April, Wattpad and The End Of Downton Abbey

I’m very excited for the next NaNoWriMo session that starts this coming Wednesday! I’ll write further on a story I actually began two years ago, in another NaNoWriMo session, which I’ve been outlining this week. My word count goal is a reasonable 25,000 words, not nearly enough to finish the storyline but certainly more than adequate to give me a good push in the right direction. 

Another project I have begun, thanks to my writer friend Guy Sigley, is the publication of a very early WIP on Wattpad. Reading Guy’s hilarious satire, The Chronicles of Barnia, centered around a socially awkward man and his adventures in daily life, has opened my eyes to the possibilities of gaining exposure on Wattpad. Please check out Guy’s story at http://www.wattpad.com/user/GuySigley and mine at http://www.wattpad.com/user/ElizabethConrad810. My story is called The Lonesome Road, centered around three jazz musicians in the 1940s onward. 

In other news, I read this morning that Downton Abbey will indeed end after series six. This saddens me as much as any other Downton fan. I will miss it tremendously, but am thankful that I own all of the DVDs and iTunes downloads. In my house, Downton will be alive forever! I do appreciate that the writers have promised to wrap up storylines and show us where the characters are past the end of the series. If given a choice between seeing the show struggle along for ten more years with beloved cast members and characters leaving one by one and a complete, satisfying ending, I’d rather see it end with closure. I hope the rumors of a post series movie becomes reality!

 

A Milestone!

I’m so happy that I finished my first round edits on my first completed novella, titled Emerald at present. I truly hated editing when I started but have been falling in love with the process over the last five weeks. During this time, I did learn quite a lot about myself and my writing style. My characters can become extremely verbose when they are explaining their rather odd circumstances, so I had to pare down between two and three thousand words! It’s good to not get overly attached to certain parts of dialogue in the editing phase! I also see that I’d make things much easier on myself if I had even a loose outline from my prewritung activities. So, I’ll keep these things in mind as I begin to prepare for April and the Camp NaNoWriMo session that will be here soon! I’m very excited, having this experience with one project. I’m ready for more!