Saturday 25 November 2017

November Wrap-Up + Why I Quit NaNoWriMo This Year

Hey guys!

So I'm back, after a break last week. And today I'm going to explain that week. But first, I need to tell you something. I quit NaNoWriMo this year.

I didn't want to, but partway through November, I developed costochondritis. That - in case you don't know - is an inflammation in the chest cavity. In my case, it was generally agreed to have been brought on by too much typing and the doctor told me that I wasn't allowed to type for a few days. If I'd just stopped then gone back to it, I would've had too many words to write in a day and I would have just made the costochondritis worse. Which, since I have another assignment due in the beginning of December, I really don't want.

So I decided to stop doing NaNoWriMo this year. And that inability to type is also why I didn't post anything last week. I didn't have anything written beforehand and I wasn't allowed to type during that weekend. So that's that.

Now that I'm allowed to type a little bit again, I've gone back to my main drafts and left my NaNoWriMo story for a while. I'd like to finish Asteria by the end of the year, so I need to get cracking on that.

Since this is the last Saturday of November - here, have a wrap-up post.

Music

So I was mostly listening to my Ghosts, Doughnuts and Other Related Things playlist this month, but I did listen to some new stuff. I listened to AURORA this month and she's amazing. Really chilling, creepy music that's great for story playlists. Very atmospheric. 
I also listened to The Jungle Book 2016 soundtrack. A good soundtrack. And I listened to some stuff from TROLLS because why not?

My song recommendations for this month as follows:

Follow My Feet by The Unlikely Candidates: A song I've loved for a while, but still great. Great for character playlists.
Dreamers by Oh Gravity: A great song, super good for friendship playlists. Very good for space playlists. I love this one so much.
Isle of Flightless Birds by Twenty-One Pilots: A little bit darker than the others I've recommended, but great for sadder character playlists. I still love this one.

And my artist recommendation is: AURORA

I feel like you knew that was coming, since I mentioned her earlier. But she's just amazing and I completely recommend her, particularly her album: All My Demons Greeting Me As A Friend. So creepy and atmospheric. I especially recommend Running With The Wolves, Murder Song (5, 4, 3, 2, 1) and Nature Boy (Acoustic)

Films

Once again, no films that I really got into this month, so straight onto the recommendations:

This month's film recommendation is How To Train Your Dragon - Still one of my favourite animated films ever. It has beautiful animation, stunning music and one of the most emotionally moving stories I've seen. I love it. Go watch it. Now. 

Cutie.

TV

This month I started watching The Good Place, a really odd, really funny comedy about a woman who dies and ends up in The Good Place, when she was supposed to end up in The Bad Place. It's really weird, but hilarious. I love it. 

I got back into watching Thunderbirds Are Go, which is a reboot of the old 60s Thunderbirds show. It's great. I also started rewatching The Musketeers, a BBC adaption of The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas. A brilliant show that I adore. 

My recommendation for this month is: 

Falling Skies: Falling Skies is a TV show about a family in the aftermath of an alien invasion. It's great, has good action, strong acting and enjoyable characters. I also loved the focus on family, it's an original take on the idea. It's also pretty funny as well, at times. It can be a little bit violent, but definitely nothing awful. 

All the father-son feelings. All of them.

Writing
So, obviously, I attempted NaNoWriMo this month. By the time I had to quit, I had over half of the 50,000 word-count, so I'm pretty happy. It's more than I would've written otherwise and I've been trying to force myself to get to work on Ghosts, Doughnuts and Other Related Things for so long now, it's nice to just get writing it. 

I've also started writing a timeline of the fictional solar system in Asteria, going back 800 years to when humans first colonised it. I've got the first 100 years down. 

The first part of it. This is going to take a while, but it'll be worth the work.
I also got back to the main draft of Asteria and added a little bit to it, not much since I can't type much, but a bit. I also got further with editing The Gatekeeper Chronicles

I wrote two blogposts this month:

Reading
Sadly, not much got read this month. With writing and also working on my assignment for the first week, I didn't get much time. I'm partway through Hamlet by William Shakespeare for my module, which I've been focusing on getting to grips with since that's what my next assignment is about. I also read a bunch of One Piece volumes and I read And I Darken by Kiersten White. 

My recommendation for this month is: 

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick - Another of my favourite books, blending beautiful pictures with words in a really visual way, it's so easy to read and follow. I would definitely recommend it if you struggle with reading. It's also a genuinely beautiful and moving story. 

Blogs
I haven't read many blogposts this month, so this section is empty. Sadness.

This month's recommendation is: Paper Fury: Genuinely hilarious and weirdly helpful. Also, Cait's publishing a book next year, so you should all go and pre-order it. Now.

And that's it for November. How did your month go? Did you do NaNo? If so, how did you do? Tell me down in the comments. 

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