Well, I'm back.
Not that I really went anywhere. But I have been guest-hosting Random Fridays at Awkwordly Emma for the past few weeks, which is why I haven't been doing those here. That's done now, and your regularly scheduled Random Fridays posts will hopefully resume on the first Friday in April. So will Top Ten Tuesdays (for which my only excuse is that I couldn't think of anything to say for the last several topics).
And you know what else is coming up in April? Camp NaNoWriMo. Which, yes, I am doing. I'm hoping to rewrite my novel from November, since it has plot holes big enough for Smaug to fly through. I'm also hoping to actually do some planning before I start writing this time. Why? A large part of it is that I need to figure out what's going to happen in this novel and what's going to happen in the one after it, which was part of why my first try didn't turn out so well. Also, I'll have main characters in at least three different places, which means at least three main plot threads. I can't keep it all balanced in my head. (Of course, I still need to make this outline, but it's going to happen. Trust me.)
I'm also lowering my wordcount goal to 30K rather than the usual 50K. While I'm guessing this novel will be a bit longer than that, I will still have other things I need to get done. This blog, for example. And school. And the ACT test (eep!). And whatever we end up doing at Easter, because no matter what we decide, I probably won't be able to get 1,667 words in that day. So, 30K seemed like a much easier goal to reach.
In other news, I recently (as in, this morning) finished watching the extended edition of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and it was pretty awesome! I do wish that Peter Jackson had just left out the whole Azog plotline and instead left in some of the cut scenes, particularly certain White Council scenes that foreshadow events in The Desolation of Smaug. There were also a few scenes- namely one or two of the dwarves in Rivendell- that I was very glad were left out. They were . . . painful. But otherwise, it was good. And I still have lots of bonus materials to watch, probably over the summer. Yay!
What about you? Are you doing Camp NaNo? Have you seen the extended edition of An Unexpected Journey? What have you been up to lately?
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)
