What's Up Wednesday: Catching Fire and Catching NaNo

What I'm Reading
So I finished that romance book and moved onto The Near Witch by Victoria Schwab which I just finished last night. I've heard so many people rave about her books and so I finally put all of them on hold at the library. I hate to say that I just didn't feel The Near Witch. The writing was really good, but I found the book slow. I didn't get into it like I wanted to. But that doesn't mean I'm not giving her another try. Up next- The Archived (also by Victoria Schwab).

What I'm Writing
I reached the NaNo goal of 50,000 words on Sunday! !!! I'm still not done the book, although I'm pretty close. I might not make it to 60k but I'm not worrying about it. Right now, I just want to type THE END, hopefully by the end of the week. (Maybe even today!)

What Inspires Me Right Now
The Phantom of the Opera has been hugely inspiring to me while I've been writing this manuscript. It figures prominently within the book. While I've been listening extra hard to my playlist hoping to catch a song that fits, the only one so far has been this one:

Relax My Beloved by Alex Clare is appropriately creepy

What Else I've Been Up To
 
Last Friday night I saw... CATCHING FIRE!!! Here's the deal. When The Hunger Games came out I was so stinking excited. I reread all the books right before and I just couldn't wait to see the movie. This time, I was much less excited. November has been so busy, not to mention the fact that my daughter's birthday party was the same day that I saw the movie. Also, I didn't reread the books this time. So I just didn't get all that excited. But if it's possible, I loved Catching Fire even more than The Hunger Games. The movie was a lot more intense, I spent the most of it on the edge of my seat. I loved the relationship building between Katniss and Peeta, I loved the new tributes. Everyone did such a great job. Since I didn't reread the books, I didn't notice any glaring differences. The only thing I didn't like? The end. The fact that I have to wait another year for Mockingjay and it's only PART ONE. Goll. Have you seen Catching Fire and what did you think of it?

Head over to Jaime's blog to link up if you want to participate in What's Up Wednesday.

What's Up Wednesday: Loki Love

What I'm Reading
I finished Eragon in record time, but I have to admit I skimmed a bit. To me during this read, it seemed unnecessarily long, but that could be because I haven't read fantasy in so long, or the fact that I've read this already and didn't want to be bothered with paragraphs of description. I picked up From This Moment On by Bella Andre because it has a similar premise to an idea that I've had for awhile. It's only the second romance I've ever read and while it's a quick read and the story itself is entertaining, I'm reminded again that category romance isn't really my thing.

What I'm Writing
I've got less than 10k to go for NaNoWriMo! I took a day off on Sunday which turned out to be a great idea because then on Monday I pounded out almost 5k. I keep telling myself I have until the end of November, but then I argue that I don't need to take it slow for no reason and it's only a bonus if I finish earlier than scheduled. Here's hoping.

What Inspires Me Right Now
I don't know if it's inspiration so much as the drive to get this WIP finished. That's all I'm feeling right now is the push to finish. Also, this song helped me a lot with that major writing spurt on Monday:

The Point of No Return from Phantom

What Else I've Been Up To

Last weekend I saw the new Thor and it didn't disappoint. I read an article about how they went back after they had finished filming to shoot even more Loki scenes and thank the Norse gods for that! (It could have used even more IMO.) Loki really made the movie, although I loved everything else about it, too. This weekend: Catching Fire!!!

What's Up Wednesday: Rereading

What's Up Wednesday is a weekly blog hop. Head on over to Jaime's blog if you want to participate.

What I'm Reading

I read Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell which was amazing like all her stuff. She is the queen of memorable characters and catchy dialogue. Now I'm re-reading Eragon. I've read three of the four books but it was so long ago that I have to start from the beginning before I read the last one. I feel this is a bit ambitious because I know the library is going to be sending me some books mighty soon...

What I'm Writing
More than halfway to the NaNo goal at 27k! I'm really happy with my progress so far. I still feel like my WIP is a bit of a mess, but I think that might be because I'm not rereading what I've done, just carrying on right where I left off. Also, I'm juggling a lot of characters and writing a mystery which is new for me so... yikes! But at least I'm getting the words out.

What Inspires Me Right Now
This:

What Else I've Been Up To 
Over the weekend I went to my parents house with the kids. We helped them put up their Christmas tree and the kids had tons of fun with Grandma and Grandpa. I also got my words written, which was surprising since I didn't think I'd get to them while I was there. All in all, it was a pretty good week.

What's Up Wednesday: Reading, Writing, and Decorating, Oh My!

It's What's Up Wednesday day. Head over to Jaime's blog to see what everyone else is up to and link up your own post if you want.

What I'm Reading

 This past week I read both Just One Day and Just One Year by Gayle Forman. I loved these books like crazy. They had the kind of characters I wish were my friends and the kind of settings (different places around the world) that I wish I was in. My only complaint is that I wish both endings had MORE. I want more AFTER the fact. This is just one my things, though- a thing I'm guilty of in my own writing (too much AFTER).

What I'm Writing
I've done really well so far with my NaNo goal of 2k a day. So far I'm up to just over 13k!!! I feel a little bit like this WIP is a mess but I'm forcing myself NOT to worry about that and just get the words out and the story told. Most of my first drafts are messes anyway.

What Inspires Me Right Now
All the other writers out there doing NaNo and killing it! I can't believe some people's word counts! I'm happy with doing 2k a day, but hearing people do four or six or even more just makes me determined to stick to my goal and get this WIP written.

Also, these:

 

My NaNo WIP is tentatively titled JAR OF HEARTS

What Else I've Been Up To
Else? ELSE? Who has time for ELSE? Just kidding. Actually, Halloween was last week and seeing all the costumes was really fun and my kids had a great time trick-or-treating. We were lucky to have okay weather, too. (And by okay, I mean it was cold and snowy but not blizzarding or minus thirty.)

We've got a Furby, Hulk, Supergirl, and a Spanish Princess

 

Then, once Halloween was over, I started putting up CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS!!! I don't have my tree up yet, or my stockings, but most of the rest is up and I love it!

Front door Christmas decorations

Yikes!

Today is the start of NaNoWriMo!!!

Yikes. That pretty much sums up how I feel. Yikes.

Anyway, I'm posting today to say that I probably won't be posting much during the month of November. I'm going to try to participate in What's Up Wednesday every week but that'll be all as I try to write ALL THE WORDS. Or, 50,000 of them. And try NOT to die of stress and/or brain explosion.

Good luck to all the other NaNo-ers out there, and good luck too to all those who aren't NaNo-ing because they're revising or taking it slower or even just taking a break. Luck to me too, that I make it through this month.