Concerning NaNoWriMo (& the Blog in General)

Welcome, readers, to Iron Wyvern! You may have noticed that it is October. You may also have noticed that it will soon be...November.
Which happens to be National Novel Writing Month (x).
We three scribblers have all scrivened some scratch in the past for this event, but this year we have not really done anything (excluding J's failed attempt to complete a novel in July).
But for November 2014, two of us, J and Z respectively, have decided to embark upon the monthlong, 50,000-word adventure that is NaNoWriMo.
We also invite you to join us! Sign up at their website and get started November 1st.

J will be writing a mystery novel set in current-day Los Angeles.
Z will be rewriting a steampunk/fantasy adventure set in an entirely different world.

And, don't forget, on November 1st, the long-anticipated Water Under the Bridge will begin! We will be posting two letters a week until the end of Book One.

The Draconian Letters: Book Three is scheduled to start sometime in the late summer/early fall of 2015.
Anyway, good luck, WriMos! See you at the finish line!

-JTZ Baner

7 Ways to Avoid Writer's Block

Welcome to the Wyvern's Den, readers. Please take the complimentary cheese puffs we've set out for you.
As you munch your complimentary cheese puff, we will give you some (also complimentary) advice.
Every writer has encountered the deadly foe known as Writer's Block before. Writer's Block is a terrible and lethal beast that can kill your writing before you ever even write it.
Which is bad. And especially with NaNoWriMo coming up! (link)

National Novel Writing Month is an especially bad time of year to get writer's block. So here are a few tips on how to work past it. These are pooled both from the depths of the internet and from personal experience.

1. If you write on a computer, turn off the internet.

Many people find themselves easily wandering into the distractions of Youtube and other social media, or perhaps playing games online. This is really bad for your unwritten novel! So, simple solution: turn off the internet. Many word processors do not even use the internet, such as Microsoft Word or Scrivener. However, even the ones that do, such as Google Drive, usually have an offline mode. And if you're ever tempted to simply switch the internet back on, there are productivity programs such as Freedom (link), which temporarily disable the internet for the specified amount of time.

2. Change the scenery.

Do you write in your room all the time? Take your writing outside. Find some shade in the backyard and work. Or you could drive to a coffee shop and work there. Bookstores and libraries are also good choices, because they offer a more quiet and soothing environment, and there are reference books all around you, without the distractions of social media! Wherever you go, it's always good to be in a different environment. It helps refresh your mind so you can keep pounding out words.

3. Listen to music? Try changing it up.

If you listen to music while you write, it may be distracting you. Your brain is constantly absorbing everything that's happening, so it's good sometimes to turn off all sound around you. Another helpful thing to do is to switch to something non-lyrical. Lyrics especially distract our brains. Soundtrack or atmospheric music are a good idea too.

4. Remove all distractions from your environment.

Going back to #1 and #2, if moving to someplace else isn't an option, you can try to remove all distractions from your environment. For example, if your family members keep barging into your space during writing time, forcibly evict them with all the fury of Cthulhu work with them to establish when they can't come into your room. If your TV is there, turn it off or even move it out. If your room is messy and you can't think with all that clutter, clean it and then get back to writing.

5. Take breaks.

This may seem counterintuitive, but breaks help you write. Referring back to #4, taking a break to clean your room can actually help you. If you've spent the last hour writing, it's good to go outside for fifteen minutes. Either relax or occupy yourself with a chore, like doing dishes or cleaning. It helps.

6. Get enough rest.

Another reason you might not be finding enough inspiration is if you aren't getting enough sleep at night. Try to enforce a strict bedtime. Going to bed at midnight every single night will tire your brain and become a detriment to your work. Adjust your sleep schedule so that you go to bed earlier, and your mind will be fresher when it's time to write.

7. Establish a routine.

Write every day. Write for the same amount of time. And write at the same time of day. Our brains love routine. If you do the same thing every day, your brain remembers it and builds up myelin, which strengthens your neural networks. Routine literally grows your brain. You strengthen your memory, work more efficiently, and learn faster when you have a routine. You become a better writer.

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So there you have it! 7 tips for combating writer's block. This can apply to any activity, really, from playing a musical instrument to practicing sports.

Book of the Week: August 30th, 2014

Here is the first installment in a new weekly series, Book of the Week! In which one of us gives a book suggestion, and you readers go and...well, read.* We may also include certain challenges referring to said books, depending on how many people comment with interest in our suggested reading.

In other announcements, The Draconian Letters will be coming to a close very soon, even within the next week perhaps, as we prepare our series Water Under the Bridge, coming out at the end of October. And, speaking of the end of October, feel free to tell us in the comments if you will participating in this year's NaNoWriMo event! One of us (hint: me [hint: J]) may possibly be joining up to write another novel. I'm not so sure about the other two.

Anyway, here we go!

BOOK OF THE WEEK:

Last Day to First Day!

Dear Readers, Followers, cart managers, and hamster barristers.

As you've read, we included ourselves in last years Camp NaNoWriMo, the summer version for the November trial to write.

But this year, the Camp has become so popular that it has expanded out of the warm spells to the month of April, and we've all three decided to do ti again this year!

As this is the day ramping up to the midnight strike starting, we thought we'd give one more before-April post before we unsheathe our pens, bare our computers, and do battle with the terrible Sore Thumbs, the juggernaut Writer's Block, and the well named, inescapable force, Deadline.

As something for you to think about, here is the schedule for what new, old and middle aged things we will put forward probably in April, and certainly in May.

The Weekly Draconian: An innovation to the Draconian World, giving interviews with well-known Draconian persons, closeup stories on the latest scandals, adverts, and distinct intelligence into

The Draconian Letters: Messrs. Trubodox, Semithino and Scaligar will be back in fully fledged glory as they come together to rescue a misunderstood damsel, fight like ferrets in a bag for the sunday paper, and continue to barrage Smok with advice, intel, harrowing tales and outright crossbow threats.

The Riddle Ogre: Sometime or other our procrastinations will fall short and we'll finish the story.

Exclusive Fantasy Interviews: The blog will host several more unusual characters, sporting strange tails, stranger tales, and sometimes even interesting perspectives.

Riddling Derbies: Yet again we shall come, we shall see, and we shall solve some more of the various riddles and poetical puzzles we stake to the board.

Short Stories: As ever, we'll shoe horn in a few novellas, maybe some poetry, and with only a few lumps in them.

Thats all for now, and quite enough for anytime.

As Caesar would say, Jacta Alaea Esto.

Let the games begin.

Announcement (of sorts)

Hey, it's J. Baner. T & Z are traveling to distant lands across the world, so I get to sit here in the central United States and write to you.

We're going to talk about some stuff today, and I'll just list it out for you right here before we begin:

The Draconian Letters

Books

NaNoWriMo

The Future

Other stuff I throw in at random

All right, we've got some basic guidelines for our discussion.

Concerning TDL, or The Draconian Letters, as it were, I am sure you readers have come to realize that the bloggers in charge of this establishment are horrific procrastinators, manic truth-stretchers, and sometimes even outright liars. We promise you more letters soon: we give you none. We say we'll be active from now on: we don't post for two months. Stuff like that makes us unreliable.

By the dawn of 2014, we plan to change that. We will jettison Iron Wyvern into a new era of peace, prosperity, and pepper grenades. Explosions at every turn; regular content; anything and everything blogworthy, we will post. We will post so much cool stuff your eyeballs will bleed by the time we're done with you.

Books. That's next on my list. Reading any cool books? Books are amazing. I'm currently reading A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, among other things, and I must say, it's pretty darn good.

But enough about reading books. Let's talk about writing books. I will be participating in NaNoWriMo this year, but I do not think T & Z will. As I mentioned before, they are at an undisclosed location overseas (think Europe). They're going to be there a couple of days into November, and I'm pretty sure they don't want to ruin the vacation with worrying about writing deadlines.

The Future. Oooh. The Future of the blog, the Future of the world, whatever, you name it.

We plan to get production going in December, January, around that time. We will bombard and maraud you with posts galore, and we will try to continue that barrage until either June or July, when we will take breaks for Camp NaNoWriMo (depending on when each of us is participating, or if we are at all); after this, we will march on until November and pause once more. You get the idea. We won't stop, we won't let up, except for notable occasions and prescheduled breaks.

I know what you're thinking; you're thinking we won't be able to do it. Perhaps not, but I have a feeling we will.

Have fun, anyway, and don't forget to visit the exclusive Flying Llama Sightseeing Area!

-J Baner