Keeping Myself Sane

Hey friends and dedicated readers of GLR! Most of you might remember that back on November first I featured the Chuckie Goodnight Foundation. Those folks are really cool and have a whole bunch of fun stuff on their website that is aimed specifically at kids in order to teach them about the benefits of environmental protection.

Another thing all of you fine peeps might remember is that I have officially signed on as a NaNoWriMo participant this year. Why? Well simply because I know there are a few novels inside this old head of mine that are going to cause it to explode if I don’t let them out! So far the challenge is going great and I am staying on track to my personal goal of 2,000 written words per day.

So what do these two things have in common?

Well in the greater sense of the world at large, not much, but in my world they have met with a sweet hug. While perusing the Chuckie website I came across a coloring page. I saved it because I had meant to include it with the last post on these folks but in the end forgot to do so. Here is what it looks like in its original state:

I love that they have included a whole slew of different animals and ecosystems into this one fantastical rendering. A long time ago I read somewhere that coloring is a very calming activity so I decided in order to shut off my brain from characters and dialogue for a while, why not pull this baby up in Photoshop and give it some punch! I have always been a literal coloring gal, even as a kid I was not the one who created a purple sky or orange whale so in keeping with my standards here is the finished product:

I had to make a few minor line placement adjustments to make sure they were connected in certain places so when I used the fill bucket it didn’t fill in half the page but voila! I love how it turned out and for the thirty or so minutes I was filling this baby in my mind was completely free of clutter.

I think I might just have to locate my colored pencils (always my favorite over crayons) and print out a few copies of this just in case I get stuck on a scene. Freeing my mind helped me to write almost 6,000 words in one day so thanks Chuckie Goodnight Foundation! I feel ready to tackle the second half of this writing challenge.

National Novel Writers Month Is Taking Over the Green Leaf Offices!

Those of you who have been reading GLR for the past year may have picked up on the fact that I love to write. In fact so much so that I host another blog and publish articles online as well. What many of you may not know is that I have long dreamed of being a novelist but could never seem to fit it into my already jam packed life.

As you may have guessed, the real issue here was my fear of just going for it with reckless abandon. Generally speaking it was because most of us writers have that sneaky inner editor that eventually shows up to convince us that what we have written is crap; sadly I have listened to it all these years.

But no more!

NaNoWriMo is an event, which takes place in November every year, that allows writers to lock away their editor and throw out the key until December. The way to win NaNoWriMo is to write a 50,000 word novel (minimum) in just 30 days. Woo hoo!

I have a few fantastic characters who have been trapped inside unfinished 8,000 word stories for far too long now and the lucky one who has come out to play is a pretty cool gal named Sarah. The novel is a chick-lit style where she and her friends (not to mention an overbearing mom) live their life on a day to day basis and we readers get to share in 50,000 words of it.

Some basic outline and a few plot twists and turns have been put to paper already but for the most part this is going to be the first time ever that I have:
A. written something this long
B. mostly developed my cast on the fly
C. been encouraged to write 1667 words of fiction per day
D. done something this insane in my writing career
E. been so jazzed to see the end result

Because the month is going to be a blur of characters, I will potentially be posting a little less in the way of reviews. As of now I have done a big push to front load a whole bunch of posts that are scheduled to go up automatically through about the middle of the month, and I am allowing myself up to five days off from the book so I plan to jam in a whole bunch of reviews during that time too. You may see a post or two from Melissa during this month as well, who knows!

As a little teaser I will tell everyone that one of the characters in the story is very eco-centric and has made a fortune on a Green line of products.

I hope everyone has a great month and I do intend to report back on my overall progress either here or over at Random Lunacy sporadically during November.

If you would like to track my progress on the novel feel free to visit my author page!