Fresh Start September!

Image taken from weheartit.com

I don’t know why but with September I have always seen it as a fresh start, maybe because of the start of school, college and university. I also love it as it marks the start of autumn, my favourite month!

Overall September is one of my favourite months of the year and if it goes to plan each year then I’m super happy! However if it doesn’t I often end up feeling rather down about it and end up thinking and deciding that the rest of the month and sometimes even the rest of the year will follow the same.

This September I have decided to have a fresh start with loads of new things I will start doing. I always see September as a fresh start anyway but this time I’m facing it with a different approach.

I thought I would share these with you all, as I hope that it will encourage you all to join in with my Fresh Start September, or FSS for short. 😛

Mochi ice cream from Wagamama, my own image.

Start: Eating better!

Although I have slowly began this already I’m going to plod on and continue with it. Instead of bread I’m now eating rice crackers, they make a great alternative and don’t contain as many calories either! I’m also trying to eat more fish, eggs and veg as these are all good for you. As much as I love going out for meals with my boyfriend, friends and sometimes my family I need to stop doing this. At one point every weekend my boyfriend and I would go out for a meal on our own or with friends and it needs to stop. Once a week for a treat isn’t bad and even when I was smaller than I am right now, I used to do this but I want to save money. My boyfriend took me out for a treat to Wagamama on Thursday and it was lovely, we didn’t eat too much and shared a pudding instead of having one each. I’d like to limit eating out to once every 2 weeks and that includes takeaways too, but I hardly eat takeaway food. I want to try and start home cooking too, like good old pies, lasagne, etc. It won’t hurt! SO no more snacking on crisps or any rubbish like that! I’m going to aim to try and lose some weight by the New Year.

Image taken from weheartit.com

Start: Walking everyday!

I used to walk everywhere when I first started college and I used to walk everyday due to it too. Sadly the past two years it has stopped due to being at work all the time and I’m not going to lie, me being too lazy and too tired to move my butt! Times are changing! I miss walking everyday and with England’s beautiful autumn evenings on their way I thought now would be a good time to start walking again. I’ve decided that everyday after work I’ll get my iPod, my most comfortable clothing and a bottle of water and go out for a walk for about half an hour, as that’s the amount we’re meant to walk everyday and I know for a fact I don’t walk that much anymore. Even if I can’t get out to walk due to rain I’m going to try and start going somewhere just to walk around inside, even if that means window shopping in Asda, local shopping centre, hell even Ikea! You can get lost in there due to its size. I’m excited, I’ve been meaning to start going out walking again but due to my health I’ve just not got around to doing it.

Image taken from weheartit.com

Start: Saving money!

With  my holiday in less than five months I want to try and save as much money as possible for it! As well as that Christmas will soon be upon us again, so it’ll be good to save for that too, although hard to save up for my holiday at the same time. Saving money is always good to do anyway, as you never know really what may happen. I’ve always been one for saving money, which I get from my Dad. He always taught me from a young age to save money for as much as it may burn a hole in your pocket, it’ll be worth it in the long run, which is true. I always try and save a little bit every week, but sometimes I’m not able to due to bills etc. At the moment it’s due to paying for my holiday, but in the long run it’ll be worth it. I’m going to try my hardest not to spend money on things, but if I really want something I will indulge. Recently I’ve felt very down in the dumps so I have been treating myself to the odd thing, but that’s stopping now as I NEED to save.

Image taken from weheartit.com

Start: Reading more!

I really do love reading, but I don’t read half as much as I would like to, and used to. When I was at university I used to read loads and even in my old job I used to read quite a bit. I don’t do that anymore, as my current job I don’t get breaks so I never get a chance to read a book for half an hour like I used to. At home I do try and read as much as I can these days mind, I’ll take my current book of choice out and about with me if I know I’ll get a few minutes to read. Sometimes I try to read before work, whilst traveling on the train (which I hardly do anymore!) or if I pop out with my Dad somewhere, as I know he’ll be nattering away to someone at some point! I would love to be able to join a book club, or even borrow books from the library to read but due to how slow I tend to read, or the fact I never have any time I can’t and that really sucks! I’m hoping by the end of 2014 I’ll have read all of John Green’s books! I’ve read one, currently reading another and have three gathering dust on my shelf. I shall keep you updated…

Image taken from weheartit.com

Start: Writing again!

Something else I miss doing is writing, creative writing that is. It’s my number one hobbie and passion and something that my anxiety and depression has made me forget about, especially how much I enjoy doing it. With NaNoWriMo coming up in November I’m excited to let my creative juices flow again and I already have a story plot written up from start to finish. I’ll be talking more about NaNoWriMo throughout October. I would love to try and do more writing, even if it involves me being a proof reader for someone, I just miss doing it so much! I’m hoping to try and find a writing group that I can join soon as it would be nice to meet up with people who love writing just as much as I do.

So that’s my five start something’s, I can definitely work on all of these! I also have a sixth one but I’m not going to discuss that on here, but it’s definitely my number one start something that I want to do!

I want whoever reads this to go off and make a list of five start’s that you would like to start in September.

I’m going to keep everyone updated on how I’m keeping with my start’s, probably be at the end of every month!

Will you be taking part in Fresh Start September? Let me know in the comments if you will and what start’s you’ll be doing!

Until next time, take care and see you in September. 😉

NaNoWriMo Week 4 & YAY NaNoWriMo 2013 Is Over!

Okay this post is meant to be two separate posts, but I’ve combined it to be one, because of two reasons, 1. I was late writing up and scheduling both posts DUE TO NaNoWriMo and 2. Because I’m awesome like that.

Basically NaNoWriMo has been over  for a week now and since then I’ve been thinking about how many words I wrote in just 30 days… It’s so weird!

In the fourth week of NaNoWriMo I found myself doing pretty well, but I began to stress out after 45,000 words as I was busy last weekend when I was needing to get those last two, nearly three thousand words written to complete NaNoWriMo and get to 50,000 words. I was with my boyfriend pretty much all weekend so I had to fit in writing before going to bed and as soon as we woke up for me to get to 50,000 words. The last two thousand works were horrible to get down because I just wanted NaNoWriMo to be over and done with for another year.

So as hard as the fourth and final week can be for NaNoWriMo, I found it to be pretty simple. I’d come home from work, write until about 1am-3am and then go to sleep. Simple! I did get a tad stuck at times but I soon got through that and plodded on!

Overall I really enjoyed NaNoWriMo this year and I’m actually surprised I finished! I finished on 50,261 words and I haven’t finished my novel, infact I’m nowhere near finishing it! It’s probably got another 50,000 words to go until it’s completely finished, but right now I’m unsure when I’ll be continuing with it as for a while I’m just going to be busy with Christmas and my birthday, as well as keeping my blog updated.

I have to admit, as much as I love writing I really did miss writing on my blog every other day. I just love writing about things I’m passionate about and I like to update you guys on things I’ve bought, like, my life etc. So the fact I just had to schedule a ton of posts back in October for the duration of November, it sucked!

I’m just glad to be back, but this being said I’m going to be taking part in NaNoWriMo next year, because I just enjoyed it so much!

I want to thank my friend Amy who was definitely my writing buddy throughout NaNoWriMo and would sit with me on Skype night after night discussing make up and out novels!

You NEED to go and check out her blog, (vondork.blogpost.com) she’s an amazing writer and recently came back after a very long hiatus, which I’m glad about. She’s mad about make up and was amazing and got me my MAC’s Speak Louder lipstick dirt cheap! Tell her I sent you if you find her through this post.

But the person I want to thank my most is my boyfriend. There were a few times where I was pretty close to giving up and he was there to encourage me to carry on and remind me that days before I was enjoying taking part in NaNoWriMo. He’s an amazing person and excuse my language but I’m so fucking lucky to have someone like him.

I’m really proud of myself for seeing NaNoWriMo through to the end this year, as I mentioned before I didn’t get past week one in 2012, which was rubbish.

I’m glad I was able to document my NaNoWriMo experience this year with you guys who read my blog, it’s been awesome. But now I’m back to being a beauty, fashion and lifestyle blogger. I’ve missed you all so much!

NaNoWriMo – Week 3

Image taken from weheartit.com

Week three has come and gone, rather quickly to be honest with you.

I’ve rather enjoyed NaNoWriMo this week as my story has started to get more interesting and I’ve had the chance to introduce my main character to the story!

I didn’t really struggle this week and found that I got a couple of chapters finished (three to be exact!) as well as reached over 37,000 words not long ago. I found a couple of days during the week that I wrote twice as much as I needed to so I could have a break on the following day, which was nice. I know I needed this Thursday night as I was shattered after a hard day at work.

However I did find that my Mom would come and pester me at times, which put me off my writing and I’d lose ideas (which thankfully came back to me during the night) and this is also the reasoning for the picture above. 😉

As well as this I was chatting away with various people every night which distracted me at the best of times, but my friends and loved ones come first and writing can happen when everyone is tucked up in bed and asleep.

I’m so pleased that I have my partner in crime for NaNoWriMo this year, my friend Amy. Pretty much every night we sit together on Skype (typing, not call or video) and discuss our novels, as well as beauty related matters!

I apologise by the way that this post is late being written up and posted, I got up rather early this morning but instead of turning my laptop on, I just chilled out in bed, keeping warm and watching YouTube videos. Then before I knew it I had to get up to go meet my best friend to have lunch at the German Market. It was lovely and after that I headed over to Coventry to my boyfriends, which is where I am right now.

We’ve just gone through my NaNoWriMo novel, as he’s my proof reader for it he ensures that if anything needs correcting on it or parts of the story added, we work through it together to do just that, which is why this post  is a little late too.

I can’t believe this time next week NaNoWriMo will be over for another year and Christmas will soon be around the corner, as well as my posts being written normally again.

I know this post is only brief but I’m not sure what much to say. This week has been pretty normal and straight forward with NaNoWriMo and quite frankly I’m glad! As much as I love to write I’m fed up of writing everyday now. I want to get back to being able to come home, relax and get some awesome blog posts written up for you all to enjoy.

Roll on next Friday!

I hope everyone is doing well and as I’ve said the past 2 weeks, if you’re taking part in NaNoWriMo, please let me know in the comments down below how you’re getting on!

Until next time, take care all!

NaNoWriMo – Week 2

Image taken from weheartit.com

I won’t lie, this week was tough and I really don’t know how I got through it and carried on.

After last Friday I had a busy and hectic weekend. I’d woken up on that Friday to get some morning and afternoon writing done before  my boyfriend came over. He had his last gig in Wolverhampton and we said we would leave early so as not to catch any traffic, trust me it should take only 30 minutes to get to Wolvo and back, but it took us just under an hour.

So he came to meet me at mine and I think he expected me to be ready to go, but he just got here so quickly and I was so busy writing and getting my creative juices flowing that I hadn’t realised the time. It took me an hour to get ready, pack my bag for when we came back in the early hours and tidy my room ready for Sunday night when I would be back from his.

With that we set off to Wolverhampton, then Birmingham to pick up my things and then back to Coventry. But the traveling didn’t stop there. On Saturday morning we had to travel to Wales to pick up a purchase my boyfriend made on eBay and our friend who is also one of his band mates was lovely enough to take us.

The trip was tiring and I ended up napping in the van on the way home, as well as when we got home. I didn’t feel at all well and my boyfriend tried to encourage me to write, but I just couldn’t. I had zero energy and due to it I felt pretty crap too.

We were meant to go to the cinema in the evening to watch Bad Grandpa but after so much traveling we called it off and said we would go the next weekend, which is now this weekend.

We eventually went to sleep but come Sunday I still felt the same as I had done on the Saturday and due to be tired I once again didn’t get any writing done. I came home and felt just as bad so I said to myself I would sit down and do loads of writing come Monday evening after I finished work.

However come Monday evening I felt pretty low and miserable and I have no idea why! I’m a woman, I suppose. Either way I didn’t get any writing done then either, so come Tuesday I said to myself when I got home I would stay up as long as it would take to catch up.

I sat on my laptop until 3am in the morning and wrote 7,308 words. I’ve never written that many words in one session before for NaNoWriMo and now I look at it, I can’t believe I actually wrote that many words!

Sadly this didn’t mean I’d caught up but I said to myself I would do the same again after working on Wednesday and with that I finished writing around 3.30am after writing 2,523 words and with that I had officially caught up!

Now it’s day 15 of the NaNoWriMo challenge and I’m currently on 23,399 and I’m due to be on 25,000 words which I’m going to get started with as soon as I’ve finished writing this post.

Sorry it’s been so long, but I just felt the need to explain why I had to catch up.

I still can’t believe on Monday night in my woe and misery that I was saying to my boyfriend, as well as ranting on my Twitter how I was a failure and that I wasn’t going to be able to catch up in time etc.

My boyfriend has been the most amazing person ever (as he always is!) and just encouraged me to carry on writing. He’s the only person I’ve been sending each finished chapter of my novel to as I trust his opinions and he loves my story so far, telling me what to change in it for the better if he finds any hiccups.

I’m really quite proud of myself that I have managed to catch up, the only downside of it is now my sleep pattern is a tad messed up, but I’ll be able to fix that this weekend.

Are you taking part in NaNoWriMo this year? Let me know in the comments how you’re getting on if you are. 🙂

Well I’m off to get my daily word count written so I can get on with what I need to for the day.

I hope everyone’s had a great week and I only wish you an awesome weekend!

Until next time, take care all.

My Safe Place, My Bed

This post is something a little different from usual. Today I decided that I want to write about my safe place, my bed. This is probably somewhere a lot of people call their safe place and you might have the same reasons as I do for deciding on this place.

Everyone has a safe place, somewhere that they go to when they don’t feel at their best, feel poorly or like myself are feeling rather anxious a tad too often and just want somewhere familiar they can go to and be themselves without any worry.

I love my bed, I always have but over the past year I’ve loved it more than ever and without it, I’d be pretty screwed.

Whenever I’m at home I’ll be sat in my bed on my laptop doing some writing with the covers over my legs to keep me warm, or snuggled up inside my bed with the blankets over my head watching YouTube videos or reading blog posts on my iPhone.

I don’t have a desk in my room and the only place I really have to sit is either on the floor or in my bed and as the latter is more comfortable, I always choose that one.

Before work I’ll wake up early just so I can lie in my bed and watch YouTube videos and read blog posts. That may sound really lazy and sad to most but to me staying in my bed is just something I enjoy doing. I don’t really sit with my family and talk about life and such, we all like to be on our own to do our own things, only really talking to one another if we need to be in the same room at any time. This sounds really bad, I know but it’s the way we live and I suppose we’re all happy that way.

When I come home from work, my boyfriends, or from being out with friends I’ll come straight up to my room. I don’t get into bed straight away but let’s say half an hour after arriving home, I’ll be in my pajamas and tucked into bed doing something, more than likely related to my blog.

On my days off I won’t budge from my bed unless I have to, as I’ll usually spend most of my day writing for my blog, which is what I spend most of my time doing towards the end of October and the same will go for this month due to NaNoWriMo. As you can see I have my favourite picture (to date) of my boyfriend and I as my wallpaper. I’ve never really done this before with previous relationships, not even friends so it’s nice to see us both looking so happy whenever I turn my laptop on. I need to get this picture printed off soon, as I just love it so much, it makes me really happy.

I’ll settle down with all the things I need, my iPhone, some lip balm which at the moment is Vaseline’s Paint The Town Red Lip Tint (review here) and a notebook. I love notebooks and I have so many of them for different things. My notebook was a present bought for me by my boyfriend. It’s by Gemma Correll’s greeting cards and gift products called Pickle Parade and has her Pugs Not Drugs design on the front. I use it to write good things down in so I can look back over them when I’m feeling crappy. It’s my favourite notebook by far, mostly because my boyfriend bought it for me and plus I love the design. I use my pink BIC pen when I write inside of it, as it looks nice alongside the blue and white colours of the notebook itself.

Since getting my iPhone in September I love it so much and anyone who claims that they’re rubbish, has clearly never owned an iPhone! In a way I wish I could have got the iPhone 5s, as I have the 5 but I needed a new phone desperately and either way I love this. I use it for Bloglovin’ and it’s great to read posts when I’m traveling anywhere. I use it to organise blog posts and what I intend to write about and such. It’s a great little device and I love my old skool Gameboy case for it too, which I snapped up on eBay for just 99p!

These are the newest edition to my bedroom, my bed sheets. I bought them in October and they’re by Fearne Cotton. Not only does she design clothes for Very, but now she’s designing pieces for your home too and I love everything she has designed so far! I picked these bed covers up in the sale after eying them up since May so I’m glad I finally have them on my bed now. They’re really soft and cozy to wrap yourself up in on cold days and a pleasure to snuggle in whenever I’m writing.

This being said, I wouldn’t say they’re my favourite bed sheets but they’re definitely a treat to put on my bed as they’re different to my usual black and white bed sheets.

I usually have loads of pillows on my bed but I haven’t been as bothered to have them all on there as much as I used to, so I just have my favourite 101 Dalmatians pillow on there from the Disney Store. This pillow is so comfortable to rest on and it’s really soft and squishy too. It’s probably meant to be for a child, but I don’t care, I love 101 Dalmatians!

Although I love my bed, I’m wanting a double bed now. My boyfriend and I struggle to sleep when he stays over at mine due to not much room in a single for two people… Two people who take up a lot of room in a double bed, let alone a single! This being said my room isn’t the largest in the world and for me to have a double bed, would mean a lot less room for me to move around in here, which I don’t have with a single now as it is! But we shall see…

Finally as you can see next to my bed I have a little picture wall against my wardrobe and it goes all the way up, this pictures only got a couple of them in this picture. Since my boyfriend and I got together in June, I’ve since put two pictures of us both up on my photo wall, a place only my best and closest friends are put up on, as well as family. The first picture I ever saw of my boyfriend is one of him in a suit, I thought he looked gorgeous and I’m so glad he messaged me on the website we met on. The picture above it is one of my favourite pictures. One evening before I headed home from his we took some pictures together and this was one of them. I have some more pictures of my boyfriend and I to pop up on my photo wall, including the one I have on my laptop.

I love my bed so much and although this post is rather random, I came up with the idea a few days after putting my new bed sheets on and snuggling up inside of them.

Does anyone else love their bed as much as I do? Please let me know if you do.

This is definitely my safe place for life and I’m pretty sure if I get a double bed in the near future, that will just be as safe feeling as this one.

Until next time, take care all and i hope you enjoyed this post.

NaNoWriMo – Week 1

Image taken from weheartit.com

Well it’s a been a whole week since November and NaNoWriMo started and I’d like to think I’m doing good so far!

On the first day I wrote over 5,000 words. Amazing huh? I didn’t get to do much over the weekend mind as I was busy seeing my boyfriend, as well as attending an all day gig that Four Floors Of Whores were attending, which I of course took pictures of.

Right now as I’m writing this I’m not only shamefully  listening to Wrecking Ball (not even joking ladies and possible gents!) I’m also on 12,217 words for my novel. I would have been on more, probably 15,000 but I took my Mom late night shopping yesterday after work and I didn’t get home until after 11pm so I was far too tired to turn my laptop on and get on with any writing, sad to say.

However I have the morning to myself before I am whisked off by my boyfriend to Wolverhampton for Four Floors Of Whores last gig of the year whilst the two guitarists go off to have their babies. 🙂

I won’t lie, on day 5 I actually contemplated giving up but I’m really glad I never because I know I would have regretted it otherwise. I was suffering from a mild outbreak of writers block (as well as tiredness after work) and I think I was worrying about whether or not work would interfere with me writing or not, but so far it hasn’t done that at all.

So really as soon as I get home from my close shift at work, I just get on with my writing and attempt to write as much as possible, which I’ll be doing as soon as this post is written. 😛

I’m rather proud of myself for how much I’ve done so far, although a part of me wishes I had written more but that’s just the type of writer I am and have always been and throughout the past week I’ve  moaned how badly I’m doing, even though my friend Amy (who is also taking part in NaNoWriMo) and my boyfriend have both commented on how well I’m doing right now.

Speaking of Amy, I want to just give a mini shout out to her. She’s been doing amazing this year so far for NaNoWriMo and is currently on over 15,000 words! As well as this she has also started writing on her blog again, as well as giving it a brand new name! She does amazing reviews for make up products and I would recommend you checking her out over at vondork.blogspot.co.uk

I finally got to meet Amy after probably five years of knowing her online and it was amazing to meet her, she was so lovely and bubbly but I’m saving all the details for a blog post in the next week or so, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

I can safely say my music has changed from Miley Cyrus to Calvin Harris (ooft!) so now I’m off to get on with some more writing.

Are you taking part in NaNoWriMo this year, if so how are you getting on so far? Let me know in the comments down below.

Until next Friday, take care all and I hope everyone is doing well so far this November.

NaNoWriMo – Nerves

Image taken from weheartit.com

There’s only a couple more days now until NaNoWriMo starts and I won’t lie, I’m feeling nervous.

I have my idea down, characters, plot, chapters and pretty much everything possible to write a novel but I’m still nervous!

I hadn’t got my idea down properly last year and I think due to that and all that happened in November it prevented me from even completing week one but this year will be different, I know it will.

I have a couple of my friends taking part in NaNoWriMo alongside me this year, especially my friend Amy who I know will encourage me to write and I’ll make sure to do the same.

Plus my boyfriend has been so lovely and helped me out loads with my novel so I can’t wait to send it him everyday after I’ve written my 2,000 words  for the day for him to read.

With NaNoWriMo you are encouraged to just write, write, write and not worry about punctuation, spelling mistakes, etc and just sort those out after November, which is probably something I’ll follow again this year, like I did in 2011.

Whilst I’m really nervous, I am really excited to be taking part in NaNoWriMo again as I am really pleased with the idea I came up with.

Due to me being a paranoid ninny, I won’t be talking much about my novel idea due to worry that someone out there on the world wide web may steal it and use it themselves. I like to think whilst my idea isn’t exactly unique, I would like to think that it hasn’t been done as of yet and I want to keep it that way.

Image taken from weheartit.com

I will let you in on some inspiration of my novel idea though.

It’s a fantasy/mystery novel was based off of a dream that I had and everyone in the dream wore steam punk clothing and it was all based underwater. It’s heavily based on steam punk in general, not just the clothes with the setting, the mechanics throughout the world and such like that. Think of a mixture of all the Bioshock games and a little bit of Fallout 3 in there too. As well as this it does have some religious elements in there too, but nothing heavy and anyone who is of any religion, or no religion for that matter would still be able to enjoy it. The lead character is female and everyone within the story is English, with it being set in England too, of course. That’s all I can give away for the time being, I’m a tease aren’t I? 😛

I’m really hoping I can be successful with this novel this year as I love the plot and all the twists and turns you see throughout it and if you know me, you’ll know how dark I write and this novel will be just the same!

I’ll be updating my blog every Friday with progress of how I’m doing with the challenge, this Friday not being included of course!

As I’m going to be so busy during November with NaNoWriMo I’ve been super busy this month writing up posts for you all to read throughout the month, as I know I’d be too busy to write posts up. I will be writing up a few posts, more than likely with the help of my boyfriend in some areas but this won’t be a problem!

I hope you’ve all had a great month though and make sure to have fun for Hallowe’en tomorrow if you’re doing anything! Sadly I probably won’t be going out for it, but I’m not too fussed about that to be honest.

Also, if you’re taking part in NaNoWriMo, good luck! You can find me as Broken_Prophet over on Twitter, so feel free to pop over and have a chat with me during November about how you’re getting on!

If you have any questions about NaNoWriMo, please leave any down below in the comments.

I’ll see you all soon and take care everyone.

NaNoWriMo 2013

I mentioned that I would be taking part in NaNoWriMo on a recent blog post (link) and as some of you may not know about NaNoWriMo, I thought I would tell you all about it!

Image taken from http://nanowrimo.org/en

NaNoWriMo is an exciting writing (Ha! That rhymed!) event that occurs ever November of the year. Writers get themselves pumped up to write a 50,000 word novel i just 30 days! So it takes place from the start until the end of November and whilst you don’t win anything cool like a book deal for the novel you’ve written or some money to spend on some writing equipment, you do get that sort of pride that you wrote that many words in 30 days. It’s something I’ve added to my writing CV when I apply for experience and jobs, as well as when I’ve been applying for my writing postgraduate degree.

The first year I took part was in 2011, after my friend Sophie mentioned it to me over coffee one afternoon. When I got home I had a look on their website and it was exactly how my friend had described it, so I signed up and started to think of some story ideas that I could write-up.

My friend Sophie an I met up a week or so before NaNoWriMo was due to start and we discussed what story ideas we’d both come up with, as well as buy ourselves some notebooks for writing ideas and notes in. We spent a good hour or so in Starbucks writing and discussing ideas and it was great, it reminded me of when we were both at university in our creative writing class. I really miss those days.

That afternoon I went home with a great idea and this is the one I used for my novel.

Image taken from http://meditativemeanderings.blogspot.co.uk as I can’t find the old email that I had mine on.

I started on 1st November, as if you start beforehand or use a novel that you’ve already been writing it’s classed as cheating and while you wouldn’t get into trouble about it from anyone, it’s just pointless to do really. Anyway, I digress! I started on 1st November, as everyone did/does and I finished 5 days early on the 25th November. I was and I am still really proud of myself for doing so well with the challenge and to this day I still can’t believe I wrote that many words in such a short period of time.

Since then I’ve been continuing writing that novel and as of yet, it isn’t finished and it still needs to be proof read as I really would like to try and get it published in the future.

In 2012 I attempted NaNoWriMo again but I did really badly the first week and ended up quitting on the idea of being able to do it, thus I gave up and was really disheartened about it all. But this being said November 2012 was a really bad month for me and the last thing on my mind was writing, even though I love it so much.  Plus I was always at work and for some reasons I was always doing late and night shifts during this month, which sucked as it meant I had no time to do my writing.

Image taken from weheartit.com

I’m going to learn from last year and try my best this year to complete NaNoWriMo again! I’ve been thinking of novel ideas already and have a few in mind, which is great for me!

I have a month now to plan and such like that and I have a feeling my boyfriend as well as my fellow writer friends who take part in NaNoWriMo every year will be really encouraging and supportive when it comes to writing everyday, which will help so much. I really do hope I complete NaNoWriMo this year and if I don’t, I hope I at least get closer to it than I did last year.

In a months time I’ll be writing a post to update you all on how I’m ready, what my plan is for writing and such like that. Also at the end of each week in November (so it’ll be on Sunday evening or Monday morning) I’ll be keeping you up to date with my progress on NaNoWriMo.

Before reading this post did you know about NaNoWriMo? If not did you find out about it through this post?

If you already knew about NaNoWriMo, will you be taking part in it this year like myself? If you found out about it through this post, are you inclined to give it a go now?

Let me know in the comments down below! I’d love to hear from you.

I’m so excited for NaNoWriMo this year that I’m already getting ready to buy a notebook so jot all my ideas and notes down in. The more organised I get myself, the better!

Until next time, take care and I hope everyone’s week has been good. Enjoy your weekends all and I’ll see you next week with my monthly posts.

My Goals

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With such big life changes happening in the space of a couple of months, I decided earlier this week that I need to start making goals for myself.

Like many of us do, I constantly say to myself about how I will do all these things and sometimes those things will get done and achieved and sometimes they’ll be forgotten about and thought of when I’m trying to sleep. You know when you lie in bed trying to sleep and suddenly you get all those thoughts of the things you said you would do and never did, then you go all psychologist on yourself and try to work out why those things didn’t get done. If you don’t think about those things you think about all the things you did or didn’t do that have screwed up your life now. Yes girls and guys, you know we ALL do that at some point. Since May this has become something that happened most nights and most of these nights I have lost sleep over it, well I’m not having that anymore!

I’ve set my goals that I want to try and complete within the next year and I know with the help of my friends, my boyfriend and my family I know I’ll complete them all by then… And if I don’t I can always say I tried and that’s what matters, because if you don’t try, you’ll never know.

I hope you enjoy this post and that it encourages you to set your own goals, if you haven’t done so already and if you have, great! I hope this post just encourages you all the more to complete those goals!

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Get an iPhone – When my contract finishes for my current phone at the end of September (HTC Sensation XE FYI) I’m getting myself an iPhone. Everyone I know has one and they just look amazing and as my boyfriend has one I’ve been playing on it every once in a while to see what I think of it and I can say I love it. It feels nice, loads pages and apps up really quickly and just looks great. My HTC has done nothing but cause me trouble this year and excuse my French but it’s pissing me off now, so I’m glad to see the back of it. I’m going to jazz it up with a Vans case and a cute little microphone buddy, like these cute little Vocaloid characters in the above picture. I’m a sucker for anything Japanese and kawaii!

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Learn to snowboard, buy snowboarding gear and go on a snowboarding holiday – This is essentially three goals, but they’re all about snowboarding so who cares! In my teenage years I was a skateboarder and after a bad fall that could have resulted in a broken nose, a broken tooth or both, I stopped as I worried that one day I might not be so lucky. When I first started to talk to my boyfriend he told me all about how much he loved snowboarding and it reminded me of back to when I enjoyed skateboarding. On our second date he showed me a video he’d put together from his snowboarding holiday with friends earlier that year. It looked so much fun and everyone seemed happy and like they had enjoyed themselves. Since then I’d thought more and more about giving snowboarding and go and I’ve decided I’m going to go learn how to do snowboard in a day course, which costs £119, but will be worth it! Then I’ll save up my money to buy myself my own snowboarding gear and then save up for a snowboarding holiday. When my boyfriend and I were talking about it and looking for snowboard gear for me earlier this week, he seemed so excited about it, which made me smile. I haven’t been on holiday since 2005, so I really could do with one soon! Whether it involves sunshine and hot weather or not, I just want a break from the UK for a while.

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Save money – Due to not having a job for three months I lost quite a lot of my savings due to things I needed and bills I needed to pay so all my savings I had has sadly gone… I’m not going to say here how much they were but I’m hoping to have them all saved up by the New Year. As well as this I wish to save up the £5,000 I need for my MA course, instead of needing to borrow it from the bank. I should be able to save this money up, providing I’m good. Of course my holiday could come into this which will cost me between £400-£500, which I would need to save up ASAP. I like having money in my savings, just incase anything should ever happen and me quitting my job is a good example of this.

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Writing – I want to continue with my writing this year. After finishing university I was out of a job for a year and in that time I wrote every other day and even took part in NaNoWriMo 2011, which I completed successfully in 25 days. To briefly explain what NaNoWriMo is, it’s a writing challenge that takes place from the start to the end of November, where you need to write a 50,000 word story in the 30 days of November. I attempted to do this in 2012, but due to my job being so demanding I wasn’t able to even reach 25,000 which really saddened me. I wasn’t able to write anything whilst being in my previous job due to how demanding it was either and it really saddened me. Now I have my new job I’m hoping I can get back into writing my novels, plays and screenplays as I’ve really missed doing them. As well as this I hope to continue writing on my blog, as I enjoy doing it and the feedback I get from you guys is amazing!

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Drive more – I love driving but I really don’t drive enough and I want that to change! The only places I would ever drive is to work, with my Mom to the shops, the cinema occasionally with my friend Jacqui and sometimes I would pick people up from the pub too. Either way, not enough! I want to start driving myself to my boyfriends, which is about 25 miles away from where I live and takes an hour to go there. I love the thought of spontaneous adventures and when autumn comes along I want to start having these. As well as this I’ll of course be driving myself to my new job, which will be awesome. I love my car so much and his name is Sebastian, because he’s red like the crab in The Little Mermaid. I wish he had the accent too!

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Visit lovely people – During my lifetime I have met some wonderful people… Thanks to the internet, yes the internet. Although we had mutual friends and my cousin was in her year at school, I met my friend Jacqui thanks to MySpace. I met my friend Gabriella through a forum we both use and I even met my boyfriend online. I still have people I need to meet from the world of the internet and I’m hoping to do this in the next year. I want to meet a few people I’ve met through Twitter, and a few people I have met through the same forum I met Gabriella off of. As well as this, I miss my friend Gabriella so much and I’m hoping to go and visit her more soon and this is where driving more comes into it!

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Most of all, be happy! This is by far my biggest goal. I’ve been pretty unhappy for a long, long time and I’m only starting to feel a little bit happier. I know I won’t ever be 100% happy, I don’t think anyone can be THAT happy and if they are it probably doesn’t last all that long. But if I can be at least 70% happy, then I’ll be satisfied. As long as I have a job to keep my busy, money to pay the bills and my friends, my boyfriend and my family then I’ll be happy. Plus through completing all my goals so far, I think I’ll be a happy dinosaur by the end of them all.

So those are my goals for the next year, which I hope to have completed by August 2014.

I hope my goals have inspired you to make your own, or at least set some to complete in the next year.

If you already have goals set, let me know in the comments down below what they are. If you don’t have any and my post has inspired you, please let me know and let me know which goals you’ve thought of achieving.

I hope you all had a great week, as I know I did.

Until next time, take care and see you soon!