One Direction

OK, yeah.  I am a girl, obviously, since I write, have a blog, and like One Direction!

My best friend showed me their song That's What Makes You Beautiful (I'm sure you have all heard it!) and I loved it!  Couldn't get it out of my head!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJO3ROT-A4E

And with their release of their new album (Take Me Home, I think), they had this song called Live While We're Young.  I loved it!!  I cannot stop getting it out my head!  It is just so cute!  It is my favorite!  I am posting the lyrics here, since I can just find it in a snap.  And you have to check out the music video, such fun!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbPED9bisSc

And when Niall (the blonde) took off his shirt in the pool scene my friend and I just gasped and gasped.  Ha, ha! 
From left to right it is Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, Niall Horan, and Louis Tomlinson.

They are really cute, funny little British boys, that hopefully stick together until 24, and have high standards, but with Those Little Things, I don't know.  They will probably all go down the same road like all those other popstars...ugh...

But until now, I still love you One Direction! :D

Live While We're Young One Direction

LIAM PAYNE:Hey girl, I'm waitin' on ya, I'm waitin' on yaCome on and let me sneak you outAnd have a celebration, a celebrationThe music up, the window's down
ZAYN MALIK:Yeah, we'll be doing what we doJust pretending that we're coolAnd we know it tooYeah, we'll keep doing what we doJust pretending that we're coolSo tonight
ALL:Let's go crazy, crazy, crazy till we see the sunI know we only met but let's pretend it's loveAnd never, never, never stop for anyoneTonight let's get someAnd live while we're youngWoahhh oh oh ohWoahhhh oh oh ohAnd live while we're youngWoahhh oh oh ohTonight let's get some
HARRY STYLES:And live while we're young
ZAYN MALIK:Hey girl, it's now or never, it's now or neverDon't over-think, just let it goAnd if we get together, yeah, get togetherDon't let the pictures leave your phone, ohhhh
NIALL HORAN:Yeah, we'll be doing what we doJust pretending that we're coolSo tonight
ALL:Let's go crazy, crazy, crazy till we see the sunI know we only met but let's pretend it's loveAnd never, never, never stop for anyoneTonight let's get someAnd live while we're youngWoahhh oh oh ohWoahhhh oh oh ohAnd live while we're youngWoahhh oh oh ohTonight let's get some
HARRY STYLES:And live while we're young
ZAYN MALIK:And girl, you and I,We're 'bout to make some memories tonight
LOUIS TOMLINSON:I wanna live while we're youngWe wanna live while we're young
ALL:Let's go crazy, crazy, crazy till we see the sunI know we only met but let's pretend it's loveAnd never, never, never stop for anyoneTonight let's get someAnd live while we're youngCrazy, crazy, crazy till we see the sunI know we only met but let's pretend it's loveAnd never, never, never stop for anyoneTonight let's get someAnd live while we're youngWanna live, wanna live, wanna liveCome on, younnnggWanna live, wanna live, wanna liveWhile we're youngWanna live, wanna live, wanna live
HARRY STYLES:Tonight let's get some
ZAYN MALIK:And live while we're young

The Nutcracker

For my 2012 YWP NaNoWriMo novel, it is called The Nutcracker.  We all know the Nutcracker, pretty little rich girl gets a nutcracker, rescues him, and they all live happily ever after.  That isn't what happens in my novel.

Basically my novel is about a girl named Clara, whom is around fifteen.  Her fiance and her father dies from a terrible disease, leaving Clara to care for her sick mother and her two little siblings, John and Louise.  Clara is very poor, but she loves Christmas, but has stopped believing in fairytales, until one night, her Godfather Drosselmeyer comes, and gives her a mysterious toy, a Nutcracker, and on one night, the nutcracker comes to life, changing her life forever.


So that is what it is about!  It will be around 30,000 words (Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief is 75,000 words, but 30,000 words a lot to be written in a month!), and hopefully very interesting!

This is my cover that I made, pretty good, right?

I am now going to give you a little part from my novel.  It is unedited, since editing will be put off until December, so if there is a problem, just ignore it and leave nice comments!  And please do not steal this.  It is my novel, not yours, my words, not yours.  If you, you would be stealing.  Thanks!

The butler James opened the door with a dramatic flair, saying good day.  I blushed a little and nodded as I walked into the beautiful hall.

James then took my coat and hung it up.

“Where is Caroline?” I asked the butler.

“Right here, silly!” said a voice.  I turned around and there was Caroline.  Her light brown eyes sparked, her long brown hair still wet from the bath she had just taken.

She embraced me, and I hugged her tightly.  “Caroline!”

“Merry Christmas Eve, Clary fairy,” said Caroline.

“You, too, Carol Meryl,” I joked, using the nickname that we had as children.

“Hello, Clara!” said Mrs. Locketsen, from the open upstairs with a balcony that looked onto the door.

“Hello, Mrs. Locketsen!” I called waving.

“Come on upstairs, girls.  We need to get your ready for the party!  Caroline still needs to change.”  

I stepped back and looked at my friend.  She was dressed in a beautiful mint green dress made out of silk and pale pink ribbons.  It was very fine, and I felt a little twinge of jealousy.  Here was a beautiful piece of clothing, yet it wasn’t even Caroline’s best!

Caroline saw the quick look in my eyes and looked at me worriedly.  I knew she would’ve gladly given me money as well as all her clothes in a heartbeat, but my father’s pride ran thick in my blood.

“Coming, Ma!” Caroline called.

I then smiled at Caroline.  Forget about having pretty clothes, today was the eve before Christmas, and I wasn’t about to waste it by wishing for things I didn’t have.

Caroline excitedly babbled as she led me up the stairs, talking about all the people who were coming.  Suddenly Caroline began to bounce up and down.  “Oh, Clara, oh, Clara!  I can’t believe I forgot to tell you, but Max came home yesterday night!” Caroline said, beaming.

Max Locketsen was Caroline’s older twin brother.  He had been way from home for two years, and last time I saw him he had been my crush until he began to ignore me and his sister and study his books, and of course I had met Brandon.

“Really?  Oh, Caroline, you must be so happy!” I said, giving her another hug.

“Oh, Max!  Max!  Come here!  I have somebody you need to meet!” Caroline called.

“What Caroline!” said a deep voice.

Stumbling out of a room with glasses slipping off his nose, was Max.  Simply put, he had changed.  He was taller but still as thin a bean pole, his loose brown hair had thickened, but the stubble on his chin and the eyes had changed.  He was…different.

“Clara?” Max asked quizzically.

“Max!” I said happily.

He went to hug me, but I quickly just shook his hand, smiling up at him.  “How are you?”

“I….I’m fine!” he said, stumbling over his words.  “And you?”

“Great!”

“Girls!” cried Mrs. Locketsen.

“Oh, uh, see you later, Max,” I said.  

“See you, Clara,” said Max.

Caroline grabbed my arm and pulled me past him, nudging me and giving me a look.

“What?” I asked.

Caroline rolled her eyes and sighed.

Sometimes I felt like I should’ve known what she was talking about, but other times I had no idea what my best friend was getting at.

We went into Mrs. Locktsen’s room.  Beautiful honey floors, pale purple walls with purple flowers, and a beautiful canopy bed with a balcony, it was an amazing place.

Mrs. Locketsen led us into the bathroom, and had Caroline seated on the plush chair before the vanity.  She took a bristled brush and began to brush her daughter’s thick, tangled hair, as Caroline cringed.

“Clara, would you be a dear and go and get Caroline’s dress?”

“Sure!” I said.

I went into Caroline’s room and grabbed the beautiful, lovely, full pink dress with the gauzy skirt and small waist, complete with silk shoes.

By now Mrs. Locketsen had brushed her, and she and I helped Caroline into the beautiful, soft dress.  Caroline looked in the mirror and smiled.  The rose in the dress brought out the hue in her round cheeks.

Then Mrs. Locketsen went into her closet and appeared with a beautiful little velvet box.  Inside was her cosmetics.  She applied lipstick to her daughters face, along with creme under the eyes, some paint on her eyelashes and above her eyes, and penciled out her daughters beautiful eyebrows, where as mine were more bushy and pointed.

Then she towel dried Caroline’s hair as I watched.  She then took a hot iron out of the fire and curled Caroline’s beautiful hair.  After much twirling, and pulling and squealing in Caroline’s case and me running off to grab more pins and primrose, Caroline was done.

Her hair was amazing.  And then, Mrs. Locketsen pulled out two elbow length gloves, as well as a beautiful silver necklace with sparkling white diamonds, as well as matching earrings and a bracelet, in which Caroline would put on when the party began.

And then with a little squeal as she looked at the Godfather Clock on her mantle, Mrs. Locketsen shooed us out to get herself ready.

“My head hurts,” Caroline complained, but she was pretty happy and gasped when she looked at herself in the mirror.  

I felt small and ugly beside her—the fairy of all beautiful things—dressed in my plain dress.

But then Caroline beamed at me.  “Now it is your turn.”

Like it, love it?  Please say so in the comments!  Thanks! :D

Tips for NaNoWriMo

If you are reading this, then I suggest you first look at this http://randomnessofanauthor.blogspot.com/2012/11/about-nanowrimo.html, get an account, and then panic about doing something super crazy (AKA, write a novel all in one month!), and zip right back over to my blog!


I am making this for tips to help you win NaNoWriMo, wether for the YWP (Young Writer's Program) or the Adult one.


First off, before you just begin writing like a mad man, look at these awesome workbooks for the YWP site!  http://ywp.nanowrimo.org/workbooks

These are amazingly helpful, and I suggest you read through the entire thing and then go back and do it.  You can either save the PDF to your computer, or you can print out the entire thing and write in it with a pencil if you prefer.  I use the PDF since the workbook uses up a lot of paper if I print it out!  Not to mention I can never find it again after I do....

For the workbooks, I think the Character Sheets are awesome.  They have helped me so much!  But I created lots of other Character Sheets to customize them a bit and created just entirely new ones to help me know my characters better.

So, I suggest you go through that.

Then, when you first write your novel, putting it down plain, it will be awful.  It will be embarrassing and you will want to burn it up or delete it, but don't.  You must keep it.  Honestly, that is what NaNo is all about.  Just writing down the story from that little pouf of an idea in your head all in one month.  Honestly, ALL the published authors (I soon hope I shall join their ranks) have never wrote their story the first time and then got it published.  Nope.  They let it sit, read through it, cringed, edited it a bit, and then re-wrote the entire thing.  Again and again and again until it is finally deemed worthy for a trusted friend to read it.

When you write, it will be in a hurry.  Forgot all about those commas and periods and little quotation marks, and just write.  Forget about that word that you spelled wrong and keep on going.  Wrote a super awkward scene and tempted to go back and fix it? Don't!  If you do that, that nasty little voice inside your head (your inner editor) that is helpful for tests and book reports will criticize you, saying that this entire novel is worthless and you are crazy for even trying to do it.

But nope.  You will get rid of that nasty little man during November, and take him out again in December when you edit your novel!

So don't go back and edit.  Just keep steaming forward like the little red caboose.

Another thing that all people experience when they write is word blocks.  No matter how hard they try, they just can't seem to write!  They can't figure out what to do best with the story, and then that evil little inner editor (above) appears, and plants those little seeds of doubt in your mind.
So what do you do when you get a word block?  Well, that is tough!  But here are a few things:

Talk to a pet or a friend

Cry and moan and stomp your foot but NEVER delete your story out of frustration


Go for a walk in nature, think about your novel

Take a lovely little nap since you will be stressed out

Or, if you are just going crazy and have already done those things, do something crazy!  Plop in another interesting character, have your character fall asleep and have a dream, have your antagonist (bad guy) fall in love.  Or, just skip that section in your novel and just write a different scene that has been on your mind.

So, another thing that you can do to boost that wordcount goal is to have Word Wars!  On the forums there will be something called http://ywp.nanowrimo.org/wordwars where you word war!  And what is a word war?  It means you and a fellow NaNoer have a certain time frame (ten minutes is great!) where you write a part of your novel like crazy!  And after the ten minutes you say how many words you wrote, and see which one have you wrote the most words!  Whoever wrote the most words is the winner, and the prize is the words that you used.  :)

Besides all these great stuff, don't panic about NaNo.  It is purely for fun, and take it easy.  If you don't reach the wordcount it is not the end of the world.  

Also, don't eat a lot of junk food from Halloween.  It will get you sick, and you will have to stay in bed and not be able to read!  Eat your fruits and veggies.  Carrots, apples, and celery are delicious with peanut butter!

And be sure to get plenty of sleep.  Don't stay up writing until midnight (unless you are a night writer, where NOW's (Night of Write) will be awesome for you, and you write better at night!), get lots of sleep, stay up in school, still play with family and friends, do your chores, and all that great stuff.

And by the end of NaNoWriMo, hopefully you will stick to your guns and write that novel and voila!  You are an author!

I hope I helped you with some tips. 

Until next time, fellow writer and NaNoer

-OWNN/Madeline

About NaNoWriMo

Wow!  I can't believe it is already November!

And that means, NANOWRIMO!!!!!!

Now, for those of you who don't know what that is, it is an awesome, amazing program that gets people to write an entire novel--all in one month!

It actually stands for National (Na) Novel (No) Writing (Wri) Month (Mo).  So therefore it is called NaNoWriMo!

It is an awesome, amazing website that I love!  Last year I did it and it was awesome!  I wrote 25,000 words about a horse that lives in the desert!  Now, 25,000 doesn't seem like a lot since Percy Jackson and the Lighting Theif is about 75,000 words, but it still is a lot, especially with your first novel!

This year I am doing 30,000 words, if I can get my schoolwork done in time!

If you are 0-18, this is the site you want to go to:  http://ywp.nanowrimo.org/

If you are above 18 you can sign up on this one, where you have to write at least 50,000 words, instead of whatever wordcount you want for the YWP (Young Writer's Program) one: http://nanowrimo.org/

So, basically what you do is you get an account and sign up with your email (be sure it is one you use, and I promise, they send you no junk mail!), write a bit about yourself (optional), look around the site on the forums, and when November comes, you open up that blank notebook or that new blank Word document, and you wonder how in the world you are going to write a novel all in one month!

Sounds crazy right?  But it is actually quite fun and easy to do!  And, you know what the best parts are?  You write an entire novel in a month, you get bragging rights for the rest of your life, and if you reach that wordcount goal you get FIVE FREE PAPERBACKS OF YOUR NOVEL!  Isn't that awesome?  :D

If you really love writing and have time in November (even though it is already 21 days into it), then I suggest you sign up on this website!

If you sign up for YWP NaNoWriMo, you can find me on there as OneWithNoName!  Be sure to friend me and NaNo Mail me!


I will post again soon about NaNoWriMo, but until then, bye!

-OWNN/Madeline