Well another writing challenge done and another win.  Yea me.  Not an enthusiastic win, but a win, nonetheless.  It was not as easy or as successful content wise as June.  But, again, I won.  I have to keep reminding myself there are more words on the page today then there was 30 days ago.

I learned a few things about myself as a writer during this challenge.  I learned I can write even when I’m not 100% certain whether the story will work, not 100% certain that the story even makes sense and not 100% certain there is enough content to even be a story.  Those concerns were rolling around in my head all month and still I won.

I missed not having the daily connection and support from other challenge participants during the process.  I just felt more connected to other writers during Junowrimo.  You could always go online and find a sprint to participate in.  It wasn’t as easy to nail down writing groups this month.  I also enjoyed getting to know the other participants during June.  My cabin mates were not the most talkative people.  I guess they were busying writing.

But, I now except the fact my mind seems to like deadlines.  And, the 50K in one month challenge is still the best opportunity to get a novel written in one month for me.  Now I am looking forward to finishing this story in September and on to the next one in November.

I have to admit, after November, I hope no one creates another monthly writing challenge.  I think I will need a break until Junowrimo starts next summer.

Here is a small excerpt from my 2nd novel.  Enjoy, because that’s all you are going to get:

“Be careful getting up.” When the blood rushed back to the rest of my body and I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to pass out  I walked over to the mirror. I couldn’t speak. And, I couldn’t take my eyes off of it.  It was beautiful. I looked beautiful.

“I look fucking hot.” The shop started howling. I turned to Thomas. “What do you think?”

“Wait, what the hell are you asking him for?” Sebastian said.  He looked defeated, like I kissed his best friend.

“You don’t like girls with tattoos.” Bass scrunched up his face and shook his head.

Two of the shop guys high fived, laughed and pointed at me. “She’s got you down, Bass.”

“Shut up,” Bass said and walked over to me. “Who told you I don’t like girls with tattoos?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.” I was enjoying myself. “Ok, what do you think?”

Bass was standing to close behind me. To close for someone who I just meet and I realized I was standing in the middle of shop with no shirt on and my bikini top tapped on.  “This tattoo was made for you.  You look beautiful.”  We held each others stare in the mirror to long for two people who really didn’t know each other.  But, I wasn’t going to look away first.

Post to Watch

Ironic because two posts that caught my attention this week were on people watching.  It is one of my favorite past times.  When I move to a new city, I always scope out the best locations to people watch.  It gives me such insight into characters, dialogue and even the nonverbal way people interact with each other.  Plus, I am a nosey person by nature.  You can learn a lot about people just by watching them.

Snotting Black is one of the first blogs I started to follow and last week she posted an interesting letter to the guy whose date she observed from a distance. Check out Notes I Took While Watching Your Date.

Carol Kilgore wrote an interesting guest post on My First Book blog about people watching, event watching and names that as a writer I found helpful.

My New Followers

I hit over 4,000 followers on twitter last week.  How cool is that?  Thank you to my tweeps and to my new followers; The Inner Wild Kat & E.K. Espinoza.

 

Next Weeks Schedule

Monday – Summer:  Fact or Fiction – Post #1

Wednesday – Summer:  Fact or Fiction – Post #2 & Insecure Writer’s Support Group

Friday – Summer: Fact or Fiction – Reveal Post

Sunday – My Weekly Update

*Tattoo Tuesday will return next week.