Like Sand in an Hourglass

Every few months, I visit Barnes & Noble’s website to research when authors’ books are slated to be published. I scan through all the novels on my bookshelves and, once I come across a book whose sequel I don’t know much about or if I’m curious if the author had written anything else since I read their last book, I will punch their name into the B&N search engine to find out more. And if I find anything useful, I record all the upcoming books and their publishing date in chronological order on a Word document. Most of the time there is usually at least one book being released per month that I desire, and this is the easiest way for me to keep tract of everything.

When I was researching earlier this week, it started pretty uneventful. One book’s pub date was pushed from June to December, which was fine with me – because I still haven’t read the previous book yet. But other than that, I didn’t learn any new information from the small handful of authors I had looked up.

On a whim, I entered an author’s name who I had practically given up on her ever releasing a sequel. The way her book ended, it felt like it had the potential to be a duology or trilogy, but at the same time, the storyline itself felt complete enough where I would be satisfied if nothing more was ever written about it.

Except the sequel is being released in ten days! (Turns out, it’ll be the conclusion to a duology.)

Kat Falls’ INHUMAN is actually getting a sequel? I was in shock.

This book was published way back in October 2013. I didn’t read it until three months later, but it blew my mind when I began to think about my own life during this time. I was a senior at MSU, and I even remember which building on campus I had cracked opened this book to read it for the first time. I was killing time between classes, and because there were no proper benches to sit on, I plopped myself on the dusty tiled floor (far away from the melting snow that everyone brought in from the front doors) and leaned against a wall to read.

It’s been five years since I’ve read this book. I honestly can’t even tell you anymore what the quality of writing was. I remember bits and pieces of the plot, but I have no idea if I’ll remember enough once I eventually read its sequel, UNDAUNTED. I’m hoping there’s a summary I can find somewhere on the internet; otherwise, I’ll have to go with the flow and do the best I can once I read its sequel. 

“Why don’t you just reread the first book?” you may ask.

Except I currently have twenty unread books sitting on my dresser. If I reread INHUMAN, then my pile isn’t getting any smaller. In fact, I’ve only reread one or two books since 2016. There are just too many interesting novels out there in the world, and I only have so much time on my hands.

Over the years, there are only a handful of books I have reread. Those beloved books that made an imprint on me.

But I’ve been thinking: Is there a certain number of times you have to reread a novel in order for it to be categorized as your “favorite” book? Or how long ago you last read it?

For example, if someone were to ask me what my all-time favorite book was, and I had to give only one answer right now, without a doubt, I would reply, “Stolen by Lucy Christopher.”

According to my book logs, I’ve read this Printz Honor book four times. It was published in 2010, but I first discovered it at my local public library a year later. After I had read it, I was determined to buy Christopher’s book if I ever found it at a bookstore. And sure enough, I eventually did. 

But the last time I read it was in December 2014. 

It’s been a little over four years since I last read this book. Yet, I can still remember a majority of the plot. The various ways the protagonist tried to escape her captor. The unique way of how the book was written as if it was an extremely long letter. The vivid details, especially in describing the harsh and desolate landscape of Australia’s Sandy Desert. (Which was practically a character itself.) It was a beautifully written piece of work.

And as I’ve been thinking about STOLEN these past few days, I’ve been tempted to pick it up and reread it a fifth time. Do I have time to squeeze it in a weekend? How much guilt am I going to feel at not reading one of my unread books? Why am I attributing thoughts to inanimate objects??

To be fair, I’ve spent the last two weeks in this weird “nostalgia” headspace. Books aren’t the only thing that has me thinking about the past. Music has contributed to this as well.

One example of this is with the singer, MARINA – formerly known as “Marina and The Diamonds.” I started listening to her music way back in summer 2012, but she hasn’t released an album since April 2015. I can even tell you which writing project I was working on as I was listening to her songs on repeat. But now, she is finally dropping a new album next month. It took four years.

What have I been doing in the past four years since she released her last album? What about five years ago when I had last read INHUMAN? Or even better, what about six years ago when it marked my anniversary earlier this week for when I decided that I should seriously pursue writing as a career option?

Even though I feel like my life is constantly just this giant waiting room, time seems to slip by too quickly and silently for me to grasp.

Expressing Thoughts

If you can recall a post I had written last June (right HERE, if you need a refresher), I was involved in my church’s Writing & Content team for the summer. Toward the end of summer, there was a writing session where only three of us could make it for that week. The leader, me, and another guy.

At some point, we were discussing about what kind of topics we were thinking about writing. In a half-joking matter, the non-leader guy – let’s call him Jay – expressed his frustration at how he had all these good ideas when he’s talking to other people about them, but when he sits down to write these ideas, he doesn’t remember them anymore.

“It’s almost like I need to carry a voice recorder with me,” Jay said. “Just so I don’t keep losing all my ideas.”

“It sounds like you’re an extroverted* thinker,” I remarked. He gave me a blank look, so I continued on. “I’m the same way. I have to write things down or say them aloud in order to process my thoughts. I probably look like a crazy person when I’m mumbling to myself, but it works.”

I don’t know if Jay ever employed any tactics to help him out since then – he did state that he lives alone in his apartment, so at least no one can judge him if he talks out loud to himself – but I’ve been thinking about this exchange lately.

Like I mentioned in my last blog post, I’ve been actively writing for the past nine days. (Well, I’m not counting today. I still plan on writing later tonight. This post technically doesn’t count.) My original plan was to begin my super short writing goal on Feb 18, but it didn’t quite happen that day. False start.

But since last Tuesday, I’ve been making an effort to write a little bit each day. The idea is to write at least an hour, but sometimes it doesn’t work out that way. Sometimes it’s only 30-45 minutes. Last Saturday I wrote for almost two hours. It all depends on how much time I have allotted myself in the evening and whether I’m in a mood to write more.

Surprisingly, none of them are fiction pieces. I’m honestly not quite sure what to call them. Personal essays? Some of them are memories that I’m writing about; others are just something interesting that had happened in my day, and I felt compelled to basically record it. Not like I live a very exciting life in the first place.

But the fascinating tidbit about them is, in all of their closing paragraphs, I seem to circle around the same two or three topics. Clearly there are some concerns that my brain feels important enough to keep calling attention to. It’s processing and reevaluating.

The big question is: can I find ways to resolve these particular issues/worries?

Either way, the workings of the mind can be cool and weird at the same time.





*If you research any sort of Myers-Briggs test, they will give you a completely different definition of what makes a person an extroverted or introverted thinker. (And that’s only if your dominant trait is Thinking rather than Feeling.) I wish I could remember and locate the article I had read long ago, but basically, the “extroverted thinking” I’m referring to is when you do your best thinking by having a conversation – whether with someone else or pretending that you are. So in a sense, you seek out people to bounce ideas off of. The “introverted thinker” is fine with just sitting there and sifting through the thoughts in their heads.

A Jumble of Randomness (aka: Snippets of My Life)

I struggled with writer’s block as I tried to come up with an idea for my mid-month blog post. I brainstormed some things that I either experienced or events that had occurred during these past two weeks, and honestly, I feel like my mind was all over the place. I’ll attempt to create some sort of order, but here’s what I’ve been thinking about lately:

1.) Still decluttering

That’s right – the fun hasn’t stopped since last month. I’ve been heavily attacking all the contents hidden away in the kitchen. My first business was the deep pantry. Bought two adjustable shelves to stack spices on one shelf, which worked beautifully. This way, you can now physically see everything instead of trying to locate a particular spice on either the plastic turntable or the overflow surrounding the turntable.

It took a little while to come up with an idea on how I wanted to organize the two shelves below the spices, but after a trip to my local At Home store, I got it figured out. Three sets of two clear bins now contain all sorts of dry good items on one shelf. As for the other, I got two wire shelves to place against the wall. All three shelves now also have a small light attached to the wall off to the side to illuminate them, because the kitchen light does a poor job of lighting the pantry in the evenings.

Next, I started thinning out the cabinet where we keep all the water bottles and casual dishes. Stacked all the water bottles into neat vertical lines. The following day, I went after the mugs.

My family has a mug-collecting problem. As in, they could be found in five different locations throughout the kitchen. Which is ridiculous. They were even starting to stack in front of drinking glasses. And the sad part is, only my Dad and brother uses them.

So I pulled out every single mug I found hidden away.

There are a total of 104 mugs.

Or should I say, there were that many mugs. I managed to convince my Dad to part with 40 mugs, which will eventually be donated. Now all the mugs can be found in only three different locations. (Two of which are on two shelves in the same cabinet.) It’s a start.

The next day, I tackled all the vases and fancy glasses. Everything we kept is now in straight orderly lines instead of cluttered together.

After all this, the kitchen still isn’t completely decluttered, but it’s definitely improving. Wish I could put my skills of organizing on my resume, haha.

Oh! And I’ve also been cleaning out my bathroom drawers. Bought drawer organizers and assigned different places for particular items. I have all this extra space since my sister moved out back in December, so I might as well take advantage of it.

2.) Snow

I’m tired of snow. I spent Monday-Wednesday shoveling/snow blowing by myself. I even woke up yesterday morning with sore arms and shoulders.

On Tuesday, the snow was heavy with rain from earlier in the morning. Which made my shoveling much more difficult. I didn’t even try the snow blower, because I was afraid it might ruin the blower’s mechanics in some way.

Fifty minutes into shoveling, I only managed to clear a third of my driveway. Across the street, a truck pulled into the driveway of my neighbor’s house and plowed through their snow. I narrowed my eyes at the company truck. Show off, I thought.

Once the majority of the driveway was cleared within minutes, the man got out of his truck and started his snow blower. I stopped shoveling and watched him, wondering if it’d actually work for him.

He plowed through the sidewalk and pathway leading up to the house with ease.

Which was good news for me, because it now meant that I shouldn’t have a problem with my snow blower. But it also meant I labored for almost an hour when I could have just used the snow blower in the first place.

So once the man moved to a house two over to work on clearing their snow, I reached for my snow blower. I didn’t want to make it obvious that I only thought to use my snow blower because of him. Which isn’t completely true – I was just afraid of breaking things, knowing my luck. Stubborn pride of mine.

3.) Books

I finished reading THUNDERHEAD by Neal Shusterman on Feb 9. Ah, that cliffhanger ending! I change my mind about what I said in my last post about not having any writing influences – when it comes to anything third-person omniscient, I think of Shusterman. It still baffles me that his name isn’t as well known. (After all, he’s written so many books over the years.) At least THUNDERHEAD’s previous book, SCYTHE, earned him a Printz Honor.

So now I’m onto my fourth book of the year: SKY IN THE DEEP by Adrienne Young. I’m not that far into it, so I can’t say too much about it yet. It is Young’s debut, and it’s about a Viking-like society – which had me sold. I have surprisingly never read a fictional book about Vikings, so I’m hoping Young doesn’t let me down.

4.) Writing

I haven’t done any sort of creative writing since NaNoWriMo ended. I spent my December recuperating my sanity and enjoying the holidays. During the month of January and part of February, I’ve definitely been in my Season of Absorbing. I’ve been eating up so many stories in either book or TV show form. I even went back and reread three short stories of mine. Two were old stories, though, so the writing made me cringe a little. But still.

I think my “absorbing” is drawing to end, though. My fingers are itching to do some writing. I have even decided, starting on Feb 18, to write every day for the rest of the month. I don’t care what I’m sitting down and writing – just as long as I’m typing away. For some reason, I’ve been pondering a lot about non-fiction pieces, which is a bit weird for me. Either way, I think I’m aiming for an hour a day. We’ll see come Monday.

Elusive Creatures

Last Saturday, I attended a wedding renewal. I have known the couple my entire life, and they are even my brother’s godparents. They were celebrating their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. (This year is certainly wedding season for that family. Both of their daughters from their first marriage are currently engaged and are slated to get married this year.)

After the church ceremony, the twenty or so of us were then invited to the dinner reception. It was at an upscale restaurant that I hadn’t stepped foot into in a decade, so while we had time to kill, waiting for the banquet room to finish getting decorated, I enjoyed looking at the interior design.

Once we were gained entrance, my dad and I settled into a seat at one of the two tables. Randomly chose a spot in the middle, our backs against the wall. My eyes instantly admired the pretty floral arrangements and the candy sitting in tiny dishes right in front of me.

As people began filing in, the celebrated couple and their immediate family were placed on the opposite table. Which contained all the people I knew. I’m not one for small talk, so I hoped my dad would do enough talking to make it seem like I was engaged in conversations while I was really just eating my meals.

The first round of food that arrived was a bread/pita basket, along with hummus and a plate of various pickled vegetables. As I was delicately eating my buttered bread, my dad turned to the man sitting across from him and asked him something about his job. The man, who was probably about my dad’s age, replied that he had changed his career since they had last spoke, and he was now getting into real estate. But before that, he was more of a writer.

Of course, my dad then made a point to mention that I was, too, and then left me to talk with him while he turned to the person to his right to converse with them.

I explained to Ben* that I have a degree in Creative Writing, which was then immediately followed by him asking where I had gotten it. So I told him. And it turns out, he was once a Creative Writing professor at my college. He taught for 12-13 years before he got burnt out and switched jobs.

He didn’t specifically say what kind of creative writing he taught, but seeing how he mentioned he once volunteered to teach a summer poetry class to 12-year-olds, I’m going to assume that he leaned toward poetry. The crazy part was that I knew two of the professors that he was good friends with back when he was teaching. One was a poetry professor who taught my class for a month while my real teacher was out on maternity leave; we were his last class before he officially retired. As for the other professor, I knew quite well. I visited her office a handful of times to talk about my schedule (because she was Head of the Creative Writing department at the time) and was even my professor for two classes during my last semester.

I think I disappointed Ben a little when I admitted I didn’t keep up with the latter professor. The college had just hired her when Ben left. (She was an eccentric woman but always had a way of critiquing your material without making you feel terrible about yourself. To this day, she wins for giving me the weirdest compliment about my writing. But I’ll take any kind of praise regarding my writing, haha.)

Needless to say, I spent quite some time throughout the evening talking with Ben about writing and books. The woman sitting next to me – who was his daughter-in-law – even jumped into the conversation at one point to chat about her own sister and brother-in-law, who live over in England. The sister had self-published a book on Amazon, and the brother-in-law was an editor for something. I asked if her sister wrote British-English or American-English, which I don’t think was something the woman had ever thought about, so she guessed it must be British-English because her sister had been living there for over ten years.

As expected, Ben asked me at one point what kind of things I liked to write about. We also talked about Barbara Kingsolver and Ursula K. Le Guin. What threw me off, though, was when he asked me who my writing influences were. No one had ever given me that question before, and I was utterly stumped. I could tell him what my Top 5 Favorite Authors and Top 5 Favorite Books (which is a completely different list) were if he were to ask me, but I never really aspired to replica a certain author’s writing style.

Once the reception was over, I wondered when was the last time I had verbally talked with someone about books or writing in general. And honestly, I think it may have been while I was in a classroom setting, trying to earn that Creative Writing degree.

Writers really are elusive creatures. Or maybe we’re all too introverted. Or maybe there would be more of us if the job market was more stable.

I did meet a guy last summer who is a Staff Writer at a community newspaper (which is the competitor of where I was once an intern at…oops), but we only briefly talked about the craft of writing.

Where are all the writers? And I don’t mean the casual hobbyist, either.

I mean, I know they must be out there. I guess we’re just really good at hiding. Hopefully I can find them one day. After all, I know some nice hideouts too.




*Ben is not his real name.

Trying to Be Useful

I.

Last week, my mom came over to have us repair something. She had rediscovered a wooden motorcycle figure in her basement (which she took from an ex-boyfriend that she had eight years ago), and upon finding it, she decided she should give it to one of her coworkers because her son collects motorcycles. (The boy is only two years old, so I don’t see how he could appreciate or care about such an item, but whatever.)

Seeing how I seem to be the glue-all-the-broken-items-that-break during the Christmas season, my mom naturally showed me this motorcycle of hers. The riser kept moving up and down when it should only be moving side-to-side. But most importantly, both brake cables were detached from the bike. My mom showed me the places where the cables were supposed to attach to the front fork, and then she promised to pick it up whenever she would return sometime the following week.

(And if you were impressed about all my motorcycle terminology, don’t be. I looked at diagrams to help me out while I was writing this.)

II.

For the past two weeks, I have been on fire – for being motivated and productive, that is. I’m sure it’s not too unusual at this time of the year. After all, the year is still brand new. But lately, I’ve been doing quite a bit of cooking. (Granted, I also cooked often while my brother came home for his Christmas break. I have this tendency to make large meals, so I feel less bad about myself when there’s another person around to eat.) I also read one complete book and one manuscript. (But, alas, my internship is drawing to an end now.) Additionally, I’ve been trying to get myself on a better sleeping schedule.

But what really has me going lately is that I have an itch to clean and declutter ALL. THE. THINGS. Everywhere I look around the house, I just want to attack it. I feel like I’m that one character in Finding Nemo. You know which one I’m talking about. (Hint: His name is Jacques.)

I have this strong urge to pick everything up and throw it out. Get rid of all the random piles and junk lying around once and for all. But my dad would get mad if I did that, so I can’t be so impulsive.

My latest project is the library. I cleared out one of the desktops, organizing all the scattered papers into a brand new accordion binder. Placed the essential office items off to the side of the desk (like a stapler, a multitude of pens in a holder, and a calendar). Bought two small shelves to hang above the desktop computer. (Punching holes into the previously flawless wall to hang them was quite the struggle, though.) Artfully placed various knickknacks that were lying around in the room onto the shelves. I even kept with a theme for the items!

You could almost pretend I did a room makeover…if you didn’t pan out and looked at the rest of the room. There are still two piles of boxes and papers overflowing on the floor. The other computer desk is surrounded by old bills. One bookshelf has two of the shelves stuffed with all sorts of random photos stacked on top of one another. All the DVDs are overflowing, because the new DVD shelf that is going in the basement hasn’t been built yet. (All the supplies were bought, though. But the basement and its remodeling is a whole other story.)

The entire house just needs a major update, but I can only do so much. After all, it costs money. Also, I have to think about how many more years I plan on staying in my childhood home. Gotta move out at some point. It’s probably going to take a few more years at my rate, but I’m not sure how much to invest in a house that’s not really mine, you know?

III.

On Saturday, I tackled the wooden motorcycle figure. First, I super-glued the riser. I think there may have been a knob beneath it in order to keep the rod in place, but it was clearly missing. Either way, the glue worked. The front of the bike can still move from side to side, and now there’s no danger of it becoming detached from the rest of the body.

Next, I moved onto the two cables. The right plastic cable conveniently had a small notch in the front fork where I could insert the cable inside, but the left cable did not have one. I was perplexed by this. Why was there one indent and not two? How was I supposed to attach the other cable?

My mom had gestured to me that each cable end belonged onto the fork, so seeing how there wasn’t a notch for me to connect the left cable to, I decided to create my own hole. I grabbed a screwdriver and kept twisting it, hoping I could carve into the wood something similar to what I saw on the other side of the motorcycle. I even took a hammer to it. Eventually, I announced that the homemade indent was good enough and began gluing the cables on.

I started with the right cable, fitting it exactly where it was supposed to be. I then applied glue into the newly created hollow. As I was holding the cable in place, hoping for the best, my eyes skimmed over the body of the motorcycle. On the left side, right above the foot peg, I noticed something peculiar.

“Amanda,” I said to myself, sighing. “You’re an idiot.”

There was a small hole on what I now know is the rear brake lever. That left cable was never meant to attach to the front; it belonged on the motorcycle’s body. Luckily, the glue hadn’t dried yet, so I quickly attached the cable into its proper place. As for the homemade indent, the gorilla glue I had used trying to attach the cable had filled the hole up.

I guess that’s what I get for becoming so focused on one task. I forget to take a step back when I encounter a problem, trying to plow ahead to force a solution when the solution was there the whole time. And for thinking my mom knew what she was talking about.

IV.

I wonder if that two-year-old knows more about motorcycle parts than I do now.

Superlatives for the Books I Read this Year (2018 Edition)

Well, it appears that another year has come and gone. One of my goals for 2018 was to read at least 22 books. Unfortunately, much to my surprise, I didn’t quite hit my mark. I ended the year with reading 20 books instead. I was feeling a bit disappointed with myself until I discovered it was still more books than I had read in the last two years, so at least that’s something?

(Do all the manuscripts I had to read for my internship count? I mean, it’s technically in pre-book form. No? They don’t count? Darn.)

In any case, my annual “Book Superlatives” post is a fun way for me to glance through and remember the novels I read this year. Overall, I read some pretty good books. Only three of them I thought were, “Blah.” Most of them, though, seem to belong to a series. And speaking of series…



Best Sequel

BURIED HEART by Kate Elliott

Not sure if I can call it a “sequel,” since it’s the last book in a trilogy, but it’s not the launcher, so I’m counting it.

I found Elliott’s desert-fantasy setting rich in its world-building while also tackling issues of colonialism appropriately. I thought the series ended in a nice way, even if not all the characters made it out alive. But overall, it had more of a “happy ending,” which I was not exactly expecting for its genre.

Runner-up: THE DAZZLING HEIGHTS by Katharine McGee 

This was the second book in a trilogy, and I felt like it captured the same essence of the first book without being a carbon-copy. (Even if both books ended with a character dying, which is preluded to in the opening pages of the book.)

The Only Stand-Alone Fiction Book I Read

GIRLS MADE OF SNOW AND GLASS by Melissa Bashardoust

This is a fairy tale adaption story of Snow White, written in alternative chapters centering around Princess Lynet (Snow White) and Mina (Stepmother). Half of Mina’s chapters are written in the past, explaining how she wound up at the castle and ultimately marrying Lynet’s father. This novel definitely showcases the sometimes complex relationship between a mother and daughter.







Best New Author To Me

THIS MORTAL COIL by Emily Suvada 

There were only four authors that I read this year who I was reading for the first time, and Suvada was a really nice surprise. THIS MORTAL COIL was her debut, and the sci-fi book made my geneticist heart happy. (Fun fact: Before I decided to pursue writing, I had seriously considered becoming a genetic counselor. Even bought GRE practice books to get myself into grad school for it – which, unfortunately were useless because I never applied to any graduate programs in the end.) I thought the concept was creative, the plot had many twists and turns, and the idea of code and genetics playing such a large portion of the story was refreshing.




Runner-up: CARAVAL by Stephanie Garber 

I don’t read many books centering on a carnival, and this fantasy spin on it was intriguing. The world was written vividly; special attention was placed on the colors.











Most Creative

THE LANGUAGE OF THORNS: MIDNIGHT TALES AND DANGEROUS MAGIC by Leigh Bardugo

This book is a collection of six short stories, all of which are inspired by folklore and fairy tale. (You don’t have to read any of her Grisha books to understand the world, even if she sometimes makes references to Grisha countries.) My favorite story would have to be, “When Water Sang Song.” It’s the longest story of the six, and it’s based off of the Little Mermaid story – but the protagonist is the Ursula character.

This book won the superlative because of its illustrator, Sara Kipin. The stories alternate in either dark blue or rustic red font. But what makes the novel really cool is, as each story progresses, the images along the pages’ border increases until you finish the story, which is when you’re awarded with a two-page spread of a picture. I like to go through them like a flip book, haha.



Longest Book

LIFEBLOOD by Gena Showalter 

Unlike the last two years, Bardugo’s book did not win this category. Instead, Showalter’s novel clocked in at 476 pages. Which is too bad for me, because this was one of the books in the “blah” group I mentioned earlier. 

And in case anyone was curious, I read a total of 7,715 pages during the course of 2018. Therefore, the average is 385.75 pages/book. Surprisingly, despite reading three more novels than last year, I only read 193 more pages.

For next year, I’d like to take another stab at trying to read at least 22 books. (It just won’t be one of my resolutions.) All I know is that I currently have 25 unread books sitting on my dresser, and the pile is getting ridiculously tall.

As always, too many books, so little time.

NaNoWriMo '18 (aka: I Should Stop Doubting Myself So Much)

It’s already been two weeks since NaNoWriMo has ended. Two weeks where I’ve been able to take a breather and not constantly glance at the clock, wondering how much time I have left in my day to fit my daily writing in. Ah, the panic that is NaNoWriMo.

This year, I really leaned in with the idea of “block scheduling.” This practice is basically where you “block out” certain hours of your day to commit to an activity before you more onto something else. Each block is supposed to last only 1.5-2 hours. Sounds like micromanaging to some people, but I would rearrange my “writing block” depending on what I had going on for that day.

Anyway, I knew I needed to set aside two hours’ worth of time to work on my NaNo daily, so I usually blocked out those hours in the evening (which is nothing new). I made it very clear to my family that I needed that time to write, so if they wanted me to do something with or for them in the day, it had to happen before I started to write.

This system worked quite well for me. There were 4-5 days in November, though, where I would write an hour after midnight, so I didn’t have to write so much later in the day (and it still counted toward my word count). I was just very busy during those days, and I didn’t want the added stress of trying to cram two straight hours of writing in between everything else.

I wrote every day. Also, I decided early on in the month that I had to write at least 1700 words/day instead of the typical 1667 words/day. Because apparently I still like to be ambitious with my writing. [insert eye roll here]

In the end, I finished NaNoWriMo with a total of 53,061 words. Not only did I win for the fifth year in row (half a decade!), but I beat my record from last year by 843 words.

(Ignore the word count total at the top. When I went to validate my novel on their website, it tacked on extra words to my NaNo. I go by the number that my Word document tells me.)

Here’s a graph that displays my daily word count rather than an accumulation:

As you can see, I really didn’t have to write so much on that last day. Especially since I had already reached 50k the day before. However, after I got my 1700 words in for the day, I noticed how close I was to 53k, and I made it my goal to hit it. I also had a pretty busy day on November 30, so guess whose after-midnight writing helped carry her to the finish line?

My average writing time was 1 hour, 46 mins. Surprisingly, I never wrote beyond two hours. Although, on November 2 + 3, I was one minute shy of writing the full two hours.

I ended writing eight stories during the month. Literally half of them were in the fantasy genre, so I guess I was just in the mood to write fantasy. Ten days was the most I spent writing on one story – which was a manuscript idea I had tinkered with last year but never really sat down and wrote more than 700 words for. Unfortunately, two of the stories I had left unfinished before I moved onto the next one. I just hit a road block with the plot, and I lost interested in taking the time to figure out how to end it properly.

So overall, this year’s NaNoWriMo went very well. I made a new record, I wrote every day, and I didn’t feel like I was scrambling for the majority of the month, trying to come up with something to write. I think I got some sleep, too. And here I was on Halloween, anxious about how I was going to tackle my NaNo this year. How silly of me.

As usual, here’s my annual grainy photo from my webcam with me and my lovely Winner’s Certificate.

P.S. I feel like I should get a bonus point for also writing a poem early in November. Second one this year, so I guess I’m good now until 2019, lol.

P.P.S. I spent the entire month listening to a wide variety of Sufjan Stevens songs every day. I feel like I need to acknowledge him for keeping me so focused and motivated while writing. Thanks, Subaru.