Hi, my name's Diana (pronounced Die-Anna), I'm Canadian (whoohoo!), and I spend my time writing novels. I am working on a four book series to be called PTSD - Promise, Treason, Sacrifice, and Death. I have finished Promise (64,000 words) and Treason (51,500 words) and I am now working on drafting Sacrifice. Follow me on Twitter @DiannaK_books
I know that it's not Monday, but I simply couldn't wait any longer to post this. The long-awaited day has finally arrived! at 63,989 (because I couldn't write the extra eleven words to bring it up to 64,000) my 282-page manuscript is finally complete!
You know, for some reason, I thought I'd be much happier to be done. I wish I could have kept a record of all of the countless hours that I spent working on this over the past four years just to be able to look back and say "Hey, look what I've accomplished!" But I don't feel happy. I feel just as sad as all of my characters who just had to say goodbye to each other.
The sun has set on this major episode, and now I just need to wait trough the night to see what tomorrow's dawn will bring. The manuscript is being sent out to ten people that I know and trust to have them look it over and correct it. I have asked them all to give me a review that I will post on here as soon as I get them. After that, I still haven't decided if I'll wait until the summer is over before started the sequel or if I will begin planning it in a few weeks. Maybe I'll query a few Canadian literary agents, or maybe I'll wait. I don't know what I'll be doing, but I know one thing for sure: I am taking a well deserved break.
Come check back in on Monday and see if maybe I've made up my mind on where I've decided to go. Thank you all for sharing this momentous day with me. You're all the very best. I am so thankful for all of you. Thank you for stopping in and I hope to see you all back here on Monday!
Alright, is it just me who seems to walk around with Dr. Phil tattooed on my forehead, or does it seem to happen to some of you, too? I mean, I don't know what it is, maybe it's just the way I talk or the way I look, but it seems like people are just drawn to me and feel like the can open right up around me. Don't get me wrong, I love that you can do that and that you trust me enough to do it, but why? What makes everyone with problems - not even problems, sometimes it's just something that they're really just bursting to tell someone about - turn to me. I'll be walking around or sitting somewhere, and people will come up to me and say something along the lines of "You know what sucks?" and then they'll launch into their entire life story up until that point and pour their heart out to me. After that they'll say "Oh, by the way, my name is Jane Doe. Nice to meet you." and continue on requesting advice. Am I the only one that that happens to? I can't be. Surely some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's honestly really cool, though. I love that I can do that to people and that they know that they can come to me with anything that's on their minds; that's just amazing that people trust me like that.
I had a real eye-opener today, actually. It was really great. I learned that a lot of people had behind labels because that's where they feel safe, but that labels can also prevent us from seeing the greatness that we have in common with people because we all refuse to share it. I learned that it's okay to step out of your comfort zone and that it can make a world of difference to someone if you do. Ghandi once said Be the change you wish to see in the world, and I never realized how much that was true until now. Today, I learned that we can all make a difference if we first start by changing ourselves and by changing the way that we act and that we see people. It can be life-changing.
Okay, enough with the sentimental stuff. Diana. Did you actually work this week? YES! I DID! I actually hit another huge milestone this week! Sixty-thousand words! I never thought that I even knew sixty-thousand words! Although, admittedly, about twenty-five-thousand of those are words like a, the, she, he, and said, but in my defence, that's still a lot of words.
You know what's even crazier? The fact that I have typed 307,853 characters including spaces. Do any of you realize that that means that I have hit 307,853 keyboard keys? And that's not including all the times that I've had to delete things and start things over, and that's not counting all the different parts that I typed up but that didn't make the final cut. That's a lot of keys.
Let's have a look at the progress of this novel since February, shall we?
February 25, 2012: I was bored one night and realized that I hadn't tried working on my novel in the last little while, so I decided to open up the file and see what I could do. At worst, I'd waste my already boring night staring at a blank document on Microsoft Word. However, when I opened the document, I realized that I was only a few hundred words away from 18,000. So, with the help on my friend urging me on over Facebook chat - it was around 11 o'clock at night - I decided to string together a couple sentences, and voila: 18,000 words!
February 26, 2012, 1:41AM: "Well, you've already got 18,000, Di; why not go for twenty?"See, what you need to know about this one, is that my friends are crazy. Most of them cannot understand the concept of a good-night's sleep. "Oh, it's only midnight; you can do it. I'm sure you'll have twenty before you know it. Come on, Diana; finish it up. I'll let you sleep once you have twenty-thousand." Yeah, well, there's 20,000 words for you. Let me tell you that I slept pretty well after that.
February 28, 2012: Now I really had the ball rolling. Paragraph after paragraph was pouring out of my finger tips and out onto my Word document. It didn't take me long to add another 11,001 (I really didn't feel like deleting the one word so that it would look like a perfect 31K). I already had my climax written - for the most part in bits and pieces - and all that I had to do was make it fit into the story. Already, within a three-day span, I've almost doubled my word count.
April 1, 2012- Luckily for me, this 40,000 wasn't an April Fool's joke. Once month - it was a really busy month and my inspiration kind of lacked- and four days after pulling inspiration out of nowhere, I've doubled my words count. And there is still much more to come.
*Just a side note here, want to know why my inspiration lacked? Looking back, it's kind of a funny moment, although at the time I wasn't laughing. When I'm really busy, I carry around loose-leaf paper with me and write things out by hand so that I can just go home and type them up later. Well, one day, I'd written near 2,000 words out by hand, and I'd folded up the sheets of paper and put them in my back pocket. A few hours later, I decide that I really needed to use the bathroom - the 8 glasses of water recommended in a day in order to be healthy? Yeah, I drink those before breakfast - and I was more worried about my iPhone falling into the toilet than anything else, so I didn't even think about the sheets in my back pocket until I saw them floating in the toilet. I was upset, to say the least, and I didn't want to think about rewriting every single thing that had literally gone down the drain so I kept putting it off.
April 7, 2012- This one I took just for fun because I was happy that I'd finally reached two-hunded pages. I added 118 in a month and eleven days.
April 8, 2012- I really wanted to finish everything on my Easter holidays, but my body had a plan of it's own. Did you know that the human body requires sleep in order to function? No matter how motivated you are, do not try to stay awake for three days.
April 19, 2012- Finally, here it is: 60K. Only about three thousand more words until I cross the finish line. Can I get some Tweets of motivation? @DianaK_books
This week is a crazy busy week! I don't know how much work I'll be able to get done, although I already have some written out by hand, but I will try to get done soon. Hopefully before the end of the month. Hopefully. To think that a few months ago, I was doubting that I would finish before the end of the summer. Now, I'm contemplating taking the summer off before I begin work on the sequel.
I hope that you will all have a good week and I hope to see you all on this page same time next week. Send those encouraging Tweets! Love you all,
Diana
P.S. here's this week's song. It's Lullaby by Nickelback. Now, don't jump to conclusions because this is Nickelback, it's not like their usual music. Take a listen, and keep your ears and hearts open.
Hey! How is everyone? Are you ready to hear me rant this week? Well, here it is:
As you probably know by now from visiting my blog so often, I am Canadian. In case you didn't know, it's written in my tagline (you should really pay more attention to detail). Therefore, as a Canadian, stereotype states that I need to be interested in hockey. Alas, it is true. I am a die-hard hockey fan.
Now, do not get this confused with me being a puck bunny!
- Puck Bunny (noun): 1) A puck bunny is a female ice hockey fan, often one whose interest in the sport is primarily motivated by sexual attraction to the players rather than enjoyment of the game itself. 2) The term ‘puck bunny’, which is applied almost exclusively to female ice hockey fans, implies that these supporters are ‘inauthentic’, not ‘dedicated’ in their support, and are more interested in the sexual attractiveness of the players rather than the sport itself.
-
Now that we have that out of the way, I feel the need to repeat that I AM NOT A PUCK BUNNY! I am an actual hockey fan who enjoys the sport more than anything in the world. I have no desire to sleep with any of my boys (the Pittsburgh Penguins), and I think of them more as my brothers than anything else. My favorite player is getting married this summer to his girlfriend of eight years and I actually cried when I found out because I was so happy for them. No jealousy there whatsoever.
Except that right now, things aren't so great for my boys. We made the playoffs after placing fourth in the league, and we were set to face our biggest rivals in round one. (Oh, and another side note: hockey? Yeah, it's a we thing. The Penguins win? We win. The Penguins lose? We lose. The Penguins make the playoffs? We make the playoffs. The Penguins get eliminated? We get eliminated. Simple as that. Whatever happens, we walk together - it's the Pittsburgh Penguins motto.) Now, where was I? Oh, yes, the rivalry. The Penguins have never been on good terms with their cross-state rivals the Philadelphia Flyers. The Flyers are a dirty, classless organization who have absolutely no morals. They couldn't be kind to save their lives. The Flyers have made it clear since game one - after which they released a press conference - that they had no intentions of playing nicely. They had already planned to wear our nerves to the thinnest by throwing punch after punch in order to instigate as many fights as possible. Since when has the beautiful sport of hockey turned into a wrestling match? It's insane.
Anyway, enough about hockey. You come here to read about my book, right? Well, I hate to disappoint you, dear readers, but I have to admit that I didn't really work on it all that much. It's sitting at 59,304 words at the moment (261 pages) and all I need to do is tie up the ending. I'm planning on using around another three thousand words. I know, I know; that sounds simple right? Diana, why haven't you finished your book yet? Diana, what's taking you so long? Diana, it's been four years! Diana, please stop being lazy and finish your book. Well, to be honest, most of the four years spent working on this book weren't really spent working. If I was to restart everything from scratch today, it wouldn't take me anymore than nine or ten months to finish. Over the course of the previous years, I've learned many, many techniques to speed up the writing process while still producing quality work. I'll have to see how well I can utilize those techniques while writing the sequel.
Diana, you're rambling. Please, just tell us why you didn't finish your book yet. Well, the truth is, I've just been so busy! I really wanted to finish over the Easter weekend, but pulling all-nighter after all-nighter just made me exhausted. I fell asleep at seven-thirty last Monday night! Can you believe that? Seven-thirty! And this week, well, I've just had so much going on. I'll be missing over a week of class during this week and next week so I can't afford to sit around and not pay attention, because I'll fall behind too quickly, I have to work extra shifts this week, I have to find time to watch my boys play, and I need to sleep and eat. Sleeping and eating are the most important parts of that list. I've been going to bed at nine-thirty all week to try and catch up on all of the sleep that I've lost over the past month. It's just crazy.
Really, Diana? Really? That's your excuse? Yes, it is my excuse. However, I did make some progress. I went out and bought a one-inch binder - which I then promptly exchanged for a two-inch binder because the one-inch couldn't hold all of the pages-, a pack of recycled paper and a black in cartridge in order to print out what I have of my draft. I figured that I could get the first 260 pages out to the first person that would be looking over my draft and then just add the last 15-20 pages once I actually typed them up. Oh! And I also had an epiphany while in the shower before writing this. I now know exactly how I am going to end this lovely piece of work. It's going to leave you all hanging and you're going to want to strangle me.
Do you have any proof that you really have been hard at work, Diana? Why yes, yes I do. Would you like another excerpt?
"Do you remember what happened?” I shook my head. “No, not at all.” “Do you remember what happened the night we were abducted?” I shook my head again. “You have to remember something.” “I can’t though. I don’t remember anything about that night.” “What if I show you?” I didn’t understand what he was saying. “Are you sure that you don’t remember anything?” “Yes, I’m sure! If I remembered, I wouldn’t be here talking to you.” “Do you remember when I did this?” Slowly, with his hand against my cheek, he leaned down and touched his lips to mine, kissing me softly.
See, I told you that I'd been hard at work. I hope you enjoyed that as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to tell you that I have an ending all typed up by the time I post next week. Keep your fingers crossed for me. Have a good night, and keep checking in for more updates.
Love,
Di
Oh, and as for this weeks song, I've been listening to Here Comes Goodbye by Rascal Flatts because I feel like the end of something important is imminent. I've watched these characters grow and develop and become their own people over the years. I feel like a mother who's saying goodbye to her children as I finish this novel. I almost don't want it to end. Almost.
I'm sitting here in my diningroom while waiting for one of my assignments to finish itself and the sun is shining through black storm clouds. Everything about tonight, besides the fact that it's about 5°C outside, is screaming summertime. Can it really just be April 10 today?
Time just seems to fly when you're busy. Speaking of being busy, how was your Easter long weekend? To tell you the truth, mine was a flurry of hours spent waitressing and then typing word after endless word. Two all-nighters and no social life later, my book is done! Well, almost done. I still have one more chapter (around 3000 more words) to write and then I'll actually be able to say that I wrote a novel.
I was kind of sad when I hit the 60,000 word mark. I couldn't help but think about what I'd do now that my work was done. I've been working on this book for years, I can't imagine what it will be like once I have it all done. And then I realized that I would be far from done. I'm planning on printing out the far-from-final draft to have it looked over by a carefully selected group of ten people who have all studied enough English literature to be able to pick apart my text and tell me every time something doesn't make quite enough sense.
In between each reading, I'll have to go back and fix the mistakes on my draft, take out the bits where all I do is ramble on and on and maybe add a little more rambling here and there. After that, well, I'm going to have to decide what I want to do with my finished novel. Do I want to get it published? Should I get it published?
Anyway, enough about work, I promised myself that I'd take a few days off after I almost went crazy pushing myself to get this book done over the long weekend. I was so exhausted that I fell asleep at seven thitry last night. Can you believe that: seven thirty! It's crazy!
Know what book I started today? Fear by Michael Grant. In case you don't know what it is, it's the fifth book in a series of sixth about a small community in California who suddenly finds that from one minute to the next, all of the adults and all teenagers above the age of fifteen are gone. Now, all of the kids have to learn how to live together and how to survives. The other books are Gone, Hunger, Lies and Plague. If you haven't read them yet, I suggest that you do. I started the book this morning and I've already read through almost a hundred pages. I can read a lot faster than I write, although writing over 100 pages in a weekend is a pretty impressive feat, too.
So, you must all be wondering, "Hey, what's up with this post's title?" Well, to be honest, living in a small country town has really gotten to me lately. I can't believe that I'm actually going to say this, but... I actually like a few country songs. Gah! I can't believe I said that on the internet! What will people think of me now? It's true, however. I actually am finding myself listening to more and more country music. I have a few favorites, but this song here I'd actually only heard on the radio. And then, today, something magical happened. I was browsing on Tumblr (yes, I am a total Tumblr junkie) and this blog I follow posted a picture with the lyrics that I posted as a title. Well, I decided that I needed a new song to listen to after having Fallout by Marianas Trench on repeat all weekend. I looked the song up on YouTube, and guess what! It was that same song that I always turned the volume up for! It was just like a miracle.
Check it out for yourself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50hUbuA54Mc
Well, it was nice to know that someone is actually reading this. If I haven't bored you to sleep, please check back again next week for an all-new post.
As I've heard many times before, in order to draw a reader in, an author should start with something called a hook to get the reader interested in the story before rambling on about the main character and their life. Unfortunately, I can't prognosticate, which means that you're going to be stuck listening to the minor details about my life before we actually get to our climax. This is mostly due to the fact that I'm still young and I can tell you right now that I am far from reaching the high point in my life. That being said, here we go: welcome to my life.
So, as you've probably read in my blog description and in my 'About Me' section thing there on the right, my name is Diana Knight. I'm a prospective commercial fiction writer hoping to get published. I've been working on my novel for quite some time now and I think that this time around I'll actually stop procrastinating and actually get it done. It's sitting at 40,226 words right now (if we're going to be specific), but it's outlined for an additional 21,087 words (I like being specific) (I also like parenthetical references, just not in my novels) so I'm aiming at a final draft of somewhere between 60,000 and 61,000 words.
Enough about my book, though. I'm sure you'd love to hear me about me. I'm still a student working a boring job at horrible hours to hopefully survive in the cruel world. I work part time as a waitress in a retirement home serving meals to senior citizens and getting to hear old war stories. When I'm not at work or at school, I'm usually working on my personal writing or watching hockey. By the way, the Pittsburgh Penguins? Yeah, they're totally winning the Stanley Cup this year. I'm a vegetarian, and I have been for almost two years now. I can give you a dozen different ways to cut and cook a carrot if you want. I love sports; I work out on a regular basis and I run 80m hurdle sprints.
What do I write about? Well, from my experiences in my creative writing classes, I have discovered that I actually have a very sinister mind and that I love to write things in which people get hurt and tortured and killed. Now, don't let that turn you off. I actually make it sound interesting, and the people that have read my book (aged 12-40) have all finished it in a matter of days because they all said that they were unable to put it down. I keep you in suspense and make sure that you keep turning page after page. Want an example? Here's an excerpt from my first novel, Promise.
"And then there was the pain. Pain, which radiated through my body with every breath. Pain so bad that it made me grind my teeth to keep from screaming. It felt like a knife, plunging into my chest with every inhalation. Pain, coming from the rest of my limbs, with every shudder that came with every painful breath. The pain; it was encompassing.
I told you that I make it sound interesting, didn't I? So, welcome to my space, I hope you enjoy it. I'll try to post as often as I can, when I'm not too busy with homework and my own personal work. Keep checking in, and if you find that I don't post enough, check out my Twitter account (@DianaK_books) and give me a follow, I might just follow back. Thanks for reading!
