriMo cabin has updated a word count in over a week. She's beginning to think they were all eaten by bears.

"More marshmallows for me then..."

So instead she's going to pretend you're all applauding, patting her on the back, and throwing confetti.

Anyway, Bookkeeper is sure you all want to hear what NaNoisms she's written this time.

He covered his hands with his mouth.

That takes some concentration

The chair the queen was sittin ing.

And finally, to end this post, a drawing. Bookkeeper decided to draw Gabriele in the margin of her page to illustrate a facial expression she described in her story (a sort of nervous smile).

What she actually drew is nothing like she was visualizing.

WHAT IS THIS?

Apparently she is incapable of drawing a nervous smile.

Camp NaNoWriMo day 15

Today's Word Count: 24,657

Huzzah! For the first time this month, bookkeeper's reached where she's supposed to be in her word count!

And now she's eating peanut butter chocolate candies as a reward.

Because she was writing like crazy, she didn't draw much in the past two days. She also didn't sleep much.

But anyway,  in her last post the bookkeeper mentioned that if she did NOT reach her word goal by today, then she'd have to write whole post about how awesome her brother is.

Fortunately for you, she won't have to.

Unfortunately for her brother, though.

Good night everyone!

Camp NaNoWriMo day 13

Today's Word Count: 17,412

Do you realize that the bookkeeper is still behind on her word count? It's day 13 and still she's never caught up to where she's supposed to be?!

And that she still isn't stressed out?!??!?!

EVEN THOUGH IF SHE KEEPS TYPING HER POST LIKE THIS YOU MIGHT EVENTUALLY THINK SHE IS?!?!!!?!??!

That's right. This lack of stress seems a little abnormal for a typical NaNo author who's behind on her word count. Is this healthy?

You might want to stand back from your computer screen in case it's contagious.

Anyway, since Bookkeeper needs to catch up pretty quickly, she's setting a goal for herself. If she can catch up to her word count by Wednesday, she'll treat herself to some peanut butter candies.

(If she doesn't she'll have to write an entire post about how amazing her brother is and how he should be supreme dictator of the planet. That should be enough motivation.)

Today Bookkeeper realized why Gabriele is such a flat character. It's because Gabriele's friend Liese is so easy to write! She ends up taking control of every plot event.

Liese is like a character development vampire.

The only way to fix this? Get rid of Liese of course!

Really. In the story she just vanishes mysteriously and the bookkeeper will invent a reason later.

Basically, Gabriele needs a chance to stand on her own. If her character doesn't shine through now, the story might end up being about Liese.

Which might not be a bad idea.

That's all for today, except for this parting NaNoism:

If you couldn't guess, the blanket was green.

Good night.

Camp NaNoWriMo day 11

Today's Word Count: 15,224

Bookkeeper got a cold yesterday.

Today she sneezed on her work-in-progress novel, so now when people ask to read her novel, they'll have more to look at than doodles in the page margins!

Apparently this isn't an issue for people writing their novels in word processors.

Ah, the benefits of being old-fashioned.

But the bookkeeper has upgraded somewhat. Since she moved, she's been writing on a small tilting desk named Dave. Really, that's what the company named it.

A friend recently found a lovely desk for Bookkeeper at a thrift shop. It looks something like this:

Bookkeeper was going to put up a photo of it too, but she can't find her camera chip.

That's all that Bookkeeper can think of to talk about right now. Maybe when she can get all of the stuffing out of her head, she'll write more.

And now, a parting NaNoism.

Camp NaNoWriMo day 9

Today's Word Count: 13,347

Today is the nineth day of Bookkeeper's OYANoWriMo writing project.

It's also the second day in a row that Bookkeeper's stayed up late to write only to be awoken early in the morning by a construction crew working nearby.

This will be fun to revise later.

But really, what Bookkeeper's learned as an artist applies here. You need to work on your project WHENEVER YOU HAVE A SPARE MINUTE. Even when you don't want to, or it's bad quality, or whatever. Otherwise you're not practicing art, you're practicing procrastination.

Guess what? The more you practice procrastinating, the better you'll get at it. :D

Bookkeper's four years in a row of failed NaNoWriMo novels are pretty good evidence of that.

Anyway.

No new characters showed up in this day of writing and the bookkeeper didn't really feel like drawing the king or queen. So instead of a reoccuring character, Bookkeeper doodled an idea for a Koboldin.

Wow her left ear is HUGE.

Reading over some of what she's written so far, Bookkeeper noticed another typo she makes repeatedly. So here's your parting "NaNoism" - enjoy!

Suddenly, it's VeggieTales!

...If you say it out loud, you'll sound like Goofy.

Camp NaNoWriMo day 7

Today's Word Count: 8,921

Greetings everyone! Today the bookkeeper was feeling artistic. You can tell because she drew headshots of three of her characters in the doodle margin of her page.

So, now you get to introduce yourself to these three characters.

...Unless you've already met these characters Bookkeeper's previous posts, in which case you can stand just around awkwardly and mumble "Hi."

Gabriele. Her name is pronounced "gab-ree-ell-eh" because guess what? That "E" on the end ain't silent.

If you really have trouble pronouncing that, just call her Gabriella and you'll be close enough.

Gabriele is the main character of the story. The bookkeeper has great ideas for Gabriele's character, but none of them have shown up in the story yet. Right now her character is flat as roadkill.

Liese. Yet another name with one of those pesky non-silent "E"s. It's pronounced "Leez-eh".

Or, for the pronounciation challenged, "Lisa."

So far, Liese is Bookkeeper's favorite character to write. Interesting fact, Liese is the first of the bookkeeper's characters to ever receive a negative score from The Universal Mary Sue Litmus Test. (Click the link if you don't understand)

Rumpelstilzchen.

Unless you're German, you probably won't be able to pronounce "Rumpelstilzchen" without sounding like you're chewing gum and having a coughing fit at the same time.

The closest Bookkeeper can get is "HOOM-pel-stiltz-hee-en" which is still wrong. Just pronounce it Rumple-stilts-kin.

Rumpelstilzchen hasn't shown up much in the story, mostly because Bookkeeper knows how much her word count will suffer if she has to write Rumpelstilzchen over and over.

Well, that's it for today.

Oh, wait! *Rummages in files* Here's a drawing Bookkeeper did of Liese that she never put up. Enjoy!

Camp NaNoWriMo day 6

*Help! I seem to have lost my voice.* 

Today's Word Count: 7,818

Bookkeeper is still trying to catch up on her word count. This time her excuse is that relatives are visiting this week.

Not that these relatives are keeping her from writing, the bookkeeper just thinks she needs an excuse.

Today, just for you, the bookkeeper drew a picture of her boot.

It has nothing to do with her story, but she kept tripping on it and rather than put it away in her closet, she decided to draw it.

One trouble with handwriting a novel is that if you aren't careful, you can end up with odd spelling mistakes.

These are a bit different from the problems she has while typing. Namely Fingers-On-The-Wrong-Row and Hitting-Caps-Lock-Instead-Of-"A"

One mistake is the capital "G" that looks like the number six.

6riele told him that she was the king's daughter.

Also there's words that are written too closely together (and sometimes misspelled, too) that end up forming new words.

The man walked out with his headlowered.

Gabriele did not a thing but worry for the woletime.

But the bookkeeper's most persistant problem seems to be closing the top of the "u" so it looks like an "o".

"Yoo are not strong enoogh by yoorself."

Alas. The perils of hand writing are terrible. Another thing you typists out there are missing out on is how pencil lead constantly rubs off on your fingers and turns them silver.

It's true. In fact, to end this post, here's a smiley face Bookkeeper drew using this method.

Camp NaNoWriMo day 4

Today's word count: 4,000 (such a nice, non-messy number)

Today Bookkeeper went to a picnic for most of the day, so the time she set aside for writing was mostly spent writing. Not drawing. So sorry to disappoint you.

A nanoism for you, to end this post:

"I was simply given this package to give to you and yoo only."

Camp NaNoWriMo day 3

So! Bookeeper is doing Camp NaNoWriMo this month. A fact that she's conveniently forgotten to blog about until now.

If you recall, months ago she was working on her story for OYAN (the One Year Adventure Novel curriculum) in a notebook.

Then she moved. And sometime between putting all her notebooks in a box and taking them out again, one notebook went missing. I'll give you one guess which one that was.

Yes. She lost her story notebook (though she did find the notebook with all her plot ideas and research).

So anyway, while she was looking for a good reason to start writing it again, she came across something called "Camp NaNoWriMo" and all it is, is the National Novel Writing Month goal of writing 50,000 words in one month... in the summer.

Long story short, Bookkeeper's now writing her OYAN story for Camp NaNoWriMo.

She calls it ...OYANoWriMo.

NOTE: Bookkeeper is not continuing her story from where she left off, she's starting over from the beginning with nothing but her plot notes. Fresh start, different plot bunnies, a bit of a different take on the characters. Just in case anyone was confused.

Word count so far: 2,621

Bookkeeper should be closer to 5,000 words at this point, but she started almost two days late and is writing her fingers off trying to catch up.

There goes a good twelve hundred words up in smoke

Here's a tip: Not updating your word count just because you're embarassed of it doesn't fool anybody. It makes you look like you aren't even trying.

And now. What You've all been waiting for: The Stuff Bookkeeper Doodles In Her Page Margins!

Here we have the main characters, Liese and Gabriele:

Whose names the bookkeeper is constantly mispelling:

And poor Liese keeps being called Lies 

But mispellings are all a part of the NaNoWriMo experience. In fact if you're writing on a computer, the bookkeeper reccomends turning off the spellchecker and autocorrect.

But Bookkeeper is almost out of pictures, so to end this post, here's Bookkeeper's first major mispelled "nanoism" of the month:

"Oh, that sands just grate!" Said Gabriele.