Wattpad is hosting a story-writing contest in all kinds of genres: nonfiction, original fiction, etc., called The Wattpad Prize. Writers are allowed three entries each. I've tagged my Advice to Young Writers for nonfiction as "advice" works are listed. :)
But the fun news is that when I was writing Chapter 12 of Only by Moonlight, I wrote a loooong dream sequence that I had to jettison and rewrite from the ground up because it was swallowing up the chapter and getting too far afield from the storyline for ObM.
What I've done is change the names of the characters, reset the setting from World War I Chicago to the Regency period in London (think Jane Austen), and greatly expanded the story.
Currently the story is pretty much ready to post in six short chapters/parts, but I'm not sure about a couple of elements. And I need to design a cover. So I'm going to take a little time before posting to think carefully about the elements of the story (one event I'm seriously considering altering because I'm thinking it's too melodramatic).
I'll probably post the story as a fan fic on FanFiction.net so that everyone can enjoy it. It's mostly a fluff piece, but it's cute and romantic, and William/Edward is a wonderful hero. :)
Anyway, look for the story to start posting on Wattpad in a day or two, and sometime later on FanFiction.net as a new fanfic.
And, yes, I'm still working on Chapter 14 of Only by Moonlight which will have a quite humorous scene included...if it works out the way I'm hoping, that is. It's about half-drafted. I'll hit at least the 20K mark for Camp NaNoWriMo (my goal is 30K words by April 30), but I'm not sure how far I'll actually get.
I doubt I'll make it all the way to 30K with really only this weekend before I have to return to homeschooling. Plus I have MLA outlines to grade today for my co-op expository essay course and a week's worth of assignments to post on Shakespeare's history plays and Richard III in particular for my online Shakespeare Family Workshop.
So I have to write around these work requirements this weekend as well. But I'm at 18,350 right now--not as much as I would have liked to have written, but more than I would have written without setting this goal. :)
So hang on for the new story--for which I'm still bandying about titles before I can create the cover...which I will post here soon. Perhaps even later today if I get really creative. ;)
Have a great weekend, everyone!
~Cassandra :)
xxxooo
Okay, I'm a-gonna do it.
Last November's National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) was pretty disastrous. With a monthly goal of 50,000 words, I didn't even clear 12,000. Of course, I was homeschooling two teen boys, teaching two writing classes with our private school (homeschool co-op), and teaching a very extensive literary analysis class online. Those literary analysis classes suck the lifeblood out of me faster than the Volturi ever could; I often have to respond to 50-100 posts per day over four weeks!! So with that schedule, it wasn't surprising that my NaNoWriMo experience fell abysmally short.
But this month is Camp NaNoWriMo, and I've set my word goal at 30,000--that's 1,000 words/day. Totally do-able, right? Plus I only have one set of essays to grade for my writing classes through our private school (technically there are no home schools in California--we're all considered private schools--and our private school, Heritage Christian School, is the largest homeschool private study program in the whole state with nearly 500 families registered) as my students begin their MLA research essays.
And while I am teaching an online class, it's a family workshop class (on Shakespeare--so fun!!) that's already prepared and will require minimal work from me--just checking in with the families as they do the various activities. And our own homeschool is taking the weeks off both before and after Easter, so that's half the month off from active homeschooling.
So, in other words, I should have plenty of time to WRITE this month!! :)
Chapter 13 of Only by Moonlight was sent to my lovely and uber-talented pre-reader, ladylibre, last night, and I plan to start drafting Chapter 14 today. I spent this past weekend re-reading the whole book and jotting down ideas for future chapters, so now I feel more certain of the direction of the storyline. I've always known how I want Only by Moonlight to end; I just haven't been sure exactly how to get there.
Plus, I have a few milestones to report on Wattpad. Only by Moonlight has just reached 25,000 reads!! Plus, Evening Star has topped 900,000 reads on Wattpad, and Pinned but Fluttering just passed 1.8 million reads there!! Thank you, Wattpad readers!! I have yet to check my Fan Fiction stats, but I'm so pleased with my readers on Wattpad. Thank you all for reading my novels and stories!!
So I'm off to teach our morning homeschool lessons and then I have plans to write this afternoon!! :) I'll keep you posted on how Camp NaNoWriMo is going!!
Have a terrific April...which, BTW, is National Poetry Month, too!! Yay!!
Affectionately,
~Cassandra :)
xxxooo
