Done!

Today I finally did what I've been talking about doing for ages and ages. I self-published my novel on Amazon as an ebook. I wish I could say I'm excited. I wish I could say I feel like I accomplished something. Okay, maybe I'm a little excited, but mostly I'm nervous.

What if I missed some glaring typos? What if the fact that I put it under my own name causes an issue? What if I decide later that I want to change something that happens in the story? Ahh!

Okay, Joy, calm down. Of course it isn't perfect. It's a creative work, and no piece of art is "perfect" because art is subjective. Also, I can do better with the sequel. (Yep, the sequel is already in the planning stages.)

What did I learn from my first complete novel writing experience?

• Writing a rough draft is easy. It's the revision and editing that take the most time and cause the most anxiety. 
• Beta readers are a nice idea, but, well...all my friends have very busy lives. The feedback that I did get from them was valuable, though. 
• It helps to take notes. No matter how well I thought I knew my story, I would forget little details along the way. It helps to make a document map to easily reference what I've written before. 
• I'm not as horrible at writing as I thought I was. 
• I'm not as good at writing as I thought I was. 
• I have a thing with adverbs. I used WAY too many in the first drafts. Especially the words "just" and "really." Really, who needs all that nonsense cluttering up the prose? 
• I'm also in love with incomplete sentences. 

I also learned some things about myself. Writing is nice therapy. Sometimes I would find myself writing something and realize a connection with my real life that I never thought about before. I think everyone should write a novel. It's kind of an eye-opening experience. 

Overall, I guess I'm satisfied. I didn't write this novel because I wanted to make money or show off my mad writing skills. I wrote it because I love to write and don't want to be afraid to share my writing with others. (I used to harbor a unreasonable fear of people reading my work. I would only work late at night when there was no chance of someone looking over my shoulder.) 

Well...bust out the confetti, I guess. 

I'm excited to see what happens next. 

(By the way, the title is The Legend of Blaerick Blackheart. That is, if you're interested.) 

I Dub Thee...

Some of the world's most famous authors have written under a pseudonym, including JK Rowling, Stephen King, and Michael Crichton. Now, I don't plan on becoming a world-famous author, but I have been contemplating the benefits of publishing my work under another name.

All of my friends and I hold strong religious convictions, so we limit what we allow ourselves to enjoy as recreation. Of course, everyone's conscience is different. I really don't want to offend anyone. That's one of the major benefits of writing under an assumed name, I think. But am I worrying too much about that? My friends all understand that consciences vary. Besides that, while my book does have some less than pleasant things happen in it, I don't think it's particularly graphic. But that's just me. Hmm..

Another benefit of a pseudonym is the freedom to pick my own name. Haha. The possibilities are endless. I'm tempted to pick something really outrageous.

I found a fun pseudonym generator online (here is the link if you want to play with it). What do you think of the name Fey Jarret? Norby Gustafson? Chastity Von Hoffman? Then again, I am a writer. I should be able to come up with my own pen name, right?

Would you believe that wikihow has a guide on how to come up with a pseudonym? Apparently, for my genre, I should use initials. How does J.E. Nelson sound? Boring, I know. How about E.J. Nell? Too funny. How about H.L. Nelson? Happy because my first name is Joy, and Lizzy because my middle name is Elizabeth.

Or should I keep my own name? I mean, I've already told basically everyone I know that I plan on self-publishing my novel. Most of my friends aren't avid readers, anyway, so I should be too frantic about the effect the content might have. Plus, I rather like my name.

I have to decide soon. I have two and half more chapters to edit. Then I have my final read-through to weed out as many little typos as possible. And then...drumroll please...I am going to publish!

NaNoWriMo...Nah

November is National Novel Writing Month. It challenges aspiring novelists to complete a 50,000 word rough draft in 30 days. I discovered NaNoWriMo when I was in middle school and I was positively titillated by the prospect. I have never been a NaNoWriMo winner, and this is another year that it won't happen.

I have written 50,000 words in less than 30 days before, so I have no compunctions about my giveuppance in this instance. I don't need a t-shirt to prove that I'm a novelist, nor do I need to have my inbox flooded with pep-talks from other writer. I haven't read any of the pep talks, but I imagine that they focus on artsy-fartsy things like the beauty of writing and the satisfaction of finishing something, and the need to carry on even when inspiration is miles away. Who has time to read that stuff? No offense, NaNoWriMo.

Furthermore, I have other projects filling my November. I am starting a course in Chinese (super-duper excited for this). I am enduring hours of Christmas music at my retail job. Can that really be considered a project? I feel like it is. Aye, aye, aye. Oh, and I'm also still attempting to edit my novel.

On the last project, I admit that it has been the subject of my negligence lately. Sigh. However, my goal to have it completed by the end of 2013 stands. I invested too many hours in that bad boy to let it fall into the annals of the uncompleted now. You see, this is like my pep talk to myself, so if you don't read it, I understand. ; )

I'm on project and personal life overload, I feel, and NaNoWrimo don't got no place in there (I say as I bobble my head). NaNoWriMo is a great motivator for writers who have trouble spinning out a completed rough draft or those who hare looking for a writing launchpad. It's also a fun idea. The sense of community is nice. However, I am making November my novel editing/bunch of other stuff month.

I started on a novel for NaNoWriMo this year, and I'm almost halfway to the 50,000 word goal. I may or may not ever finish it. Oh well. I don't mind if that one falls into the annals of the uncompleted. It was fun while it lasted.

9 More Things You Didn't Know About the English Language

Gear up, nerds! English is a strange and unfathomable form of communication. Here are some more useless and fascinating facts about it.

• "uncopyrightable" is the longest word in common usage that contains no letter more than once. 
• A sentence that has all 26 letters of the alphabet in it is called a "pangram." Here's an example: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." Why is there even a word for that, seriously? 
• We can find 10 words in the 7-letter word "therein" without rearranging any of its letters: the, there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, therein, herein.
• The longest word with only one vowel is "strengths."
• The longest one-syllable word is "screeched." 
• There are no real English words that rhyme with any of the following: month, silver, angel, orange, and bulb. Beware, couplet writers!
• It's generally agreed that "the sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is English's toughest tongue twister. Good thing I don't know many sick sheiks or sixth sheeps. 
• The words "silent" and "listen" contain all the same letters. 
• There used to be a word in the dictionary without a meaning. The word was "Dord" and it got there because of an error. I love it. That poor word. We should give it a meaning and get it back into the dictionary! 

Sources:

http://www.englishclub.com/interesting-facts/

http://voxy.com/blog/index.php/2013/02/10-interesting-facts-about-the-english-language/

http://www.makemegenius.com/cool_facts.php?mId=56

Old Words and Old Meanings

For someone who speaks so little, I sure like words. I like to learn about the history of words. Sometimes it adds to their richness. Other times its just amusing. I found a fun webpage that lists words that have changed meaning over time. Here are some common words along with their old meanings.

• Abandon--subdue or subjugate
• Accent--to sing
• Actual--pertaining to an action
• Afford--to go forward
• Amuse--to distract for the purpose of misleading
• Balderdash--a frothy liquid
• Basement--toilet
• Bellboy--the boy who rang a ship's bell. 
• Brave--described a showy or gaudy person
• Coil--a noisy disturbance
• Disclose--to open a hatch
• Emphasis--appearance
• Evil--uppity
• Forehead--An expression easily conveyed by the face
• Girl--a young person of either sex
• Harlot--a vagabond or beggar
• Heartburn--referred to someone full of hatred
• Hilarity--simple cheerfulness or calm joy. 
• Infant--not able to speak
• Keister--a suitcase or satchel
• Last--highest, utmost

Of course, most words probably have old meanings, and if someone used those words intending to communicate the old meaning, we would be utterly baffled. Well, English is baffling anyway. Almost as baffling as Chinese. But that's another story. 

Just a Few Thoughts

The revision and editing process for my novel is turning out to be more laborious than I bargained for. First I needed to fix the plot--streamline it, make sure all the conflicts came to a conclusion of sorts. It involved a lot of index cards (I summarized each scene on a card so I could get perspective on the overall story), a hand sore from writing, and quite a bit of glaring at my computer screen wishing the story would fix itself. Eventually, though, I got that done.

Now I'm on to more intricate work which, I must admit, tests my patience. I constantly have to look up words to make sure I used them correctly, switch words around, smooth out clunky sentences, fix the rhythm of individual scenes and paragraphs. I discovered that in the rough draft of my manuscript, the word "just" occurs nearly four hundred times. That's four hundred "just"s out of a total of roughly 98,000 words. I just justed myself crazy! I also used the word "obviously" 20 times, which I think is obviously just too much.

So I slog through my novel, one paragraph at a time, analyzing, comparing, rewriting, second guessing myself, wishing I had more patience, and trying to convince myself that it will never be perfect.

I've learned a lot about my writing habits and where I need to improve (I keep hearing the voice of my eighth grade English teacher in my head. She composed a dirge for "dead" verbs that she didn't want us to use in our writing.) I'm also losing patience because reading through my novel makes me itch to write the rest of the story. I'm planning a series of at least four books featuring the same main character. But it's going to be so much work! Whine. Whine. Whine.

While I muddle through the revision process, I eagerly await feedback from my beta readers, and I hope they don't point out anything super major that requires a total remodel of my manuscript. My goal was to get this beasty done by the end of October, but now I'm thinking I may have to push my deadline back a little. It'll definitely be done by the end of the year, even if it means I have to self-publish a wreck of a book.

Well, we'll see how things go.

That's it for today's ramble. I'm not sure if anything I just wrote has a point to it.

Name that Color!

The visible spectrum of light makes the world beautiful, and word-lovers work hard to give every shade a unique name. Every wander through the paint aisle just to giggle at the ridiculous names of colors? Me neither. But now that the thought occurs to me...haha. Okay, I don't have time for that, but I did have time to browse through my book,  The Bibliophile's Dictionary and discover some awesome color words. 

• argent--silver
• carmine--red, purplish-red, or crimson
• cerise--bright red, cherry red. French for cherry. (My car's name is currently Cherry. Do you think I should change it to Cerise?)
• glaucous--dull or pale, grayish-, bluish-, or yellowish-green.
• heliotrope--reddish purple
• madder--bright red, reddish-purple, crimson.
• roseate--rose-colored. Now you can tell people to take off their roseate glasses. 
• rufous--brownish-red, rust-colored
• subfusc--a somber, dark, or dusky color. 
• titian--reddish yellow or auburn
• verdure--the lush, vibrant green of flourishing vegetation 
• viridescent--green or slightly green.

Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain...yeah, we're going to have to come up with a longer mnemonic.