What I do when I am not writing

I talk a lot about my writing (the whole point of this blog) but some people forget that no matter what you do for work from the police to teachers that we are all people and we do have lives outside of work, and while I don't have an eventful life out of writing I decided to dedicate this blog post to things I do outside of writing.

the main thing I do when I am not writing is my other jobs like my youtube, my business making dreamcatchers and modelling. I also spend a lot of time sleeping.

outside of work though you will find me watching movies or tv-shows, listening to podcasts or music. researching different things (i love to research) you will catch me at doctors appointments or in my back garden taking photos of the sky, flowers and animals. I am also a very big gamer.

as I said nothing eventful but it works for me. 

what do you do in your spare time?

Things to know about your characters

Having started a Pinterest board filled with pins around writing. I have slowly begun to realize while I am a good writer (maybe biased, but I have faith in myself and my abilities) I could have more planning done to make my job that bit easier. 

I have been a panster for as long as I can remember which is why I love book bibles because I can pants my way through the book but remember vital information that I may forget in the long run like the colours of the characters eyes, birthdays and more.

However, because I am starting more series of books, I need to plan ahead in a sense which I find planning some things to be useful, and they could also be helpful in my solo books like full character outlines.

So I have made an extensive list of things both big and small I have found very useful to know from the start, and while your characters will change and grow throughout your the story, it can be a good idea to start with an outline and change it as you go.

characters full name:

reason or meaning of name: 

characters nickname:

reason for the nickname:

gender:

birthday:

age:

mothers name:

fathers name:

siblings:

friends:

how old does he/she look:

height:

body build:

eye colour:

skin tone:

distinguishing features or marks (scars, glasses, tattoos etc.):

hair colour:

type of hair:

hairstyle:

does your character have any disabilities or disorders and what:

family situation:

friend situation:

home town:

type of childhood:

pets:

dream job:

actual job:

education:

religion:

finances:

current location:

currently living with:

bad experiences in life:

good experiences in life:

good traits:

bad traits:

mood character is often in:

sense of humour:

characters greatest joy in life:

characters fear:

nervous tics:

flaws:

hobbies:

does your character smoke:

drink:

do any drugs:

favourite colour:

least favourite colour:

logical or emotional:

daredevil or cautious:

introvert or extrovert:

there you have it my list of things I find useful to know about my characters. let me know what you find useful in the comments if it isn't already on the list

How to make a book bible/ series bible

making a book bible was foreign to me not that long ago, I didn't even know what they were but now I have made five-book bibles for different stories and they are amazing so here is some information on them and how to make your own.

A book bible also known as a series bible is a place like a folder or a notebook where you keep all books information. so this is the place where to write their names, what they look like hobbies and all of that so it doesn't randomly change in the middle of book one or even in the third book of your series.

even if you are a Panster like me it can be really beneficial to have one of these, you don't need to have a book outline in this just the small details you need to remember so you dont randomly change something like eye colour throughout the books.

things you should have/what I have in a book/series bible are

• series name
• start and end date of the book
• mini blurb about each book
• word count per chapter
• goals for the book (word/chapter etc.)
• key information like things that need to go into the next book

• characters name
• age
• race/kind 
• hair/eye/skin colour
• height/ build
• marks on the body (tattoos, scars etc.)
• skills and abilities
• personality
• living situation
• family
• occupation
• history
• life experience
• education
• history

and there you have it, I book these now for all my book series and even just some of my stand-alone books that I am forgetting a lot of information. these can be done digitally or even physically all up to you.

April Camp NaNoWriMo | how i did, my goals etc.

video: https://youtu.be/9DUKPwjNHJ0
Aprils camp NaNoWriMo was my first NaNoWriMo in April and my third time participating in NaNoWriMo. In Julys NaNoWriMo I wrote book one in my book series, in NaNoWriMo in November I wrote book two and in Aprils NaNoWriMo, I tried to write the final book in the series. now I do want to point out the final book in the series is a novella with a total of 45,000 words while the other two are 52,000 and 56,000 words. I knew from the start the final book would be shorter than the other two because this one focuses on Tosha and her becoming a Banshee.

I declared my project on the 11th of January 2020, because I already knew what I wanted to write. I had set my goal at 45,000 words for the 30 days which equals out to 1,500 words each day something I know I could do with my eyes closed, all that was left to do was wait.

in the time I was waiting I just made a list of things that needed to happen to make it fit in with the other two books so that I could just write like I needed to. 

Before long it was April and I kicked it off with 2387 words on the first day, not to bad I will admit but it was a pretty bad attempt especially since the next day I only was able to write 1126 words.

After that, my work went downhill, with day four and seven getting no words but I got a combined total of 2031 words over the other three days which means I completed week one of Camp NaNoWriMo with 5544 words total.

week two wasn't much better with only getting 1,777 words all week and only writing five days and four of those days were only 19 words a day.

between the 15th and 21st I only got 2,468 words and only wrote two days, on the 21st I decided to give up with writing for camp nanowrimo because of how far behind I was and because of bad writer's block getting in the way.

How i outline my books

outlining books can be a daunting experience, i pride myself in my Panster ways but for writing challenges like NaNoWriMo i do a brief outline and in today's post, i am going to talk over how i do my brief outlines.

first, i get a clean piece of paper in a book. i like to have a physical copy for if im travelling and don't have internet. i then like to write my characters names on one piece of paper, just there names so that i know the names off by heart and not have to scroll halfway up my book to find the name. i do make book bibles which i will get into in the future but i don't write my plans in my book bible.

i then get my black pen and start writing, any idea i can think of for my book i write down. i don't do it in any particular order nor by chapter because i feel that limits me in my writing.

by the end of it, my plan will look a lot like this

things to write in project {what ever the project name is} 

• meet Andrew
• kill beast
• date night
• get to know Andrew
• the fight scene with hunters
• learn magic powers
• find out about the supernatural world
• find out she is magic

characters

• Andrew
• Emily
• Sofia
• jack
• Patrick
• baby Ashley

that is literally it, normally my plans and one to two pages along in a 2B5 lecture book. i really do try and keep it as simple as possible so that i have the freedom to add more and move things around as needed.

How i come up with my book names

Coming up with book names can be one of the hardest things you will do for your book but i am going to tell you how i name my books so you can get a brief idea of how to do it yourself.

first thing first is i write the book. while i am writing book names pop into my head so i write them down on a note on my laptop screen to make it easier to come back to.

say i was writing a book about a killer teddy bear some name ideas i would think of would be

• killer bear
• the silent killer
• whats wrong with teddy: a death story
• teddybear in new york killing edition
• the bloody bear
• the surprise killer 

i would then have to go online and search up each book name and see if a book already has that name. normally my search will look like {name} book so for example killer bear book.

while i am doing the searches any books with that name will be removed.

so after my search, my list looks like

• whats wrong with teddy: a death story
• teddybear in new york killing edition
• the bloody bear
• the surprise killer 

as you can see there was already books called the silent killer and killer bear so they were removed. because there are four names left i have to work out which would be the most eye-catching and that i will think will get the most sales.

so say my book was based in Canada and not new york i obviously wouldn't use teddybear in new york killing edition. but if it was in new york the edition part would most likely make people think there will be more books in the series in different places. which would be fine if it was a series but if it was a solo book it wouldn't work.

something like what's wrong with teddy: a death story may make little kids pick it up and the parents not see a death story so that wouldn't be the best either. which narrows it down to the bloody bear and the surprise killer. 

the bloody bear shows its a story about a bear and if the cover of the book was a bear covered in blood it would be pretty obvious about what it is about but if i was writing a mystery the surprise killer would get peoples attention and would be a major twist in the story what is actually a teddy. 

so i personally would pick the surprise killer because it would be a major twist. and because my book will have already been written i would know that the bear was a twist in the story which makes it perfect.

there you have it, how do you name your books? let me know in the comments and have a wonderful day.

monthly challenge | writing as many words as i can in a month

in January 2020 I gave myself a challenge. I had to write as many words as I could in a month and this is how I did.
video:

January was a bit different than my normal months because I had to go to wellington on the fourteenth for a night, so the fourteenth and fifteenth I had to handwrite on the plan which isn't fun in any shape or form for me because my fingers cramp up and make it hard to write for long periods of time with a pen.

I split my writing into a few different categories. blog one (endometriosis) blog two (this blog right here) blog three (my main blog) Wattpad books and my novels, novellas and short stories.

after seven days I had a grand total of 14,996 words and that's with me not writing any words on the third.

by day fourteen my word count was up to 27,613 words by this point I hadn't written on two days day three and day twelve.

at day twenty-three I had a grand total of 42,276.
blog one-548
blog two-2,549
blog three-2,319
Wattpad-25,606
books-11,254

by the end of the experiment, I had a total of 61,875 words
blog one-758
blog two-3220
blog three-2879
wattpad-36,908
books- 16,130