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@ericawordsmith –

I am honored to be titled a ‘usual person’. Thank you, m’lady.

I VOTE THE SECOND ONE!!! Secret Garden is an amazing children’s story, and I love that idea, and yes, Dicken is adorable. He was actually one of my first fictional character crushes when I was young.

It sounds like a really interesting adaptation, and I actually like stories that are a bit more melancholy and gloomier, like Secret Garden, because usually in the end the happiness is that much more happy. I say go for that one.

BTW, @eden-anderson, the best Cinderella movie I’ve seen is Ever After, with Drew Barrymore. Old, but AMAZING! It has a very few bits of language, and some kisses, and I would say only for 12 and up, but it’s really good.

My brother’s actually taking the SAT in November. I plan to take it next year. No plans for college, but I want to take some classes in Special Ed, so I need the SAT for that.

I have done NaNoWriMo before. Once. When I was fourteen. And this is my advice.

It’s good to plan, it’s good to outline, it’s good to have stuff prepared. But I went into it with no story ideas except a girl during dystopian 1950’s when an unidentified army had taken us over after WWII. And I did it. 65,000 words with no plan or forethought. So it’s okay to not have everything planned out. The most important thing is…

DON’T. STRESS.

About any aspect of it. If you get behind 8,000 words, just keep your calm and trudge on. Don’t beat yourself up or wear yourself out trying to get ahead, or finish faster, if you just need to take it at a steady pace.

That said, if you find you can write more than the absolute minimum for each day to finish, DO IT. You will be so grateful when you accidentally skip a day.

Also, I wouldn’t advise editing a lot. I know it’s a hard temptation to resist, but it can bog you down and slow your progress. Just write through and when you’re done and finished celebrating, then you can go back and polish. A lot. 🙂

And my final advice. When you’re finished, EVEN IF YOU DID NOT WRITE AN ENTIRE NOVEL… CELEBRATE!!! You did something amazing even if you didn’t complete it all. My mode of celebration was hot cocoa, chocolate, screaming to my friends about it in an email, then watching a movie. 🙂

Hope this helps!