NaNoWriMo 2019!

November 7, 2019November 7, 2019 valmanwillLeave a comment

So I’m doing NaNoWriMo again this year. Woot woot!!!! So excited for it too. I didn’t participate last year because ya know… newborns will do that to you. But back at it again with the lofty writing goals.

REAL QUICK If you don’t know what NaNoWriMo is… It stands for National Novel Writing Month. Authors from all over the globe attempt to write 50,000 words in the month of November. I’ve already been working on it for several days now.

Last time I did it I FREAKING CRUSHED IT. Finished my whole novel in THREE WEEKS. But I’m kind of a freak when it comes to writing soooo… Do I anticipate to do that again? Abso-freaking-lutely NOT. haha. For some reason (a reasonable reason) adding the second kid really slowed me down when it comes to drafting.

But I DID do 10k in a single day with both kids so… I could just do five of those and then… ugh. That makes me feel so tired I can’t even finish that sentence.

I’m doing a couple of things differently this year and I’m *intrigued* to see how they go.

One of the biggest differences is that I’m not going in sequential order. This is the 4th novel I’ve started and I’ve always strictly gone in order. Chapter One, Two, Three… But yeah, I’ve decided I’m not doing that this year. This time if there is a scene I’m really excited “to get to”, I’m just going to straight-up write it!

I’m also going to dabble in dictation. I’ve used it a little with outlining and blogging but never drafting. I think it would help with speed or situations where I can’t sit down and write, but I dunnnnoooo… my speech to text on both my phone and laptop are hilariously inaccurate. So if I do too much of it, I’m going to be rewriting my whole book in the editing room.

I also am going to vlog a little each day. *Try to* that is, so don’t hold me to it.

If the NaNo site fixed their links, you can see how I’m doing here:

https://nanowrimo.org/participants/val-manwill

A Halloween Themed Embarrassing Story for Actual Halloween

October 31, 2019October 31, 2019 valmanwillLeave a comment

It’s been so dang long since I’ve told an embarrassing story. Too long! And it’s not that I don’t have any. I have MORE THAN FREAKING ENOUGH. So, here you go, here’s a Halloween themed one for you.

So once upon a time, my friends and I decided to go to this “new and upcoming” haunted spot. Well, so okay, it wasn’t new new. When I was a teenager, everyone basically had trespassed at Kay’s Cross at one time or another. It was like this weird stone cross in the middle of this wooded area that no one really knew who built it or why. It was assumed that it was built by this Cult leader in the 20s. And anyway, just a lot of mythos and legend surrounding the place.

Kay's cross

So, a few years ago, the owners of the property decided to give tours of this creepy place. And I had never actually gone to Kay’s Cross as an adventurous teenager so I was like, Hey. What’s a better “quarter-life” crisis than this, huh?

I remember as we were driving there, I was so freaked out for some reason. It was me and another married couple (like my usual life) And even just driving there we were jumping at everything. Wrong turn OOOOOOH. Dark culdesac OOOOOOH. A kid on a moped. OOOOOOOOOOOOH.

spooky

We get there and NOT A SPONSOR. But that place was crazy amazing. It was just some kid taking us on this spooky wooded walk, telling us weird stories about things that had happened there. And I was EATING IT THE FREAK UP. Like I don’t know if it was the atmosphere or what. But I was CREEPED THE HECK OUTTA THERE.

I feel like the traditional haunted house nowadays are built solely on the idea of jumpscares. Which, sure… spending twenty-five dollars to be yelled at for an hour is traumatizing I guess. But this place was entirely different (at least at the time that I went to it. I haven’t been back… probably because of the following story…)

We get to this heavily wooded spot and our tour guide announces to keep our eyes open because this is usually a spot where people “see things”. He said that every single time they walk through this spot at least one person in the group will see a dark figure or like a child or something. Again, I AM BUYING INTO THIS SO HARD. The power of suggestion is NO JOKE! Really!

giphy

Now JUST LIKE I MENTIONED BEFORE… in a traditional haunted house, a guy with a chainsaw is a good jump scare but like the loud sound just kind of melts into the rest of the background. You know what I mean? There’s nothing really that special about it.

BUT THIS TIME it was TOTALLY DIFFERENT!

Everything had lead up to this one moment. Like this slow, eerie, dead-quiet build-up for a half an hour. And then BOOM, this loud chainsaw starts BRRBRRRR-RRRRR! My scream was so loud it tore up my throat on the way out. And also … something else happened…

An uncontrollable stream… no freaking joke… I am not talking about a little piddle. I am telling you that MY BLADDER EMPTIED. COMPLETELY. Down my freaking leg.

waterfall

Okay, I had always heard that joke. That someone could be so scared they pee themselves. I DIDN’T REALIZE JUST HOW BAD IT COULD BE IN REAL LIFE.

And don’t forget, I carpooled with someone… so I wrap my coat around my freaking waist so I wouldn’t get pee all over their seat. It was bad.

puddle

So yeah. I’m a baby. I apparently need to start wearing diapers to haunted houses now. It’s cool.

Trying to Remember: Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island

October 24, 2019October 3, 2019 valmanwill1 Comment

This is a series where I try to write the synopsis of a movie BASED SOLELY on my ratty childhood memories of it.

Scooby-doo-on-zombie-island

SCOOBY-DOO ON ZOMBIE ISLAND

Um, okay. Spoiler Alerts. Maybe. Hahaha

So Scooby-Doo and the gang have split up and gone their separate ways… wait… isn’t this the plot of the live-action movie? Hmm not off to a good start… Okay, so Daphne and Fred are like in a random marketplace or something and this girl naaaamed… Leyla?… tells them that she lives on an island in the Louisiana bayou and that the island is TRULY HAUNTED. Daphne who is… like an investigative news reporter now, for some reason, is like YO! LET’S GO! And they have to gather the gang back up, which apparently isn’t hard once they tell Scooby and Shaggy about all the Gumbo that they will eat there.

So this gruff riverboat guy takes them to the island where Scooby gets into a fight with a catfish for some reason. And then they meet Leyla and her sister… um… blonde Leyla. Blonde Leyla is pretty hospitable, except that she doesn’t like Scooby because he’s an icky dog.

Daphne immediately goes into the kitchen to film some like reporter thing. And while she’s filming, a civil war ghost appears and carves “GET OUT” on the wall with his sword. So Daphne takes a spoon and starts scraping the wallpaper off (Lol is this memory even real?). Leyla is like WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU WHY ARE YOU DESTROYING MY KITCHEN?! And that’s when Daphne is like Hey this wall has been made from an old pilgrim ship… or something like that.

shiplap joke

So anyways, one night, zombies start chasing them. And there is a SUPER COOL THEME SONG THAT PLAYS. And then I think maybe Shaggy falls into a pit or something? Iono. But the sun comes up and the zombies, like, slink back into the mud and disappear.

So probably some other stuff happens and mystery-solving that I don’t remember. But then they discover that Leyla and Blonde Leyla are actually… evil cat people (???). And gruff riverboat guy is actually an evil cat person too! So they’re stuck on the island. And all the cat monsters have been trapping people and sucking out their souls and turning them into zombies… I think to be able to live forever or something? And also I feel like there’s some big monologue about how their feelings were hurt by pilgrims or whatever.

anigif_enhanced-8738-1413402888-22

Anyway, Scooby saves them somehow, but I don’t remember. I think he breaks their little green scepter thing that sucks out their souls… No, wait… that’s the live-action version again…

Um. Scooby saves the day and gets a Scooby Snack. THE END!

GOES AND READS THE ACTUAL SYNOPSIS

Wow. Pretty bang on.