Introduction

Hello everyone, I'm Twitcherfly. I have no problem if you shorten that to Twitch.

This is my NaNoWriMo blog, and this is my first NaNoWriMo. I've been poking around in the forums, and am thrilled to find all the friendly people and amazing things they've posted. I've already set my desktop to display a calendar wallpaper with the wordcount posted in each day. This pre-gaming thing is really getting me excited - it's too bad THIS is my week off from work, and not a week in November. I'm starting my new job (assuming I pass the audition, which I'm sure I will) this coming Wednesday.

I started my planning, as it were, by wandering around campus and not really thinking about NaNo. Eventually I began to prod my brain for ideas, and I had a couple that I've already forgotten. Suddenly I remembered an old character that I used to write about years ago, named Kat. She was the main for every story I wrote, but my favorite story about her is one I never got around to writing.

I knew immediately that this was what I wanted to dig up for NaNo, but felt I needed to branch out from what I used to do. After all, I invented Kat when I was thirteen, and she was basically me. If I'm going to put this much time and effort into writing a novel, I don't want it to be about a character I feel is limited or too tied to my own life. So I started playing around and changing things, and I ended up with two mains. Dylan is the much-evolved version of Kat, and her co-lead, Raqi, is pulled a bit more directly from my old ideas.

One interesting coincidence that I've needed to explain to friends whom I'm telling about WriMo is in regards to the setting of most of my story. When I first had these ideas years ago, Kat and Raqi were exotic dancers in a club. That's a rather essential point to the story, and so it's one I kept through Kat's change to Dylan. The interesting part is that I myself am now an "exotic dancer," though I don't bother to euphemise that way, preferring the more honest term "stripper."

Anyway, as you probably assumed, I've named this DormOWriMo because I'm a college student living in a dormitory. My room is new and nice but very small, making me feel like I live in a shoe box. My roommate is my best friend, although also my ex, which makes life a little interesting sometimes in a not-entirely-welcome way. I've also talked her into doing NaNo. Though it sounds like a good idea now, I'm sure that toward the end of November, when we're both stressed, sleepless, and trying to make our word counts, the shoe box is going to shrink to a matchbox and all hell will ensue. Thus I feel my dorm may have more effect on my writing than many people might think at first. In any case, this will be a DormOWriMo to remember.

I suppose, if you are looking at my blog, that you might want to know something about me. You know some of the essentials already, so I'll throw in some tidbits I haven't mentioned. I'm a sophomore computer science major and programming tutor/grader. When I'm not in class, tutoring, grading, or stripping, which is a pretty rare thing, I enjoy running, snowboarding, and anything to do with music. I have a minor in Spanish, as well, and am looking forward to spending a semester in Ecuador come spring. (For those of you who asked, Ecuador is in South America.) My writing has always been pretty dark; although I'm capable of writing romance and puppies, my real inspiration always seems to come out in the darker things. Violence, fights, death, abandonment, the struggle to live, and general misery are my specialties. I guess even those of us whose dorms are themed in pink have a dark side.