The Timeless Story Two Roads By @oldshrewsburyian Is Filled With A Kind Of Burgeoning Hope. How Do You

NaNoWriMo – My Cartoon of the Day – Day 23: Just Keep Writing

We are approaching our final week! Are you flying yet with your story well advanced? Or does it feel you are slowly crawling your way up a mountain? Regardless of where you are: we can keep writing and even crawling is progress. If you need to rest for a bit to lick your scrabbed knees: enjoy the view and remember the view from the summit will be even sweeter. An empty page cannot be edited and having gotten this far: we can make it to the final stretch. One more week to go till we can enjoy the satisfaction of having made it to the finish line.

Day 23: Just Keep Writing

Remember to take a breath and look around at this glorious experience. When the sweat drips from your brow, your legs hurt and your shoulders chafe from the backpack: there is pleasure to be had in facing the experience head-on and living life to the fullest. Likewise with our stories: there can be hardship in committing those words to paper, but the experience of having done so will stay with you. Stand up straight. Stretch your body. Drink a sip of water. And Just Keep Writing! We can do this.

NaNoWriMo - My Cartoon of the Day - Day 27: Make a Nice Meal

Eating is an activity we do multiple times a day (I hope!). It's part of our everyday lives. When is the last time you carefully crafted a meal, sat down with friends and focused on what you were eating? Feel the crunch of fresh vegetables in your mouth, be comforted by the warmth of a cup of tea and smelled freshly baked bread? Creativity thrives on careful attention and nourishment: a focused attention of the mundane & finding the extraordinary within it.

Day 27: Make a Nice Meal

Have your characters made marshmallows on a fire? Sat down together and actually fed themselves? Enjoyed meal in a fancy restaurant or made a home-made meal for loved ones? Eating is part of our every day lives - how much is it part of theirs in your story? Enjoy! Let's keep writing and find the joy in the moment.

NaNoWriMo - My Cartoon of the Day - Day 16: ML Appreciation Day

It's Municipal Liaison Appreciation Day! Time to show some heartfelt appreciation to all our wonderful volunteers who facilitate our NaNo communities. Everyone who organizes Write-Ins, who hosts and moderates a forum or server, sends carepackages and encouragements: thank you! What I love about NaNo is the self-challenge and the call to creativity, as well as the feeling of community: how all of us are writing our own stories on our own and yet together.

Day 16: ML Appreciation Day

Who would you like to show special appreciation to today? Send some virtual flowers? A surprise plotbunny? A lovable raptor? A nice message filled with kind words?

NaNoWriMo - My Cartoon of the Day - Day 26: Visualize Your Story

Have you made any fanart yet? Drawings of what your characters look like? Maps of where they live? Favourite childhood memories that bring joy when they resurface in a moment of struggle? We are all inherently creative and I love how NaNo encourages us to embrace it in the broad sense of the world. Whether you make art by drawing, by writing, crochet or sculpting or something else entirely, we are all artists together.

Day 26: Visualize Your Story

When you are stuck on storytelling, it can help to draw a map. Where are your characters now? Where would they like to go? What obstacles do they face in their paths and what shortcuts are available to them? Like your NaNo writing: your drawings don’t need to be pretty or polished - a first sketch, like a first draft, just needs to exist.

If your characters are fighting you: challenge them to draw the way out themselves! Have them sketch their heist or adventure. Allow them to get nice and messy with paint to express themselves or perhaps lament that they stopped drawing past childhood and wish they could embrace their inner artists again. Have them pick up a pencil and explore the absolute FUN that embracing creativity brings and renew it in yourself. For we are in final days of this creative madness. And we are still here! We can do this. Put your pencil to paper and create!

NaNoWriMo - My Cartoon of the Day - 3

No matter how well you prepare, the process of writing allows for surprises and unexpected events! Let’s embrace the unknown and sail away in this adventure.

Day 03: The Best Laid Plans: Sailing Away to Uncharted Waters!

Find your crew, craft your lifeboat and sail away heedlessly of any dangers ahead! We’ll weather the storms when they come. For now: write whimsically, adventurously, and most importantly: take a moment to enjoy it all!

We’re off! NaNoWrMo has officially started! Have the plotbunnies found you yet?

Day 01: First Day – The Magic of Excitement

I always love the atmosphere of NaNo: everyone filled with energy and pursuing their creative experiments. Embrace the magic & congratulations for starting! Every word you write is one you did not have before. Yay us! Whether you have planned everything out or are flying by the seat of your pants – I wish us all a Very Happy NaNo indeed!

The Timeless stories by RedGold (@timelesshonesttrailer) fascinate me. She writes eloquently about morality, choices, and the timeloops & their consequences in #Timeless.

Today, I reread her story The Nuclear Option to sketchnote it and it continues to intrigue me. Jess is granted her own autonomy in her choices rather than just having everything decided for her (aka canon :-( ) and Mara (OC) acknowledges that "[she is] a really good person who's been affected by outside influences since childhood... and [she] didn't ask for any of this". I like the perspective on fate, the open-endedness of the story and the consequences for our own lives: what do we choose? How do we use the opportunities in front of us?

Today's reread is Blood Sins - A #FlynnFriday Imagines Series by @doctorliamsr, @timelesshonesttrailer & @ununpredictableme. A Vampire AU focused on Lucy, Garcia, Lorena, Rufus & Jiya.

I love reading stories about Lucy & Garcia as well as stories about Lorena & Garcia - so when it's the three of them together - it's absolutely marvelous. There is such respect, love & caring in this relationship here that it is wonderous. The Vampire AU aspect is nicely done and the mystery intrigues me: what happened? What is going on with Nicolas sort-of-aging-but-not-really? What will Karl's research into Lucy & Rufus turn up? When can we meet Iris? (pretty please *puppy eyes*?) Why are they suddenly after Lucy so desperately? How will Lorena, Garcia, Lucy, Jiya & Rufus handle the continued attacks & fight back against Rittenhouse?

Lucy gushing over history is always fun. Rufus being a brilliant researcher & scientist is always brilliant! Jiya being powerful, lovely & accepting no nonsense. Lorena & Garcia honouring & encouraging Lucy's setting of boundaries & having her choose actively - I am here for all of it.

NaNoWriMo - My Cartoon of the Day - Day 24: In Need of Medical Help?

Adventure comes with a price and as writers we often do like to make our main characters pay it. When they get injured, is there a doctor available? Medical staff? Decent supplies? Some painkillers? A nice suite in a hospital or a cold and windy little hut in the middle of nowhere?

Day 24: In Need of Medical Help?

As writers we face our own health challenges: are your wrists strained yet from the excessive typing or are your hands cramping up? Perhaps you tackled a really bad cold or had the flu during November. *waves hi!* NaNoWriMo should not come at the expense of your health, so I wish you all well. We still have a stretch of month to go, so get a good night sleep if you can & let's get this done!

NaNoWriMo - My Cartoon of the Day - Day 18: Dressing Up All Fancy: Organize a Ball!

Your characters get a fancy engraved invitation to attend a glorious ball! A chance to dress up prettily and party the night away. A romantic subplot is lurking around the corner as they ask if there's still space on the dance card? Or perhaps it's a time of intrigue and mystery as all the major players are in attendance and secret identities come crashing down?

Day 18: Dressing Up All Fancy: Organize a Ball!

Whether it be a night of magical bliss or horrifying dread - a fancy ball is a chance both for bringing story lines together as characters meet and for branching out as there's so much more happening beneath the surface! Watch out for story ninjas, get your fanciest jewelry ready and have a blast!