General update-y stuff.

Howdy. Aw, it makes me happy to see my spiffed up blog. Anyway...

NaNoWriMo


As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm (slightly) taking part in National Novel Writing Month. I say slightly, because everyone who knows me knows that I have the attention span of a squirrel and so writing 1667 words a day, every day, probably wasn't going to happen. I've gotta admit...I'm a little lot behind schedule. I'm on 7,310 words and I've got 16 days to go. Probably more than likely not going to finish. Apparently if I write 2512 words a day from now on I can finish in time. I don't write every day though (cos I'm lazy) so if I want to finish I'll have to write a lot when I do write. I prefer it that way anyway. Once I get into writing a scene, I won't stop until I've finished and I'm happy with it. If I don't finish, I'l be disappointed, but it won't be the end of the world. It is my first year, so I'm taking this as my 'practice run' (yeah I know, excuses, excuses!)

I'd been planning this story for a while though, so this month is just a way to get the writing of it off the ground. I'm going to carry on writing the 'zero draft' as quickly as possible, even if I don't finish it before the end of November. Then I'm going to edit the hell out of it and turn it into a first draft. Then decide if I want to continue with it, or file it away foreveeeeeeerrrrrr. I love the story though, and I'm a bit in love with my characters. Even the minor ones. I have all of their stories and backgrounds planned in my head, and I know what motivates them to do whatever it is they do in the story. The main character is extremely similar to me, which is making me feel a little vain, but aren't all main characters thinly veiled versions of the author in some way or another? I'm certainly learning a lot about myself as I write how Sarah (my protagonist) reacts to certain situations.

I've been posting snippets of my story (I don't have a name for it yet) on my tumblr. You can find them here, if you're interested!

My Internship 
I'm going to write a post about my internship on book blog, as I think that makes more sense! Again, you can find it here if you're interested! Which of course you should be, because I am extremely interesting! ;)

Happy 2012 Project
I'm starting to plan my Happiness Project for 2012. I've mentioned this before, obviously. The idea is based on Gretchen Rubin's book and blog The Happiness Project. 

(Clicking the picture takes you to Amazon)

I'm doing my own version, obviously with much different goals than a married mum of two from NYC. Brilliantly though, Rubin offers 'Happiness Project Tool Kits' for people starting their own project, so that will be lots of help. 

Blogging updates 
I've made several half arsed vows to myself and others to blog more regularly, but as well know by now, I'm exceedingly lazy, and so I often forget/can't be bothered to blog. Or maybe it's just that life as an unemployed ex-student is rather dull and not worth blogging about. Hmmm...I'll say a mixture of the two.


Anyway, this time I actually am going to start blogging more regularly. Promise. PINKY PROMISE. Ooohh. Can't break a pinky promise, or...bad stuff will happen.

Regular updates and reports on my Happiness Project will be happening, at least once a week.

I will also be introducing a feature called 'Funny Things My Brother Said'. I've seen quite a few bloggers/twitterers I follow do this with their kids/other relatives and I always enjoy reading them. Then I thought well hey, my brother is hilarious. He says funny things all the time that make me think 'I'll have to remember that one...' I sometimes post stuff he says on Facebook/Twitter, but I think it would be nice to keep track of them all here. An additional benefit, other than the happy memories, is the amount of material I will collect to humiliate him throughout his teenage years. I'm so a great evil big sister!

So yeah, hopefully those two features, along with any random musings I may include, should hopefully get me blogging more regularly!

Any other general/random stuff

• I have an induction into Berkley and Scott on Wednesday. It's a catering services employment agency...thing. They work with hotels/restaurants etc and send them staff to work at events/functions. Hopefully I should get quite a bit of work out of that over the Christmas period. Yay, money. It's always good. Helps buy Christmas presents. 
• I'm volunteering to help out with the tea/coffee counter at King's Church. This will hopefully stop me being lazy and make me get out of bed and go every week, instead of deciding that I'd rather have an extra couple of hours in bed. It will also hopefully help me meet new people and make some new friends. I'm not the most confident person around people I don't know, and having something to do always makes me feel more comfortable. 

Aaaaaaaaand I think that's about it. I need to go write a post on my book blog, and then get to writing a bit of my story before I crash out!