Happy Nano's Eve!

T’was the night before NaNo, and all through the world

Ghosties and goblins and writers are heard

Moaning and groaning at the frightening sight

Of blank screens and notebooks, no ideas in sight.

The Wrimos were pacing, their hearts were sinking

50,000 words? What was I thinking?

They heard the haunting “tick, tick, tick, tock" 

And picked up the stapler to throw at the clock.

Beth at OLL (take heed to the third stanza, it alone is PG13.*)

If you pay attention to every detail of my blog posts, then they'll change tomorrow. My author bio will be a GProfile, and a whole new bio itself - not the pirate that I post as currently. That's right - NaNoWriMo starts TOMORROW. (I'll be up 'fore the sun - tomorrow - bet your keyboard that tomorrow...)
If you couldn't tell, I'm a little bit hyper on Halloween candy, all two pieces. I saved the other sixty for little rewards.
I decided to post after I finish writing my daily 1,677 - and you'll all get snippets and thoughts, mainly. If I come up with a good point, then I'll post about it too.
Personally, I'm going to stay up till midnight, but I'm pretty tired from hillclimbing right now. I wanted to shout out to all my NaNoBuddies, all the wizards, pirates, and KI fans that I left behind this coming month, and everybody IRL who is supporting me and this journey. Mrs. P, thank you for the extra credit (please).

pirate hat with all me loot - shoutout to blog base!

--

The witching hour comes with the chimes for midnight.

Happy NaNo’s Eve to all, and to all a good write!

* PG13: The reason behind that, and why I might only post snippets, is because there's a chance that a few of my younger readers to be reading this from my blogging base, Destiny's Travels. Because the games are rated E10+, I had to adjust my content to fit that, and I will do so here, for the time being. Thank you for your anticipated understanding, and to all a good write.

Character Interviews: The Ultimate Sheet

Hello, readers! Over the past few months, I've been trying to find a way to fill in a few character question sheets that weren't absolutely obnoxious. Today, I've put together the best of the best - a few from other lists (will be linked), a few from my own personal preference, and a few from my peers' preferences. I'm going to fill this in with my answers, just so I can get a feel for it myself. Enjoy! (Uh, if I leave any blank, it's because I'm sort of lazy today... :P )

Basics & Physical

Full Name: Caleb Lomax Winslow
Approximate Age, If Not Exact: 13
Color of Eyes: Green
Type of Hairdo: Semi-shaggy, trimmed down so he can wear safety glasses
Name of General "Fashion": Indie/Casual
Occupation: Student
Highest Level of Education: As a mid schooler, he'd have elementary completion, but not much more
(Optional - Race/Religion:               )
Location of Home: Beach/Suburban
Location of Most Scenes: Woodshop, Courtyard
Any Health Issues?:

Mental/Emotional

If this character were stuck in their least favorite place because of the people, how many friends would they have there?: 0 - 3
If this character were stuck in their favorite place because of the people, how many friends would they have there?: 5-7
Same two questions, but how many do they THINK they have?
1.) Four or so, but it's tough to explain
2.) 5-7
                                                                                                
Any Mental/Emotional Issues?: Slightly claustrophobic

Dialogue

List five common verbal quotes....now! 
1.) "What do you think you're doing?"
2.) "Watch and learn...but stand back."
3.) "Get glasses and plugs, then we'll talk."
4.) "You kidding me!?"
5.) "You said doughnuts."

What are the top five things that the character will think to themselves? 
1.) "You've done it again!"
2.) "Two inches away, and plug your nose."
3.) "Yeah, right."
4.) "What was that all about?"
5.) "AAAAAAARGH!"

Three for happiness/excitement:

1.) "I told you!"
2.) "GOOOOOOD MORNING!!!"
3.) "Don't push it." *Creepy smile* "Just...don't."

Three for anger/frustration:

1.) "You've done it again Caleb."
2.) "Sure, let's flounce off to math now."
3.) "Honestly?"

Life Motto: When life gives you lemons, swallow them whole and thank it.

Miscellaneous

Idol: Favorite Teacher
Worst Fear: A fire that he started and can't control
Sound of Character's Voice: "Dusty", a little snippy at times.

Credits:
Miscellaneous, Occupation, Level of Ed: Domet, Sarah. 90 Days to Your Novel. Cincinnati: Writer's Digest, 2010. Print. 

Is there anything that you would add, take away, or change? Leave me a comment below! Also, there's a magic button at the bottom - it's blue, and it's titled "Join This Site".

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When life gives you lemons, eat them whole and thank it. 

D.S. Devereaux

Baggage Claim #05 - Destiny's Travels, Valencia

Hello, travelers - I hope you enjoyed your voyage; I heard that the stormgate was flowing smoothly. If you haven't noticed, you're not in the Spiral anymore, and I've taken to buying clothes for all of you so you don't look like...well, pirates and wizards. Plus, you'd get in trouble for lugging a staff around, much more a Sparquebus or Scaramanga. Bathrooms are on the left.

(...if you don't know what I'm talking about, this post is meant for the readers who have clicked over to this blog from my base, Destiny's Travels. I blog on it about a few games that I play, and is where I am when I'm not here. However, I just put it on hiatus for November so I could focus, and flew all the readers over here. )

To my dear travelers - this blog focuses more on my IRL life and my IRL writing, and if it isn't for you, then you can refer to the posts that I've planned back on the base, though I'm sure that most of them will be lacking information. If you want to know what goes on around here, refer to the first and second posts.

So, on behalf of DeidreDev's Blog, I'd like to wish you a warm welcome, a comfortable stay, and a safe voyage back home!

---
Keep Traveling!

Preparation for NaNoWriMo

Hello, readers!! to start off the post for today I wanted to show off how I was preparing NaNoWriMo this year.
For those of you who don't yet know what NaNo is, I'm talking about national Novel Writing Month, and annual event for aspiring (and published) novelists run through a website and its sisters.

NaNoWriMo is a yearly challenge that pushes writers to write a 50000 word novel in 30 days and nights, starting on November 1st. every year, an average of 300,000+ writers participate in NaNoWriMo and/or its sister site, the Young Writer's Program (or the YWP). the YWP is what I'm participating in for my first year of NaNo so I can adjust my wordcount goal as I learn my capabilities.  The YWP is for young writers under 17 years of age, and the real McCoy (or in favor of my friend, the real Hatfield) is for writers aged 13+.
As this is my first year of NaNoWriMo, I set my YWP goal to be 15,000 words. My last major writing project that I've finished was around 20k and took two months to draft! However, that project was not only collaboration-based, but it was littered with arguing and...well, a lot more arguing on top of it. On my own, I think that I might actually be able to make my goal.
Every year, there are several ways that the NaNoWriMo staff helps you become - and stay - mentally prepared, including pep-talks, workbooks, and interesting dares over at the YWP. However, it is also important to be physically prepared for the month's madness.

1.) Clean Up Your Room This Instant!

the "thing" on my chair is a cat

Besides dodging fire hazards, there are several reasons to clean up your writing space. One of them ties in to the next point, but in the recent month, I've cleared and stowed away an entire bookshelf to add a wicker rocking chair to my room, along with a decent lamp. I must say that it's almost a utopic place to write in. I can get the full view of my house's hallway (as to not forget about the dog) and have an open ear to doorbells and necessary phone calls. Also, it's steps away from my desk so I can finish up school-related stuff without much work done.

2.) Oh, You'll Need to Staple That...

Where's your pencil sharpener? How about your volume on predatory wildlife? Your butter knife? It's important to know where your supplies are, no matter what you do and what they are. For me, my musts are my iPod, laptop, flash drives, and my tennis racket for quick rushes. If you don't spend a lot of time finding your supplies, then you won't waste time, and less time wasted equals more words written, and more words written equals a successful NaNo!

3.) Come (At Least Partially) Prepared

It doesn't matter whether you're a planner or pantser (great article on that here), but having the smallest bit of plot and character preparation. A good idea is to have your protagonist read-to-go and to have an idea of what you're planning to write, even if it's just a quote.
Personally, I'm a planner at heart, and I have an elaborate plot down already. I just need to fill in a few more character sheets (*COUGH* Next post) and then I'll be set!

---

Reason to skip serve practice: It died and you need to attend its funeral.

D.S. Dev

I'd also like to shout out again to Y. Bromberg, who is helping me manage the blog and with a tad bit of promotion! Thanks so much!

Victor, the Unexpected Strongbridge

To start things off, the above picture is a doodle that I made about three minutes ago of myself. I drew it with a blue pen, so I didn't shade in skin complexion or anything of the like, besides the trench coat and my hair. I really love cartooning, and this sketch is one of my best yet! (My hair in the pic is pinned up with a clip, which is how it looks like when I can't find a hairtie to pull it into a bun.)

This half of a bridge that you see above is what might have gotten me an A on my tech ed project this week. The challenge was to build a bridge about five inches tall and ten inches wide, using 4.5 sticks of 13.5 inches for each side. My partner was a very smart boy named Bryce, and we worked with my TI-84  Plus calculator and started working on it. As a rule, I'm not an expert craftsman, and have only had a few months experience in the woodshop, a bit less than everyone else. However, that didn't let me down - Bryce and I spent the next week measuring, cutting, sanding, filing, gluing, chiseling, and clamping our bridge together. In the end, it was a pretty nice lopsided mess. We had only glued the center beams the day before testing, and one of them was loose before there was any weight put on it. However, this was a good chance to laugh and smile, so I fetched a stool and recorded the entire class's weigh-ins with my phone. I can't post any because of faces in it, but it was a blast - people were betting on which bridge was the strongest (guess who was in last that day) and how much each one would hold (our best guess was 130 lbs). 

I think Bryce and I were the sixth in line. I kneeled on the stool next to my friend Arianna, and we giggled as each bridge got weighed, put pressure on, and broke apart after a series of satisfying crackles from the glue. It was funny until it was our turn.

"Go, Bryce, go!" One classmate chanted, jeering as our bridge was placed on the tester. 

"Good job, Dei, three pounds and counting!" I giggled and waited for the cracks. There were none. The crowd went silent.
One hundred pounds. "It's still going!" Cried someone in the crowd.
"Oh my, God!" I nearly screeched. Our bridge was still in one piece, and only little crackles were being made. I knew that getting my hands all gluey was worth it.
Two hundred.
Three. Three-fifty. Bryce stared at me, gaping, then back at the bridge.
"Oh my, God!!" I yelled into my phone as the crowd grew louder.
Four-twenty.
"We have a new record!"
Four-thirty, four forty-five. A sickening crack resounded, and I saw a freshly glued beam fall out of place.
"Everybody stand back." The teacher said calmly. I kept my phone up but ducked on my stool, as he added five more pounds, and the bridge split.

In conclusion, nobody beat 450 lbs in the third period. Bryce and I hurried back to our seats and glued the beam back on, hooting and hollering at our victory. I took half of the bridge home, and named it Unexpected Victor, after my calculator (and its unexpected knowledge) and our win.

Check back soon for the beginning of NaNoWriMo!

--

Why must we live in the past, when we are the future?

D.S. Devereaux

Blog Content (A Post of Lists)

Hello, fellow readers of six in the evening! I hope your weeks have been going well, and I have been working really hard with my plotting, character development, and will move on to setting fairly soon. I wanted to update all of you, and make sure you know what to expect:

• Writing. Writing, writing, writing! I am still debating with myself on whether or not to post my actual plot and snippets of my novel, in fear of the people I know in particular that will go to lengths to go Suck Dragon on my work. (tags: NaNo, NaNoWriMo, Writing, Quickwrite)
• Suck Dragon analogies. Suck Dragons....I heard of them in a NaNo Pep Video, and they're things that get in the way of your writing. Now, the narrator was talking plot-and-structure wise, but I stretched it to more than that - Gatorade Dragons, Router Dragons, Hate-Mail Dragons, etc (tags: see  above)
• My own life. I will never, ever go into too much detail on events, but if something funny happened, I'll be sure to let you guys know! I have a few interesting stories from taking Tech Ed every third period (which is my homeroom). (tags: IRL, school, Technomancer (looong story for another post) )
• Tennis! I'm a proud tennis player, and I love to tell people about my games and adventures over the six courts that I call "moon base". I also have a lot of self-made tennis quotes and funny guides to help you play a better game - or get a better laugh. (tags: tennis)

Here are all the words that represent different things - they're just for fun, and I wanted to test 'em out. These will be up on a page.:

• Mission Control - HOME
• EmCee and ElPie (M.C. - also Mission Control, L.P. - Launch pad, a computer that I *might* use) - my laptop
• Moon Base - the tennis courts
• 123 - Room 123, Tech Ed

All the people I will mention upon occasion:

• Paige, Cam(eron), Desmond, Erik - school peeps, referred to as 
• Alex, Brian, Caelie, May, Emily, Ilize, AJ, Depan, Averlea - tennis dawgs 
• Brian II, Wyatt - tennis coaches
• Mr. Steinbaugh - tech ed teacher
• Mrs. Peake - English teacher
• Yadin - a giant help to the promotion of this blog, and a blogger himself
• Jason - another blogger, quite a brilliant guy 
• Ria and KU - Ria is a close friend of mine, and owns the website that I work on, KingsIsle Universe.
• Jordan, Lomax (Lo), Evan - all staff on KU, close friends of mine.

General Rules:

• All comments are moderated! Make sure that you don't leave anything rude or anything even hinting to an inappropriate topic (looking at you, school peeps) .
• Credit. My. Writing - if you use it. If you would like a snippet or a section or even one of my posts to repost, please credit me as D.S. Devereaux with a link to either the selected post or the homepage. I will be looking around for anything that's mine and not credited, and I will ask you to take it down, and publicly if I must. 
• I shall NOT clean up after other blogs at this time. I have before, and I don't want to now, with so much going on. 
• Please respect me and those who I mention, and their privacy. I am not giving out any ages, locations, etc.
• Enjoy the blog!

-

Do as I say; not as I serve.

D.S. Devereaux

Just Call Me Dei!

Would "Hello, World!" Do the trick?

In a nutshell, I'm Deidre Sheyna Devereaux, D.S. Dev at the ends of letters. I created this blog to publish my journey through National Novel Writing Month this year, where I'll type up a 50k word novel in 30 days or less! Also, I'm just a writing nut, and what way is better to show my work than through a blog?

Who I am? I'm too many people, to be precise. Over the past few years, I've blasted through over twelve pen-names. I've been a Sto, a Genny, and I'm currently a Destiny over on Destiny's Travels, which is my main blogging hub. Because this blog is linked to Travels, you might just recognize my name, D.S. Devereaux. Not only is it my thirteenth pen-name, but it's also my twelfth - Destiny Soultamer Devereaux! (Two names, one...name...)

In reality (sadly, I live there), I'm a student in the USA and I take honors classes at my school - earning straight As. I love writing and will be typing/scribbling whenever I have a spare moment. All my writing goes on a flashdirve, Google Doc, or in my overcrowded homework folder for storage, and I take pride in my shiny Lenovo laptop.

Lastly, I wanted to shout out to a few friends of mine who have helped me with my writing a lot in the past few months. These are first names only, but some people may know them all:

• Paige
• Cameron
• Yadin
• Ria
• Jason
• Lo
• Jordan

You are all amazing and I wouldn't be here without you guys.

-

Draw your sword and knight your promises; Let them lift you to greater heights.
- D.S. Devereaux