Calaquin.com

I am locking this site down today, so you won't be able to post any comments. I won't be updating for a few months while I am gone. Feel free to look around the site, since everything will still be displayed.

If you wish to get in touch with me, use the contact page. I won't be able to get back to you until some time in March.

Thanks for stopping by!

I am locking this site down today, so you won't be able to post any comments. I won't be updating for a few months while I am gone. Feel free to look around the site, since everything will still be displayed.

If you wish to get in touch with me, use the contact page. I won't be able to get back to you until some time in March.

Thanks for stopping by!

I am changing the way comments are posted on this site. From now on, I have to approve any comments that appear in my posts.

I am sick of dealing with the spam here, because they are the only comments I get. I don't mind the lack of real traffic, but I'd rather not have to deal with this shit.

When I leave for basic training, I will disable comments all together, because I don't want to return to a huge flood of spam. If you wish to contact me while I am gone, please use the contact page.

In less than one month, I leave for Army basic training.

This will last ten weeks, so during this time I will be unable to write anything for this website. After that, I go to my advanced individual training, and I have no idea when exactly I will get access to the Internet again.

Right now, I don't have a whole lot to discuss. NaNoWriMo is over, and I've ordered the books for my friends and family. It looks amazing on the inside, and is by far the best looking novel I've ever put together. I can't wait to distribute the books.

Here it is:

I just want to say that I am very, very pleased with createspace.com.

NaNoWriMo has some deal with them that lets winners get a free copy of their novel, and it covers shipping as well. Yesterday, I uploaded all of the files for my book, and this morning everything was processed and ready to go, but I discovered that I had messed up the page numbers. I fixed it, then reuploaded the files. It said I would have to wait another 24-48 hours.

Two hours later, everything was ready again! I was very happy. Then a few hours after I placed my order, the book shipped. So within about six hours, createspace.com had processed my work, printed it, packaged it, and shipped it, and I didn't pay a cent.

Of course, I'm going to be paying them for more copies once I get the proof. Each copy will cost about $4, and I'm going to order about 12.

I think the book is going to look awesome. I'll post pictures as soon as I get it!

I decided to stop trying to write a second project this November because I was lazy. Also the story wasn't going anywhere and I had other things I wanted to do. But still, I got 80,000 words. That is awesome.

So that makes four wins, and five participations in the National Novel Writing Month for me. In a way, it's now five wins because, with 80,000 words, I made up for the 30,000 words I didn't write in my 2006 NaNo. I can't claim that as a win, but I no longer have to be upset about that loss.

This was by far the easiest of the NaNoWriMos. I didn't have school or a job, so I had plenty of time to write. Also, I had a story that went fairly smoothly. I got a little crazy by the end of it, but I seem to do that every year anyway. The hardest parts were around words 60,000, having passed 50k but still having another 50% to go. I skipped a few days and had some slow days. Then I came back with my record-shattering 13,000 word day! I don't think I'll write that many words in a single day ever again.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the plot. It went in directions I never imagined, and it all tied up quite nicely at the end. I even managed to salvage a boring sideplot that had nothing to do with the story, but by the end it fit in nicely with everything.

The writing, however, probably didn't turn out so great. I know I reused a lot of phrases and words over and over, especially the word "glanced." There were long scenes of dialog that only served to move the plot, but rarely gave the characters any meaning. I was so focused on the plot that the characters ended up coming second. This is the first year this has happened. Characters always come first.

But one character, Alexandra Ivanova, ended up being the most interesting of them all. She was supposed to be the antagonist, but I twisted her part in the story so much that she nearly became the protagonist. I was very happy with the way she turned out.

I thoroughly enjoyed this November. It was nice to have an easy, yet exciting NaNo, and my 75,000 word goal kept it challenging. I think I might go for the full 100,000 words next year, or in some distant year if I can't. I am pretty sure that I am done with the 50,000 word goal though, and it's time to take on bigger, more exciting challenges. I've also thought of some other ideas for NaNo:

• Write 1,000 words, run a kilometer.
• Eat a pinecone before every writing session (or a full raw onion) to get angry and write a very angry story.
• Instead of writing, speak the entire novel and have the computer type it for me.
• Write the entire novel in first-person (this is the scariest of the possibilities for me).

We shall see what happens...

This second story is coming along slowly, but that's okay. I'm really not too worried about it. I've already broken tons of personal records this year.

The book form of To Defy the Gods is looking awesome. I'm using the Microsoft Office 2010 beta to put it together, and it has some great new features for novel stuff. I'm still never going to actually write a novel with it though.

This will, by far, be the best looking book I've put together. I've learned a lot from the previous three books, and I think this one is going to look like something you'd actually see on a bookshelf. Of course, the spelling and grammar on the inside probably won't look so great...

Spacing and paragraph indentations never looked right before, but this time I got them to look perfect. Everything is aligned nicely, and the pages have really cool headings. I still need to get the ISBN information from CreateSpace, but after that, I'll be able to put the novel on Amazon.com for the low, low price of $2,999.99!

I've just started my second novel, or rather, novella of November. I'm writing in first person, but I don't know where the story is going at all.

I think I might post this thing online for everyone to read. It depends on how much it sucks. I'll keep this site updated as I go. 12 days to go!

I won

I feel pretty satisfied with my story, and ended it in a way that I liked.

Tomorrow, I begin NaNoWriMo 2009 Part Two - Dawn of the Hour of Reckoning

I'm going to write a 25,000 word novella without any planning at all. If I don't finish it, it's no big deal, because I reached my goal for this year. This is just a spontaneous thing that I think will be a lot of fun. I would just really like to get to 100,00 words this year. I've wanted to do that for a long time, and this will be the best year for a while to do it.

For those of you who are a ways from winning, or very far behind, keep writing!