750words.com

750words.com is a site that I love. It is set up as an online way to write your "morning pages"- 3 pages written every day, generally long hand, as a way to clear your mind and get ready for the day ahead. This site has a word processor that notifies you when you've written approximately 3 pages, or 750 words. Not only is that rather nice, but it gives you badges for each "streak" of days you get- a turkey, for example, is three days in a row. It also allows you to track "metadata". Structured as "WORD: answer", it can track how many drinks you have a night, how happy you are feeling, whatever you decide to score. (It generally works best on a numerical scale, as the metadata is graphed for you. I, however, also track what books I am reading. It doesn't graph well, but it's interesting to see what I write based on what I'm reading, or if they even correlate at all).

Usefulness: 4 out of 5

Because 750words has a specific premise (write 750 words a day), it may not be perfect for everyone. However, the word processor and the premise are not why I find this site so useful and so dear to me. Those badges are incredibly motivating. Seriously. They are a great idea. In a similar vein to fitocracy, the fitness site that "levels you up" based on how much you work out, 750words badges for day streaks is something that keeps you going. If you have, say a 100 day Pheonix badge, you are NOT going to want to break that streak and lose it all.

The metadata is also really cool, as it plays to my sciency side. I like the idea of being able to track certain values over the course of your writing.

The 750words site also breaks down each day's work into percentages. It tells you how happy what you wrote was, which words you used the most and whether you were feeling introverted or extroverted (or more accurately, whether your WRITING was so). The statistics make for a really interesting understanding of your creative work.

Fun: 3 out of 5

Seriously, it's the badges that make me happy. Nothing else is really fun. (Well, I mean, I find the data fun, but I feel that's not an overwhelming majority in the opinions of most writers.)

Book Review: A Note

I am on Goodreads. Which means I know how anal people can get about book reviews and stars and scores and stuff.

So I wanted to give a little warning to everyone.

I'm a tough grader.

That doesn't mean I don't like books. Matched got 3's for both quality sections and I read the book in like literally 5 hours. Sucked the words off the page like a vacuum.

Just because I give lower scores doesn't mean I don't like the books.

So please don't freak out if I review a book you love and its not "5/5 best book ever would recommend".

<3 M

I'm back (v 2.0)

Remember that time in January when I posted about how I was back and really excited to do this again?

Of course not, I deleted that post like whoa!

But I am back now, for real, and I am really excited to get back to work and review stuff for anybody who may be watching (or myself cause hay I don't need an audience to do what I love amirite?)

Coming your way are book reviews- one of Matched by Ally Condie and one of Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas. Hopefully I will have another website review in the near future and maybe more on my novels that never got finished during NaNo!

<3 M

Review: Fantasy World-Buidling Questions

These are hardcore questions. Patricia C. Wrede wrote a very intensive list of questions to help you determine the intricacies of your newly invented world.

Usefulness: 5 out of 5

Hot dayum. This is everything you could possibly need to know. I like to imagine that Wrede sat down with Tolkein and took this list straight from his brain. You can chose to ignore all the "trivial" things, like art and culture, for basic world-building, or you can develop a living, breathing society/world/plant. It's a spectrum of awesomeness.

Fun: 1 out of 5

This is another one of my "I like learning herpderp!" moments. However, this is grueling work. There are SO many questions and it takes soo much time. I can't even explain how time consuming this list can be.

Hipster: 3 out of 5

It's okay. This site is sort of well-known, but articles are always a harder to find.

Review: Articles and Advice for Writers

This is a short review. There's so much information provided by these articles, I can't really quantify this for everyone. I'll give you some scores and let you figure it out for yourselves :)

Usefulness: 4 out of 5

Lots of options here. So many different things to learn. Definitely an article for everyone.

Fun: 3 out of 5

I like learning. Stop judging me >.<

Hipster: 5 out of 5

I found these searching the web for how to make mead. So, yeah. Not exactly easy to find.

NaNoNovember: Phase Outlines

I'm turning this into its own little database. I've found some articles and info explaining phase outlines, so I'm planning to collect them here.

For those of you who don't know, phase outlining is just a fancy way to outline your novel. You write scenes as "phases", a sentence or two explaining what should happen in that scene. You can outline the entire novel like that. Phase outlines are pretty intense, a full one can be over 10,000 words, but you're never worried about what you need to write. I really loved it and it made outlining, and afterward writing, so much easier.

Links:
It's Just a Phase by Lazette Gifford
Phase Outline Methodology by John Williams 
Scrivener Hybrid Outline by JA Marlow (based on phase outlining, from Lazette Gifford's ezine)
Phase Outline? (A forum transcript, where many people discuss their attempts at this outline style)
Phase Outline by Cherise (blog post, discusses value specifically during NaNo and gives examples)

NaNoWriMo: Word Count Update

Well, I'm pretty behind. Week 2 was a bit of a bust, with all the work I have to do. However, I do have some more analysis on NiIL and some more reviews to put up, so look alive people! My school work cannot kill me just yet.

Though graduaatioonn... That's another story altogether.