So, the project been submitted for grading, and now I’m just waiting.  Waiting on the grade. Waiting on a somewhat unclimactic ending to completing my BA degree. The last few days has not seen any new words added to my project. I haven’t been resting, rather, I’ve been completing the assignments for my other classes. Today is the first day I’ve really rested.

But it’s not resting. I feel like I’m waiting on something, and I’m not entirely sure what thst is. Seems strange, even to me, and I’m fairly strange. Perhaps, and this seems very likely, I’m just waiting on my final grades. Do I have a 4.0? Only time will tell…and it won’t be too long of a wait. The grades have to be in by a certain time.

I don’t want to just wait, though. Rest, maybe, but I feel my life has a good, positive momentum, and I want to keep moving forward. I’m just not sure how. I am a writer in waiting, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to wait around. There is a lot to do, I’m just not sure what to do next.

At just before 6:00 pm today, I reached, and slightly surpassed, the goal of 25,000 words I set for myself not quiet thirty days ago.  I feel an incredible sense of achievement which, quiet frankly, could prove to do more harm than good.

While I have successfully crafted nearly 30,000 words on a long-form story, the novel isn’t complete. As it is, I have worked my way through about half of my original outline. This means I still have, likely, another 25,000 words to go. Without the impetus of a goal, and the consequence of a grade behind it, I’m wondering if the last 25,000 words will actually make it onto the page. Knowing I can do something, isn’t the same thing as being motivated to do it. Once a mountain is conquered, do people really feel the desire to conquer it again?

Camp NaNoWriMo starts in just over a couple of weeks. While I am not, at this moment, inclined to attempt another 25,000 words again, I believe setting a goal of 12,500 words will allow me to keep that lovely pace of writing a few pages by hand, then revising them as I enter them into my word processor.  I will of course, need a new goal, something tangible.

Perhaps I can decide which of my friends I’m going to look forward to torturing with the completed rough draft? Or perhaps, I can make a wager of a significant amount which will motivate me to plant my but in the chair, and put my hands to the keyboard. I might pledge to provide $100.00 dollars to a worthy cause if I do not complete this story. The point is to attach a consequence to either doing, or not doing, the work to tell this story in full.

 

 

So, as the title of this blog implies, this content is being created as part of a scholastic endeavor.  I just got waylaid by said scholastic endeavor.  If anyone out there has been paying attention, it’s clear my word count hasn’t increased in three days.  This is due to needed to provide a culminating representation of my work for the last seven weeks. I had in mind I would complete an infographic which summarized information regarding National Novel Writing Month, the inspiration for the SoloWriMo, and the content of this blog.

I sincerely underestimated how difficult it actually is to create an infographic. I discovered on Monday morning, I needed to submit a rough draft of the infographic by Tuesday night. Hello, learning curve.

Thus, Monday was dedicated to figuring out how to create an info graphic. The bulk of the day was spent on trying out various methods of infographic creation. Sometime around midnight I discovered http://www.canva.com. This sight is amazing for wysiwyg infographic creation. Around four am I had a slight handle on my infographic and stumbled to my bed.

Beginning Tuesday at 10 am I infographed. I infographed like the wind, breaking at noon only long enough to grab a bagel and cup of cold coffee. My infographs (cause all the info wouldn’t fit on a single graph) made it’s way to grading around eight o’clock.

Wednesday was spent recovering from Monday and Tuesday and attending to my other class assignments. This brings me to Thursday, today. Today is the day; the writing day. I will be delving into the remaing 4,000+ words I need to complete before noon on the 18th.  Writing. Writing must happen. Writing will happen, and it will be the writing that counts.

 

In an earlier post, I stated I would share how I formulated my story. I developed the plot for The Prince and the Pirate Princess by utilizing the Once Upon A Time Storytelling Card Game. The makers of the game have created a companion Writers Handbook which provides guidance on how to use the cards for developing the basic elements of a story. It is a simple guide which is ideal for someone new to narrative craft.

While the cards and companion book are great for beginners, the system isn’t only for beginners. I had been writing for several years, and there were still juicy little tidbits of advice in the book which I hadn’t had the opportunity to learn.

The cards feature lovely artwork with just a touch of whimsy, and are great for breaking through cliched concepts, such as the “Evil Step-Mother” or the “Fair Maiden” when developing a new short fairy tale. The basic set offers more then enough to activate the imagination, but there are expansion sets which increase the variety of charaters, settings and plots which can be developed from the cards.

Images Courtesy Of: Atlas Games

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