11 Questions & Write-A-Thon Conclusion

My CP and friend Tobi tagged me in this snazzy bloghopping phenom: 11 Questions. I was compelled to answer them.

The 11 Questions I Had to Answer:

1. Favorite TV show?
So hard to choose! Though I'd probably say One Piece. Hmm…
Can I pick more than one? How about I just split it into three categories - 30 min, 1hr, and animated. In order, Parks and Rec, Castle, and One Piece!

2. Beach or ski resort?
Hmm… well… I'm scared of the thought of skiing, and I hate deep waters (where mysterious creatures lurk, like sharks and jellyfish and Cthulhu). I guess the beach for the ice cream. Yum.

Cthulhu waits for you.
Let's snorkel and see the jellyfish.

3. What's your favorite part of the writing process?
Writing character interactions. Nothing was more fun in EQ than writing Red/Wolf conversations, or Hunter/Tertius. And in Knight, Erin/Matthew convos.

4. Self-publishing or traditional?
Hmm… I guess self-publishing. I'd like to be a part of both.

5. If you could have any one food every day for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Rice. Maybe ice cream. I don't suppose the two would combine well, huh?

6. If you met an alien, what would you do?
I hope I would act like Pegg and Frost in Paul. We'd all chill and hang out and have an adventure. Just, no drugs. Alcohol is ok.

7. Would you prefer watching a mediocre movie or a really, really bad one?
"You're tearing me apart, Lisa!"

8. How do you relieve stress?
Video games, for sure. Tetris or Picross are great no-thinkers, or any RPG to level-grind. I like to do monotonous tasks, haha. And, of course, read.

9. If you ever got the chance to participate in a really big tomato fight, would you take it?
Omg, yes!

Who could say no to this madness!?

10. Craziest thing you've ever done/would like to do?
Hmm… I'm a fairly boring person…
I guess moving to Chicago after college! Does that count?

11. What are your favorite boys' and girls' names?
Well, my favorite boys' names are: James, Matthew, & Tobias
And my favorite girls' names are: Emily, Emma, & Anna



Ok, so, 11 new questions for any of you awesome people that feel like doing this. I have no clue who to tag, so if you see this and would like to answer some silly questions, have at it.

1. What's your favorite fairy tale?
2. Have you ever written a scene that suddenly introduces a new character not previously created, and that character becomes important?
3. Quick! You're trapped in a library with a zombie! You just threw Pride and Prejudice at its head. It doesn't appreciate classics. What do you do next?
4. How bad was that joke?
5. Do you have a favorite genre?
6. Would you stay in a supposed haunted house overnight if given the chance?
7. Favorite color or pattern?
8. What made you want to start blogging? If you don't have a blog, would you ever consider starting one?
9. Seven-leagued boots or invisibility cloak?
10. What's the oddest thing you've heard/seen while in an elevator? Or, if you've never been in an elevator (hey, anything's possible), the strangest thing you've heard/seen while waiting in a line?
11. If you woke up inside your favorite movie, what is the first thing you'd want to do (besides find a way back home)?

Write-a-Thon #1 Overview

Well, how many words can I write in a day? Not many, when I let myself get distracted. Haha.

I did fairly well from 10am to 2pm. I didn't write many words, maybe close to 4,000. But I did plan out the first 2/3s of Damsel, a little bit more of WS, and I wrote chapter 6 of WS, and I had a lot of fun. But, and I can't believe I did this, I turned on the TV!

I don't know what I was thinking. Maybe for bg noise? Terrible idea because the next thing I know I'm sucked into two dramas - Morgan Freeman's Lean on Me, and Matthew McConaughey's A Time to Kill  And then at 7pm, which was the time I expected to stop, Once Upon a Time, Desperate Housewives and GCB came on.

(For the record, I don't watch Desperate Housewives regularly. I've seen two episodes, and that's because it's between OUaT and GCB. But I kind of wish I did watch it, because it seems pretty interesting.)

(Also for the record, this is probably one of my favorite episodes of OUaT. Though I was disappointed by one or two things in the real-world of the show. The fairy tale portion was flawless.)

Snow and Red plan to hunt the wolf,
in the episode: Red-Handed

Why did I turn on the TV?!

So, I think next Sunday or the one after that I'll try a mini Write-A-Thon, to see how many words I can write in half a day. And this time I won't turn the TV on.

Write-A-Thon #1: 3 Hour-ish Mark

So... my crazy plan to write the day away is going both well and terrible.

What I've discovered so far:

1. My plan to 'write whatever I feel like writing' is not a good one. I think I need to decide to work on just one thing, or maybe two, splitting the day at a definitive point. Because, man, my brain jumps to different things WAY too often.

    Woke up around 10am thinking it was 9am because, haha, did you know the clocks changed last night? Well, wrote 300 words of random fun to start off my day and then ate a late breakfast with Ghost Adventures on as background noise, because I was eating something too messy to type while munching on. Jumped back in for another 200 words of random fun. Then trouble hit.

2. Mapping out a book counts? No? Darn.

   Around noon is when I decided to switch tracks. I wanted to do something a little more focused and useful, so I re-read chapter five of WS to jump into chapter six. Got a couple of hundred done for that and then, bam, mind jumped. I decided, hey, why not map out Damsel (book 2 of Mist Walkers)?

   So, I started mapping out Damsel. I must say, I'm super excited for Damsel. Mist Walkers is four books long, and, while I shouldn't be picking favorites, I think Damsel is going to hold a special place in my heart. I was relieved at how easily mapping out the first third of Damsel was, compared to how WS drags its feet through almost every chapter and planning session.

3.  That's when I realized that this experiment for the day was working both great and terrible. I want to be able to sit down and focus, but I had essentially told myself it was ok not to focus so long as I was writing. Pros and cons on both sides.

4.  I probably shouldn't type with my laptop actually on my lap. Ouch. Hot.

5.  So, I'm going to try and spend the second half of today, after my break for lunch and before I quit for Once Upon a Time at 7pm, working exclusively on chapter six of WS and the first section of a short story I started last week.

But, all in all, the experiment has been great fun so far. And that's really what counts.