“What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.” – Samuel Johnson
Posts tagged Starbucks
November Ends
Dec 1st

I did it again. Back-to-Back!
Another moth is in the history books, and what can I say, November was an entertaining month to say the least. However, the biggest challenge I had throughout the month was successfully taking on the 50,000-word task known as National Novel Writing Month.
I was doing it for the second consecutive year to see if I could pull of the miracle of writing that many words in my new environment of living in St. George, living with roommates and such.
Needless to say: It was a bust.
So I started waking up around 9 a.m. to start writing at a local Starbucks. Boy, did that change things. I saw my word count shoot up and there were times when I was considerable ahead of the pace. But then something would happen, and I would fall back down the ladder. Entering the final four days, I was at 42,000 words, which is scary if you think about. I cranked out a thousand words between the day before and on Thanksgiving, but I wasn’t really focused on doing things away. Then on Sunday, I realized the uphill task of having to finish this thing, which was scripted out so all I had to do was cross off each plot point I was making key in that 1,000-word span.
After playing my newly purchased video games Left 4 Dead 2 and Fifa 2010, around 2:30 a.m. I began writing to get myself up to 45,000 to make the final day easy. I noticed that I was able to write 2,000 words in less than an hour, giving me plenty of hope.
I got to Starbucks around 10 a.m., started writing at 10:30 a.m. and approximately two hours and 40 minutes later, I was a 2009 winner of NaNoWriMo.
Now, all I know is that this story needs a lot of work. Plot holes to fill and such, but that’s what December is for.
Or is it?
I’ve floated an idea in my head and I’m going to start working on it tomorrow to plan it out. The moment Dec. 4 rolls around, I will write the first 2,000 words of the novel that I plan to have released sometime next year.
Also Script Frenzy is in April, meaning I’ll be writing a script. Sounds like fun huh?
So as November, comes to a close, I look back at it and say, damn that was a lot of green tea.
Quick Hits from the Month of November
- I officially did not attend a single UNLV football game for the first time since 2003.
- I continued my streak of seeing UNLV basketball in some shape or form for the seventh consecutive year.
- The final word count to my Novel was 50,036.
- I took part in Black Friday for the second consecutive year in a row, buying Fifa 2010 and Left 4 Dead 2 for $35 each.
- I saw just the second state title of my prep coverage, seeing Snow Canyon high school win its fourth state volleyball title
- I covered my first Jazz game.
- I wrote a column that is in my portfolio, along with a couple of front page design clips.
See ya folks in December.
NaNoWriMo — Home Stretch
Nov 23rd
There are seven days left in November, meaning I have seven days to finish this novel of 50,000 words. I’m sitting at 35,000 words and I expect myself to finish by Wednesday because I’m going to make sure of it. I’m going for broke in the next three days.
I’ve been telling people what my novel is about and the thing is, I haven’t been telling people what it’s really about. Most of the people think it’s about pirate ninjas. It’s not really about that, but I like telling people what the idea should be. Maybe, I’ll write the children’s book concerning the pirates and ninjas one day, but I’m not in any hurry.
As for that the story is really about? I’m not really at liberty to say because I’m still fleshing it out in terms of being a workable plot. The major thing is I’m just trying to get the words on the page and advance through 50,000 words, so if and when the time comes to edit it and make it better, I have the general idea and all I need to do is clean it up.
It’s been crazy because I got off to a ridiculously slow start. Then things changed, when I decided to take my writing to Starbucks where the sounds of coffee makers and green tea (and peppermint mochas) make it seemingly easy to write. One day I swore I wrote 5,000 words in a day. I want to finish and start working on the next project I have, which I’ll keep to myself again.
All I can say is it involves more writing.
It’s been an interesting 23 days, and it can only get more entertaining, especially about another reason why I like Starbucks. I’ll take about it in another blog post. Maybe.
Check back. I’m going to start blogging more. I promise.