Weekly Reads and Writing #11

You would think after 10 weeks of doing these posts, I wouldn't forget to make one. But...I nearly did. Luckily, however, it's only Monday, so I'm not too late. This past week was slow for me, I must admit.

In the book department, I ended up finishing nothing, HAHA. No really though, I didn't finish a single book last week. I'm sort of working on three at the moment, which I started last week, but I might stop two of them, to focus on the one. While Afterwords and Alienated are both really good so far, I can feel myself falling into a reading slump with them, and I'm trying desperately to rescue myself.

I'm about 100 pages into Dust by Charlies Pellegrino, which is quite different from my usual reads. I'm liking it, though, and I'm hoping somehow I'll finish it by the end of the week. Maybe. IDK. Either way, I'm hoping it'll keep me out of a reading slump.

Since the end of Camp NaNoWriMo, I've severely been neglecting writing. I did write a bit last week, though, and I won Camp NaNo!

Writing Stats

Words This Week: 4,270
Total Words Written: 50,118

So I got some writing in, but not much. I need to get back into it, and not just stop 'cause of NaNoWriMo being over.

I'm hoping to do a lot better with both of these this week. I'm slightly busy, though, so I can't make any promises. Either way, I'm still looking forward to whatever I do get done this week.

Hope your week was better than mine! 

Camp NaNoWriMo 2015 Conclusion!

Yesterday was the last of the month, and thus the end of Camp NaNoWriMo 2015! As you can see by the banner above, I won! Whoo hoo! I reached my goal of writing 30,000 words!

Writing Stats:

Words Written: 30,002

Total Words: 50,002

I started writing my book on March 3rd, and over the course of the two months, I wrote 50,000 words! Considering I didn't need to push myself too hard, I think I did really well! I'm quite proud. Of course, 50,000 words isn't a complete novel, and I am just about halfway, so I still have a lot to write. I'm going to keep on writing, and I'm hoping to have my first draft done within this month or the next. It's really exciting to be nearing the end of writing my first real novel!

I hope everyone else reached their goals this month, and keep on working on writing/editing/whatever you spent the month doing. I've never been so excited about writing, and NaNoWriMo has really encouraged me to keep at it!

Weekly Reads and Writing #9

As it's turning out, I seem to have a steady average going on how many books I can read a week. For the third week in a row, I've read one entire book, and some other stuff along the way. Though I am hoping to pick up my pace, knowing I can read an entire book, without trying too much, is pretty nice.

The book I finished this week was A Magic Dark and Bright by Jenny Adams Perinovic. Just based on the lovely cover and premise, I was very excited to get approved for an ARC of this book for review via NetGalley! I have my review for it up here.

That ending, though! Holy cow, if you've read this, you know what I mean. This book hasn't even come out yet, and I already want a sequel!

I have also been working on City of Glass, and Get in Trouble! I'm about halfway through the former, and I have only about 3 stories left in the latter! I will most definitely have both done by the end of the week, as I plan to start a bunch of new stuff on Saturday, which is Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon!

 Writing this week started off really slow. While I managed to get some words in most of the days, they never reached 1,000. However, yesterday I had an amazing writing day, managing to get in over 2,000 words in one sitting.

So as far as my Camp NaNo goals, I am pretty far behind, only 13,455 words so far.

Writing Stats

Words This Week: 4,419
Total Word Count: 34,514 

I am pretty excited for this upcoming week. As I mentioned, Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon is happening on Saturday, so I'm pumped for that. It's my first 24 hour Read-a-Thon. I will definitely have a post about it up early this week, to let you know what I'm gonna be reading, and what my plans are for the read-a-thon!

Because I'll be spending all of Saturday reading, I'm gonna push with my novel this week. I really need to catch up if I want to hit my 30,000 words by the end of the month! Also, I'm secretly plotting to out-write my fellow campers on Camp NaNo's site. Shh, don't tell them, lol.

I also have so many blog posts and Booktube videos I'm planning to make at some point this spring!

It's going to be an exciting reading and writing week! I hope everyone has a lovely week, as well.

Camp NaNoWriMo Halfway Update!

We are just over halfway through the month of April, which means Camp NaNoWriMo 2015 is halfway over! And I have been doing....not so well! Up until this week, I was keeping on track, but I've slacked a lot this week. My word count is just over 10,000 words, when it should be closer to 15,000 if I want to reach my goal by the end of the month.

Fortunately, it has been reading which has been getting in the way, so I don't feel particularly bad about it. I've also been making videos for my Youtube channel, writing reviews, making blog posts, and editing my blog! (Check out my new 'Reviews' page at the top of my blog which links every one of my reviews in alphabetical order!)

Still, none of those are excuses for not writing. I simply have been putting it off because of boring bits. I've been itching to get to the alien parts, but I still need to get some other stuff in first. Thus, I'm going to spice things up by throwing in a fight to give the story some action! I'm also pushing some alien encounters up a bit, so they become more a part of the story.

While writing, I also realized that this story is going to be a lot longer than expected, lol. I'm sure I'll end up editing stuff away in the end, but still, it's a lot to write.

So over the second half of this month, I'm gonna focus a lot more on writing writing writing this story. I really want to reach my 30,000 word goal by the end of it. So I'm gonna participate in more writing sprints on Twitter, and really try to get in my words each day. The 25th, however, I will be reading all day because of Dewey's 24 hour Read-a-thon. I'll have a post up about that soon!

I hope you all are doing better than I am with your writing! I'll keep you informed in my Weekly Reads and Writing posts at the end of each week!

Camp NaNoWriMo and My Novel!

Hello everyone! In order to get myself to write my novel more, I've decided to participate in Camp NaNoWriMo this April, which starts tomorrow! I think being a part of something like this will motivate me to keep writing. By giving myself goals, I can aim toward them and encourage myself to write more and get my novel done!

I've decided to make my word count goal 30,000 words, which comes to 7,500 words per week. Based on my previous writing stats, which can be found on my Weekly Reads and Writing posts, on a good week I can write about 5,000- 7,000 words. So I thought I'd kick it up a notch and try to get about 7,500 words done per week. Hopefully that's a good pace, and a good way to get myself writing about 1,000 words daily.

If I can keep that up, I'll have 50,000 words by the end of the month, since I've already written just over 20,000. I'm also hoping to be right in the heart of my novel, with aliens everywhere and the end of the world looming!

So to start off this Camp NaNoWriMo journey, here is a quick synopsis of my novel!

Aliyah is trying to deal with the hardships in her life, including her brother's OD on heroin, when an alien planet is discovered. Her life gets interrupted as Earth tries to contact the planet, sparking the beginning of a possible war. However, the alien that's been visiting her speaks of a peaceful world, a refugee planet that may save humanity from its destruction. But as hostilities begin, can Aliyah save those she loves by convincing them to take a risk on the new planet?

 It's not that snazziest synopsis, but the story is just taking off, and I'm bound to change something about it. I think it sums it up fairly well.

Let me know if you're joining Camp NaNoWriMo! I'll be keeping you updated on my progress each week along with my WRAW posts. Happy writing!