Life after NaNoWriMo

It's been a while since I've posted anything on this blog or caught up with other blogs. Life has been a little crazy lately. I read a lot of books throughout september, but after that it fell a little flat.
When november came around I made a last minute decision to participate in NaNoWriMo. I ended up writing 40,137 words. I didn't reach 50,000, but I'm so happy with what I've achieved! I finally wrote down the main idea of a story that has been in my head forever. There were definitely points where I felt like I had lost the plot, but now I think I have an idea again as to where my story is going.

As you can see in the graph at the beginning of the month I wrote a little more than the required 1,667 words per day to reach 50,000 words in a month. Around day 18 that started to falter a little, because I had already found a new project that I couldn't wait to dive into. I finally got my own domain name for my  more personal blog where I write about pretty much anything that's going on in my life: 'Met pen en penseel' (the blog is in Dutch, it's called 'With pen and paintbrush'). It's been really exciting to figure everything out and really make the blog to my liking. After I started that project I figured I should get back to writing, and I did write some more, but I didn't really write as much as before. Eventhough I didn't manage to reach my goal I think I did pretty well for not planning to participate at all and I even wrote a little more after NaNoWriMo was over (not much though, after such an intense month I do have a little problem getting back into writing modus).

How did your writing go during november?

NaNoWriMo 2015

The last month I haven't been reading or writing much and I totally forgot about NaNoWriMo! Just today I remembered it and I decided that I'm participating again. Eventhough I have a general idea of what I want to write about and a lot of notes, it is very disorganized and messy, so my start was pretty chaotic. But I did meet the word goal for the day!

Are you participating in NaNoWriMo this year?

August Wrap-up

August was a good book month! I managed to read a lot more than I usually do, and I also bought quite some books...

Book Haul
I bought a lot of books this month, most of them second hand and in Dutch. Since I was on summer break from university I had a lot of time to browse thrift stores and I had a lot of fun doing so!
The books that I bought this month are:
-  De grote Van Gogh atlas [The big Van Gogh atlas] by Nienke Denekamp and Rene van Blerk
I stumbled upon this book at my local bookstore. Not only does the book have a beautiful cover, the interior is beautifully designed as well.
- Het boek van alle dingen [The Book of Everything] by Guus Kuijer
I read this book as a kid and at the time I really enjoyed it. I wonder if I will still feel the same way.
-  De vloek van Woestewolf [The curse of the werewolf] by Paul Biegel
Another book that I read as a kid. I used to own a copy, but at some point I lost it. The edition I have now is a beautiful hardback that is illustrated throughout.
- Wij zijn ons brein [We Are Our Brains: From the Womb to Alzheimer's] by D.F. Swaab
At university I am taking some neuroscience courses and I want to read more about it, but I was looking for something that was a little more readable than the books that I use for uni (which are not books you will read hours on end)
-  The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks
I got this one for the same reason as the previous one and this book seems like it contains a lot of interesting stories.
- De komst van Joachim Stiller [The Coming of Joachim Stiller] by Hubert Lampo
I don't tend to read a lot of Dutch literature, usually it isn't really for me. I personally prefer British literature or literature that contains magical realistic elements. This book does contains magical realism, so perhaps it will be more to my liking.
- Nine Agatha Christie detectives translated into Dutch. I bought a couple in the same edition years ago, so when I stumbled upon some more I could not wait to expand my collection. I am a huge fan of Christie's stories. They always have a mysterious atmosphere, but are never scary. They are rather 'cozy' mysteries.
- Lastly I bought Jules Verne's 20.000 Mijlen onder zee [Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea] in two parts. I already own an edition in two parts as well as a bind up up of several of Jules Verne's stories that includes this one, but I love the drawings on old fantasy and science fiction covers so I could not help myself...

Reading
This month I finished reading 8 books. At the beginning of the month I was reading 6 books at the same time, but I finally managed to reduce that number a bit. Now I'm only reading 3 books!
Of the books that I read, Saga Volume 3, The Lily Pond and Lydia's Secret were my favorites. Coming month I probably will not have a lot of time to read because university has started again, but I am getting on with a Swedish book that I have been reading forever so hopefully I will be finishing it this month.
Writing
My writing has been going very slowly lately. The fantasy story that I'm working on has only gotten a little bit longer, but the story world always keeps expanding. My other projects haven't progressed at all, I just wrote one poem. Hopefully coming month I can find the time to write a little more!

Short Story Saturday #10

A prompt a week to encourage myself and maybe others to write more even when we don't have any inspiration!

This week's prompt:

A building collapses with people inside.

Who are the people? What building is it?

Short Story Saturday #9

A prompt a week to encourage myself and maybe others to write more even when we don't have any inspiration!

This week's prompt:

A little boy eats an enchanted mushroom.

What happens when he eats it?

Short story saturday # 8

To encourage myself (and maybe others) to write more, I will post a prompt every saturday to write a short story.

This week's prompt:

A young artist gets arrested for selling a stolen painting.

Short story Saturday #7

To encourage myself (and maybe others) to write more, I will post a prompt every saturday to write a short story. From time to time I will share what I have written, and if you have written something based on the prompt do leave a comment, I'm curious as to what you would have written.

This week's prompt:

'A little bit further down there was a hole. Something came crawling out of it, but it was to dark to make out what it was'.

Short story Saturday #6

To encourage myself (and maybe others) to write more, I will post a prompt every saturday to write a short story. From time to time I will share what I have written, and if you have written something based on the prompt do leave a comment, I'm curious as to what you would have written.

This week's prompt:

A family with seven kids, each named after a day of the week.

Some questions to get you started:
Why are they called after the days of the week? What are their parents called?

Short story Saturday #5

To encourage myself (and maybe others) to write more, I will post a prompt every saturday to write a short story. From time to time I will share what I have written, and if you have written something based on the prompt do leave a comment, I'm curious as to what you would have written.

This week's prompt:

'I should have gone the other direction. If I would continue this way I would certainly get caught. I looked around to see if there was any way to escape'.

Short story Saturday #4

To encourage myself (and maybe others) to write more, I will post a prompt every saturday to write a short story. From time to time I will share what I have written, and if you have written something based on the prompt do leave a comment, I'm curious as to what you would have written.

This week's prompt:

En elderly woman expects no one to visit on, or remember her birthday, but on the morning of her birthday she finds an anonymous letter asking her to meet the writer later that day.

Some questions to get you started:
Why does the woman not expect anyone to remember her birthday? Who send the letter? Who is the writer of the letter? Where does he/she propose to meet? What happens at their meeting?

Short story Saturday #3

To encourage myself (and maybe others) to write more, I will post a prompt every saturday to write a short story. From time to time I will share what I have written, and if you have written something based on the prompt do leave a comment, I'm curious as to what you would have written.

This week's prompt:

A musical instrument that has certain magical abilities depending on what song is played gets stolen.

Some questions to get you started:
What kind of instrument is it? What kind of magical abilities does it have? Who stole it? To who did it belong in the first place? How did it get stolen? Is anyone trying to get it back?

Short story Saturday #2

To encourage myself (and maybe others) to write more, I will post a prompt every saturday to write a short story. From time to time I will share what I have written, and if you have written something based on the prompt do leave a comment, I'm curious as to what you would have written.

This week's prompt:

An old woman steals a world famous painting in the middle of the night after she receives a letter from a stranger.

Some questions to get you started:
Who is the woman? Why did she steal the painting? Did she get caught? Who send the letter? What is in the letter? What does she plan to do with the painting?

Short story Saturday #1

To encourage myself (and maybe others) to write more, I will post a prompt every saturday to write a short story. Maybe from time to time I will share what I have written, and if you have written something based on the prompt do leave a comment, I'm curious as to what you would have written.

This week's prompt:

His grandfather handed him a strange looking book and told him not to show it to anyone. He gave him the adress of a place by the name 'The Curtain'. He needed to go there right away to pass the book on to someone else. The person who was supposed to pick up the book would approach him and say 'They say tonight is as good as any'.

Some questions to get you started:
What does the book contain? Why must it remain a secret? Who is the person he is suposed to hand the book over to? What kind of place is 'The Curtain'?

To a new year full of books

Happy new year!

'May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.'

                                                                                                                            - Neil Gaiman

I hope to read many great books this year. I am setting myself the challenge on Goodreads to read 45 books. That is five more books than I set out to read in 2014 and it is the number I actually ended up reading. It is only a little bit higher than my goal of last year, because I want to encourage myself to read and not make it feel like a task that needs to get done. I do have some particular books that I would like to read:

- A book in a language other than English or Dutch

- A book in Dutch

- Poetry

- A non fiction book

- Finish The lord of the rings

Apart from reading I also hope to be writing more in the coming year. To encourage myself to write more I am setting myself the challenge to write one short story each week. Every week I will try to post a prompt, to hopefully inspire others to also start writing. These posts will be posted on saturdays.

What are your plans for the coming year?

Nano 2014 Wrap up

This year I did not manage to reach 50.000 words for NaNoWriMo, but I'm not at all dissapointed. I'm happy with the number of words I wrote, considering it was quite a bussy period. I picked up a story I got stuck on writing a long time ago and I finally realised how I wanted to continue the story. I actually continued writing after november 30, instead of immediately putting it down like it did in earlier years.
Next year I will probably participate again and hopefully then I'll be able te reach the 50.000 words once more.

How about you, how did Nano go for you?

Safety after storm

I am definitely not a poetry mastermind, but I finished my nanowrimo word goal for the day and eventhough I'm trying to write more prose, my brain refuses and only produces poetry.
I remember making poems as a kid, but it's a long time ago that I made any...

We’re building a house
after the storm
when the waves no longer
come crashing down
when finally our foundation wil hold
then I can lie here
and sleep for a bit



The walls will no longer fall
The roof will remain
in it’s place
We will be happy and safe
from now on
and we will know
this is it
here we should stay.

Nano 2014 update #1

The first day of Nanowrio I wrote quite some words but the next day I wrote very little and the day after that I also wrote very little. After my initial writing I didn't feel inspired anymore at all. I tried to keep on writing, but somehow it just wasn't working. For the next couple of days I didn't write anything at all. Yesterday evening I decided that I would lay this project aside for a while and continue Nano by starting another story that has been in my head for quite some time. Maybe it is not smart, because I don't know if I'll be able to finish this way, but I feel so inspired! Today I wrote 2896 words and I have several other scenes in my head, ready to be written, so I'm very happy that I made the switch. In the end Nanowrimo is about the fun of writing and actually getting something down on paper!

Nanowrimo 2014

Last saturday I started with Nanowrimo. For the ones of you who don't know; this is a challenge where writers from all over the world try to write a story of at least 50.000 words in the month of november. This year is my fourth time participating. Last year I managed to reach the goal for the first time and I was so proud of myself for it!
This year however I have very little time to actually write, due to a bussy time at university. I'm already behind on my wordcount, but you know what, I don't care! I knew before I started nanowrimo  that this year I probably would not be able to reach the goal, but by giving it a go anyway I already wrote more words than I otherwiste would have.

How about you, are you participating in Nanowrimo?

Words that are not translatable

Once you are exposed to foreign vocabulary you start to learn words in other languages which are very useful and apt in a certain situation, but do not appear to translate very well to your native language. This is very frustrating when I’m writing. I constantly want to use a certain word, but then I realise there is not really a Dutch word for it…

While they make my writing a little more difficult, those un translatable words are also very fascinating. How come we don't have a word for it? With other un translatable words the question is more like; how on earth would you ever find a situation where you could use this word?

In Dutch there are also a couple of words that don't translate very well to English. Such as the word 'gezellig'. It can be used to describe that you had a pleasant time with a friend, but it can also be used when describing a room for example. When a room looks 'gezellig', it means something like cozy. Eventhough you can sort of describe what gezellig means, it doesn't precisely cover it's meaning. 

Another one is 'plaatsvervangende schaamte' [place-replacing shame] which is the shame you feel on behalf of someone else who does something embarrasing. The other person is usually unaware that he/she is doing something embarrasing.

This website posts words that are not translatable (at least not in one or two words) into English. 

Goals for 2014

I wish you a verry happy new year! 
May it be full of good books!

For this year it is my goal to read at least 40 books, of which at least 5 are classics. I'm not sure which ones I will be reading this year, but I think I will read one of Jane Austen's novels and I will be rereading The Hobbit. Divergent is still on top of my to-read list so I'll definitely be reading that one soon. I can't wait to finally catch up with that series.

As far as writing concerned I want to finish at least the first draft of one of the stories that I'm writing and finish Nanowrimo.

What are your reading and/or writing goals for this year?