Tag Archives: NaNoWriMo

RECIPE: How To Make Your Own Writer

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Do you have a million ideas but no time or motivation to write them? Are you tired of writing your novels yourself? Is NaNo getting to you? Then I have THE recipe for you! Before you know it you’ll have made your own writer who can take over your work for you

I know it sounds to good to be true, but I guarantee you that it works*

* And if it doesn’t you clearly did something wrong while following the recipe so don’t blame me

I can hear you scream: WHAT IS THIS RECIPE MICHELLE? SHARE IT WITH US ALREADY

No worries, here it is:

HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN WRITER: A RECIPE BY MICHELLE

NECESSITIES:
💛 1 bowl
💛 1 liter of tears of frustration (TEARS OF SADNESS DO NOT WORK!!)
💛 All of your ideas
💛 1 notebook
💛 2 pens
💛 Your favourite song to write to
💛 Something comfortable to wear while writing, like a onesie
💛 A blanket
💛 Tea, coffee or another writing beverage

DIRECTIONS:

💛 First change into something comfortable to wear while writing, like a onesie

Yes that’s me

💛 Put on your favourite song to write to while making your writer*. This is ESSENTIAL if you listen to music while writing/use it to inspire you. Your writer will have less inspiration if you forgot to put on that music. Don’t worry if you never listen to music while writing – in that case your writer won’t need it either
💛 Preheat the oven uhhhh** 200 degrees (CELSIUS!! VERY IMPORTANT NOT FAHRENHEIT YOU AMERICANS)
💛 Put all of your ideas in the bowl – you can do this by writing them down in the notebook, on separate pieces of paper or by sending your thoughts in the bowl***
💛 Add the notebook if you haven’t yet and also the pens
💛 Add tea, coffee or an other writing beverage and stir 10 times

* Bonus! Dance like me in the gif while making your writer for Extra Fun™
** I’m not making this up as I go along?? Where did you get this idea
*** 10/10 would recommend this method takes up the least ammount of energy, but it won’t work for everyone so if your writer doesn’t come out right it’s not my fault okay 

💛 Now it’s time to add those tears of frustration. Don’t have any yet, let alone 1 liter? That’s okay! Just think about how far behind you are on NaNo, how many ideas you haven’t been able to work on yet, all those plot holes… I’m sure you have a million writer problems to cry over!

💛 Stir for one minute, make sure those tears mix with your ideas nicely
💛 Now put all that in the oven for fifteen minutes
💛 Get comfy while you wait – time to use that blanket! Don’t use that free time to write – no don’t take that work away from your soon to be baked writer! Go sleep, watch a movie – do whatever writing got in the way of
💛 Let your writer get accustomed to their new surroundings for a bit when you take them out of the oven

The ammount of time this takes is different for every writer, but make sure you don’t put them to work before they’re entirely accustomed. It won’t take longer than a few hours – if it does, you did something wrong and you can’t hold me accountable
💛 Don’t forget to sprinkle that imagination on top of your writer!

Now set that writer to work and enjoy all that free time!

Do you have any other great writing recipes for me? Have you tried my recipe? Did it work out? How’s NaNo, or writing in general going? Let me know in the comments!

Snippets: How To Flirt 101 by Andrew Lewis and Yong-sun is a Blue Cow

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As I mentioned in my last weekly wrap up, I won Camp NaNo! And what better way to celebrate than sharing some snippets? i dunno Michelle maybe actually writing

Without further ado, let’s get started

I promise that by now I’ve changed *finger guns* to a proper sentence

rip Andrew Lewis

Also his flirting isn’t exactly working so maybe don’t follow his class

I can hear you guys think: ‘ghosts? But Michelle, I thought this was a regular contemporary?’ Yeah, there aren’t any real ghosts. Just two silly boys playing a prank  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Honestly this is my favourite scene in the entire book (for those of you not familiar, this is the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, or at least part of it)

Acceptance is the last step Yong-sun, I’m proud of you

Shout out to whoever’s guess as to what this is about is closest to the real thing

So Drew is getting war flashbacks from this horrible restaurant they went to in Rome and honestly, same. I mean, that scene was based on my own experience when I was there with school. I will never forget that pizza that looked like the disgusting cafeteria food from Ned’s Declassified Guide

So those are my snippets! I might post something else about my WIP next week, but I’m not sure yet. If you saw a typo or something in one of the snippets, please let me know!

How did you do on Camp NaNo? How is your writing going in general? Are you a blue cow? Let me know in the comments!

Snippet Sunday Technically Monday But Sssh #4

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To celebrate winning Camp NaNo I decided to share several snippets instead of the usual one today, but first:

Snippet Sunday is an awesome feature started by Samantha and this is how you participate:

  • You share a snippet of your current work in progress or whatever else you are working on. A scene, dialogue, a whole chapter, a poem – anything goes. 
  • Link your Snippet Sunday back to Samantha’s blog 
  • Ta da! Snippet Sunday complete

So while it’s technically Monday, go join in on the Snippet Sunday fun!

Snippet 1: messages between Yong Sun and Drew. I still need to figure out the formatting, but I didn’t want to focus too much on that during the first draft. Also it’s the evening before their trip to Rome so that’s what Reyna’s is referring to at the end

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Snippet 2: It’s the first day of their school trip to Rome. Three out of four friends are already at the airport where their year group and teachers are meeting up.

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I had completely forgotten about the Spongebob caveman meme but I’m definitely keeping it

Snippet 3:

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Snippet 4: Yong Sun and Drew are in their hotel room, ready to go to sleep

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Snippet 5: Yong Sun and Drew are in their hotel room again, once again ready to sleep

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And that was my last snippet! There are sooo many more that I’d love to share, but they’re too important to the plot so

But I hope you enjoyed these!

If you participated in Camp NaNo, how did you do? Let me know in the comments!

Snippet Sunday #3

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It’s actually on Sunday and not Monday like list time! *applause for me* Anyway, Snippet Sunday is an awesome feature started by Samantha and this is how you participate:

  • You share a snippet of your current work in progress or whatever else you are working on. A scene, dialogue, a whole chapter, a poem – anything goes. 
  • Link your Snippet Sunday back to Samantha’s blog 
  • Ta da! Snippet Sunday complete

I’ll be sharing a snippet from my contemporary WIP again. The four main characters are going to a karaoke bar to celebrate that their history presentation went well.

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That was my snippet for this week! How’s the writing going? Let me know in the comments!

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Snippet Sunday #2

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Sssh it’s probably still Sunday SOMEWHERE in the world right? I was just too tired to post when I got home yesterday and preferred to watch some Booktube and read. It’s only a few hours late though (almost 11 but ssh). Anyway, anyway, Snippet Sunday is an awesome feature started by Samantha and this is how you participate:

  • You share a snippet of your current work in progress or whatever else you are working on. A scene, dialogue, a whole chapter, a poem – anything goes. 
  • Link your Snippet Sunday back to Samantha’s blog 
  • Ta da! Snippet Sunday complete

I’ll be sharing a snippet from my unnamed contemporary WIP again, which is my project for Camp NaNo. Warning: profanity. Context: they’re in a classroom.

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I never use profanity on my blog, but it felt wrong censoring it.

And that was my snippet for this week! How’s Camp Nano going? I realise I pretty much ask this whenever I mention Nano, but I really want to know how all of you are doing and support you and wish you good luck. YOU CAN DO IT. 

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The Weekly Hufflepuff #35

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*insert freak out that it’s already July like what even how is this possible*

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And now I’m realising how behind I am on reviews – eek!

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On Monday I went to the Mediamarkt with my mom and grandfather, where my grandfather got to spend his birthday money on music and where I also bought him his birthday gifts. He got quite a lot and needless to say he was very happy. I also bought myself a little something because how could I resist:

Look how adorable she is. I can’t stop staring at her.

While my grandfather and mom were looking at all the cds, I watched Zootopia

Afterwards my grandfather treated us on Starbucks. Sadly the muffin I had wasn’t as good as the last time I had it.

I finally got around to cleaning my room, rearranging my bookshelves etc. I’m thinking of maybe doing a room tour post soon, but I still need to hang up some things, so I’ll probably do it after that.

Other than that I’ve just been relaxing, reading, writing, blogging, watching tv shows (The Fosters was so good omg. And is anyone watching The Real O’Neals? I love it), gaming and other fun stuff. I’m going to meet a friend in less than two hours, so actually I kind of need to hurry up haha.

Oh and I was sorted into Pukwudgie! Any Pukwudgies out there?

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I continued to work on my outline this week, but I didn’t get to finish it before Nano started. So far I’ve written 2442 words. Friday went really well, yesterday not so much. I’m not really sure what happened haha. I had to focus on a job application, but I’m pretty sure that still should’ve left me with some time. Oh well. I don’t have any plans for tomorrow so hopefully I’ll be able to catch up then! If I don’t forget I’ll share a snippet in Snippet Sunday this evening!

Speaking of writing, yesterday I hosted the first Young Writers Twitter Chat and it was a lot of fun! I’ll be hosting another one next Saturday, again at 9 PM CEST (3 PM EST). There will most likely be a theme this time, which I’ll announce sometime later this week. Hope to see you guys there!

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elsewhere

So that was my week! Hopefully I’ll be able to write a lot this week, but I’m also meeting with another friend on Tuesday, maybe going to Haarlem with my Mom and maybe meeting up with another friend, so who knows how much time I’ll actually have (plus it’s likely I’ll get lazy woops)

How was your week been? How is Nano going? Read any good books? Watching a good show? Let me know in the comments!

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The Weekly Hufflepuff #13

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One week of November left which means… 2015 is almost over. HOW. Though it’s scary it’s also really exciting. It’s almost Sinterklaas (Dutch holiday), winter break (which I already need woops), Christmas, New Years, SHADOWHUNTERS, so many new books, tv shows starting again (TEEN WOLF 5B AND THE FOSTERS 3B), Ace Attorney anime and a new game, Dutch Comic Con and YalFestNL and gosh so many more things! But I’ll talk about the future in another post, let’s talk about the past!

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Last week I sort of started Winter. I had a lot to do that day so I didn’t really read much. On Monday and Tuesday I was home late and too tired to read, but once I picked it up again on Wednesday I couldn’t stop (I did though. I had to write my introduction post for The Blogger Positivity Campaign and do some homework). I spend Thursday reading as well (though once again I managed to stop so I could do some homework haha) and then I finished it on Friday. UM WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO READ NOW (I don’t know, maybe finish The Silkworm which you started a few weeks ago but you keep reading other books instead?)

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So… I think I wrote a thousand words this week? Oh well, I was too tired and too obsessed with Winter to write haha. I’m just happy I wrote at all. I’ll write more about my NaNo experience in a future post (probably my monthly wrap up). I’m going to try to write a bit this week, but if I don’t, I’m okay with that!

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Remember that pie/cake/thing I was going to make last Sunday? Yeah, we completely failed. It had to rise in the refrigerator, but it didn’t. It was disgusting

There’s really not much to tell since I spent most of my free time reading Winter

OH OH. ONCE UPON A TIME YOU GUYS. OH MY GOD. I won’t go into details since I don’t want to spoil anyone, but WOW. Did not see that coming. I haven’t watched The Bear King yet, since I’m not really a fan of Merida’s portrayal and arc in OUaT, though I do love Mulan and Ruby (and the moment this episode was announced I started shipping them and from what I’ve seen on Tumblr they’re are a lot of shipworthy moments in this episode? It’s the only thing that motivates me to watch the episode haha)

I bought and ate the most delicious muffin at school. It was a chocolate muffin, with nutella on the inside and white chocolate sprinkles on top of it. HEAVEN IN MY MOUTH

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So that was another week! How was yours? HAVE YOU READ WINTER YET FANGIRL WITH ME OR FANBOY OF COURSE

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The Weekly Hufflepuff #12

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This week was crazy: the new term started, NaNo wasn’t going well, I wasn’t going well, and then Friday happened (I don’t think I have to elaborate on that). But let’s talk about books first, because books make us (usually) happy.

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  • I finished Magnus Chase. I really enjoyed it, but I’ll talk more about it in my review (which I hope to write soon)
  • I STARTED WINTER. I’m not that far yet (at all), but so far so good. I DON’T WANT IT TO END THOUGH

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Last week I wrote 15.507 words, this week… 4195. It isn’t that bad, but compared to last week, and how motivated I was… Well, I’m disappointed. Most of those words were written on Tuesday, so I could’ve written so much more if I had written that same amount every day. Except Tuesday was the only day I felt really motivated.

I don’t really know what happened on Monday, but suddenly something switched inside of me and I didn’t feel okay. At all. Things went a bit better on Tuesday (thus the word count), but then while writing, the switch turned again, and it didn’t turn off or however I’m supposed to describe it, until Thursday. I just felt empty and depressed (don’t worry though, I’m really fine now). I didn’t even go to school on Thursday (not wanting to go to school for reasons like that hasn’t happened in a while now, especially not at this school as I’m actually having fun). Anyway, I wasn’t sure if I was going to tell you guys this, but then I thought: ‘why the hell not?’ There’s nothing to be ashamed about.

So that’s why I didn’t write as much as I liked, but I’ll try to find a snippet to share with you guys like last week.

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I hope that if you’re participating in NaNo that you’re doing better than I am!

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The new term started this week, and so far it really does seem to be less busy than last term. I hope it stays that way haha. ALSO. While I don’t have every Wednesday off anymore (it’s every other week now), we do have Thursdays off (not officially, Thursday’s class has been moved to Tuesday) which obviously I’m really happy with. We have to do quite a bit of reading every week for Friday, so now I can do that on Thursday!

Speaking of the new term, it also means new teachers. I haven’t met all of them yet, but I really like the teacher for ‘news portal’ (where we make our own news website) and ‘news item’ (where we learn how to write news items). She’s really funny (dry humour plus sarcasm) and relaxed

Like I said, I wasn’t doing so well mentally, but really: don’t worry! I’m fine now

To make me feel better my mom took me shopping this week, so naturally that meant a trip to the bookstore. WINTER HELL YESSSSS. I also got Shadow and Bone since I’ve wanted to read that for years, but for some reason never did. We also went to Popcult, which is well on it’s way to become a Dutch Hot Topic. I really want to write a Blogsterdam post about it this month! We ended the day at Subway, where I had a delicious chicken teriyaki sandwich *almost literally drools at the memory*

Yesterday was a lot of fun: one of my
friends from secondary school came
over. We talked a lot (we hadn’t seen each other in weeks, and some things just can’t be talkedabout through What’s App) and we are finally caught up on Pretty Little Liars. GUYS WHY WERE PEOPLE SO DISAPPOINTED ABOUT THE 6A FINALE?! I LOVED IT. The end was a bit abrupt, BUT OH MY GOD THAT PLOT TWIST.

FRANCESCA ZAPPIA, AUTHOR OF MADE YOU UP, FAVOURITED MY TWEET, RETWEETED MY TWEET, AND RESPONDED TO MY TWEET. THEN I RESPONDED TO HER (AFTER CALMING DOWN) AND SHE FAVOURITED THAT TWEET TOO. SHE ALSO LIKED MY PHOTO ON INSTAGRAM AND REPOSTED IT

LOOOOOOOOK *eternal flailing*

Today I will bake a pie/cake/thing. My mom thinks I might like this kind of pie/cake, so we’ll see. I like baking though, so whether I like the taste of it or not doesn’t matter. I used to bake apple pie a lot as a kid, but I never ate it haha.

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And that was this week. I’m glad mine ended with a fun night with my friend, but I know a lot of people are hurting right now, not just in Paris. Everyone who’s lost someone or has gone through one of the horrible events of Friday is in my thoughts. I hope that all of you reading this had a good week ❤

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The Weekly Hufflepuff #11

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Can you guys believe the first week of November is already over?! Before we know it it’s 2016 (why did I forget whether it’s 2015 or 2016 this year… Let’s say it’s the exhaustion and stress school has caused me the past few weeks). Not much happened this week, as I only had one day of school and I spent most of my time writing, but nonetheless I have things to tell you guys!

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I finally got my hands on Magnus Chase and the Sword of Summer this week! I could’ve finished it by now, but I’m focussing on writing and blogging this month.

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So far I’ve written 15.507 words and I haven’t written yet today! I didn’t write at all on Thursday, after the presentation of our magazine (which you can read a bit more about in the ‘personal’ paragraph) I was really exhausted and I just didn’t feel well, so I didn’t write. I more than made up for it the next day though. I even wrote enough so that I didn’t have to worry about NaNo yesterday, since I had a birthday. I’m almost done translating what I had written so far for my WIP (meanwhile I was changing, adding and removing stuff as well haha. There was a fighting scene that I wasn’t too happy with, which is now a lot better) which is exciting!

If you don’t follow me on Twitter, here are some tweets about my NaNo journey so far:

Amy from Every Book You Need To Read And More asked if I could post an excerpt, so here you go Amy!

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How are you guys doing on NaNo?

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On Thursday we had the presentation of our magazine. It went pretty well; I myself didn’t really have to talk though haha. We had to bring food for the judges and teachers that would come by our ‘stand’, but most of the cupcakes two people in our group made ended up in our own bellies haha. They were soooo good. Especially the OREO CUPCAKES

We celebrated two birthday yesterday: my little cousin’s and his father’s birthday. It was a fun day, but I was sooo exhausted. I felt so bad at some point during the evening because my cousin kept asking me ‘Mimi, do you want to play?’ (he calls me Mimi) and while I did play with him, at some point I was just too tired.

The new term starts tomorrow! I’m not looking forward to getting up early again and the new piles of homework, but I’m excited to find out what my new classes are like and this term should be less busy (I really hope they’re not just pulling our legs…)

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I actually wanted to blog more this week, but I was too busy with NaNo haha.

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And that was my week! How did your week go? Read any good books? How are you doing on NaNo? Let me know in the comments!

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The Weekly and Monthly Hufflepuff #10 | October

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Today is Sunday, which means a weekly wrap up, but it’s also November 1st, which means a monthly wrap up! Thus a combination was born. It’s been a while since I did a weekly wrap up, so there’s a lot to catch up on!

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I read 16 books this month! I mainly read a lot of manga again this month, thus why the number is so high haha. I only own one Cardcaptor Sakura volume (it is my plan to own them all though), and I don’t own Tsubasa World Chronicle volume 1 (I wonder if it’s out here?), so the books in the picture are incomplete. Since November is NaNoWriMo I decided to share some tweets about my progress in the picture haha.

  • Made You Up by Francesca Zappia – ★★★★★
  • City of Bones by Cassandra Clare (reread) – ★★★★
  • Carry On by Rainbow Rowell – ★★★★★
  • Cardcaptor Sakura volumes 1-12 – ★★★★★
  • Tsubasa World Chronicle volume 1 – ★★★★★

All in all this was a really good month reading wise! I read a lot and the ratings were high. I really need to review Made You Up as I loved it so much. A review on Carry On is also coming of course!

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  • I’ve read (96/100) books for my second Goodreads Challenge! (last month I finished my first one which was 50 books)
  • That’s it. No other goals completed. At this point I don’t even really care about some of my goals anymore haha.

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  • Since I didn’t do one of these since the start of October, there’s a lot to tell you guys, but I don’t remember much of it? Woops
  • I caught up on Doctor Who, but now I’m behind again. I was too stressed last week to watch it and yesterday I missed it because of Halloween
  • My first term is unofficially over, and it was busy and stressful. I’ll write a blogpost about what studying journalism so far is like soon!
  • I went to the Amsterdam Dungeon last night, which was a lot of fun! I’ll write a post about it sometime this week
  • I had my first exam at my new school, and it was pretty easy! Mainly because it was multiple choice haha
  • The last two weeks were incredibly stressful, and are probably the cause of me forgetting what has happened since I did one of these

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Since I didn’t really do any weekly wrap ups this month and I didn’t even post that much, I’ll list all of the posts I did this month.

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I skipped ‘Elsewhere on the Internet’ this time, not because there weren’t any posts I loved this week (or the last three haha), but there are a lot and I want to get back to NaNo! The coming few weeks I’ll probably add a NaNo section to the weekly wrap ups. ANYWAY. What’s in store for November?

Of course there’s NaNo, which I hope to win (duh!). I also want to blog more and while I don’t want to stop reading, I think I’m going to prioritise writing and blogging this month (plus I’m only 4 books away from completing my Goodreads Challenge so I don’t have to worry about that). I also have school of course and I have some birthdays coming up in the family. OH! And I’ll hopefully hang out with some friends this month! I haven’t seen some of them in weeks. 

So that was October for me! Did you have a good month (and Halloween!)? Are you participating in NaNoWriMo? GOOD LUCK TO US ALL. Speaking of NaNo: time for me to get back to writing!

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