Tag Archives: NaNoWriMo

Gaining A Little Control In My Kitchen (or Continuing To Repeat Monthly Challenges)

Posted on November 4, 2020 | Comments Off on Gaining A Little Control In My Kitchen (or Continuing To Repeat Monthly Challenges)

For October, I challenged myself to find more simple recipes to have as easy meals I can make with little effort. I know that cooking for myself doesn’t have to be an elaborate production, but it’s felt like that for quite a while. And I know that in order to be more on top of my health, I need to be cooking for myself more often. I can’t just rely on delivery food and frozen dinners. But it’s been a struggle for me for so long.

I don’t know if I will say I was totally successful last month, but I think I made some really big steps forward. I wanted to have a few more easy recipes that I knew I could turn to, and I don’t know if I got as many as I would like. But I did add a few more that only require a little shopping. For example, I found a good chicken recipe that only really takes some chicken, the healthy type of cream of chicken soup, cream cheese, and Italian seasoning. While these are not things I normally have in my house, they are easy to get ingredients. And to put this meal together, it only takes about 15 minutes in my pressure cooker. The recipe says to serve it on pasta, but I had it with some broccoli mixed in and ate it by itself. It almost felt like a deconstructed pot pie.

I’ve also realized that it’s ok to use some frozen ingredients along with a little cooking to make a nice meal. My friend Tara sent me a super easy recipe. All it took was some frozen pepper pasta from Trader Joes and pancetta. Make the pasta as directed and cook up the pancetta and it’s almost like a pasta carbonara. I made this and added some peas to it (although I know I added too many peas) and it was really good! I don’t know if I’d use the pepper pasta again because it was a little too peppery, but it was still very tasty!

And even though my goal was to cook more, I also tried to find ways to make cooking easier or to find shortcuts. I know it’s super easy to boil water for pasta, but when I’m just cooking for me it takes a long time for the water to boil (sometimes I’m waiting over 10 minutes and it’s still not simmering). Pasta isn’t the healthiest thing to eat, but sometimes it’s the easiest thing and it’s healthier than ordering delivery food. So when I saw this microwave pasta cooker, I ordered it. I know that I don’t need it, but it’s nice to know I can make pasta super fast and without getting a giant pot dirty. And I know that it says you can cook other things in it as well, so I’m going to explore those options too.

While I didn’t get as many recipes added to my list of things I can pull together with minimal effort, I’m happy with the steps I did take and how much more comfortable I am with just looking around my kitchen and finding things I can pull together to make a simple meal.

And for November, I’m doing something I’ve already challenged myself to do in the past. I’m participating in NaNoWriMo again. But this time, I’m not working on my book that I’ve been working on the past few years. That book is pretty much done. I know that technically it might never feel done, but I feel very happy with where it is. I do have another chapter or two that I want to write with lessons about dating during a pandemic, but it’s not something I feel like I need to work on this year. This time, I’m working on a completely new book.

This time, the book I’m working on is fiction. It is also about online dating, but it’s a completely made-up story. I don’t want to share too much about it since I don’t have it outlined yet and it’s still just ideas, but it’s almost like a mystery/suspense book that has online dating as a way to move the story forward. I’ve had this idea in my head almost since I started writing the first book, but it’s only been a few notes that I’ve saved. Now, I’m trying to flesh out the idea and actually get some things written down.

This time, writing a book is different from the last book. I don’t have the entire story in my head. I don’t have real things that happened to me that I’m writing down. I’m making it all up and I don’t have much done at all. So I don’t know if I’m going to get to 50,000 words this time, but I’m going to try. But the main goal I have with NaNoWriMo is that I want to get a full outline done for this book. I do want to get as much written as I can, but I also know that there may be a time this month where I’m stuck and don’t know how to write the next chapter. So I’m lowering my goal a bit. But it would be nice if I surprise myself and am able to write almost a full first draft by the end of the month!

I’m excited to see what I can get done with writing this month. I think it will be a really good thing for me to do for so many reasons. This idea has been in my head for too long and it’s time for me to get it out in words. Also, this will be a good way to spend time each day. I need to work on being more productive and this will give me something to do every day.

I can’t wait to share with you all how it goes and I hope I have exciting news about how my writing goes by the time I write my update on this challenge!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailRecapping A Few Challenges From Last Month (or Getting Ready Stop Going Easy On Myself) Default ThumbnailAnother Monthly Challenge Down (or July and August Challenges) Default ThumbnailStill Trying To Get Back To Normal (or Isolation Monthly Challenges Really Are Not Easy) Default ThumbnailFailing And Succeeding In One Monthly Challenge (or Another Repeat Challenge This Month) Default ThumbnailAdjusting Monthly Challenges (or Books And Happiness) Default ThumbnailGetting More Productive (or More Monthly Challenges)

Comments Off on Gaining A Little Control In My Kitchen (or Continuing To Repeat Monthly Challenges)

Posted in Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , , , ,

I Actually Wrote A Book! (or Getting Myself Ready For 2020)

Posted on December 3, 2019 | Comments Off on I Actually Wrote A Book! (or Getting Myself Ready For 2020)

Last month, I did a repeat monthly challenge. I’ve attempted to write my book about online dating for several years now and I’ve never been able to complete that challenge. I knew going into it this past month that even if I complete the challenge it doesn’t necessarily mean that I finish a book. But I wanted to see what I could get done and I was hoping it would be better than my past attempts.

I had changed what my book was going to be about when I thought about it earlier this year. Instead of just telling stories about dates I went on and guys I met, I wanted to organize it into lessons I’ve learned through dating. This allowed me to work on the book without figuring out where things were going or needing to have an ending to it. This book has the potential to be a work in progress with new chapters for a while, so I didn’t want to have to feel like I needed a way to wrap things up. And by making it more about life lessons got me into that mindset.

I was following the NaNoWriMo plan again this year as I had in the past. I knew that I might have some days where I wrote more words than I needed to and other days would be fewer words. My goal was to work on one lesson (or one chapter) a day. And while I had done a lot of research and planning, I knew I would need to plan more lessons during the month because I wasn’t going to have enough. It wasn’t always easy, but I figured out how to split things up differently and new lessons to add so I had enough to work on one a day. And on Saturday, the last day of the month, I made it to the NaNoWriMo goal of 50,000 words!

Writing this book ended up being very therapeutic for me. I had to work through some things that I didn’t realize I wasn’t completely over. I had to revisit some moments that are not positive or that I am ashamed or embarrassed about. I had to be brutally honest with myself as I wrote things because I’m not always the hero of the story. Every day that I worked on the book, new emotions came up but at the same time, I found new peace with some things as well. I didn’t realize how much I needed to write this book for me.

Since I know this is still a work in progress, I don’t want to say that I finished a book. There are still things that may change about it, but I have a full draft of the book as of right now. And I want to start working on the editing process on the chapters I have completed so far. I have several friends who have offered to read it, but I don’t know if I’m ready for that just yet. I can do some editing on my own first and that’s what I plan on doing. Hopefully, soon I will feel ready to share it with some friends for some feedback and editing. And then after that, I can do some more research on what it would take to get my book published in the future.

For this month, I wanted to do another reflective monthly challenge. Not only is this the last month of the year, but it’s also the last month of the decade. That seems monumental and made me think about how I started this decade. I was in the middle of a lot of change and it was a very chaotic time for me. This decade hasn’t always been the best, but I think that I’m in the best place I’ve ever been in with my life so far. And I want to continue doing that into the next decade (and beyond).

So my plan for this month is to spend the time preparing to kick off the new year and new decade as my best self. I want to work on being in the best place I can mentally and working toward the best place physically. And some of the mental work includes working on my physical space, which is something I have been working on lately. I’ve been cleaning up my house and getting it more organized. I’ve been working on finding new ways to store things so my space doesn’t feel as cluttered. It’s been a process, but I’m feeling much better about how my house looks now.

I need to do some serious organizing work with my kitchen and it feels right to do that before the new year. I want to find ways to use my kitchen more and more efficiently. I also have a plan to do some food reaction testing soon and I need to have my kitchen in a good place to do that the best I can. I’m also looking at other things around my house that I want to change because I have lived here for almost 10 years now and some things are things I got when I moved here. I think updating my space after 10 years seems right.

I’m so excited that I’ve finished my first draft of my book (so far) and that I’m in such a good headspace for the new year. Now, I just want to make sure I’m continuing to work on those things so I can kick of 2020 with a bang!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailNot Sure How I Did With My Last Monthly Challenge (or Another Attempt At NaNoWriMo) Default ThumbnailFiguring Out A Plan For My Book (or I’m Not Sure What’s Next) Default ThumbnailYet Another Book Rewrite (or Letting My Blog Posts Inspire Me) Default ThumbnailRecapping A Few Challenges From Last Month (or Getting Ready Stop Going Easy On Myself) Default ThumbnailNaNoWriMo Take 2 (or Still Working On The Same Book) Default ThumbnailContinuing To Work On My Book (or I Wonder How Many Versions I’ll Have Before I Finish It)

Comments Off on I Actually Wrote A Book! (or Getting Myself Ready For 2020)

Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , , , ,

Not Sure How I Did With My Last Monthly Challenge (or Another Attempt At NaNoWriMo)

Posted on November 1, 2019 | Comments Off on Not Sure How I Did With My Last Monthly Challenge (or Another Attempt At NaNoWriMo)

When I set my monthly challenge for October to be working more on my acting career, I was so excited about the things I had in mind. I had some things in mind that were bigger plans that I knew would be things I would need to save up for, but there were several things I knew I could work on. And honestly, I don’t really know how much I succeeded or failed at my challenge.

I knew that I would have the convention and that would be a big acting related event. And it did help my career in many ways, but my plan was to try to do more than just that. I wanted to do some research into classes, work on organizing things to be ready when I have auditions, and schedule and hopefully take new headshots. And I did a little bit of research work (part of that includes my tv research), but I didn’t do a majority of what I wanted to.

I don’t want to make excuses for myself, but I know why this didn’t happen. First, I was dealing with money issues and that made me hesitant to plan for anything that would require money. I also didn’t expect to be as tired after the convention as I was and that took a lot out of me. Part of being tired (and another reason why I didn’t do much for my career) had to do with my grandma passing away. I’m grieving this loss very differently than I expected and I think part of that has been that it hasn’t fully hit me yet. When my grandpa passed away, I was with my family a few days later. When I have had friends pass away, it felt more real because of how I had been staying in touch with them. This time, I don’t know if it will fully hit me until Thanksgiving. But for the past few weeks, I’ve been just having this weird feeling that is almost like I have a bit of grief and sadness affecting other things. I’m ok and nobody needs to worry about me about being depressed or anything. This is just how I am processing it and it wasn’t what I thought it would be.

Obviously, working on my acting career is a challenge that isn’t going to stop just because it’s a new month. I need to work on this and keep working on this. I still want to accomplish the things I had in mind for last month, so I will keep making plans and trying to get them done. I do still have the same financial restrictions for now, but planning can be done without spending money. And for the things that will require money, I can take steps towards those too.

And for my monthly challenge this month, I’ll be repeating one I’ve done in November before. I’ll be working on writing a book. I’ve stopped working on the book about online dating that I was working on in the past because I didn’t like how it was coming together. And a few months ago, I had the idea to change the book to be more about life lessons I’ve been learning from online dating. I’ve been working on notes and organizing ideas for what these lessons are so that I could be ready to start working on the new book. And I’m planning on working on it this month.

I still do not think I will have a finished first draft for the book after the month is done because I don’t know if the book is done yet. I know that I will have more stories from online dating that haven’t happened yet, so I will want to add those as they do happen. But I want to get each section that I’ve got notes on right now written during the month. I don’t know if I want to work on one lesson/chapter each day that I write or just try to work a bit every day. I’m allowing myself to be flexible and see how it works best for me.

I feel much better about working on the book this time because I do have notes that help me see the flow of how the book can go. I have shifted lessons around so that it makes more narrative sense to me. And I’m excited to be able to write down some of the crazier stories that weren’t going to be in other versions of the book because they weren’t substantial enough. But now, I can’t put a bunch of stories together in one lesson if they work that way. I can’t wait to see what happens as I write and what I might be inspired to edit and change as I work on it.

I do also have an idea for a fiction book about dating that I have notes on, but I don’t have the same pull to work on it as I do with my life lessons book. I also think reflecting on the lessons I’ve learned will be a good thing for me and will remind me that even though dating hasn’t been going the way I wanted it to that I am getting some good things out of it.

Hopefully, when I do my update after the month is done I will have some great things to share about how the writing went. I have high expectations for myself since this is not the first time I have tried working on this. I know how I didn’t succeed before and want to make sure I don’t repeat those mistakes. And even though this book will still be a work in progress after the month is over, I want to feel like I’ve gotten a lot of work on it done and that it’s more of a book than a bunch of ideas.

Good luck to anyone else doing NaNoWriMo this month! I hope you get everything out of it that you are hoping for!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailI Actually Wrote A Book! (or Getting Myself Ready For 2020) Default ThumbnailTrying NaNoWriMo (or Kind Of Another Monthly Challenge) Default ThumbnailThinking Of Changing Up My Monthly Challenge (or I Guess This Would Be A First) Default ThumbnailA NaNoWriMo Update (or Maybe I Need More Dates) Default ThumbnailNaNoWriMo Take 2 (or Still Working On The Same Book) Default ThumbnailMonthly Challenge Check-In (or Doing My Own Version Of An OTF Challenge This Month)

Comments Off on Not Sure How I Did With My Last Monthly Challenge (or Another Attempt At NaNoWriMo)

Posted in Dating, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , , , ,

NaNoWriMo Take 2 (or Still Working On The Same Book)

Posted on November 2, 2018 | Comments Off on NaNoWriMo Take 2 (or Still Working On The Same Book)

It’s November and just like last year I’m going to participate in National Novel Writing Month! Last year was the first year I did it and I used the month to work on my book on online dating. It was a great way for me to work on a project that seemed so overwhelming and scary. There is a goal to write a certain number of words over the course of the month, but I knew that I didn’t want to hold myself to that because this book is an ever-changing thing.

I got a lot done last year during NaNoWriMo and continued to work on my book every so often since then. I do try to add stories or at least notes after I have a date that I know needs to be in the book. I haven’t been working on it as seriously as I probably should have, but I also don’t feel a rush to finish it. I still wonder what the end or lesson of the book should be. I know it doesn’t need to end in something significant, but until I feel like I know what I want the reading to think at the end of the book I don’t know if it will ever be done.

Even though I haven’t been working on it that much, I know that I probably should have done more since many of my dates over the past 6 months haven’t really been written about beyond the notes I made. And for what feels like the millionth time, I have changed what I want the book to be like. I have gone back to my original plan to have each story a standalone story and to split the book up into good dates, bad dates (or just horrible guys online), and the cheaters I have encountered. I feel like it is a good way to organize things and makes the book more of a collection of stories versus something that needs a clear beginning, middle, and end.

I don’t know if NaNoWriMo is supposed to be for working on the same book year after year, but that’s what I’m using it for. When you sign up for the challenge each year, you are supposed to announce the book you are working on. I didn’t see an option to say that you are still working on the same book from the year before, so I named my book something that represents what’s happening for me.

I’m not planning on doing the different events that are happening during this month, so I’m not too concerned about if I am supposed to be working on the same book. And when I registered this year and it asked me to update my word count, I did put down how many words the book currently is at. So I look much more accomplished than I really am. But I am using this month as a tracking device for me. I love the idea of working with others to accomplish a goal, but I don’t think doing different challenges or trying to win swag for various reasons is right for me with what I’m trying to do. If I had a novel that I had an outline and grand idea for, maybe it would be different. But since this is the story of something that is currently happening to me, it’s not really fitting into getting it all done this month.

But even though my goals aren’t to challenge other people or to hit certain word counts, I do still have goals for this month. I do want to finish the stories of the guys I have gone out with that I know I will not be seeing again. Most of those are guys I went out with once or twice and I have no plans to communicate with them again. But there are still some stories that have not ended because things are still happening or changing, so with those stories I can’t really finish them. But I can make sure that those stories are as up to date as possible. I know that as things continue to change that I might have to edit my story, but I’d rather edit a story than have to write it all just because things aren’t over. And those changing stories are really just a small percentage. There are maybe 4 or 5 that I don’t think are totally over (not all of them are guys I’m still seeing, but their stories haven’t ended), and I have dozens of stories that are over. So those few can’t be an excuse for me to not work on the others.

I think the first time I did NaNoWriMo, I had much higher hopes for what I would be able to accomplish based on what other friends have done. But I’ve learned that my story isn’t the same as everyone else’s and I can’t stress to hit the targets that others are doing. I just need to be as consistent as possible and know that I am making progress. And maybe during this month I will find something out that makes me realize I have a way to end my story, but that’s not what I’m expecting to happen. But it would be nice to feel like this story is done and I can finish it.

But as long as I go out with guys that end up being super ridiculous stories, I’m going to write about them. Even if I never do anything with this book, I want to have these stories written down and saved. I might use them for a laugh in the future or inspiration for a script or another project. But I still think that one day turning this journey into a book would be a really fun thing to do and I’m keeping an open mind about it all!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailI Actually Wrote A Book! (or Getting Myself Ready For 2020) Default ThumbnailTrying NaNoWriMo (or Kind Of Another Monthly Challenge) Default ThumbnailA NaNoWriMo Update (or Maybe I Need More Dates) Default ThumbnailNot Sure How I Did With My Last Monthly Challenge (or Another Attempt At NaNoWriMo) Default ThumbnailContinuing To Work On My Book (or I Wonder How Many Versions I’ll Have Before I Finish It) Default ThumbnailI Might Write A Book (or The Bumble Avenger)

Comments Off on NaNoWriMo Take 2 (or Still Working On The Same Book)

Posted in Dating, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , ,

Continuing To Work On My Book (or I Wonder How Many Versions I’ll Have Before I Finish It)

Posted on August 23, 2018 | 2 comments

I’ve shared on here before about how I am going to write a book about online dating. My stories have been so ridiculous and my friends have loved hearing about them. After posting so many of them online, people were encouraging me to put them in a book and I started to think about that idea. And I decided to go for it last year.

Since I had that idea, I’ve worked on it on and off for a while. The original idea of the book would be that it would be a collection of stories. Each guy would have their own standalone chapter or story and it would just be all the stories in one place. I was going to split it up by the guys that I met, the guys I matched with and unmatched with them for various reasons, and the cheaters that I caught online. Having them as standalone stories made them pretty easy to write and I got most of the stories done when I was working on it last November.

But when I finished that, I realized how short the book was. I knew it could get longer because I was still doing online dating and having stories to share, but it still concerned me if I wanted to do anything with the book. But I didn’t focus too much on it at the time. Then after I went through an upsetting situation with a guy, I reconnected with a few guys who I had met in the past. After that situation, I realized that having each guy as their own story didn’t make as much sense because reconnecting with the guys that I had met previously was very connected to the situation that happened to me.

So then I started working on a version of the story that was more of a chronological story of dating. I had the idea to break my story in the seasons of the year because that seemed to be some nice and natural break points in the story. I didn’t get that far into writing that version when I realized that this idea wasn’t making as much sense to me as it did before. So many of the crazy stories that I had weren’t necessary in telling the story and they were better as standalone stories. Also, I really don’t remember when certain weird situations happened because I never met those guys (so I never put dates with them in my calendar).

There was a bit of time where I wondered if I should bother continuing writing the book, but I quickly squashed that negative thought. Even if I don’t do anything with the book, it has been helpful for me. It gives me a place to write down thoughts and decompress after bad dates or after things end with a guy that I liked. I know that some of the things I am writing will have to be edited out if I ever publish it, but it’s a nice place to get things out when I need to do that. Also, it makes me have a better mindset about the really bad dates I’ve had. The past few bad dates have been not as horrible as they could have been because I was sitting there thinking how great of a story for the book this date would be. It’s been a great way to get through things that could be miserable otherwise.

So I started to rethink the book again and now I’m on the third version of the book. As much as I’d like to say this is the last version, who knows what will happen. As of right now, my book is split into 2 sections. The first section is a chronological story of the more significant guys that I’ve gone out with. These are guys I’ve dated for a while, guys who have helped me learn something about myself, or guys that ghosted me or broke my heart. They all deserve to have their stories told together because they work together and you can see how one thing leads into the other.

The second part of the book (which I’m guessing will end up being a longer part than the first) will be standalone stories of the crazies I’ve met. Some of these guys are guys that I messaged with and never met because they revealed their true colors before we made plans and other guys are ones that I went on my worst dates with. There are a few guys in there that aren’t horrible people but are better as a standalone story, but in general this section of the book isn’t flattering for any of the guys I met. These are the stories that you hear as warning stories on why online dating can be bad.

I’ve been slowly working on the book this time around. Even though this is the third version of it, I’ve never finished any of the versions. The advantage I have now is that most of the standalone stories have already been written although I am going to go back and edit and rewrite them. Plus I’ve already had a few new stories to add to that section that I need to work on. But I don’t really have a timeline for finishing it. In a way, I don’t know if it can be finished until I’m in a relationship because then I will always feel like there will be more stories to add.

There’s no rush since I really have no plans for this book. If I end up trying to sell it, awesome. If it just becomes a document on my computer, that’s fine too. But I do like having it as a goal to work on as well as something that has been a useful tool in surviving the online dating world.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailA NaNoWriMo Update (or Maybe I Need More Dates) Default ThumbnailAdventures In Online Dating (or My Luck Might Be Changing) Default ThumbnailNaNoWriMo Take 2 (or Still Working On The Same Book) Default ThumbnailI Might Write A Book (or The Bumble Avenger) Default ThumbnailContinuing To Work On Myself (or More Reflective Challenges) Default ThumbnailBuilding Upon My Monthly Challenge (or Continuing To Work On Shopping)

2 Comments

Posted in Dating, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , ,

A NaNoWriMo Update (or Maybe I Need More Dates)

Posted on November 29, 2017 | 2 comments

At the beginning of the month, I shared how I was going to participate in National Novel Writing Month. I was going to use the month to work on writing the book I planned on writing about my adventures in online dating. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed when the month started, but I figured that I didn’t have to hold myself to the daily goals of NaNoWriMo and just could work on a story every day.

I had been taking notes on the stories that I wanted to write and it seemed like it would take forever to get through it. But I felt better when I had the idea broken down into chunks and I decided that until I got started that it would continue to feel like a huge task. So I got started on the stories and fortunately they seemed to be easy to write and it didn’t take me too much time to get each story done. It was a bit fun to remember the crazy things that have happened to me. And it helped me reflect on how much I’ve grown as a person since I’ve put myself out there more and that I’m much stronger now than I was earlier this year.

I rarely worked on more than one story a day. It seemed better to focus on one a day and it allowed me to write the story and do some edits the same day. I didn’t have to spend too long working on it so it never felt like a task. But then I ran into a bit of a problem.

I ran out of stories to share! I could technically write about more horrible people, but I did try to lump in some of the smaller stories into a single story. There is no reason for me to write about each guy that called me fat or said something about how I was an item on the bucket list for types of girls they wanted to go out with. Those could be combined and that seemed to be the best thing for how the flow of the book was going.

There are still 2 stories I haven’t written. Both are guys that I’m still seeing a bit so I don’t know how things will end. And I don’t want to work on their stories too much yet because I think the tone of it will be based on what happens with them. If one of them says something horrible to me, I’ll be more suspicious of things leading up to that than I would be if things just end because they reach a natural end. One of those stories is probably going to be a longer one and the other may or may not be a longer one (it just depends on how many more dates I have with him).

But even if both of those stories are long ones, my book is pretty short. If I printed it without those stories, it’s only 50 pages long and that includes the cover and chapter page. That’s a tiny book and I know that if I ever want to do something with it the book probably needs to be longer. I have no idea if I will ever try to publish it, but I have had some screenwriter friends express interest in it to turn into a series or something else. But no matter what I do with it, I know that if I want it to be more than just something for me that I need it to be a more substantial book.

I could go back and try to expand stories. I’ve already started to do that and have gone through several edits on multiple stories. I know there is more that I can do, but I probably need to step away from it for a little bit before I can view it again with fresh eyes and new ideas.

Of course, the other idea is that I just need to go on more dates. I’m still not seeing someone seriously and unless one of the guys I’m seeing now ends up being someone who I end up being serious with (and that’s not necessarily going to be the case), I will have more dates in my future. I’ve been less active with the dating apps lately due to my schedule and the holidays. But I’m trying to get better at it again because I want to keep meeting new guys. I don’t like dating lots of different guys, but I know that I need to do that if I want to find someone to eventually marry. I don’t meet people at work (since I work from home) or in my workouts, so online dating really is the best way for me to meet new people.

Of course, if one of the guys I’m seeing now ends up being something serious, that’s fine and I’ll end the book that way. I don’t have to sell the book, but if I do I know I can always have it as a novella and it can be a short book. I don’t expect to sell this book and make a ton of money on it, so a novella is always an option.

But I don’t feel like my story is done yet. I think there are plenty of adventures still out there for me and when they do happen I know I’ll have to write them down. I’m glad I didn’t feel the pressure to stick with the NaNoWriMo targets and that this book is going to be something I continuously work on. I have what I hope will be a majority of it done so adding stories as they happen won’t feel as overwhelming to me anymore.

A year ago, I had no idea that all these adventures would happen to me. While some of them still make me mad, I know that they all happened for a reason. And I guess that reason for some of them is so I could turn the stories into a book. And one day, hopefully this will be something I can share with others and people will get some entertainment out of my adventures.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailContinuing To Work On My Book (or I Wonder How Many Versions I’ll Have Before I Finish It) Default ThumbnailYet Another Book Rewrite (or Letting My Blog Posts Inspire Me) Default ThumbnailI Might Write A Book (or The Bumble Avenger) Default ThumbnailTrying NaNoWriMo (or Kind Of Another Monthly Challenge) Default ThumbnailNaNoWriMo Take 2 (or Still Working On The Same Book) Default ThumbnailNot Sure How I Did With My Last Monthly Challenge (or Another Attempt At NaNoWriMo)

2 Comments

Posted in Dating, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , , , ,

Trying NaNoWriMo (or Kind Of Another Monthly Challenge)

Posted on November 3, 2017 | 2 comments

Even though I just shared my monthly challenge, I’ve actually found another one and this one has to be done this month. National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo) is from November 1-30 and even though I missed the beginning of it I’ve decided to see how many days this month I can do it.

I had started working on a book about online dating a while ago, but I haven’t really worked on it much since then. I’ve meant to work on it, but it just hasn’t happened. I have updated things as I’ve had new stories that I knew I wanted to have in the book, but I know that I need to start writing my stories before I forget some of the details. And doing NaNoWriMo seems to be the perfect thing to help motivate me to work on the stories.

The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. That is about 1667 words a day. I don’t really know how that will look in terms of the book I want to work on, but I think that could be some of the stories I have. I was using some old blog posts as ideas and they average about 1000 words. So doing more than a blog post isn’t going to be possible for each story I have to share, but many of them could easily be longer than that. I don’t want to have to hold myself to doing 1667 words a day because I don’t necessarily want to have to do a story and a half in a day, but it’s a good goal to have as an average.

So my idea for NaNoWriMo is to hopefully write one of my stories a day. As of right now, I don’t have 30 stories I want to share but I have to think about things and see if there are more swipe left stories (or guys that I didn’t want to meet) that I could add. There are so many guys that have started chatting with me and then said something that made me never want to talk to them again but I haven’t really thought about putting any of those stories in. All of my swipe left stories are guys that I was going to meet or there was something funny that happened. Sadly, guys that say gross things is a common thing and they don’t each deserve a story.

I have had some friends do NaNoWriMo in the past and they have worked on their books religiously and did accomplish the goal of writing a draft of their book within the month. While I would love to say that I’m going to work on the book every day, I know that it isn’t necessarily going to be possible. I have a feeling that when I’m with my family at Thanksgiving that I might be too busy between working my day job and being with family that I won’t be able to write. But I will have my laptop with me so writing will be possible if I find the time.

While I loved the idea of writing a book when it came to me, it has scared me a bit. It’s almost the same feeling I had when I started this blog and the best way to fix that was to jump right in and not think twice. With the book, since it isn’t being shared as I write I didn’t feel the same pressure to make sure I did it. But having the word count updates on NaNoWriMo should help to create that same pressure that I need to work. And hopefully the more that I work on it the less scary it is to me.

I have no clue what I’d do if I finish the book. So many friends have said I should publish it because my stories are so crazy. I don’t know if I would do that or how to do it, but it’s a fun idea. But I really just want to finish the book so that I can say it’s done and then I can figure out what to do with it. And I’m hoping that my crazy stories will be slowing down so if I have any more stories to add after it’s done that it will be a quick update. I’m guessing what I have to do right now is going to be a majority of the book and that’s a big hill to climb. But I know I can do it.

Are any of you participating in NaNoWriMo? Or have you done it in the past? I’d really love some advice on what helped you because this is a new journey for me and I know that having some tricks or tips can make this easier to accomplish.

SaveSave

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailContinuing To Work On My Book (or I Wonder How Many Versions I’ll Have Before I Finish It) Default ThumbnailRecapping A Few Challenges From Last Month (or Getting Ready Stop Going Easy On Myself) Default ThumbnailNot Sure How I Did With My Last Monthly Challenge (or Another Attempt At NaNoWriMo) Default ThumbnailA NaNoWriMo Update (or Maybe I Need More Dates) Default ThumbnailNaNoWriMo Take 2 (or Still Working On The Same Book) Default ThumbnailMonthly Challenge Check-In (or Doing My Own Version Of An OTF Challenge This Month)

2 Comments

Posted in Dating, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , ,