A Most Suitable Marriage

Back in 2014, I had the brilliant idea to write my first Tyrion/Sansa fanfic. I even posted about it here. Well, it took me nearly four years, but I finally finished writing one. Of course, it's not the fic I thought I'd write. A lot happened between Season 3 and Season 7 of Game of Thrones that changed what I might have written. Still, I love the fic I wrote, and I have finally begun posting it on both Archive of Our Own and Fanfiction.net. 

Summary: After the Night King has been defeated and Jon and Daenerys have claimed the Iron Throne, Sansa Stark takes her rightful place as the Lady of Winterfell. Sansa knows that she must marry again someday for the good of the North, but after all that she has suffered, she is certain that she will never marry for love. Instead, she decides on a much more practical match, offering her hand in marriage to the only man outside of her own family who has never betrayed her, Tyrion Lannister.

5 Tips for a Successful NaNoWriMo

With November fast approaching it’s time to prep for NaNoWriMo once again. What’s NaNoWriMo? It’s short for National Novel Writing Month, a writing challenge that encourages participants to write 50,000 words in the 30 days of November. Although the idea of undertaking such a challenge can be quite intimidating, here are five tips to help you improve your chances of making it to the finish line:

Big in Japan: A Review of the April 2015 Japan Crate

Earlier this week I received my very first Japan Crate.  Yay!!!  I ordered it back in March and had been awaiting its arrival with eager anticipation for weeks.  What is Japan Crate?  It’s a monthly subscription service that provides subscribers with a generous assortment of Japanese candy delivered right to their doors.   Or, as the official website puts it, “Crazy Japanese Candy, Hand Selected, Starting from $12/Month.”  There are three different subscription levels: Mini ($12/month), Original ($25/month), and Premium ($30/month).  Of course, crazy otaku that I am, I had to get the premium subscription.

Now, I’ve had Japanese snacks before.  I’ve eaten various kinds of Pocky and have hoarded Ramune soda in my fridge for months (okay, years) at a time.  But that’s pretty much been my limit.  Oh, except for the Panda cookies I had to give up after watching Episode 25 of Death Note.  (They were just too depressing to eat after that.  I couldn’t eat them without thinking of L.)  So, I went into this little experiment knowing I would enjoy it, but having little idea of what to expect.  And now that I have sampled every last item in my box (As evidenced by the above picture.  Everything is open and nearly gone.), I can say I was not disappointed.

Each Japan Crate box comes with a full-color, laminated card featuring a comic on one side and an itemization of the included snacks on the other.   Each month, subscribers are sent a new assortment of mystery items.  I have scanned the list for the April 2015 box and broken it down for illustrative purposes below. Please read the item description before the review.

Let's Try This Again

I find it rather disheartening that I haven’t posted anything in this blog since November of last year.  (It’s been more than five months!)  Back in November I had every intention of blogging my way through NaNoWriMo, posting every day - or at least every other day - about my story, my word count, and the general ins and outs of writing 100k words in 30 days.  Well, writing 100k words in 30 days got the best of me and I gave up blogging after day eight.  I did, in fact, finish my NaNo novel, Captive Princess.  I still haven’t had time to read it through, but I was generally satisfied with the story.  I think it makes a nice companion for my 2013 Nano novel, Taming the Savage.

One of the reasons I haven’t posted in a while is because I was getting rather frustrated with the whole blogging thing.  I’m a writer.  I’m hoping to be a published writer someday soon.  And because of that, I had convinced myself that everything in my blog needed to be writing related.  It’s hard to relate every single thing I like or experience to how it affects me as a writer.  And so, I became both frustrated and disenchanted with blogging.  Then, a couple of weeks ago, I attended the Long Island Romance Writers open house and learned something extremely valuable from the panel of published authors present.  Writers seeking publication do not always need to blog about writing.  It’s perfectly okay – in fact, it’s more than okay – to write about your personal interests because it’s a good way to connect with readers on a personal level.   It may sound naïve of me, but I honestly didn’t know that.  Sometimes I take this whole writing-as-a-career-thing so seriously that I forget that it’s okay to still be human, to express more than just my love of the written word, and to share all of myself with the world and not just one part.

So, what does all this mean?  It means that, henceforth, I plan to blog about all sorts of things – even things that have absolutely nothing to do with writing!  It will give me a chance to branch out a bit, to get more comfortable with the medium, and to actually start enjoying the experience.

NaNoWriMo - Day 8 - Excerpt

The first five days of NaNoWriMo were extremely productive for me.  I wrote 5k+ words each day and I was quite satisfied with my progress.  But then on Day 6, things started to fall apart.  On Day 7, I didn't even write a single word.  On Day 8, I did my best to get back on track, but only managed about 3,500 words.  But, at least I'm still writing and I should eventually make my 100k word goal, although I doubt I'll make much more than that.

Even though I didn't reach my word count goal for the day, I did manage to pull an excerpt from my novel and post it on my NaNo profile, (although the page is still having issues and there are some wonky things going on there).  Here is a little excerpt from my current novel, Captive Princess, for your reading pleasure:

NaNoWriMo Day 3 - Synopsis

It has taken until Day 3 of NaNoWriMo for me to finally write a synopsis for my current story.  I hate writing synopses, whether it's two pages or two paragraphs.  It's always been my weak point.  But, since I'm blogging about this novel, I thought it might be important for people to actually have some idea of what I'm writing.  So, after meeting today's word count goal, I sat down to write a synopsis for Captive Princess (Yes, I'm still not too keen on that title.) and this is what I came up with:

Six hundred years ago the Earth was devastated by the Great Cataclysm, an event so destructive that it left half the planet uninhabitable.  The surviving population has moved southward, below the equator, and in the rainforests of the Amazon, only the bravest survive.

Remy de Zy’Aer is a bounty hunter and a hired gun who will do anything for a price.  When a runaway slave girl becomes ensnared in one of his traps, he has every intention of returning her to her master for the reward.  But there’s something about the errant princess that stops him at every turn.  Her beauty and bravery haunt him, and he finds that despite his best intentions, he just can’t let her go.

India of the Savannah Tribe is on the run.  Sold into slavery by the man who murdered her father, she will do anything to make it back home and avenge her father’s death.  But Remy de Zy’Aer has other plans for her, and she is determined to escape him, to save both her life and her heart.

Total word count for Day Three: 15,562

NaNoWriMo Day 2 - Blood and Handcuffs

Last night, when I was lying in bed, it occurred to me that the first two chapters I had written for my current NaNo novel, Captive Princess, could both be summed up in a few short, rather bizarre words.  If I just chose an element or two from each chapter, I could come up with some really interesting chapter titles.  Now, I write romance, so I generally don't title my chapters, but if I did, this particular book would have some pretty interesting ones.  Thus far, they are as follows:

Chapter One: Anaconda Stew
Chapter Two: Zip Ties and Tupperware
Chapter Three: Blood and Handcuffs
Chapter Four: Deerskins and Bacon

Can you tell I'm writing a post-apocalyptic novel about a runaway slave in the Amazon rainforest?  It's all there in the chapter titles.

I wrote another 5k words today.  I had planned to take some time to finally write and upload a story synopsis to my NaNo profile, but I just didn't have time.  I'd also like to design and post a book cover, but again, I'm spending so much time writing the actual novel, that I don't have time to work on all these peripherals.  The only reason I'm blogging is because I've promised myself time and again that I would and I'm just trying to see how long I can keep that promise.

Yesterday, it took me 6 hours to write 5k words.  Today it took 5 hours.  At my best, I can write 2k words in one hour, but it's a feat I hardly ever pull off, mostly because I procrastinate a lot.  I will try to do better tomorrow, but since I have absolutely no idea where my story is going, just getting to Chapter Five may be a feat all its own.

Total word count for Day Two: 10,286