katiefleck's Unofficial Guide to Surviving 3 or more children under the age of 6
This little series of humorous parenting advice essays came about when a friend said, "you have five kids, you have to know something about parenting by now." While that's debatable (some days I'm lucky to remember my own name), if anyone can use any of the tips I suggest then my goal has been reached. Which is wonderful considering my one about the clean house never will be...
Volume 1: The Diaper Bag
Volume 2: Children Proofing and Decorating Your Home
Volume 3: Cleaning
Volume 4: Meal Time
Volume 5: Keeping Your Sanity
Volume 6: Schedules
Volume 7: Gift Giving
Volume 8: Traveling
NaNoWriMo 2002
My first NaNo! (National Novel Writing Month) I wrote about 33,000 words in Book 1 of the Kierana series (see below for excerpts) before November 14th, Kelly's birth! After that I managed to write another 4,000 words, the month ending with well below the 50,000 word goal of NaNoWriMo. What can I say, I had a snuggly cute newborn! (and less cuddly sleepless nights...)
NaNoWriMo 2003
I originally started the main blog for my 2003 NaNo novel. You can read about the adventure in my November 2003 archives. I'm thrilled to say I completed the goal of 50,000 words and oh boy, it still gives me that writer's rush thinking about it.
NaNoWriMo 2004
Unlike 2003, my 2004 novel attempt never really got off the ground. My first novel idea sputtered out after about 5,000 words so I shifted genres. I was about 3,000 words in when a little massive multi-player online game was released on November 8th. Damn EverQuest 2...
NaNoWriMo 2005
I was determined to finish this year and I did with 91 words over the goal of 50,000 and barely 3 hours left On November 30th. My novel... I hate it. The storyline never became what I originally intended so I didn't posted any exerpts of it online. I'm not sure I'll ever even attempt to edit the mess. However I did attend the local Write-In's which ended up being the best part of NaNo 2005. You can read more about it and see pictures in the Nov 2005 archives.
NaNoWriMo 2006
Another winning year! My genre was Mommy Lit, write what you know as they say. It was actually more tricky than I expected but I won! with an insane almost 13,000 word day on the 30th. Here's chapter 1 if you'd like to read it.
NaNoWriMo 2007
And then a losing year... I tried for sci-fi and didn't prep or plan the novel ahead of time at all. World building when you are suppose to spitting out hundreds of words a day isn't that easy. I kinda quit around the 17th with a miserable 9000 words. Better luck next year, right?
Kierana (the wood elf warrior fantasy novel series)
These novels I began (ha, you think I've finished them? oh no... hehe) for NaNo 2002 and 2003 are fantasy stories based on a character I created when playing the online computer game Everquest. I totally suck at titles (hence no titles on 99% of my blog posts) so the stories are currently called Book 1, Book 2, Book 3. Catchy, I know. hehe
A bit of background, Kierana is a female wood elf warrior whose entire family and village was destroyed by a dragon. She lives most of her life on the outskirts of a human town before joining Lord Gitter's warriors to slay the dragon (which is where Book 1 begins). Lord Gitter's other warriors are Jalask, Minolan, Caiden, Butu, Quetear, and Thedoff. So the stories are Kierana's adventures with the warriors and also her trying to find her place in the world and learning to accept who she is.
I'm the first to admit the series needs a lot of work. Especially since none of the books are finished and I keep jumping between them all. I need to flesh out some background on the other characters and how magic works in this world. Although since Kierana stays to the physical fighting side of it, the lack of magical explanation hasn't cause too much trouble. Here's a summary of what I've written with excerpts. Since they are mixed in with regular blog posts, just ignore the intro and scroll to the italics. There's more from Book 2 since that's the one I began in November 2003. And Book 3 was started for 2002 NaNo. It's all backwards, I know...
Book 1, 66 Word pages (single spaced) 38,669 words
Skaven Hunt
Book 2, 137 pages 78,492 words
Opening to Book 2
Lesson Over
Snowball Fight
Intro to Swamp
Caiden in Tent
Horse Stable
The Closet
Gift Giving
Book 3, 80 pages 47,716 words Not Most Women
All Content at katiefleck.com is Copyright 2003-2008 by Katie Fleck, All Rights Reserved.