#it's only a week till nanowrimo and i have prep to do

[theladyragnell]

Omg, just saw you're writing ficlets, I must have missed them all recently so now I have a whole bunch to read - what a treat! If you're still taking prompts, leverage team + a bookclub of some kind?

Wuthering Heights

Eliot can't help snorting when Sophie mentions Heathcliff, which is his first mistake. His second mistake is not shutting up when she asks, pretending to be lofty but mostly clearly shit-stirring, “What, Eliot? Do you have a problem with one of the great love stories of the British canon?”

Sophie is mostly pissed off at Nate and he should just grunt and let her have this win, but Eliot isn't going to put up with this shit. “You've got Austen and you think Wuthering Heights is somehow anywhere in the same class? It's horrifying. They're all shitty people.”

Distracted, she beams at him. Across the room somewhere, Nate relaxes, out of firing range for a second. He owes Eliot for this one. Parker and Hardison are both watching with those tilted-head puppy looks they've got sometimes. It's anyone's guess whether they try to get involved. Eliot kind of hopes they do, because Sophie's got a gleam in her eye. “And that's the fun of it! A more interesting group of personalities than Austen ever wrote. We should read it together, and I'll prove you wrong.”

Definitely pissed off at Nate, and Eliot is not getting in the middle of this. “What, you mean like a book club?”

That's his third mistake, because Sophie clearly loves that idea, and fifteen minutes later, after Parker attempted to fade away out the window and Hardison argued at least four times that he's read the Cliff's Notes and the Wikipedia summary and does not need any more of that “white people nonsense,” they all agree to have a book club and read damn Wuthering Heights together.

They all hate it but Sophie, which Eliot takes great pleasure in, but she just tosses her head and says “Fine, then, Eliot, you pick the next one. I'm sure it's something terrible like Hemingway.”

To Kill a Mockingbird

Nate can't say he minds rereading an old favorite over the course of a month—it's a good pick from Eliot, and even Hardison didn't object too much. (Hardison also actually seems to be reading it this time instead of rereading the summary on Wikipedia, but Nate knows when to say things like that, and telling Sophie Hardison was cheating was tempting but foolish, considering Hardison already had a full plate with establishing very specific identities for their latest job during their first month of book club.) Sophie grumbles a little about Americans, but she does that at least twice a week anyway.

Mostly, he keeps an eye on Parker. He doesn't know how much of Wuthering Heights she read (his guess is about fifty pages, but it could be more or less, the first meeting of their book group was mostly Sophie and Eliot arguing and Hardison threatening to play Kate Bush if they tried to make him tiebreak), but this one, she's reading. He doubts she read it in school like the rest of them did.

This meeting, when they finally have it, two days after they wrap up a con, when they're at loose ends and waiting for the aftermath to die down before they try something new, is a lot shorter than the last one. They all like the book, Sophie grudgingly, so it's harder to keep up the talk without a lot of arguments, but Nate enjoys the chance to relax, to think about things besides the jobs. Much as he can be annoyed by their constant presence in his life and his apartment, he likes these people, and it doesn't hurt to read a book about them.

Even Parker speaks up once, though all she says is “I liked all the characters.” It's a start.

Sophie must guess that he's feeling smug about how well the team is doing, because she looks at him when they all have to admit they're out of things to say about the book. “Nate! You should choose next, I'm sure you've got something interesting up your sleeve.”

The Great Gatsby

“Really, man? Fitzgerald?” Hardison asks Nate three days into the month before their next book club. “You are a damn stereotype, that's what you are.”

Nate just smirks at him, because he's the worst. “You're reading it.”

“That is because I'm bored, and I hope if I keep reading this, I will fall asleep due to an excess of boredom.” Plus, he's read it before, a copy with a number on it borrowed from school, which he mostly skimmed to bullshit his way through essays, which he was very good at. “Blah blah blah, the rich suck, steal their money, we do not need this moral, we are living it.”

“The prose is good,” says Nate, like a complete dick, and wanders off to work on ruining someone's life, presumably. Probably within fifteen minutes he'll rescue Hardison from a book about the world's worst people

When they get to the book club, Eliot and Sophie both like it too, the traitors, though for totally different reasons. Parker, when Hardison appeals to her for backup, wrinkles her nose. “Someone should have been conning them,” she finally pronounces.

“See?” Hardison says, triumphant, before Nate can say anything about how they were conning themselves or something like that, because there is only so much a man can take. “I'm picking the next one, y'all can't be trusted. Don't worry, Parker, it won't be boring.”

The Hobbit

Parker hasn't read a lot of books. School, when she went, she sometimes had to, but she was at a lot of different schools, and she skipped a lot, and then there was Archie, and there wasn't really much point in going to school, and she never got the habit of sitting still and reading. It's another thing that if she mentioned it would probably make Hardison look sad and Sophie start planning to widen her education and Eliot growl a little and start leaving books around where she can find them. At least Nate's never surprised by the things she doesn't know.

The book club is maybe a little bit about teaching Parker without her knowing, because Parker's getting to know her team pretty well and she thinks it's something they would do, but Sophie mentioned, that first month, that everybody's picking books a lot of people know, that a lot of people might reference as part of a con and expect Parker to pick up on, so she's been trying not to resent it, because it comes in handy. It's just a lot, and her attention wanders, and she hasn't finished one yet, and this one is Hardison's and he keeps saying she'll like it, and she can't even start. Hobbit isn't even a real word.

“Hey, I brought you something,” he says a few days into the month. “Thought you might appreciate it since the whole sitting still to read thing isn't your thing.”

Parker frowns at him. “I can read.”

He puts his hands up. “Did I say you couldn't? But I brought you a way to multitask: audiobooks. They're the future, Parker! Someone reads you the book, you take it in while you climb through ducts or hang off buildings or whatever else you do in your spare time.”

Parker takes the zip drive he hands her. “I'll try,” she says, dubious.

It's easier. When she's listening, she can keep busy and still follow the story, and she likes that Bilbo is learning how to be a thief, kind of like Nate, and that the dwarves are trying to get home, and that it's silly until it isn't. And some parts of it feel familiar, like maybe she's read them or heard them before, which is weird, but she doesn't mind that either.

“Are there more books about Bilbo?” she asks when they meet up to talk about the book, almost before anyone can say anything else.

Hardison beams at her. “No, but there are three more about his nephew. Hey, it's your turn to pick a book! Maybe you can pick one of those.”

She'll probably end up listening to them, but she shakes her head. She's been doing research to see what books she might like, and Hardison can pick the books about Bilbo's nephew on his next picks.

Watership Down

“I just like rabbits!” says Parker, in the face of Hardison's accusatory look at their next book club meeting, and Sophie has to stifle a smile. She suspected Parker might have picked a book without finding out much about the story, though she can't regret it. She hasn't read Watership Down in years, and rather likes it. Though Parker might have done better to pick The Velveteen Rabbit instead, though she could see where that would hit closer to home.

“Then why would you assign us a book about them fighting wars, woman?” Hardison asks, and the two of them devolve into arguments instead of talking about mythology and humanity.

They're all five in the same room and not talking about crime, though, so Sophie is counting the whole idea as a win. Nate and Eliot, watching the argument just like she is, seem amused, and even Eliot isn't pretending to be annoyed much these days. As always, her idea is an unmitigated success.

And, if she isn't miscounting, it's her pick next, and she has just the right idea for what to choose.

[grimecrow]

A NaNoWriMo Checklist

   I am no massive expert, nor am I an award winning author. I’m just some guy with eternally abysmal grammar who has been successfully doing NaNoWriMo for a while.     This year I am mentoring someone who will be doing their first NaNo. Now that we are less than a week away I sent them a checklist of things they should check to see if they need to work on in the next few days so that everything is ready to go Nov 1st.     Then I thought maybe this checklist can help other NaNoers so here it is. Things you should ensure have been properly prepped   - a writing space. Some people need to change, plan or prep a space to try to ensure maximum efficiency. - make sure you have whatever preferred food stuffs you will end up needed. Sometimes it's tea, or cookies, or a specific fruit everyone has those motivational, focusing or reward food and drinks they prefer. - make your playlists! Whether you go to sound tracking your story of just have background music having those playlists or albums ready to go will cut down greatly on the chances of you falling down a distraction rabbit hole - let your friends and family know you are taking the challenge! This may seem really intimidating or for some people kind of embarrassing because they don't know how people will react. People tend to be really supportive, also a lot of psychological studies say that by telling others our goals it helps reinforce our need to reach them. - check your region on the forum, there may be a launch event or a write in you can plan on attending at some point in the month. - make sure all your programs if you use technology to write are up to date, licenses won't randomly expire in November, or what have you. If you use pen and paper, make sure you have extra pens and notebooks around, don't want to be in a groove and then find you have to unexpectedly run off to Walmart. - see if you can decide on cheat day activities in advance, and set aside the time. To hit the 50,000 word goal you need a minimum of 1667 words a day, if you push yourself every waking hour you physically have available for every day till your done you will burn out. Knowing in advance that you are going to spend a day with friends or going to see a movie or what have you in advance not only helps prevent burnout, but will make you less likely to stray during time you set aside for writing. -choose a reward for finishing. I know that simply finishing is a reward within itself but society has set us up to enjoy rewards, and using rewards for finishing big events or projects as a great motivator. It doesn't have to be huge, I think one year for me it was a novel I had been wanting but the general concepts we have of motivation come down to the carrot or the stick, best set yourself up with carrots cause if you use the stick on yourself you will spin out.    Sorry this isn���t super duper fancy in terms of editing or what have you but I hope it helps.

[zoematherswrites]

Happy Sunday writers, readers…people of the internet world! Sorry for no blog post on Friday but I am back now with another reading and writing update so I hope you enjoy 🙂

Reading has been scarce this past week because finals were absolutely brutal. Every night I was up till one or two in the morning scrambling to cram bits of (“incredibly useful”) information into my brain. The last two days I have been reading quite a bit though, still trudging through Emerald Green by Kerstin Gier (and still loving it!). In the past two days I think I have read about eighty pages and plan on reading a lot more today. I am on page 222/451 and am hoping to get to at least 275 tonight! I am also listening to The One by Kiera Cass and am about an hour and thirty minutes into it. Actually, as I write this I am listening to it and since I have a lot of other mindless tasks I need to complete today, I will probably listen to another hour or two of it by the end of the day.

Writing…hmm, well I have been slowly picking away at this film article I am writing but it is still a bare bone structure. I changed the point of view and idea of it a bit, and decided to gather some more information before diving back into it but I really like working on a different project not related to fiction. I do have a confession to make though. This coming week is the last week before Camp NaNoWriMo which means a week full of prepping and scrambling to get ideas together. I will be writing down ideas for draft two of my current WIP however I never truly finished draft one…I got over 50,000 words into though but I ended up only feeling lost in it. I need to step back, figure out the direction, and also solidify plot points both big and small. I am really excited to get to work on planning my second draft, and while I feel a bit guilty about not really finishing my first draft, I know it is the best thing for my project.

Before I wrap up this update, I wanted to run something by you guys. Since I am now on summer vacation and have some extra time, I really wanted to dip my toes into the world of YouTube. In the past, I have tried to vlog and have even finished editing some videos, but for some reason I always gave up and pushed it to the side. Maybe it was because my timetable was already full, but now that I have more time to pour into it, I really want to revisit the idea. I plan on using this week as a trail run and am going to vlog me prepping for Camp NaNoWriMo so keep an eye out for it if I actually decide to post it!

That is all for this update and I hope you enjoyed! Don’t forget to check out my last blog post as well as my social media accounts which are all linked below.

Last Blog Post: Top 5 Books to Distract You

Other Places You Can Find Me:

Twitter:@zoermathers

Instagram:��@zoematherswrites

Tumblr: @zoematherswrites

Pinterest: @zoermathers

Reading + Writing Update! Happy Sunday writers, readers...people of the internet world! Sorry for no blog post on Friday but I am back now with another reading and writing update so I hope you enjoy 🙂