--Michael III
Monday, September 1, 2014
"Long Live The Queen" -- "The Legend of Korra" Episode 10 Review
Hey! A Few weeks ago we talked about the "Long Live the Queen" episode! Here's the link to the video, I'm going to be working on my review tonight for the Finale for Book 3! Thanks for watching and keep on sharing!
"Lucy" Review
Check out my review for the movie "Lucy" starring Scarlett Johansson, below!
http://youtu.be/aoXWBgt568E?list=UUCJpuKo0xOSvC8NvE8B2GUw
Friday, July 20, 2012
"Mockingjay" is in two parts? And anyone else hear about the shoot out!?
Okay, so this is all getting a
tinsy bit ridiculous and it needs to stop.
Remember when it was “cool” that books were being split up into two
parts for the movie, yeah, well not anymore.
It’s been done twice already and the second half of that craze comes out
this November, but of course another big book-movie franchise just had to go
and do it as well…here’s the problem: THERE ISNT ENOUGH TO MAKE A SECOND MOVIE!
I’m pretty sure you know what
I’m talking about. It’s not that hard to
guess. I’m talking about Mockingjay, the final installment of The Hunger Games Trilogy. You see, November 23rd is when
Katniss and Peeta enter the ring once again to battle for the title of victor
with a bunch of other crazy and lovable characters that come along for the ride
in Catching Fire. And forgive me if you didn’t know they go
back in, I did say spoiler alert. But
come on, who hasn’t read the books by now trying to get a jist of what will be
on the big screen? I know I read them
all in one week a couple of months before The
Hunger Games came out so yeah, it can be done.
But let’s talk about Mockingjay; the final, and to me, almost
as anticlimactic as Breaking Dawn,
novel is of course being adapted into a movie.
It wouldn’t make sense to do books one and two but then go, “Nah, let’s
not do the third one.” Anyway, what’s
shocking is the fact that this movie will also be broke up into two parts. Here’s my problem with this, it’s just a scam
to make more money. See, if you’re a Twilight fan, which I am—don’t judge me,
or if you’re a Harry Potter fan,
which I’m not—again don’t judge me, you know that the final installments of
those book series were LARGE enough to break up into
two different movies. Hell, let’s face it;
HP as big as all those novels were
could have had fourteen movies. Even I
know that, and I’ve never even read a single book. Breaking
Dawn same deal. It had enough info
to set it up for two movies, and a story line that had three parts to it. But it had the perfect ending point for a
movie, Bella waking up finally a vampire.
Everything else that takes place after is cool until the battle that
should but doesn’t happen. And if they
ever decide to REBOOT and DO RIGHT The Inheritance Cycle, all those books could be two movies
especially Eldest and Inheritance. Shoot, The
Hobbit is being broken up into two parts and to me that makes perfect sense. Even though they were able to put all of the
other three in one movie, they’re splitting up the prologue because now it’s “cool”
to do that but it’s a book that has the ability to be split up into two parts
so it also makes sense.
The idea of two movies was
cool. The Twilight people came up with it first, and then Harry Potter rushed to try and have it
done as well and succeeded with both parts to the point part 2 is now a record
breaker. Breaking Dawn; Part 2 may also break some records…actually now that
I think about it, it comes out the same month as Catching Fire…this should be interesting. But Mockingjay? Come on!
There is sooooooo not enough in that book to make two movies. The stupid war happens, nothing really
important besides her killing that one resistant chick, who I disliked so much
I can’t remember, and don’t feel the need to go and look up, her name, and then
they just send her home like nothing happened, she has two kids and depresses
the moment that she actually had kids.
Oh, and Peeta and Katniss have sex, for those of you who were naïve like
my little sister and totally didn’t catch that scene once they were back home
in the final chapter. Honestly, how do
you think the kids got there?
Truly, there isn’t really
anywhere they can cut this story off and make everyone wait, there isn’t much
that happens, and so I’m trying to understand why November 21st 2014
is Mockingjay; Part 1, and Novemeber
20th 2015 is Mockingjay; Part
2. Not only are they making us wait,
but they’re doing it for a whole year.
Why can’t they just be like New
Moon and Eclipse—we only waited
six months. It’s just a ploy to make
more money and it’s sad. Not to mention
Jennifer Lawrence is young Mystique for First
Class, and I so do not want to be waiting until 2016 for the second First Class to come out, because, yes,
as far as I know, Fox is willing to wait for her to finish The Hunger Games Trilogy first before she does the movie. They already were waiting for her to finish Catching Fire but if she’s going to be
going straight through with these movies then we’re waiting a while to see the
genius that is First Class end up
back on the big screen and I’d rather see that any day then an extra Hunger Games movie for a book I really
didn’t even like.
(Sigh). Honestly I’m still holding on for Breaking Dawn; Part 2 because they might
just let the fight happen. Meyer doesn’t
seem to have too much control over what happens and that was apparent when
Felix and Edward duked it out in New Moon
which didn’t happen in the book. But it
made Bella crying out “No, don’t, take me instead” (and I paraphrased that FYI)
a little more realistic and more emotional—if Stewart can even being emotional. Oh well, tell me what you guys think. But until next time, According to Michael
III, this is completely stupid and no I’m not all giddy about seeing both
parts.
—Michael III
P.S. And on a sad side note, to all my friends and family that weren't in Colorado at the time, I praise God you weren't. My prayers do go out to the families of the "Dark Knight Rises" shooting in Colorado. And I hope the bastard that did it fries. I just heard about it as I was pasting this up here and I had to say something about it. I'm over here crying because I can't see the movie this weekend, and the most tragic incident since VT happened last night at the midnight premiere in Colorado. I may not be seeing the movie but there are hundreds of families who now have something else to worry about. God be with you all.
tinsy bit ridiculous and it needs to stop.
Remember when it was “cool” that books were being split up into two
parts for the movie, yeah, well not anymore.
It’s been done twice already and the second half of that craze comes out
this November, but of course another big book-movie franchise just had to go
and do it as well…here’s the problem: THERE ISNT ENOUGH TO MAKE A SECOND MOVIE!
I’m pretty sure you know what
I’m talking about. It’s not that hard to
guess. I’m talking about Mockingjay, the final installment of The Hunger Games Trilogy. You see, November 23rd is when
Katniss and Peeta enter the ring once again to battle for the title of victor
with a bunch of other crazy and lovable characters that come along for the ride
in Catching Fire. And forgive me if you didn’t know they go
back in, I did say spoiler alert. But
come on, who hasn’t read the books by now trying to get a jist of what will be
on the big screen? I know I read them
all in one week a couple of months before The
Hunger Games came out so yeah, it can be done.
But let’s talk about Mockingjay; the final, and to me, almost
as anticlimactic as Breaking Dawn,
novel is of course being adapted into a movie.
It wouldn’t make sense to do books one and two but then go, “Nah, let’s
not do the third one.” Anyway, what’s
shocking is the fact that this movie will also be broke up into two parts. Here’s my problem with this, it’s just a scam
to make more money. See, if you’re a Twilight fan, which I am—don’t judge me,
or if you’re a Harry Potter fan,
which I’m not—again don’t judge me, you know that the final installments of
those book series were LARGE enough to break up into
two different movies. Hell, let’s face it;
HP as big as all those novels were
could have had fourteen movies. Even I
know that, and I’ve never even read a single book. Breaking
Dawn same deal. It had enough info
to set it up for two movies, and a story line that had three parts to it. But it had the perfect ending point for a
movie, Bella waking up finally a vampire.
Everything else that takes place after is cool until the battle that
should but doesn’t happen. And if they
ever decide to REBOOT and DO RIGHT The Inheritance Cycle, all those books could be two movies
especially Eldest and Inheritance. Shoot, The
Hobbit is being broken up into two parts and to me that makes perfect sense. Even though they were able to put all of the
other three in one movie, they’re splitting up the prologue because now it’s “cool”
to do that but it’s a book that has the ability to be split up into two parts
so it also makes sense.
The idea of two movies was
cool. The Twilight people came up with it first, and then Harry Potter rushed to try and have it
done as well and succeeded with both parts to the point part 2 is now a record
breaker. Breaking Dawn; Part 2 may also break some records…actually now that
I think about it, it comes out the same month as Catching Fire…this should be interesting. But Mockingjay? Come on!
There is sooooooo not enough in that book to make two movies. The stupid war happens, nothing really
important besides her killing that one resistant chick, who I disliked so much
I can’t remember, and don’t feel the need to go and look up, her name, and then
they just send her home like nothing happened, she has two kids and depresses
the moment that she actually had kids.
Oh, and Peeta and Katniss have sex, for those of you who were naïve like
my little sister and totally didn’t catch that scene once they were back home
in the final chapter. Honestly, how do
you think the kids got there?
Truly, there isn’t really
anywhere they can cut this story off and make everyone wait, there isn’t much
that happens, and so I’m trying to understand why November 21st 2014
is Mockingjay; Part 1, and Novemeber
20th 2015 is Mockingjay; Part
2. Not only are they making us wait,
but they’re doing it for a whole year.
Why can’t they just be like New
Moon and Eclipse—we only waited
six months. It’s just a ploy to make
more money and it’s sad. Not to mention
Jennifer Lawrence is young Mystique for First
Class, and I so do not want to be waiting until 2016 for the second First Class to come out, because, yes,
as far as I know, Fox is willing to wait for her to finish The Hunger Games Trilogy first before she does the movie. They already were waiting for her to finish Catching Fire but if she’s going to be
going straight through with these movies then we’re waiting a while to see the
genius that is First Class end up
back on the big screen and I’d rather see that any day then an extra Hunger Games movie for a book I really
didn’t even like.
(Sigh). Honestly I’m still holding on for Breaking Dawn; Part 2 because they might
just let the fight happen. Meyer doesn’t
seem to have too much control over what happens and that was apparent when
Felix and Edward duked it out in New Moon
which didn’t happen in the book. But it
made Bella crying out “No, don’t, take me instead” (and I paraphrased that FYI)
a little more realistic and more emotional—if Stewart can even being emotional. Oh well, tell me what you guys think. But until next time, According to Michael
III, this is completely stupid and no I’m not all giddy about seeing both
parts.
—Michael III
P.S. And on a sad side note, to all my friends and family that weren't in Colorado at the time, I praise God you weren't. My prayers do go out to the families of the "Dark Knight Rises" shooting in Colorado. And I hope the bastard that did it fries. I just heard about it as I was pasting this up here and I had to say something about it. I'm over here crying because I can't see the movie this weekend, and the most tragic incident since VT happened last night at the midnight premiere in Colorado. I may not be seeing the movie but there are hundreds of families who now have something else to worry about. God be with you all.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Living Up to her Name. Review of Jamie Grace's first studio album "One Song At A Time"
Living up to her name.
Jamie Grace—a new Christian
artist young and ready to take on the world with her guitar, her fresh dance
beats, alto voice and the Lord by her side.
Jamie Grace is living up to her name as she comes out with her debut
studio album One Song At A Time which
is filled with upbeat positive songs about loving God and enjoying life. Jamie is different than what I’ve heard so
far but it makes sense that TobyMac was the one to discover her. The former DC Talk member has his own different
“changing up the music” unique style and unlike Justin Bieber, Jamie was
discovered through her YouTube page and will actually mean something to the
world.
With my new job at His Word: A
Parable Christian Book Store I get to be around a lot of music I’m not use
to. This is nice because I’ve been
looking for new Christian music that still has a pop feel to it. She was up there in the top 20 selling artist
and she was like number four or five on the list. Curious I picked up the CD and saw she did a
song with TobyMac, who is one of my favorite artists because of his different
style of music. So I scanned it and
started playing the song “Hold Me” feat TobyMac and instantly realized I had
heard the song before, on KLove. Which
is surprising, for those of you who are also Christian and listen to KLove, you
know they hardly ever play anything different, but they like Toby so it makes
sense they take an interest into his new project. KLove plays a lot, and I do mean A LOT of
praise and worship music that’s slower and chill. Honestly, if I didn’t want to die this young,
I could fall asleep while driving in my car with KLove playing, which is why,
honestly, I only turn it on when I’m really bored and I’m tired of listening to
what I do own. Just to try to see if there
is something new on…with KLove; generally, not really. Not to bash on this great radio station, but
Praise and Worship isn’t all that there is out there. There motto is “Positive, encouraging music,
KLove.” It can be a little more upbeat
musically wise as well.
Sorry, long explanation short,
Jamie is fantastic. I have her music
playing right now and its 2:31 AM and I should be in bed, but the little one
isn’t allowing that, and neither is my wife’s negligence in washing our bed
sheets from the babies throw up before I went to work. Anyway, Jamie shows the magnitude of God’s
grace throughout all her songs as she sings about being in love with God and
Him always being on her mind. She strums
that guitar as the beats play behind her that give a carefree look to the world
with messages that says, “You’re making the sun shine today, yeah, I may be
going through something, but you’re right there keeping me moving on and I
thank you for that.”
Her song with TobyMac just has a
few vocals in the back as Toby sings over and over “I love, I love, I love, I
love the way you hold me.” She talks
about at the end of a long day just relaxing and focusing on God and thanking
him for what He’s done for you is like being held in his arms and He has arms
big enough for everyone. Jamie uses her
music to cleverly help you focus on the good even when the storm is going on
with songs such as “Show Jesus” which is one of my favorites which is a song in
which Jamie talks about someone who is so positive and living for God that he
just walks in the room and he can show Jesus and radiate positivity—an example
for how we should be.
The album opens up with “Ready
to Fly” which is a simple folk-like song as if being played on a record, that
to me, since it is a prelude to the whole album, is Jamie saying, “I’m ready
for the Lord to take me to new heights” and her first album is definitely the
start in my opinion. As you listen you
can’t help but smile and want to sing along as you dance. Then like any good
album the music does wind down all the way until she finishes with “Not Alone”
a simple song played on the piano and shows the depth of Jamie as she simply
tells everyone no matter what we’re going through, His arms are big enough and
we’re never alone. A ballad that sends
chills down your spine and helps you realize you aren’t because those chills is
that Spirit reaching out. She lives up
to her last name which is grace and she shows her love for the copious amounts
He has shed on her by using her talents to give Him the glory.
I’m excited to see where this is
going to go next and I hope it comes soon, but until then, “Show Jesus” and
“Not Alone” will be bumping on my iPod.
Check out the video for “Hold Me” below and see how she just lays back
driving around with TobyMac as they sing to the Lord. Until next time, According to Michael III,
Jamie Grace One Song At A Time is
fantastic, one song at a time.
—Michael III
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISgr8SgCYbY
“Hold Me” Jamie Grace feat. TobyMac Video
Jamie Grace—a new Christian
artist young and ready to take on the world with her guitar, her fresh dance
beats, alto voice and the Lord by her side.
Jamie Grace is living up to her name as she comes out with her debut
studio album One Song At A Time which
is filled with upbeat positive songs about loving God and enjoying life. Jamie is different than what I’ve heard so
far but it makes sense that TobyMac was the one to discover her. The former DC Talk member has his own different
“changing up the music” unique style and unlike Justin Bieber, Jamie was
discovered through her YouTube page and will actually mean something to the
world.
With my new job at His Word: A
Parable Christian Book Store I get to be around a lot of music I’m not use
to. This is nice because I’ve been
looking for new Christian music that still has a pop feel to it. She was up there in the top 20 selling artist
and she was like number four or five on the list. Curious I picked up the CD and saw she did a
song with TobyMac, who is one of my favorite artists because of his different
style of music. So I scanned it and
started playing the song “Hold Me” feat TobyMac and instantly realized I had
heard the song before, on KLove. Which
is surprising, for those of you who are also Christian and listen to KLove, you
know they hardly ever play anything different, but they like Toby so it makes
sense they take an interest into his new project. KLove plays a lot, and I do mean A LOT of
praise and worship music that’s slower and chill. Honestly, if I didn’t want to die this young,
I could fall asleep while driving in my car with KLove playing, which is why,
honestly, I only turn it on when I’m really bored and I’m tired of listening to
what I do own. Just to try to see if there
is something new on…with KLove; generally, not really. Not to bash on this great radio station, but
Praise and Worship isn’t all that there is out there. There motto is “Positive, encouraging music,
KLove.” It can be a little more upbeat
musically wise as well.
Sorry, long explanation short,
Jamie is fantastic. I have her music
playing right now and its 2:31 AM and I should be in bed, but the little one
isn’t allowing that, and neither is my wife’s negligence in washing our bed
sheets from the babies throw up before I went to work. Anyway, Jamie shows the magnitude of God’s
grace throughout all her songs as she sings about being in love with God and
Him always being on her mind. She strums
that guitar as the beats play behind her that give a carefree look to the world
with messages that says, “You’re making the sun shine today, yeah, I may be
going through something, but you’re right there keeping me moving on and I
thank you for that.”
Her song with TobyMac just has a
few vocals in the back as Toby sings over and over “I love, I love, I love, I
love the way you hold me.” She talks
about at the end of a long day just relaxing and focusing on God and thanking
him for what He’s done for you is like being held in his arms and He has arms
big enough for everyone. Jamie uses her
music to cleverly help you focus on the good even when the storm is going on
with songs such as “Show Jesus” which is one of my favorites which is a song in
which Jamie talks about someone who is so positive and living for God that he
just walks in the room and he can show Jesus and radiate positivity—an example
for how we should be.
The album opens up with “Ready
to Fly” which is a simple folk-like song as if being played on a record, that
to me, since it is a prelude to the whole album, is Jamie saying, “I’m ready
for the Lord to take me to new heights” and her first album is definitely the
start in my opinion. As you listen you
can’t help but smile and want to sing along as you dance. Then like any good
album the music does wind down all the way until she finishes with “Not Alone”
a simple song played on the piano and shows the depth of Jamie as she simply
tells everyone no matter what we’re going through, His arms are big enough and
we’re never alone. A ballad that sends
chills down your spine and helps you realize you aren’t because those chills is
that Spirit reaching out. She lives up
to her last name which is grace and she shows her love for the copious amounts
He has shed on her by using her talents to give Him the glory.
I’m excited to see where this is
going to go next and I hope it comes soon, but until then, “Show Jesus” and
“Not Alone” will be bumping on my iPod.
Check out the video for “Hold Me” below and see how she just lays back
driving around with TobyMac as they sing to the Lord. Until next time, According to Michael III,
Jamie Grace One Song At A Time is
fantastic, one song at a time.
—Michael III
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISgr8SgCYbY
“Hold Me” Jamie Grace feat. TobyMac Video
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
NaNoWriMo helped me get published...by accident
This is all by accident! You’ll find that funny once I tell you what’s
going on.
So I’m getting published, well
actually it’s self-published, but finally! a novel of mine will be on the
shelves or at least available online. So
here’s what happened. Have you ever
heard of NaNoWriMo? Yeah, well unless
you’re a serious writer it’s probably something you haven’t, actually, I can’t
even say that. I didn’t hear about
NaNoWriMo until about two years after I started writing, making it one year
after I had gotten serious about making it my career.
So here’s the deal with NaNo;
it’s created by authors who realize the first step in getting published is
actually finishing the book! I know
right!? Shocker! So the creators of this site—who I have no
idea who they are because I’m still new to them and I can’t really find out the
history of how NaNo truly started—began a quest in 2001, as far as I can tell,
that would help authors, young and old, finish a book and take their first step
out on a journey that would hopefully be fulfilling. It started off small but has grown to
millions of participants every year and continues to grow exponentially and has
sparked a camp and a month dedicated to Scripts. Alright, I’m all over the place, I know, so
let me tell you exactly what it is.
NaNoWriMo is “literary abandon”
as they say. It started off by having a
contest every single November which is the National Novel Writing Month. The contest comes down during the 1st
of November until the 30th at Midnight. Contestants are to write an entire novel,
50,000 words or more. That’s a lot
right? Well here’s how they make it
simple. You can write it, you can type
it, you can do both, however you decide to do it you can do it as long as it is
50,000 words. They have a site in which
you create a completely free profile, because they earn their money
through donations, and keep track of the words.
So basically, in my opinion, typing would be easier because then it
would be easier to keep track of how many words you’ve typed. NaNo is very lax on their rules. They feel that the true reward of the contest
is actually completing the novel itself and so if you screw around and post 50,000
words of crap, or copy it from somewhere else, you can still win the
contest. Trust me; nothing is better
than feeling the success of actually writing and finishing that novel, if
you’re a true writer. Or, and that’s the
other thing, you don’t actually have to finish the novel. The moment you reach 50,000 is the moment you
win that contest. This number is
apparently the standard novel count.
Standard doesn’t mean there aren’t smaller novels out there. But it’s to help you sit down and write that
novel you’ve been planning to write, have started to write, or have already
written maybe down on paper but you’ve been procrastinating on typing or
whatever. It’s to help get those
creative ideas flowing and get that novel started.
Since 2001 the numbers have
climbed and now NaNo has been able to do different things such as NaNoWriMo
Camp—“Based on November’s National Novel
Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), Camp NaNoWriMo provides the online support, tracking
tools, and hard deadline to help you write the rough draft of your novel in a
month… other than November!”—and Script Frenzy which is in April and has
rules set up for writing a script by the ending of April. There are many other things that NaNo does
including fundraising, a store, a fundraising/writing night; it’s all dedicated
to writing and getting that first draft down.
When I first heard about
NaNoWriMo they had a janky website.
There site wasn’t yet equipped to handle the thousands to possibly
millions of writers that were competing for the ability to say, “Yeah, I wrote
that.” And so when I first tried to get
on my computer’s browser kept crashing.
Well I was able to do one thing, which was sign up and so a couple of
years later they sent me an email about how their site was new and
improved. So I checked it out, and by
this time it was the last week of October last year. It was a lot better and I learned a lot more
about what NaNoWriMo was. I found out
that winning the contest was actually noticed by a few publishers because it’s
a contest of commitment. At this
point I had and have a literary agent through the Pikkante Media Network and he
wanted me to make sure I focused on getting my name out there by doing as many
contest as I possibly could. So I
entered NaNoWriMo. I used one of my
novels that I had already written out but hadn’t typed. It was the last one I’ve finished in a while
and I felt it was my best writing. I
didn’t want to just use the novel I’m trying to get published on so I went
ahead and typed up this latest story.
Well I won the contest, but only
because at the time I had a sample of a story that I hadn’t finished and I
originally planned on connecting the two together so putting in the first few
chapters of that as an excerpt helped me make the count and I won. I was surprised to find out one of the prizes
this year was the ability to get five free copies of you book in actual
published form for me to do whatever I pleased through a website known as
Createspace.com. I thought that was cool
but I wanted to edit the story so I went ahead and started working on that and
I eventually took out the excerpt because when I started Book 2 of my novel I
couldn’t make that excerpt fit without making the story completely ridiculous. So the book is now 5,000 words short give or
take a few hundred words. Not bad, and
like I said, there are shorter novels.
Anyway once I start going
through the process on Createspace.com, I realize once they start telling me to
set a price and my distribution channels that I actually will be making this available
for sale. At that point it just blew my
mind, a self-publishing website that was free basically, and one of the
available channels is Amazon.com…this could actually be how I could get my
start. So now I’m going through and
trying to fine tune this book as best as I possibly can so I can get this out
there. I just wanted to let you all know
a little of what’s happening, as I get closer to setting it all up you will
know more. I’m excited and you should be
too and I’m hoping to get this book mainstream as soon as possible. Also if I can get enough money from my sales
I can transfer it into a Kindle E-book as well so those of you with fancy
devices can read as well. Anyway, that’s
all I wanted to say, but until next time According to Michael III, sometimes
accidents can work out in your favor. If
you want to check out NaNoWriMo then here is the link to their website, http://www.nanowrimo.org/.
—Michael III
going on.
So I’m getting published, well
actually it’s self-published, but finally! a novel of mine will be on the
shelves or at least available online. So
here’s what happened. Have you ever
heard of NaNoWriMo? Yeah, well unless
you’re a serious writer it’s probably something you haven’t, actually, I can’t
even say that. I didn’t hear about
NaNoWriMo until about two years after I started writing, making it one year
after I had gotten serious about making it my career.
So here’s the deal with NaNo;
it’s created by authors who realize the first step in getting published is
actually finishing the book! I know
right!? Shocker! So the creators of this site—who I have no
idea who they are because I’m still new to them and I can’t really find out the
history of how NaNo truly started—began a quest in 2001, as far as I can tell,
that would help authors, young and old, finish a book and take their first step
out on a journey that would hopefully be fulfilling. It started off small but has grown to
millions of participants every year and continues to grow exponentially and has
sparked a camp and a month dedicated to Scripts. Alright, I’m all over the place, I know, so
let me tell you exactly what it is.
NaNoWriMo is “literary abandon”
as they say. It started off by having a
contest every single November which is the National Novel Writing Month. The contest comes down during the 1st
of November until the 30th at Midnight. Contestants are to write an entire novel,
50,000 words or more. That’s a lot
right? Well here’s how they make it
simple. You can write it, you can type
it, you can do both, however you decide to do it you can do it as long as it is
50,000 words. They have a site in which
you create a completely free profile, because they earn their money
through donations, and keep track of the words.
So basically, in my opinion, typing would be easier because then it
would be easier to keep track of how many words you’ve typed. NaNo is very lax on their rules. They feel that the true reward of the contest
is actually completing the novel itself and so if you screw around and post 50,000
words of crap, or copy it from somewhere else, you can still win the
contest. Trust me; nothing is better
than feeling the success of actually writing and finishing that novel, if
you’re a true writer. Or, and that’s the
other thing, you don’t actually have to finish the novel. The moment you reach 50,000 is the moment you
win that contest. This number is
apparently the standard novel count.
Standard doesn’t mean there aren’t smaller novels out there. But it’s to help you sit down and write that
novel you’ve been planning to write, have started to write, or have already
written maybe down on paper but you’ve been procrastinating on typing or
whatever. It’s to help get those
creative ideas flowing and get that novel started.
Since 2001 the numbers have
climbed and now NaNo has been able to do different things such as NaNoWriMo
Camp—“Based on November’s National Novel
Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), Camp NaNoWriMo provides the online support, tracking
tools, and hard deadline to help you write the rough draft of your novel in a
month… other than November!”—and Script Frenzy which is in April and has
rules set up for writing a script by the ending of April. There are many other things that NaNo does
including fundraising, a store, a fundraising/writing night; it’s all dedicated
to writing and getting that first draft down.
When I first heard about
NaNoWriMo they had a janky website.
There site wasn’t yet equipped to handle the thousands to possibly
millions of writers that were competing for the ability to say, “Yeah, I wrote
that.” And so when I first tried to get
on my computer’s browser kept crashing.
Well I was able to do one thing, which was sign up and so a couple of
years later they sent me an email about how their site was new and
improved. So I checked it out, and by
this time it was the last week of October last year. It was a lot better and I learned a lot more
about what NaNoWriMo was. I found out
that winning the contest was actually noticed by a few publishers because it’s
a contest of commitment. At this
point I had and have a literary agent through the Pikkante Media Network and he
wanted me to make sure I focused on getting my name out there by doing as many
contest as I possibly could. So I
entered NaNoWriMo. I used one of my
novels that I had already written out but hadn’t typed. It was the last one I’ve finished in a while
and I felt it was my best writing. I
didn’t want to just use the novel I’m trying to get published on so I went
ahead and typed up this latest story.
Well I won the contest, but only
because at the time I had a sample of a story that I hadn’t finished and I
originally planned on connecting the two together so putting in the first few
chapters of that as an excerpt helped me make the count and I won. I was surprised to find out one of the prizes
this year was the ability to get five free copies of you book in actual
published form for me to do whatever I pleased through a website known as
Createspace.com. I thought that was cool
but I wanted to edit the story so I went ahead and started working on that and
I eventually took out the excerpt because when I started Book 2 of my novel I
couldn’t make that excerpt fit without making the story completely ridiculous. So the book is now 5,000 words short give or
take a few hundred words. Not bad, and
like I said, there are shorter novels.
Anyway once I start going
through the process on Createspace.com, I realize once they start telling me to
set a price and my distribution channels that I actually will be making this available
for sale. At that point it just blew my
mind, a self-publishing website that was free basically, and one of the
available channels is Amazon.com…this could actually be how I could get my
start. So now I’m going through and
trying to fine tune this book as best as I possibly can so I can get this out
there. I just wanted to let you all know
a little of what’s happening, as I get closer to setting it all up you will
know more. I’m excited and you should be
too and I’m hoping to get this book mainstream as soon as possible. Also if I can get enough money from my sales
I can transfer it into a Kindle E-book as well so those of you with fancy
devices can read as well. Anyway, that’s
all I wanted to say, but until next time According to Michael III, sometimes
accidents can work out in your favor. If
you want to check out NaNoWriMo then here is the link to their website, http://www.nanowrimo.org/.
—Michael III
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