Get the Effin' Thing Done Challenge: Week One
Week One Word Count: 1350
Last week was made of fail, partly because I was sick and mostly because I was lazy and spent more time plotting/researching than actually writing. I wasn't planning on doing NaNoWriMo this year, but it seems like I will be by default.
So, research. I did it. And because the stuff was so random, so WTF, so you-aren't-going-to-believe-it's-all-for-the-same-book, here are some of the things I learned:
1. Because the WIP takes place at a boarding, I had to research a boarding school. Using the website, I settled on the Emma Willard School in Troy, New York. (Just look at the architecture!) My (jeez that sounds pretentious) boarding school is called Mournington Academy, and it's an all-girls' school, but I'm using the Willard school's campus as a layout and filled my MC's class schedule with actual classes. And the "boarding school experience" page is really helpful, since I did not attend boarding school.
2. Homemade bouncy balls require borax, cornstarch, and glue as it's main ingredients. (I totally made a bouncy ball out of a hard-boiled egg and vinegar for science class once.)
3. A bit of Alzheimer's and stem cell research--nothing too exciting.
4. I always thought the Bubonic Plague (or Black Death) was, like, a one-year, three years at the most, type of thing. Nope... There were cases of it throughout Europe until the 19th century.
5. "Diavolo" means "devil" in Italian. Staying on the foreign language front, "verdammt" is German for "damn it/fuck it." Mmm, German, such a romantic language.
6. Then, to make this mix-bag of biazzare more...biazzare, I finished the day by looking at World War I pictures, specifically German soldiers and the trenches running along the Somme River in France.
Last week was made of fail, partly because I was sick and mostly because I was lazy and spent more time plotting/researching than actually writing. I wasn't planning on doing NaNoWriMo this year, but it seems like I will be by default.
So, research. I did it. And because the stuff was so random, so WTF, so you-aren't-going-to-believe-it's-all-for-the-same-book, here are some of the things I learned:
1. Because the WIP takes place at a boarding, I had to research a boarding school. Using the website, I settled on the Emma Willard School in Troy, New York. (Just look at the architecture!) My (jeez that sounds pretentious) boarding school is called Mournington Academy, and it's an all-girls' school, but I'm using the Willard school's campus as a layout and filled my MC's class schedule with actual classes. And the "boarding school experience" page is really helpful, since I did not attend boarding school.
2. Homemade bouncy balls require borax, cornstarch, and glue as it's main ingredients. (I totally made a bouncy ball out of a hard-boiled egg and vinegar for science class once.)
3. A bit of Alzheimer's and stem cell research--nothing too exciting.
4. I always thought the Bubonic Plague (or Black Death) was, like, a one-year, three years at the most, type of thing. Nope... There were cases of it throughout Europe until the 19th century.
5. "Diavolo" means "devil" in Italian. Staying on the foreign language front, "verdammt" is German for "damn it/fuck it." Mmm, German, such a romantic language.
6. Then, to make this mix-bag of biazzare more...biazzare, I finished the day by looking at World War I pictures, specifically German soldiers and the trenches running along the Somme River in France.