2015 Blog Reflection

Now that I've been posting consistently for a year, it's time to look at how it went!

I've had this blog for a while, but before 2015 I updated it pretty sporadically and didn't promote the posts at all. This year I wanted to challenge myself and see if I could get this blog actually on its feet.

Have I made it obvious yet that I don't know what I'm doing

I'd like to think this year went well! I never set any specific goals, so I guess it's pretty easy to declare this year a success ...

I decided on posting every three days, since that was a consistent number I could reach without stressing myself out too much or seeming too inactive. There were a few times that I struggled to get posts up on time, but there were also times where I had over a month's worth of posts scheduled and had to rearrange them to fit a newer post in.

I definitely could have done better promoting my posts. I starting posting links to my twitter account, but it was usually only for non-book reviews. I also started pinning my posts on Pinterest, but I don't think I have enough of an audience there to make a difference.

I also claimed my blog on Bloglovin this year. Bloglovin has been good for tweeting out links automatically, but I've noticed that some of them don't post until hours after the post went live. I don't know why that is.

My stats went up a lot compared to last year. I'm really glad, but my analytics graph is still kind of a mess. There have been at least two or three times that my blog has gotten crawled. I started using Google Analytics on top of what Blogger provides, which has been helpful in getting more info, but it also hasn't been perfect. Bloglovin also sends me weekly stat reports, but I currently don't have anything to show for it :c I consistently get "0 saves, 0 new followers, 0 current followers" emails. It's a little disheartening, but I know that the links I tweet out get clicked at least occasionally, which helps.

I'm going to keep going strong with this blog and I'm excited for what next year will bring. This time I'm even going to make goals!

2016 goals:

1. promote posts better! This year I'm going to look into other websites and programs that will let me schedule tweets and pins so I don't have to worry about them. I also have to do some research into when and where I should be sharing links.

2. grow a small audience! My sidebar on my blog says I only have one follower currently, but I know I have family that checks my blog, so it's not all that accurate. It would be nice to get rid of the fear that I'm just shouting into the void.

3. comment on other people's blogs! I've seen this advice a lot on "newbie blogger advice" posts, but it hasn't been the easiest for me to do. I've managed to comment a few times, but more often than not my social anxiety kicks in and convinces me to not post what I've typed out. It sucks. There are so many bloggers that I wish I could talk to.

4. find a balance of post types! I started writing individual book reviews in 2015 instead of compiling them by month, which has helped me with consistency, but I can't always find a good balance with them. I've done some pre-planning for next year so I'll have a lot of non-review posts, but whether I'll actually use any of them or not is still to be seen.

And a bonus stretch goal: earn money through AdSense. I added it to my blog this year to see what would happen, but I currently don't have enough of an audience to earn anything. I know the chances of me earning anything substantial are slim to none but it doesn't hurt to try, right?

Hopefully 2016 will be good to everyone! 

Casanova To-Do: Jan 2016

I figured blogging about it would make me more accountable. I don't know. That hasn't worked with my TBRs before, but it won't hurt, right?

"I designed my school's literary magazine," I tell myself as I make images like this.

I'm going to try and keep this list simple because otherwise I would just balk at it.

No, screw it, I'm not gonna lie. I'm balking at this list anyway because I am a lazy teenager and I don't like the thought of work. Even though this is something I'm making myself do for fun.

I don't understand how I function as a human being sometimes.

Anyway!

1. Fill in missing scenes

When I wrote Casanova during NaNo, I let myself write what I wanted to without making it seem "nice". I was struggling enough to hit word count as it was. Forcing myself to write scenes I wasn't excited about wasn't working for me.

This means my draft of Casanova makes sense only to me. Because I skipped a bunch of scenes and wrote out of order. Probably not the best idea, but hey, it was my first draft and nothing said I couldn't.

I should probably make a list of all the scenes I know I need that I didn't write. (Not here. In my sketchbook. But still. It would probably help.)

2. Put everything in chronological order

I have a better sense of the order scenes should go in since NaNo ended, but I still have a lot to work on. And a lot of it is dependent on step #1 and writing the scenes I'm missing. I'm pretty sure I wrote overlapping scenes at least a few days of NaNo and it's going to be an adventure trying to figure out what vignettes to use. A lot of the vignettes also have no context and can go pretty much anywhere, so the question is then where the heck do I put all of them?

I have my work cut out for me.

3. Replace remaining (xx)s

Like I said in my reflection, I used "(xx)" as a catch-all placeholder, which ended up making my life harder. I've only defined one of the values I used (xx) for. I still have a lot of characters to name and situations to explain.

Luckily my cousin has been a godsend and helping me name characters when I tweet at her. I should really enlist her help more. And probably buy her chocolate for all the decision-making she does for me.

4. Determine in-book universe laws

Not only did I skip a bunch of scenes in the first draft, I didn't really bother coming up with how their universe works, either. There are a lot of things regarding how Hell is supposed to work that I was just like ┐(° ヘ° )┌  and left them as plot holes.

This is probably gonna be the hardest part and it's likely not gonna be "done" until at least a few drafts in. I definitely went into NaNo with less planning done than I usually do and I wrote with a very ┐(° ヘ° )┌ attitude the entire month.

So yeah! I'm going to be very surprised if I complete all four. Or knock out more than half of these in general. I'm not setting the bar very high.

Since this post feels really short, I turned to a random page in my print masterdoc and screenshot one of the vignettes:

I have a lot of these kinds of vignettes that I probably won't keep, but they're hands-down my favorite thing to write. I'm almost tempted to see how many of these I can get away with in Casanova.

Ideally, I'll have at least the first two steps done by the time I go back to school on Jan 25th, but I wouldn't bet on it. The more serious deadline is by March. I'll check in again about my progress mid-March (if I don't make in-between posts before that).

Wish me luck!

Casanova Writing Research: Arlington, Texas

So in the off chance you've actually read my other blog posts / my twitter this past month, here's the explanation you've probably been waiting for!

One day I'll pick a standard format for these pictures. Bear with me.

If you have no clue what I'm talking about, I was lucky enough to go on another writing research trip to see where I set Casanova. My mom managed to get us cheap flights out to Dallas and back that fit in the weekend before exam week. I'd been asking to go to Dallas in order to do more in-depth research than Google Maps could give me, so I was amazed when it really did work out in my favor!

Why did I pick Arlington, Texas? Primarily because the songs that really brought Casanova together as a concrete story idea were country songs. Casanova is a collection of a couple different plot bunnies, and the song "American Kids" started to bring them together in my mind. My dad usually listens to country music when he's out in the garage and it was pure chance that I caught the songs I did. (I actually think I heard "American Kids" for the first time when I was heading to my high school for class one morning. That might've actually been with my mom. I don't remember.)

Anyway, "American Kids" gave me a really strong urge to set the story in Texas. The song never really mentions any specific place, but that was what my mind jumped to. My initial research focused around the Dallas area since we'd already been there and I was vaguely familiar with it. (Not as much as I thought, tbh.) I knew that I needed something close to a university because of Carter's backstory, and I think UTA was the first college I really looked at for the story. And settled on it since it worked out really well for what I needed. We also have an Arlington in our area, so the irony of that really cemented the decision for me.

So what did I learn?

First Semester Reflection

My first semester of college is officially over!! I took my last exam on the 17th. I wouldn't say I had the easiest time adjusting to college so far, but it definitely also wasn't as bad as I feared it would be!

Sometimes I think my design skills are getting better, and then I make pictures like this where I wonder if I'm just lying to myself. I can't tell anymore. 

This semester I took 14 credits, but one of them was a 1st year student seminar that only met until mid-October. I also didn't take my classes for my major in the right order ... but that doesn't matter as much. I still survived all my classes!

I haven't gotten back all of my grades at the time I'm writing this. I got As in Physical Geography, Seminar, and Communication, which exempted me from the first two exams! That was a really nice bonus since I was afraid I'd have to cram for the geography final.

I was exempted from my Color Theory final as well because of how the exams were set up. Our professor took the better grade of our midterm and final, and since I got 100% on the midterm, I asked if I could be excused so we could go to Dallas. Luckily my professor said yes!

Communication and Statistics were more of a challenge for me than Geography and Color Theory. I was put into a pilot program for Stat since I came from the local school system, so they put me ahead of where I tested into. I did okay for the most part, but I definitely should have put in more study time ...

Communication was hard for me because we had to do class presentations, which I hate. It was really difficult for me to give speeches to a class I didn't know after having the same classmates all of middle and high school. I actually skipped the first speech we were supposed to do ;; Luckily my professor gave us an "amnesty day" where she let us make up assignments, so I ended up doing it after all.

My favorite class was probably Color Theory. I've never really used painting as an art medium other than for cosplay and the odd art class project. We were given a lot of freedom in terms of what subjects we could paint, as long as it matched the palette we were using, so I was able to paint copies of photos I took. That was a really fun experience and I'm hoping I can continue re-doing my photos and making fake screencaps in the future.

This was my final project for Color Theory. The concept was to make fake pictures that Carter would've taken during the course of Casanova. I initially wanted to do more, but I had two weeks from idea to presentation and not many pictures to reference beforehand. The top left was freehanded and the other three used my pictures from the June vacation as a reference. 

Geography was definitely fun for me, but it was also a challenge because it was a class
focused on the science side of geography. The only other related class I'd taken before was AP Human Geography, which focuses on the cultural aspects. Physical Geography was a class I was supposed to take my third semester, not my first, which I didn't realize until it was too late to do anything about it. But I survived!

To be honest, I had no idea when I decided to go to my college that they even offered an Applied Geography associate's. I already have credit for about a semester's worth of classes thanks to the AP tests, so I got to jump straight into knocking out courses for the major.

I'm really glad I chose to go to a community college. I knew for certain that I wouldn't do well going to college out of state, but I don't think I would've done too well taking classes at UMD, either. I had almost all of my close friends at school with me and I got to hang out with all of them three days a week for lunch. (That was pure serendipity, but we've arranged to all have the same time block for the spring.)

I'm on winter break until Jan 25th. I've signed up for classes for the spring semester, but I haven't paid for them yet ;; We're working on that. Right now I'm signed up for two geography courses (Geog 101 and Political Geography, I think), a meteorology course, and Italian 101. I'm looking forward to it ♥

Casanova Playlist

I'm back safely from my writing research trip out to Dallas! It was a lot of fun and I'm really happy that it worked out well. I learned even more than I was hoping to on the trip ♥

I'm trying a vertical post this time because it's supposed to be more Pinterest-friendly. I figured I should try it out. Let me know if you think it works any better. 

I said I would have a post about the trip up on the 24th, but I decided to share my Casanova playlist as a separate post. I actually had some troubles with this -- my original playlists are through Spotify and Google Music, but I can't share the Spotify one since it's connected to my Facebook and I can't figure out how to share a Google Music playlist ;;

I ended up compiling a YouTube playlist instead. I usually try to avoid music videos with sound effects or non-music time, but I made some compromises in order to minimize the chances of the videos getting taken down and breaking the playlist.

If this embedded playlist doesn't work, here is the YouTube page for it! It should hopefully play through YouTube if it doesn't want to play through my blog.

Please let me know if any of the songs get taken down so I can replace them! As soon as I figure out how to share my Google Music playlist I'll tack that onto this post as well.

Apologies for this post being really short. I'm still worn out from this weekend and I'm writing this post instead of prepping for my last exam.

I should probably at least include a little bit of an explanation about the music, shouldn't I? The first half of the playlist or so is country music (or at least country-sounding music) since that's where a lot of the aesthetic of Casanova came from for me. "American Kids" was the first song that made the story come together. After I went to the Halsey concert with my friend in October, I switched over to more pop / Top 40 music. I ended up picking a much more suburban setting for Casanova than I initially intended, so the playlist reflects both my initial ideas and what ideas I actually used for the story.

I hope you guys like the playlist ♥ Underneath the cut is a list of all the songs in case the links don't work. Keep an eye out for my post about Dallas and Arlington on the 24th!

City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare

TL:DR these teenagers are in very high demand

(finished 12/3/15)

I wasn't a very big fan of the first three books of The Mortal Instruments series -- if I remember correctly, I didn't really like them at all. My friend lent me her copy of City of Fallen Angels even though I decided I was going to stop at the third book. 

Part of the reason I finished City of Fallen Angels so easily is because the other book she lent me was Born at Midnight, and I ended up DNFing it. (I actually have a DNF review collection post coming up eventually! I finally let myself do it!!) 

Because of my low investment in this series, this review is going to be shorter than normal and probably spoiler-y for the first three books. (They've been out for a while, though, and if you haven't read them, I'm a little confused as to why you would be reading a review for book #4 ...) 

Anyway! It felt like not all that much happened over the course of the book. It didn't feel drawn out, but there's only one real conflict to the whole thing. A couple scenes could've been cut out without any detrimental damage. Like those touchy-feely scenes between Jace and Clary. I really wish they would stop that. 

I actually didn't have much of a problem with the romance aspect for once, though I do think it could've been toned down some in order to make the story move even faster. I skipped about a full page (front / back) of Jace and Clary making out because that was all that was happening. It wasn't establishing anything else. 

I don't really like how Jordan and Maia's relationship was portrayed, but I think it definitely could've been handled worse. I'm hoping that it'll still be handled fairly delicately by the characters in subsequent books rather than being swept under the rug without any real conclusion. 

The love V that was introduced was fairly interesting (in the fact that it didn't feel boring, per se) but I think we could've gotten away without that, too. I was glad to see the backlash of said love V, though. That was good. 

I think the characters are all a little too overpowered, but I'm a little too indifferent to really care about it. I don't think the plot should have worked out as nicely as it did in terms of favoring either side. (How is it that both the good guys and the bad guys somehow both get things they want? The two should not be able to exist at the same time. They both should not get things they want out of the same ending!)

That's about all I have. All in all, the book felt like a fairly easy and compelling read. I at least appreciated that part. I've also determined I'm invested in at least Simon and Clary as characters. The rest of them as well, but Simon the most. Poor guy. 

TL;DR I think I liked City of Fallen Angels because the other book I was trying to read at the time was giving me major grief. I'm not gonna go out of my way to find the next book, but I'm open to the idea. 

If you guys have read this series, I'd like to hear what your thoughts are! My experience with this series is only through the friend that lent me this book, so I'd love to hear more opinions about it. 

Casanova: After-NaNo Reflection

Like I mentioned before, here's my after-NaNo reflection focusing on what I learned about Casanova (and my own writing) during the course of NaNo!

First up, I learned that I need a lot more pre-writing with my newer projects. I've been jaded because of how long I've been working on Aperture. I wrote a couple thousand words for Casanova over the summer, but my sense of the story wasn't as nearly as concrete as I needed it to be. I honestly ran out of my original ideas and plot bunnies by the 13th.

(You can actually see this in my masterdoc. The scenes get progressively shorter and less descriptive until they're almost all dialogue. It's interesting to see and reflect on.)

I've also learned that I suck with plot-driven novels. Aperture is character-driven: there's no overarching plot to it other than the characters growing. Casanova is the opposite. It was supposed to be about Toni completing three tasks in order to "earn" Carter's soul back.

So yeah, there's very little action in Casanova so far. I skipped a bunch of scenes I knew I needed eventually because the whole thing was too structured, and I knew I didn't have enough knowledge in order to make it work.

I also relied on placeholders a lot this time, which turned out really helpful. Only six characters have names in Casanova so far. (Six and a half if you count the Casanova's nickname.) For everyone else, I used "(xx)" so I would be able to catch it easily in re-reads.

Now, in hindsight, I should've used more descriptive placeholders, because there are a couple that I can't remember who they're supposed to refer to. I stuck to (xx) because I could ctrl+f the masterdoc at the end and find how many times I used placeholders. The answer is 597 times, by the way. I haven't checked what it is now that I've replaced Cynthia's placeholders with her name.

(It took me 124 pages to decide on her name. Casanova's first draft is only 182 pages. Also, she's named after my friend @jouycemanor, who was my co-designer on our school's lit mag (ღ˘⌣˘ღ) )

Just like with Aperture, my favorite part of writing this month has definitely been all the dialogue scenes. I personally think that the vignettes with dialogue alone are some of the strongest things I write.



I surprised myself by coming up with new details for the story. The biggest (and most helpful) was giving Toni the power to teleport. I'd known teleporting was going to have to play some kind of role, but I wasn't initially expecting to give Toni the ability. It helped me out a lot in terms of word count -- if I got stuck, I decided to stick Toni and Carter in a different city. Usually Las Vegas. They ended up in Las Vegas a lot.

Something I also didn't expect was Toni's deadpan sarcasm. Carter had it from the start, but Toni was supposed to be a lot less sarcastic than he was. And that didn't happen at all. I think it's actually better that way. I have a hard time toning down my sarcasm when I write.

Toni and Carter also started resembling people I know. Toni's was entirely accidental, and I think I'm going to try and remove some of her resemblance. (I base a lot of characters in Aperture off people in real life, and I don't really want to do the same in Casanova.) Carter's was a little more intentional in that I borrowed a few aspects of someone I know in order to design his background, and I didn't realize that said person had also influenced how I perceived Carter's appearance.

I got a copy of my masterdoc printed out at Staples on the 1st. Part of the reason was because I like editing on paper rather than on screen, but a big part of it was also being able to hold up this monstrosity and say, "Look! I wrote all this!!" (My friends can attest to this. I didn't shut up about printing it out for, like, three days.)

By the time this post goes up, this copy will be with us out in Texas! (That was another reason I got it printed.) I'm really looking forward to seeing Arlington, Texas, where I decided to set Casanova. I've already been on a writing research trip, but this one will be a lot different -- I feel much more organized and focused. I have a lot more to do in a shorter amount of time.

I'm hoping to have a blog post about our trip to Arlington up on the 24th, so please look forward to it! ♥ If you guys did NaNo, I'd love to hear about what you learned about your stories over the month!

Winter by Marissa Meyer

TL;DR my favorite series is over and I am dead

(finished 11/15/15)

TBR #17

I've been in love with The Lunar Chronicles since I found Cinder in May of my freshman year. The book was only a few months old at that point, so I've gone through my fair share of waiting for each subsequent book. (I added Winter to my TBR within a few days of joining Goodreads, and it is mindblowing that it was #17 out of a list of 1500!)

I was initially disappointed that Winter's release date was pushed back because of Fairest, but I'm also kind of glad that it happened, to be honest. I loved Fairest and I'm glad that I got to live with the hype for a couple more months. 

There's almost nothing I can talk about without spoiling anything (」ﾟヘﾟ)」

Let's see. I don't think there was anything I was disappointed in. I mean, I had high hopes and expectations for Winter, and Marissa Meyer met all of them! She actually went above and beyond for one of my expectations, but that one is spoiler-y, so I can't say anything about it \( `⌂´ )/

I'm very happy with how Winter wrapped up the series that has meant so much to me these past four years. I teared up when I reached the end of it. (Part of that was because of Marissa Meyer's acknowledgements.) 

Sorry this review is so short （*/ ヘ＼*）I can't think of a way to express how much I loved Winter without spoiling anything OTL I don't want to ruin the book for anybody! 

If you've never read any of the Lunar Chronicles books before, I definitely recommend them! If Cinder is daunting because of its size, at least try out Fairest. The Lunar Chronicles is an amazing, huge fairy-tale sci-fi retelling crossover with wonderful characters. (And it has Sailor Moon influences, which is probably my most favorite part about the whole thing.) 

Looking ahead, I'm really excited for Marissa Meyer's upcoming books! The Lunar Chronicles still has the short-story collection Stars Above. Then comes Heartless and the Gatlon trilogy! I'm really excited to see what Marissa Meyer is going to do in these new worlds. 

TL;DR I am very happy with how my favorite series has ended and I'm looking forward to seeing Marissa Meyer's new stories!

If you've finished Winter, let me know what your thoughts were! I haven't been able to talk to anybody about the ending yet and it's killing me. 

Welcome to Night Vale by Jeffrey Cranor and Joseph Fink

TL;DR Everything Is In Cecil's Voice And It Is Great // holy aesthetic, Batman

(finished 11/12/15)

I first started listening to the Welcome to Night Vale podcasts when we went to Alaska. I haven't been very good with keeping current with them, mainly because my listening skills are terrible, but I was super excited when I learned that they were making a book. I can handle reading a lot better than I can listening. 

(To try and avoid confusion, Welcome to Night Vale in italics refers to the books, and WTNV in normal text / as an acronym refers to the podcasts.) 

I didn't pay too much attention to the blurb before the book came out, so I went into the book pretty blind. I thought it was pretty fun that way. I mean, I know a lot about Night Vale already, so I saw the book as kind of a text-podcast. 

The book is going to make absolutely no sense if you haven't listened to any of the Night Vale podcasts. Even listening to just one gives you a one-up compared to going in completely unprepared. WTNV has a very Alice in Wonderland feel to it in terms of unreality, and that's definitely reflected in the book. 

(That said, if unreality squicks you out, Welcome to Night Vale most likely isn't your thing. There's a lot of defying the laws of the universe / things making no sense. I can't think of any other CWs off the top of my head, but the podcasts do cover some dark things, so keep that in mind. Welcome to Night Vale is not a fluffy marshmallow-y book.) 

I really enjoyed being able to learn about other characters in Night Vale. The podcasts are narrated by Cecil, so a lot of what's covered in those revolves around what he's experienced or what he's reporting on. I don't know if Jackie and Diane have been mentioned in the podcasts before, but it was really cool to see how they fit into what I already understood of their world. I enjoyed learning about them and seeing them grow.

The book also was able to expand on a lot that hasn't been covered up to the point I'm at in the podcasts. I don't know if the podcasts are going to treat the book as canon / a linear addition to the plot or not, though. I don't know how that would be tackled. I think it would maybe cause continuity problems for listeners who can't get their hands on the book. ┐(° ヘ° )┌

Anyway! The plot was compelling and took directions I wasn't expecting. (That's very normal of WTNV, tbh.) I was really happy to see Jackie and Diane's character developments, and how concepts from the podcasts like The Man in the Tan Jacket were included in. 

The narration is perfect. Like I said in the top TL;DR, I heard everything in Cecil's voice. it was amazing to read such a perfectly captured spoken narrator. There were also sections where Cecil's radio broadcasts were included, and those made me incredibly happy. The narrator of Welcome to Night Vale isn't actually supposed to be Cecil -- it's third person omniscient -- so having something that was definitely his voice was (୨୧ ❛ᴗ❛)✧

I'm not sure what else I can talk about without giving too many spoilers for either medium or managing to sound completely crazy, so I think I'll leave my review at this. I'm going to come back to this review in a month or two and include my sticky notes, since there are some really good lines I want to share. 

If you've never listened to the WTNV podcasts before, I definitely recommend them! It's definitely not for everyone, since it can come off as very unreal / kind of horror story-ish at times, but I've really enjoyed listening to them. Hopefully I can write a review of the podcasts themselves once I catch back up with them! 

If you decide to read the book without listening to the podcast, I would recommend keeping the internet handy or be in the mindset to be completely "???" at times. There's a WTNV wikia page that looks like it would be handy, but I can't promise you that it'll be a good replacement to the podcasts. There are also fan-transcripts of the podcasts if you'd rather read those to catch up (though you're missing out on a lot of context / subtext without everyone's voices and the sounds that go along with the podcasts). 

TL;DR Welcome to Night Vale is an awesome way to adapt WTNV into a text format and I'm really happy that it exists! The two mediums go hand-in-hand, so proceed with caution if you have no idea what the podcasts are like. 

NaNo Reflection

NaNo is officially over again ;o; While I'm sad to let go of the month, I'm very happy with how November went for me, and I'm excited for what December's gonna bring! (And not just Christmas, either. Though that is a big part of it.) 

EDIT 12/6/15: I found another blogger who posted a NaNo reflection! I really like reading about other people's writing, so if that's the same for you guys, check out The Quiet People's post! 

For NaNo this year, I decided to work on a story I had previously only written a few thousand words for. Aperture helped me win the past two years, but this year I wanted to work on a story I would honestly consider publishing traditionally.

(That's a long story, and maybe I'll make a blog post about it in the near future.)

Anyway, I chose Casanova and I stuck with it!

Well, for the most part, anyway. Around the 10th I learned that Miraculous Ladybug, a show I had been waiting for since at least last year, had finally started airing. And as a children's show based around magical kids, I got a lot of good ideas ... for Aperture.

I knew I couldn't quit writing Aperture for an entire month, so I decided back in October that I would let myself write for it but not include it in my NaNo word counts -- I mean, it's definitely not Casanova, so I felt it was cheating to include Aperture. Counting only Casanova meant I actually had to work on Casanova.

My theory didn't quite work like I wanted it to, but it worked nonetheless! Around the middle of the month I slacked off on Casanova, but once I had written Aperture and ML out of my system, I made myself focus.

I used my Computer Science skills to make myself a nifty Excel spreadsheet c: (We used Excel for, like, a week in class. I'm amazed that I managed to rig it up the way I did, making it do math for me and everything.) The blue bars are for Casanova, and the red bars are for Aperture. 

Surprisingly, I only worked on Aperture for 8 days! I was sure I was going to work on it a lot more than that. I think I definitely needed the creative break from Aperture this month. Everything I wrote in November I considered AU / otherwise not canon to the story I've been working on. 

I'm not sure how to really explain the 28th. It was mainly because I was so close to winning that I wouldn't go to bed until I had hit 50,000 words. I wrote 4,155 words the 28th alone. It's not quite as impressive as the 8k I wrote on Nov 30th back in 2013, but hey, it looks cool on the chart. My second most impressive day was the 7th, aka #doubleUpDay. 

This year was the first time I could participate in Double Up Day, and I'm glad I did! I donated under both my name and a friend's so we'd both get donator halos, and I received some cool sponsor goodies B) I'm saving the sticker for something special (my next writing notebook, probably), but I'm hoping to put the bracelet and bookmark to good use. 

In hindsight, I should have done some more pre-writing and planning. The ideas I had for Casanova only lasted me so long, so a lot of my writing for the month was straight-up dialogue or scenes I improvised completely. I owe a lot to Chris for taking me out driving to various places "for writing research", and also letting me try to talk through the plot out loud. 

I skipped three days of writing for Casanova. Two of the days I took off from writing completely because I had no down time, and one of the days I focused on Aperture and didn't push myself to do Casanova at all. My final word count for Casanova was 51,055 and my total for the month including Aperture was 61,213. November was definitely my most productive writing month so far! I looked back at my notes and most months average around 25k. 

My official NaNo chart looks like this!

I'm gonna have a post coming up soon that focuses more on Casanova itself and what I figured out about it over the course of the month. If anybody else did NaNo, I'd love to hear how your November went!